It must suck to have been born at the wrong time, to execute a kickass guitar solo to deafening silence while remaining convinced that their kids are gonna love it.
Wrestling’s no different, the WWE style has changed so often over the years, from the baby oil-drenched juice-assisted super Adonises of the 80s, to the cartoonish and colorful characters of the New Generation, the grungy foul-mouthed lunatics of the Attitude Era, the amateur leaning unhinged hosses of Ruthless Aggression to the workrate-lauded indie darlings of the Modern Era.
Some stars found great success being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, whilst others saw their shine dimmed by being either a throwback to a bygone era, or lightyears ahead of their time.
Here are 10 WWE Stars Who Wrestled In The Wrong Era
10. The Revival – The Golden Era
I mean, The Revival’s whole schtick was that they were a throwback to a bygone era.
That’s why they were called The Revival, and hey FTR are going to have a great legacy of matches in AEW, but oh man with their intense dedication to tag psychology, roughneck southern brawler and most of all, a keen awareness of the rules and how and when to break them, The Revival would have killed in the 80s, back when tag team wrestling really mattered.
In the first-ever Survivor Series in 1987, ten tag teams competed in a single match all with names, gear and gimmicks, WWE could only dream of having ten tag teams today, that how far tag team wrestling has fallen, at least on the main roster.
The Revival could have mixed it up with the Hart Foundation, the Rockers, Demolition, The British Bulldogs, and of course, the Brain Busters, if the universe doesn’t Spider-Man meme itself into oblivion.
9. Ken Shamrock – Ruthless Aggression Era
Ken Shamrock missed out on Brock Lesnar by a few years, Ken Shamrock missed out on Kurt Angle by a few months. I want to see both of those matches so so bad.
Ken Shamrock found a fair bit of success during his run in the early half of the Attitude Era, but man when WWE gradually slid into a high level of workrate with the main event promotion of Angle, Benoit, Eddie, Mysterio and Brock, having Ken Shamrock as part of the smackdown ruthless aggression landscape would have been fan-f**king-tastic.
He would have eaten John Cena and sent him back to West Newbury with his jorts pretzeled up in his goddamn colon.
The world’s most dangerous man was never the best promo, and always felt a little out of his depth in the Attitude Era’s gross-out, characterful excess, but as the Olympic wrestling machine ushered in a new era of what main eventers could and should deliver, WWE Champion Ken Shamrock. Yeah. I could see it.
8. Dean Malenko – Current Era
Roses are red, violets are blue, Malenko is great, these things we know to be true. Dean Malenko was one of the great unsung heroes of WCW, a top cruiserweight in a land where the big boys played.
Hopes were high that he would make a splash in WWE, but much like Shamrock, his stiff upper lip and iceman demeanor rendered him boring in the eyes of WWE creative who basically gave up on him after the whole ‘creeping up on Lita like a dad at a Carly Rae Jepsen concert’ thing failed to get him over like rover.
His insane technical ability, speed and fluidity of movement would have made him a superstar in NXT, and an asset to Smackdown’s current landscape of superworkers like Cesaro, Seth Rollins and Daniel Bryan.
I mean Dean Malenko makes a running powerslam look like a world ender. He’s the best. He is the best.
7. Aja Kong – Current Era
In 1995 Aja Kong made something of a big splash, eliminating four women, including champion Alundra Blayze, and being the sole survivor at Survivor Series that year.
She was a terrifying hoss, even going a far as putting the heeby jeebies into management because quote “that’s not how women are supposed to wrestle.” Just watch her crack Alundra in the FAYCE.
In the epitome of wrestling at the wrong time, the initial plan was for Kong to challenge Blayze for the Women’s Championship at the 1996 Royal Rumble, but in the wake of Alundra defecting to WCW and trashing the belt, WWE responded in kind by putting the entirety of its women’s division in the bin.
Sorry, Kong. She would have fit in perfectly in the post-revolution era of Women’s wrestling, a facepainted, stiff-working, unsettling monster, with a completely different silhouette to 90% of the women in WWE, she could have cleaned up.
6. The Great Khali – Golden Era
Poor Great Khali, a special attraction completely robbed of his specialness by being thoroughly overexposed on weekly TV.
Also the fact that he couldn’t really walk didn’t help, but you don’t need to be able to walk to make bank in the Golden Era as late-career Andre The Giant would attest. The whole Great Khali as World Champion hoo-hah, remember he was World Champion, remember, he was, in 2007, remember, oh no.
That would have been so much more palatable in the time of the Andres and the King Kong Bundys, a foreign monster with a gobby foreign manager, going on an undefeated streak.
The vice grip would have been so much more believable as a finisher back in the day, would have been one of the most feared moves on the planet, shrouded in the camp mystery of Golden Era WWE.
Someone for Hulk Hogan to polish off in the main event at WrestleMania, hulk out of the vice grip, give him another iconic slam, big payday for everyone.
5. Viking Raiders – New Generation Era
Oh man, how did WWE screw up the War Viking Raiders Machine? A bunch of huge dudes, who can move like lightning, with killer chemistry and the kind of beards that launch ships.
The problem was that their gimmick was almost too strong, Viking heard WWE, dashing out and heading to the nearest Uncle Smiffys costume shop of tawdry knick-knacks and returning with all the Norse bulls**t that their little arms could carry.
Thing is, that kind of camp, colorful ostentation that shows up as cringeworthy under today’s harsher spotlight, was all the rage in the pastel-smeared nineties.
With an OTT silhouette, a uniquely larger-than-life gimmick, in the early to mid-nineties, the Viking Raiders could have inherited the Legion of Doom’s crown of hypertough, hyperviolent face painted scary boys, and hell, at least it would have saved us from Men on a Mission, WWE Tag Team Champions.
Also, we could have Viking Raiders vs. The Steiner Brothers and I want that more than I want a vaccine. (boy this is going to date this list eh?)
4. Dean Ambrose – Attitude Era
Or in other words, Jon Moxley. For real though, if only Dean Ambrose was allowed to go full Pillman in WWE, what we could have seen.
The man has a scary amount of drawing charisma on the mic and I am fascinated by the idea of Dean Ambrose but without a script in his hand, and the freedom to be as nineties crass as he wanted.
Genuinely he could have sat right in the middle of the Venn Diagram of Cactus Jack, Raven and Pillman, a dank-haired, crazy-eyed barbed-wire-wrapped monster, with the kind of hypnotic freewheeling promos that suggest monsters live under the skin.
Also, and this may be an unpopular opinion, but he probably wouldn’t have ridden a hot dog cart down to the ring, beat up a dummy with random tools, or accidentally electrocute himself with a telly like a massive f**king plankton. Just a thought.
3. Ivory – Current Era
I mean we could have populated this entire list with women who were super talented and would have absolutely burned it down in the modern era.
Melina, Beth Phoenix, Victoria, Jazz, Molly Holly, bloody hell AJ Lee left the big dub mere MONTHS before the Revolution and she was one of the most fully-formed characters around, AJ Lee vs. Sasha Banks YES PLEASE.
But of all the women to feel the most out of time, it’s got to be Ivory. Incredibly talented, ace in the ring Ivory, whose biggest moments in the Attitude Era saw her thoroughly ruined by Chyna at WrestleMania X-Seven as one part of a sex-obsessed purity cult but saddest of all saw her being pinned for the WWE Women’s Championship by goddamn 76-year-old Fabulous Moolah, but hey 1999 was a rough year for everyone.
Ivory was routinely embarrassed and misused, most often outclassed by more well-known and boobier opponents, but going back and looking at her work, hell even decades later looking at her appearance at Evolution, Ivory was one of the best in the game for a time, with the potential to be a great character as her work as superb heat magnet in RTC proved.
She would have been a great hand in today’s post-revolution women’s division.
2. CM Punk – Attitude Era
This might be a controversial pick, not least because controversy follows CM Punk around like a lovesick pupper.
You could argue that the pipebomb was an indication of someone who was in exactly the right place at the right time, an insider indie tweener tearing back the surface-level artifice of wrestling at the height of its staleness.
But also, Punk in the Attitude Era would be dope and that’s the bottom line ’cause Pepsi Phil said so.
CM Punk, however you think of him as a wrestler, is one of the greatest mic workers of all time, and just saying, the preachy straight-edge persona worked gangbusters against Jeff hardy in the PG Era, just try and imagine that gimmick, supported by that level of charisma and in-ring acumen, in the Attitude Era against, let’s say, Stone Cold Steve Austin.
A few of the Attitude Era’s favorite things: mic workers capable of dropping unscripted bombshells, creepy sanctimonious cults, and demonizing anyone who had the temerity to encourage people to stop stuffing their bodies with poison, it’s true it’s damn true.
1. Braun Strowman – New Generation Era
Vincent Kennedy McMahon would have tap-danced across an ocean of broken glass to get someone like Braun Strowman in the mid-nineties.
After the steroid scandal purged all of the most muscle-bound boys from his merry-go-round of ground and pound, he scrambled for other forms of big to populate his main event, which translated to tall (Diesel) or heavy (Mabel).
Someone like Braun Strowman, able to achieve that combination of special attraction height, body-oddy-oddy without the gas, and crazy speed, all while being more than serviceable on the mic, man the world would have been his, if WCW hadn’t gobbled him up first.
Braun’s gone off the boil now, but his best work in the company always had an air of throwback about it, a ludicrous cartoon carnival strongman, performing extraordinary feats of strength.
Watching Strowman flipping an ambulance blew people’s minds in 2017, in the New Generation Era, that kind of angle would almost have guaranteed him a world title run.
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