Five WWE stars who are in booking limbo — Royal Rumble winner, TNA legend
The WWE is home to more than 100 talented superstars, both men and women. With so much personnel and so little air time to match, making good use of the available athletes is tough to balance. If Triple H and Co. do not have a good storyline/feud to put a wrestler, then they will be put on the back burner.
Sometimes wrestlers are mysteriously written off our TV sets with little to no explanation. What happened to X (insert name here)? It can be incredibly frustrating to see a superstar who is insanely over with the crowd suddenly vanish off the weekly programming.
Hopefully, this article brings those five names to the centerfold and we get our answers sooner than later. Are these wrestlers legitimately injured or stuck in some sort of purgatory period with creative? Time will shine a light on these answers, but I’m going to bring some names to the forefront.
No. 5 Shinsuke Nakamura
Now, you are probably saying to yourself, what is this guy talking about? Nakamura was just in the World Cup tournament on SmackDown. He lost in the first round and before then was randomly thrust into matches with no meaning or storyline.
Nakamura is the former two NXT Champion and Triple Crown champion on the main roster who has held the United States Championship, the Intercontinental Championship, and the Tag Team Championships with Cesaro. How does he go from being a massive draw with the fans in the first half of 2022 or to getting little to no weekly air time?
From 2021-February 2022 he amassed 189 days as Intercontinental Champ. Leading up to WrestleMania he aligned himself with a rock n roll type gym rat in Rick Boogs. They were inches close to a tag team championship run, but the latter tore his ACL which put a hold on the angle.
Ever since the grandest stage of them all, Nakamura’s place on the roster should have a sizeable asterisk around it, as no concerted effort has been made to incorporate the star in meaningful matches, feuds or storylines. They stuck him in NXT for a cup of coffee, had him be the mystery partner of Hit Row in a six-man tag showdown, and threw him into the fray in the World Cup tournament, only to be disposed of in the first round.
Whether or not fans have forgotten about Nakamura is irrelevant, because WWE is making him forgettable.
No. 4 Lacey Evans
They repackaged Evans again — big surprise, this woman has changed character more times than a cartoon. All this change has resulted in a series of stops and goes with no direction for her future in WWE. The viewer will have a difficult time connecting with someone when they cannot tell if they are a face or heel.
To recap, in April 2022, she began playing a role of a female version of John Cena rocking army gear and talking about her military roots. Ultimately showing a sense of nationalism about being American. The issue was in that span, Evans would change brands and revert to her heelish nature. The month after that, she became face again defeating Xia Li to qualify for the Women’s Money in the Bank Match. At Money in the Bank, she was unsuccessful in winning the contest and on the following Smackdown made a return to being a heel.
Fans have no reason to care about Evans’ direction simply because it’s the equivalent of creative flipping a coin each week on how they’ll revamp her identity and character. With no explanation as to why she was off WWE TV off late, now, there are vignettes of her same grassroots Army brat character again.
It is disparaging because this poor display for Evans’ booking keeps her from showing her A-game as one of the premier women’s wrestlers on the roster.
No. 3 Elias
What more can I say about how mismanaged the gimmick of Elias has been in WWE? The latest example is the oddball pairing with Matt Riddle as a tag team with no thought or conscience.
The first mistake was having Elias disappear off our TV sets and reappear as “his brother,” the plain and ever-bland, Ezekiel. There was some humor in the concept of the camera tricks showing Elias and his other character in the same room, but the WWE killed one of their most over acts.
The modern-day Honkey Tonk Man resonated with fans deeply and people wanted the company to push him instead of holding him back. The once Break Out Superstar of the Year in 2018, may need to break out of his contract and go elsewhere to land a proper booking.
Despite Elias being a prominent member of the roster on and off for four years, the only accomplishment of notoriety is being a four-time 24/7 Champion — a title that is a universal joke and is now completely defunct.
Triple H and Co. need to face the music and let Elias return to being a showcased member of the roster. Push the 35-year-old to the moon. He can cut a decent promo, connect with the WWE Universe, and is a phenomenal wrestler. This man should be a regular on the main event scene and it’s a crime to not have one credible championship run in any capacity.
No. 2 Veer Mahaan
The hashtag #Veeriscoming permeated WWE television for months on end from the original vignettes that started in November of 2021. The big man would not make his highly anticipated debut until April of 2022. All in all, a five-month span of waiting for an equally unimpressive stint.
It did not take long for the WWE to lose steam with his booking. He started doing attacks on the Mysterios family and ended up being fed local scrubs for a series of squash matches for the remainder of his main roster tenure.
Fast forward to this past October, Veer returned, aligning with Shanky on the overcrowded NXT brand to attack the Creed Brothers. All this hype for someone who could have been India’s next great star in WWE, but ended up in creative purgatory prior, ultimately ending up in the developmental brand.
Veer came, saw and his time was squandered. Be aware of the false propaganda World Wrestling Entertainment will spread; everyone is expendable and sometimes the wait is not worth it.
No. 1 Robert Roode
The TNA legend and the IT Factor of professional wrestling, Robert Roode, used to be one of the major single stars in the whole industry. One half of one of the most accomplished tag teams, Beer Money, in recent history, he also had a stint atop Impact Wrestling as one of the longest reigning World Champions in their 20-year history.
Roode is a guy that should have debuted on the main roster, but was stuck in the NXT brand working his way towards the main roster despite an already impressive resume. Why did he not get the same treatment as other TNA megastar, AJ Styles?
Roode has enjoyed stints as the United States Champ, a multi-time tag champ and got to be treated as a background player to Dolph Ziggler despite being his equal as far as talent goes. This man should be cemented on the World title seen.
A recent neck injury provides a potential chance for WWE to revamp his character and give him a well deserved nudge towards the top of the mountain. Should Bobby make a full recovery, I would hope it pays to be Roode.
The 46-year-old still has a ton of fight and does not look old at all in the ring. The looks of a champion, he can talk on the mic with the best of them, and flat out go between the ropes delivering quality storytelling with his matches.
Those are five stars I think should come to the forefront, but who are some other wrestlers in the WWE or elsewhere that you feel are in a limbo with booking?
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