'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,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'%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
On paper, the current WWE roster is quite possibly the most talented ensemble of superstars that they've ever had, from both an in-ring and character perspective. You've got master technicians such as AJ Styles, then you've got giants like Braun Strowman as well as veterans who can still "go", like John Cena.
There are so many other incredible talents rounding out the roster. Even NXT is stacked at the moment, with guys like Aleister Black, Drew McIntyre, Adam Cole, and so many others that help to create what can only be described as an indy smark's dream roster.
The issue with this, however, is that it's often difficult for WWE's booking team to find a way to use all of this talent effectively. All too often, we've seen gifted performers fall by the wayside or get lost in the shuffle. Hell, even many of the talents know it (see - Austin Aries, Neville). Whether it's because of overly scripted promos or the fact that they're used to making bigger stars look good, it would seem as if many WWE superstars are rightfully frustrated with their misuse.
So today, I'm going to count down my picks for the top ten most misused WWE wrestlers of 2017. Slight disclaimer before I start - I will only be talking about superstars who are on the main roster. Perhaps we'll save NXT superstars for another list.
#10 Mike Kanellis
Mike Kanellis was doomed from the very beginning. And it was shameful because Kanellis had made quite the name for himself on the independent scene under his real name, Mike Bennett. Wrestling for such companies as TNA, Ring Of Honor, and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Kanellis racked up a fairly impressive résumé, both as singles and a tag team competitor. Sure, he was no Kenny Omega, but he was a solid hand and one of the better-known names on the independent circuit.
And then, he signed with WWE.
Saddled with the much-maligned "Power of Love" gimmick alongside his real-life wife Maria Kanellis, it seemed glaringly obvious from the outset that WWE had little-to-no faith in Kanellis' ability. After winning his first WWE match against Sami Zayn (albeit uncleanly), Kanellis went on to lose every subsequent match he had. Seriously - he has only wrestled ten matches for the company, and he has lost 9 of them.
But hey - at least he gets paid now.
#9 Jason Jordan
You all know why Jason Angle - erm...Jordan...is here.
No, but really though, Jason Jordan is one of the aptest wrestlers on the roster, and he has the amateur background to prove it. Jordan was one of the best collegiate amateur wrestlers in the country for three consecutive years and even went entirely unbeaten in his senior season at Indiana University. His accolades earned him a developmental contract with WWE, where he toiled for a few years in FCW and NXT as a jobber before teaming up with Chad Gable to form one of the more impressive tag teams of the modern era - American Alpha.
Jordan and Gable ended up being one of the most popular tag teams on both the NXT and WWE rosters, racking up two Tag Team Championship victories and putting on noteworthy showings against seemingly whoever they faced. And then, inexplicably, the duo disappeared from television following their Tag Team Title loss to The Usos.
Enter one of the stupidest angles (pun intended) of the year.
RAW General Manager Kurt Angle revealed that Jordan was his "son" and drafted him to the red brand. The angle (heh! I did it again!) was panned from the outset, as pretty much everyone knew that this wasn't truly the case. His lack of personality hampered him further, and he continues to get lukewarm reactions from the crowd despite being booked as a babyface.
I worry that Jason Jordan will never be able to live this down.
#8 The Hardy Boyz
To be fair, this one isn't entirely WWE's fault. I mean, had TNA just forfeited the rights to the "Broken Universe" gimmick, perhaps they could've avoided a spot on this list.
Sadly, that is not the case.
After rejuvenating their careers on the independent scene as "Broken Matt Hardy" and "Brother Nero", the Hardy Boyz returned to WWE at WrestleMania 33 to a thunderous reaction. In their first match back (which, appropriately, was a ladder match), the brothers won the RAW Tag Team Championships in what can only be described as a feel-good moment.
However, something was a bit off - they had reverted back to their "Team Xtreme" personas.
Of course, I have nothing against Team Xtreme. In fact, they were my favourite tag team as a kid. But this time around, it felt as if the duo was having a bit of an identity crisis. Jeff was fine, but Matt kept teetering between his original WWF persona and his "Broken" character, confusing both casual and "smart" fans. Couple this with a series of forgettable-but-decent matches against The Club and Sheamus & Cesaro, and suddenly the initial excitement for their return had somewhat dissipated.
Yes, they still do get pops, but seeing as they're losing more than they're winning and seeing as Matt still doesn't know who the heck he is, the legendary team feels directionless.
#7 Dolph Ziggler
Forget 2017, Dolph Ziggler may well be one of the most misused WWE wrestlers of all time.
A former two-time World Champion, main eventer, and the current reigning World Bumping Champion, Dolph Ziggler is legitimately one of the best in-ring performers in the company. The people in power, however, seem to think otherwise, as Ziggler has not had a single memorable or successful feud in years.
Despite his much-anticipated heel turn at the beginning of the year, Ziggler has done nothing of note all year, having feuded with the likes of Kalisto and Apollo Crews, among others. The problem, however, was that he was trading wins with these guys. Granted, nothing against Kalisto or Crews - they're both extremely gifted in their own right. But their positions on the card were low at this point. To have a former World Champion undergo a character change, only to repeatedly lose to a lower card talent, makes no sense to me whatsoever.
Nowadays, his gimmick is to basically complain about how people with gimmicks get over and he doesn't. And to be fair, his "not-getting-over" really isn't his fault, as WWE has played a pivotal role in generating crowd apathy towards Ziggler. What is his fault, though, is that he put on a less-than-serviceable match with a debuting Shinsuke Nakamura. Seriously, how is it that these two put on a mediocre-at-best match? It could've been a match of the night or even a match of the year candidate, but it fell completely flat.
Since then, WWE has continued to give me absolutely zero reasons to care about Dolph Ziggler, and clearly, his days as a main event talent are long behind him.
#6 Shinsuke Nakamura
Yes, I know that Shinsuke Nakamura was more or less thrust into the main event scene upon his arrival on SmackDown, but...just hear me out.
Nakamura is renowned as one of the best and most charismatic wrestlers on the planet. For those that didn't catch his work in New Japan Pro Wrestling, he proved his worth with his absolute showstopper of a match against Sami Zayn at NXT TakeOver: Dallas last year. He would continue exciting audiences in NXT, as he went undefeated for the first seven months of his run and became one of only two men to have held the NXT Championship twice (the other being Samoa Joe). It seemed as if Nakamura was on track to be a sure-fire main eventer on the main roster.
When he finally debuted on the SmackDown after WrestleMania 33, his booking was very unfocused. In his first night, he interrupted The Miz and Maryse, leading the fans to believe this would be his first feud. The next week, however, he got into it with Dolph Ziggler, culminating in a lacklustre match at Backlash.
He then feuded with Baron Corbin, who is nowhere near Nakamura's level in terms of ring work. Then, following a rather thrilling #1 Contender's match with John Cena on SmackDown, Nakamura would go on to face WWE Champion Jinder Mahal at SummerSlam...and then lose (albeit uncleanly) in less-than-exciting fashion. So he earned another opportunity after beating Randy Orton, only to lose again to Mahal (this time, in a clean fashion) in yet another snooze-fest at Hell in a Cell following just one Khallas.
On the whole, I feel like WWE doesn't know what to do with Shinsuke Nakamura. He is a bonafide legend of the industry at just 37-years of age. Though he's technically a "top guy" on SmackDown, his aura has thus far been damaged, namely by WWE's ceaseless efforts to make Jinder Mahal seem like a credible WWE Champion.
Hopefully, he will have a more fruitful year in 2018.
#5 Gran Metalik
WWE is dropping the ball with a lot of the Cruiserweight Division. In fact, both Austin Aries and Neville left the WWE entirely due to the company's mishandling of the division. But it's not just them - talents that were once "top tier" in the Cruiserweight Division, such as TJ Perkins, Brian Kendrick, and Rich Swann, have since become afterthoughts. But there is no Cruiserweight who has fallen further than Gran Metalik.
You know...Gran Metalik? The former Máscara Dorada? The runner-up of the Cruiserweight Classic? The guy who beat tournament favourite and legit-best-technical-wrestler-in-the-world-today Zack Sabre Jr. to get to the finals? No? Probably because they've used him so sparingly since his signing.
Despite being announced as a member of the Cruiserweight Division back in September, Gran Metalik didn't make his official debut on 205 Live until February, this year. He would appear every now and again on the main events in arbitrarily-thrown-together tag team matches, then he'd spend the entirety of May and June staring at the lights for lower-card talents, such as Noam Dar, Ariya Daivari, and Tony Nese. Since then, he has wrestled almost exclusively in random tag matches, in which he very rarely (if ever) got the pinfall. He has lost his two singles matches in three months, one to Neville and the other to Drew Gulak.
Gran Metalik's booking goes beyond just being bad - it's entered the realm of "unacceptable". I only hope that WWE realizes what they've got in this guy before it's too late.
#4 The Club
When Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson debuted in WWE last year, there was a lot of hype surrounding them. The two were on an absolute tear in New Japan and on the independent circuit as members of the wildly popular Bullet Club stable, and fans were rightfully excited to see how WWE would capitalize on this popularity.
Sure enough, they didn't. The duo was made to look like fools at the hands of Roman Reigns, who defeated their former leader AJ Styles despite their interference at Payback 2016. This made the formerly dominant team look almost entirely useless, and they haven't done much to remedy their reputation since.
Sure, they won the RAW Tag Team Championships from Sheamus & Cesaro at the beginning of 2017, and yes, they did have a pretty good win-loss record during that time, but the focus never seemed to be on them. It seemed more like other teams, such as Enzo Amore & Big Cass and The New Day, were running the division. After losing their titles to The Hardy Boyz at WrestleMania, the Good Brothers started losing a lot more frequently than they were winning. It's unfortunate, too, because WWE could have easily built upon their success in Japan and established them as a force to be reckoned with.
Instead, they've essentially been booked to look like a couple of...well, nerds.
#3 Bray Wyatt
"Wait a minute...how has Bray Wyatt been misused in 2017? Wasn't he WWE Champion earlier this year?"
Yes, Bray Wyatt was booked fairly well at the beginning of the year, as it looked like WWE was finally going to let him realize his full potential. He won the WWE Championship at the Elimination Chamber, but his reign was short-lived, as he was fed to Randy Orton at WrestleMania 33. He was then drafted to RAW out of nowhere, despite having been booked in a "House of Horrors" match for the WWE Championship against Orton at Payback.
The match was switched to a non-title bout as a result and, just like their first encounter, failed to deliver. Though Wyatt won, he only did so with the help of Jinder Mahal. This seems to be an ongoing trend with Wyatt - he loses often, but when he doesn't lose, he wins by way of shenanigans.
After this, it seemed as if WWE was just throwing Wyatt wherever they could. He feuded with Seth Rollins because Seth had nothing to do, then he feuded with Finn Bálor because he had nothing to do. While he did beat Seth (again, because of shenanigans), he was more-or-less humiliated by Finn, who beat him in two consecutive PPV bouts. For whatever reason, WWE decided to continue this monotonous feud by having Bray assume the role of "Sister Abigail".
Yes! After all of that mystery, after years and years of build, Sister Abigail turned out to just be Bray Wyatt with an Instagram filter and a voice changer...drink it in.
They could have made this guy the spiritual successor to The Undertaker, but lately, he's looked a bit more like Mordecai. Luckily, he's only 30, so WWE still has plenty of time to right their wrongs.
#2 Rusev
It legitimately saddens me to see how far down the card Rusev has fallen since his debut.
I mean, surely you all remember when Rusev went un-pinned for almost a full calendar year, right? Remember how he was being groomed to be one of the company's top heels? How they teased main event feuds between him and Roman Reigns on multiple occasions?
What the hell went wrong?
Well, after Rusev lost his United States Championship to John Cena at WrestleMania 31 (and then lost the two subsequent rematches on PPV), his career took somewhat of a tailspin. Sure, he was still pretty dominant, but his armour had been cracked. After earning some heat backstage for getting real-life engaged to his now-wife Lana when he was supposed to be feuding with her (yes, WWE is that petty), he continued to flounder.
And 2017 has been no different. In fact, this year has been Rusev's worst year by far. He started off this year with a PPV loss to The Big Show at Fastlane, got injured, told the fans that he wouldn't come back to SmackDown unless he was granted a WWE Championship opportunity at Money in the Bank, scrapped those plans and debuted anyway, lost to John Cena in his first PPV match back from injury, lost to Randy Orton in ten seconds at SummerSlam, then lost again to Orton at Hell in a Cell.
Needless to say, this is a grave injustice against one of the most entertaining superstars on the roster. Rusev could easily be a main-event player if WWE could just pull the trigger on him and re-establish him as the monster he once was.
#1 Luke Harper
The most misused wrestler on the roster this year is Luke Harper, and it's not even close.
Luke Harper, formerly Brodie Lee, is legitimately one of the most impressive big men in wrestling today. He's a powerhouse who can fly like a cruiserweight, and he can tell a story during a match through facial expressions better than just about anybody. WWE had a golden opportunity to establish Harper has a top guy or, at least, a solid mid-card act for the SmackDown brand.
But, of course, they squandered it.
Having been ousted by Bray Wyatt at the beginning of the year, he could've had a classic redemption story against his former leader. Instead, he was fed to Randy Orton at the Elimination Chamber PPV. When he and AJ Styles were declared co-winners of a battle royal to determine the #1 Contender to Wyatt's WWE Championship at WrestleMania, they once again had an opportunity to tell that same story.
Instead, he lost to Styles, who didn't even end up wrestling Wyatt at WrestleMania anyway. After inexplicably disappearing from television for a month, Harper returned to SmackDown in a losing effort against Wyatt (again...they could've told that story), then feuded with Erick Rowan, the least significant former Wyatt Family member by far. Though he defeated Rowan at Backlash, nobody seemed to care about anything that was going on between the two bearded behemoths.
Since Backlash in May, Harper has only appeared on WWE television twice, once in a losing effort to Jinder Mahal and once in a Battle Royal for a U.S. Championship opportunity, which saw him get eliminated by Mojo Rawley to little fanfare and to the crowd's chagrin. Now, he's...teaming with Erick Rowan again? Why do these two like each other again? Why are they holding giant hammers? What is sacred anymore?
WWE had so many chances to build a new star in Luke Harper. Instead, they messed it up to a point where he may never taste the spotlight again.
