Watch the Throne: Ranking Every King of the Ring Winner

#13 Bad News Barrett, 2015 King of the Ring

Sadly, this is the last time Barrett's King of the Ring win seemed to really matter

Wade Barrett is seen by many fans as the classic example of a performer whose potential remained untapped due to his being prone to injury and the victim of inconsistent creative direction.

Prior to King of the Ring, Barrett was a competitor in the very first NXT, and used that exposure to launch the memorable Nexus invasion, which exploded onto the WWE scene before fizzling out very quickly.

Barrett had amassed 5 Intercontinental Championship reigns, but never really managed to get a sustained push, and often saw a tremendous buildup of momentum squashed by an untimely injury hitting the reset button on his career.

In 2015, after losing his fifth, and final, Intercontinental Championship in a WrestleMania ladder match, Barrett participated in the WWE's first King of the Ring tournament since 2010; the company held preliminary matches on the April 27 RAW, featuring a bevy of talented undercard and midcard stars like Dolph Ziggler, Luke Harper, R-Truth, Stardust, Dean Ambrose, Sheamus, Barrett, and recent NXT call-up Neville.

Neville's flashy

offense

and eye-popping finisher were no match for Barrett's fireman's carry

and

elbow to the face with an inside-out

elbowpad

The semifinal and final rounds made up an April 28 WWE Network special, where Barrett and Neville advanced to the finals, defeating Truth and Sheamus, respectively, before Barrett pulled off the shocker of beating Neville, whom fans had assumed the tournament would set up to rise through the company in the coming months. It was a disappointing result to a promising tournament, and the company would never truly capitalize on it.

His Career After King of the Ring

Redubbed "King" Barrett after the tournament win, Barrett would weasel out of the ensuing feud with Neville, be the first man eliminated from the Intercontinental Championship Elimination Chamber Match, lose repeatedly to R-Truth, lose a celebrity match, then become part of a thrown-together xenophobic stable of non-Americans known as the League of Nations; during his time with the group, internet rumors abounded of the real-life Stu Bennett's dissatisfaction with his WWE career, and was written off and wished well on his future endeavors after being attacked by his League of Nations allies after WrestleMania.