Every time this happens, I'm reminded of an article or post I read somewhere, possibly here, where someone wrote about how Vince failed that mid-late 2000s crop of wrestlers. He failed to make new stars and now we're at where we're at.
2005 and onward was a weird time to be a WWE superstar. Unlike guys like Cena, Orton, and Brock, the newest superstars came in during a time where WWE really started to wipe itself of its "pro wrestling" roots, and present itself as a more PR-friendly, corporate brand.
I mean think of all the failed talent initiatives around that time. Remember Teddy Long's Smackdown "new talent initiative"? Who made it out of there? Then there was the revival of ECW where they brought in a bunch of guys from developmental to replace the Originals. That worked out great, right? Then were other mass call ups like Nexus and Nexus 2.0. Where I'm going with this is that WWE just stopped giving a shit. They churned out so many one-dimensional characters on their one-dimensional TV shows and now it's starting to bite them in the ass.
They hide behind the guise of ideas like NXT, the women's revolution, and the Cruiserweight Classic as being innovative and forward thinking, when the truth is, they're too late. I mean I love Shinsuke Nakamura and all, but when was the last thing WWE created that was amazing and truly their own creation?
All of the best ideas to come out of WWE have either been influenced outside factors (popularity of independent wrestling) or their hand has been forced by constant nagging or the threat of bad PR (see: New Day, Divas Revolution, Daniel Bryan's push, CM Punks push, etc).
Right as the Attitude Era came to an end and the Ruthless Aggression Era started to fizzle, it just seemed like WWE stopped caring about storytelling and character development. Now look, I'm not trying to praise WWE's former years as some kind of high-brow, ahead-of-its-time, thought-provoking television either. All I'm saying is that as creativity became less of a priority amongst WWE, guys like Ryder, Rhodes, Barrett, Ziggler were all dealt a shit hand as soon as they made their debut.
There was a point when every heel in WWE regurgitated a promo that sounded exactly like Orton's or the Miz. And where every superstar, heel or face, looked pretty much like Alex Riley circa 2010. That tall, tanned, clean cut, black trunks shit was not going to work forever. And it sucks because the guys I mentioned earlier, guys like Ryder, they may not being Stone Cold or The Rock on the mic, but dammit given a little effort, they could have been something.
I have a feeling that more guys from that era, 2005-2011, are going to start filing out as soon as they can. Guys like Ryder and Ziggler. I chuckle when people sarcastically say things like "oh hurr durr I bet they're hurting so bad with all that money they're making!" I'm sure that's probably true. I'm sure they're making enough to live comfortable and enjoy traveling the world.
But here's the thing, these guys are not very old. Many of these "failed WWE projects" are millennials just like many of us in this sub. And they all watch Youtube and have social media just like we do. They know what's cool. They watch guys from the 90s getting huge crowd pops just like we do. And I'm pretty sure many of them think to themselves "hmm that could/could've been me". And hell, I'm sure a lot of these guys...failed WWE projects you probably forgot like DJ Gabriel (remember him?), maybe they weren't the best in the ring or on the mic. But there's a good crop of guys from that era like Cody or Wade Barrett that weren't allowed to be all they could be. And it's sad.