Ryback & 9 Other Former WWE Wrestlers Who Were Extremely Hot For A Short Period Of Time

It happens all too often that a wrestler will either get themselves over with the crowd or WWE will do a good job of making fans cheer for someone just for the company to mess up somewhere and stop that wrestler's momentum completely. Names like Zack Ryder and Rusev are familiar with that situation happening as when the crowd loved them the most, WWE failed to properly push them to their fullest potential.

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Ryder and Rusev are far from the only ones that this has happened to as there are countless names spanning as far back as the days of Bruno Sammartino as champion. So here is a good-sized example of names that got super over with the WWE Universe, but that only lasted for a short amount of time.

10 Zack Ryder

Starting with the two names mentioned already, Zack Ryder is a prime example of someone who got really popular due to his work outside of television and PPV matches but WWE failed. TLC 2011 did see Ryder capture the United States Championship from Dolph Ziggler while the crowd absolutely erupted.

Famously The Baltimore Sun wrote, "The 2011 calendar year was a dream for Ryder... But 2012 was a nightmare." Everything Ryder did to get himself over was crushed as WWE used him as part of a storyline involving John Cena, Kane, and Eve. The story made Ryder look like a joke, he lost his belt, and never reached the same heights again until leaving the promotion.

9 Rusev

That second name mentioned was Rusev who even after the insanely bad Dolph Ziggler & Summer Rae love triangle story and League of Nations faction, still managed to start Rusev Day, a concept that the fans took over and helped push Rusev to the sky.

WWE however didn't follow suit and instead gave Rusev and Aiden English some time around the SmackDown Tag Team Championships and a few losses to names like The Undertaker and Andrade. Rusev left in 2020 and soon joined AEW where he became "The Redeemer" Miro.

8 Ryback

Ryback looked a lot like Goldberg, he even got Goldberg chants during his career. Despite the amazing look though, Ryback never achieved more than some world title feuds and mid-card championships. After some quick wins, Ryback was pushed to the main event facing names like CM Punk and John Cena for the WWE Championship.

His chant "Feed Me More" was so popular and fans loved seeing him before WWE dropped the ball again and decided to pair Ryback up with Paul Heyman. Ryback and Curtis Axel did some decent work together as RybAxel before that team disbanded.

7 Fandango

The character of Fandango made his debut match at WrestleMania 29 beating Chris Jericho. The win was massive for his career and fans immediately got behind him by singing his entrance theme at all times, even getting the song popular on iTunes.

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WWE acknowledged the hype and failed to capitalized on it. They made Fandango lose a lot and never achieve much of anything before the character just fizzled out of popularity. Fandango did make a small comeback with his work alongside Tyler Breeze on the main roster and NXT.

6 Dolph Ziggler

With the news of Dolph Ziggler being one of the recent names released by the WWE, fans have looked back on the career of Ziggler and the many accomplishments he has had. Now while Ziggler was constantly able to find decent success in the company, he never reached the same heights as he did the night after WrestleMania 29 when he cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase.

The crowd cheering for Ziggler's cash-in still ranks highly as the loudest audience ever. Despite that incredible moment, he lost the title 69 days later, partially due to a concussion. Ziggler turned face, never held the belt again, and stayed in the mid to lower card scene.

5 Enzo & Cass

Starting with their time in NXT, fans really wanted to see the team of Enzo Amore and Big Cass capture the NXT Tag Team Championships. Sadly it wouldn't come to be, and the duo debuted on the main roster the night after WrestleMania 32.

The team was so over that they became a part of the feud between John Cena and The Club during that summer leading to a match with them teaming alongside Cena at Battleground. They remained super popular before WWE split them up the following year.

4 Bad News Barrett

Wade Barrett always seemed like a wrestler that should have been a much bigger deal than he was. Multiple injuries and time away cost him a lot of chances at being that bigger star. A reinvention of his character and the introduction of Bad News Barrett really saw his popularity take off.

Whenever Barrett popped up in his tower on the side of the stage to give the audience whatever cheesy "bad news," he seemed to get more of the crowd behind him. The hype saw Barrett capture the Intercontinental Championship once again and even become King of the Ring before a gimmick change once again.

3 Sin Cara

WWE made a big deal out of the signing of CMLL luchador, Mistico. Coming with a new look and name change as Sin Cara, he became massively over with the crowd and started to be hailed as the "next" Rey Mysterio.

After a few losses and a suspension due to a violation of the Wellness Policy, Sin Cara's reputation took a dive due to multiple botched moves. Sin Cara stayed with WWE until 2014 when the WWE released him from his contract and gave the gimmick of Sin Cara to another wrestler.

2 Too Cool

The trio of Scotty 2 Hotty, Grand Master Sexay, and Rikishi were at one point some of the most popular wrestlers in the WWE. The trio's peak reached an all-time high when Rikishi became Intercontinental Champion while Scotty and Sexay became Tag Team Champions in 2000.

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After a heel turn from Rikishi in an attempt to make him a main event-level talent, Too Cool began to break apart before Scotty and Rikishi teamed together again in 2004.

1 Otis

Otis has reached decent levels of popularity due to his work with Maxxine Dupri and Chad Gable, but nothing can touch his tenure with Mandy Rose. The amount of crowd noise whenever Otis did pretty much anything was immeasurable and resulted in him finding some amount of success as a singles star.

Money in the Bank 2020 saw Otis capture the briefcase in a match featuring names like AJ Styles, Rey Mysterio, & Daniel Bryan. Otis dropped the briefcase to The Miz who ended up using it to cash in on Drew McIntyre at Elimination Chamber.