There is currently a shortage of engaging protagonists in WWE programming but makes what makes this frustrating is that they’ve missed opportunities with several members of the roster.
If it’s not abundantly clear, WWE has had a hard time selling its audience on a pure babyface for while now; particularly on the main roster. Sure, Kofi Kingston made a great valiant champion, but they’ve had an easier time pushing tweener characters like Becky Lynch. This problem has several contributing factors, but it would be hard to say they don’t have the available personnel.
They have been plenty of popular Superstars on the roster that fans are clamoring for a reason to cheer for. Finn Balor is a great example. The audience loves him. However, he never got the material he needed to become the top face that he was positioned to be before his absence to recover from a shoulder injury sustained at SummerSlam 2016.
Now he’s back on NXT and he turned heel, which is a reoccurring theme for popular wrestlers who become creatively stifled as good guys. It happens so often, and many times fans welcome the turn just because they want their favorite wrestler to do something new.
Then, they end up cheering for the bad guy and other fans complain about it. But that’s another topic for another day. The issue at hand is WWE often gives up on their best potential babyfaces too soon.
To illustrate, these are five times the company surprisingly didn’t use a face character to their full potential.
Dakota Kai
Let’s start with the most recent example, Dakota Kai. The “Captain of Team Kick” had all the makings of a great underdog.
Kai just has a certain charm about her that makes you want to like her no matter how many times she loses. She does a great job gaining sympathy. Moreover, she always pulls off incredible comebacks due to her fighting spirit and hard-hitting moveset.
Still, there was never a real payoff to all her struggles. She never got that big win that could’ve propelled her character forward. WWE had the opportunity to give her one heading into NXT TakeOver: WarGames, but instead, they’re doing another “best friends who split up” angle.
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past two weeks, Dakota Kai underwent one of the biggest character shifts of the year at the event. She took Mia Yim’s spot in the first-ever women’s WarGames match after Ripley cast her aside when putting her team together.
Kai had other plans. When she was supposed to enter the match, she turned around and relentlessly attacked her friend and partner, Tegan Nox.
Of course, her heel turn was incredibly well executed. It was vicious and Dakota played up it with conviction. Still, it’s hard not to lament about what could’ve been. Kai had the potential to be a game-changer on a roster devoid of many pure babyface wrestlers.
Bayley
We can’t talk about Dakota Kai without mentioning the woman many fans believed she bared some similarities to: Bayley. This entry shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Bayley is one of the biggest missed opportunities from NXT by far.
She has enjoyed her most success on the main roster this year in terms of sheer accomplishment. However, she never reached the heights she could have with “The Hugger.” That’s a shame because she was one of the best protagonists on NXT. Her last year with the “black and gold brand” was so much fun.
She seemed primed for a lucrative tenure run on the main roster. There was no other woman on the roster that had the chance to be as marketable to young girls as Bayley. She had a unique look and above all, she can wrestle.
It’s still quite baffling how WWE managed to screw things up with her. They didn’t present main roster fans with the same tenacious, fun-loving, superfan that we were accustomed to. Instead, they infantized her and made her look incapable of winning on her own. That started to change earlier this year but by then the damage was already done.
Now, Bayley is more interesting than she has been a long time, but she still doesn’t feel as special as she did in 2015.
Kairi Sane
Kairi Sane is one of the best wrestlers in the world. She’s extremely versatile and she excels at theatrics, selling and taunting. She is the total package.
With that said, Sane makes a fantastic heel co-conspirator. She has a magnificent evil laugh. More importantly, she adds so many little touches to either accentuate Asuka’s character or sneer their opponents.
One could argue those things work for the same reason Kairi made such a lovable face. That is to say, she knows how to work a crowd. It’s evident in everything she does in the ring, no matter what kind of character portrays.
So, it’s a bit of a shame she never had the chance to properly introduce the main roster audience to “The Pirate Princess.” She was just as adorable and charismatic in the role and fans didn’t have to pretend to jeer her. In addition, the “Insane Elbow” is undoubtedly a crowd-pleasing move.
Seriously, Kairi Sane is so congenial and it’s hard to understand why WWE seemingly didn’t have plans for her when she came up from the main roster. Luckily, she and Asuka eventually found their footing as a tag team but Sane still has a load of potential as a singles star.
Shinsuke Nakamura
Ok, let’s go ahead and address the elephant in the room. WWE has failed to present any of their Japanese wrestlers as top stars, even though many of them have the in-ring ability and distinct personas to do so.
If any Asian Superstar on the roster had the potential to be bigger than a perennial mid-carder, it’s Shinsuke Nakamura. “The King of Strong Style” is a star. There’s no doubt about it. No one in the company moves like him or produces strikes nearly as convincing.
Nakamura oozes charisma. He has great facial expressions and he had one of the best entrances in wrestling at one point. If you doubt that, revisit his first entrance on the main roster from SmackDown debut and try not to get chills.
When Shinsuke did the unthinkable and won the 2018 Royal Rumble, it was one of the most feel-good moments of the year. It was one of the rare times WWE gave fans the outcome they wanted, hence why the typically harsh Philadelphia crowd showered him in cheers.
The first Japanese-born man to win the match added to the excitement by making his dream match with AJ Styles official for WrestleMania 34. Imagine if he rode that momentum into “The Grandest Stage of Them All” and left as the first Japanese WWE Champion.
Sami Zayn
Speaking of Nakamura, we’ll finish up our list with his mouthpiece, Sami Zayn. There aren’t many wrestlers on the roster that have had a year quite as bizarre as Zayn’s. Sure, he is entertaining as a manager, but it’s still hard to figure out what the endgame is here.
Since his return in April, he has spent the entire year getting beaten or humiliated. What makes it worse is there hasn’t been any character development or culmination.
WWE has managed to take his greatest strength – his resilience – and make it into a running joke. The thing that made Sami great in years prior was his ability to take a beating and keep coming back for more. It’s part of what made his NXT Championship win feel so rewarding.
Furthermore, Sami Zayn just seems like a genuinely great guy in real life. Zayn recently stood up to a homophobic fan at a live event. He fights for several different causes. His “Sami for Syria” campaign seeks to create a mobile clinic to treat injured and displaced Syrians.
Isn’t a well-known upstanding man exactly the kind of person who should be a hero on WWE programming? Yes, we should be able to suspend disbelief, as well. But someone like Sami could be the face of the company’s philanthropic work in the same way that John Cena was.
At the moment, he is severely underutilized as a character and a worker. It’s not a stretch to say, he is the biggest missed opportunity on this list.
What do you think? Feel free to drop a comment below and let us know which Superstar WWE didn’t take full advantage of as a face.