5 WWE Superstars born in the wrong era who never got a chance to shine
With the WWE being around as long as it has, we've seen many different kinds of wrestling product presented to us over the years. The cartoonish gimmicks of the 80s helped make the company the biggest promotion on the planet, but that soon gave way to a more realistic, anti-authoritarian style in the 90s and 00s.
Today we have a hybrid product, with a little of each previous generation thrown into the mix. That being said, with the growth of the internet and social media, wrestling fans have grown used to criticising the product to an extent not previously seen before and it is harder than ever to get yourself over as a result.
With so many changes to the product taking place over the years, it's inevitable that certain individuals who might have made it in other eras were simply born too early or too late.
Here is a look at five WWE Superstars who were probably born in the wrong era:
#1 Evan Bourne
For a while it looked like Evan Bourne (also known as Matt Sydal) might be getting a main event push in WWE. On an episode of RAW in 2010, he teamed with John Cena and earned a pinfall victory over Sheamus in the match. He then went on to feud with Edge and Chris Jericho as well as fighting alongside Randy Orton.
His fortunes then took a bit of a down turn. After a semi-successful tag team with Kofi Kingston as part of Air Boom, Bourne would soon become lost in the shuffle and was eventually released from his contract in 2014 due to failing two wellness policy tests owing to his marijuana dependencies.
Many fans spoke about him as a missed opportunity for the company, as his high-flying style really helped him to stand out, even against fellow high-flyers.
The problem seemed to be that Bourne didn't really offer anything that the WWE Universe hadn't seen before. We've had plenty of Lucha Libre inspired athletes that have an ability to jump off tables and ladders and look good doing it. Even today when we see somebody like Kalisto perform his finishing manoeuvre from the top of a ladder we acknowledge it for a short time and then pretty much forget it happened.
But what if Bourne had been alive in a totally different era of WWE? Around the mid to late 90s, both WWE and WCW were starting to embrace high-flying wrestling. They had performers who were brave enough to jump from the tops of cages before, a la Jimmy Snuka, but had never really promoted the kind of athlete more common in Mexico.
That changed when WCW introduced a Cruiserweight Division, bringing in stars like Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho and Eddie Guerrero.
In turn, the WWF made its own Light Heavyweight Division with the likes of Aguila, Brian Christopher and Taka Michinoku leading the way. Bourne would have really shined if he had been given the chance to compete alongside them.
The moves we've seen him do would have come across as highly innovative at the time and he would no doubt have held the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship on more than one occasion.