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A WWE superstar's debut can set them up for a huge career. For the most part, very few wrestlers enter the ring with as quick of a push as they would like. Some even have to wait years or decades to experience the push Kurt Angle and The Great Khali received in their first few months with the company.
Getting off to a slow start doesn't guarantee demise for superstars as many of the greats have gotten off to a snail race start. This list examines the superstars like Kofi Kingston who were forced to wait a few months, years, and bad gimmicks to eventually have a solid fanbase and great career in the WWE.
10 Kofi Kingston
Before he was the WWE Champion, New Day fan favorite and creator of a movement called Kofimania, Kofi Kingston made his debut on the WWE version of ECW. His entire gimmick was that he was Jamaican. That's it. He did a Jamaican accent and it's a strange trip down memory lane when seeing your promos from the early days of Kofi. Although he was always a stud in the ring, his career was very slow at the beginning. He was a one-dimensional character who was winning matches left and right and nobody cared.
Even when he became both Intercontinental and United States Champion there was a disconnect between him and the fans. It wasn't until he joined the New Day in 2014, almost six years after his debut, that he became the star and former champion he is today.
9 Jinder Mahal
Jinder Mahal's WWE Championship run was one of the most controversial rises in the history of the company. Either way, Mahal was on top of the WWE universe and his journey there was not a quick one. Yes, his main event push was quick and sudden, but his early days were very slow. Mahal existed in the lower mid-card for years.
None of his early storylines left an impact and his early feuds include The Great Khali and Ted DiBiase Jr. Mahal never even competed for a singles championship until six years after his debut.
8 Bray Wyatt
Wyatt's release from the WWE 2021 is still one of the biggest shockers of the last few years. He was a top star at WWE in large part to his rise with the Wyatt family. Before the FIend, the Wyatt's and three world titles, Bray Wyatt was "Husky Harris. He was most known for his time in the Nexus where he hardly stuck out in a group that featured David Otunga.
Even after he became Bray Wyatt, his early career was full of forgettable matches and feuds. It took almost 4 years for Wyatt to get full steam and most of his early career is far overshadowed by the success he is today.
7 Jeff Hardy
Jeff Hardy is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. He is one of the most over-stars in the history of the WWE and has a career that spans almost three decades. He's had amazing matches even in the last ten years. With so many iconic in-ring moments and countless titles, audiences often forget how slow the rise of Jeff Hardy was.
He started in 1994 as a jobber. He lost to the likes of Razor Ramon and Owen Hart in his early days. Even after he and his brother Matt formed the Hardy Boyz, the duo took years to find the right opponents and in the late 90s finally started to steal the show with their matches setting Jeff on his world champion future.
6 Dolph Ziggler
Dolph Ziggler has established a solid WWE career. His time at the top of the industry was not long, but he's been an asset to wrestling for over a decade. Before he was world champion and nXt Champion (in that order somehow) he was a young star trying to get his career off the ground. He started as a member of the Spirit Squad under the names Nicky and didn't stand out in the forgettable heel stable.
A few years later he rebranded himself as Dolph Ziggler a far improvement from "Nicky," but he will still spend almost four years building himself and climbing up the WWE ladder.
5 Sasha Banks
Sasha Banks is one of the biggest stars in the WWE. From main eventing WrestleMania to winning every women's title in the company, Sasha has done it. Her WWE main roster debut was a far cry from what the accomplished star bank would become. Her early career was full of televised wins, but it still took her over a year to even get close to the world title scene. She was mostly on the losing end of the company's big Becky Lynch push.
Even before that, in nXt, she had to wait over 2 years to enter that title scene. It seems like Sasha has always been on top in WWE, but it took over four years and many big-time wins for her to finally become a top star.
4 Edge
Long before he held the World Heavyweight Championship more than any other superstar, Edge was a young wrestler lost in a stacked WWE Attitude roster. He had a ton of early wins in his career, but they were not enough to outshine Stone Cold and The Undertaker. It wasn't until he started feuding with Gangrel after over a year on television that Edge began to finally move into the mid-card.
He was paired with Christian and after another year was finally making a major impact even winning an Intercontinental championship. All in all, it took almost two years for Edge to be a mid-carder and then another seven before he was in the main event picture.
3 Kane
Many remember Kane for his amazing debut as the Undertaker's brother. He was the WWF Champion only a few months after "Masked Kane's" debut, but that was not the true debut of the future Hall of Famer. Often considered one of the worst debut gimmicks ever, Glenn Jacobs, who would eventually portray Kane debuted as Isaac Yankem, DDS.
It's no shocker that Jerry Lawler's dentist got off to a very slow start in the WWE. After over a year with the dentist's gimmick, Jacobs portrayed the (arguably worse) Diesel II as in an empty copy of Kevin Nash's Diesel. After two extremely slow years, Jacobs debuted as Kane and the rest is history.
2 Triple H
Before he was the King of Kings Triple H was Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Hunter's debut in the WWE with a winning streak and it did nothing for him. It is hard to imagine the sled hammer-yielding beast was once solely focused on etiquette. Helmsley won a ton of matches, both the Intercontinental and European Championship, and the King of the Ring, and still struggled to get over with audiences.
It was clear he was never going to be "the guy" with the gimmick. Luckily for him, he formed DX with Shawn Michaels, changed his name to Triple H, and became a future Hall of Famer overcoming his very slow first two years in the WWE.
1 The Rock
It's easy to see the success of The Rock and assumes he was a star seconds after he debuted. Unfortunately for the American icon, his rise to the top didn't happen quickly. The Rock debuted as "Rocky Maivia" advertised as a blue-chip third-generation superstar. The fans were not receptive to Rocky.
Even after winning the Intercontinental Championship he still failed to find any major success in the company. The more he was pushed by WWE the more fans hated him even chanting for him to "die, Rocky, die." It took a heel turn, an injury, and over a year of constant failure for Rocky Maivia to become The Rock, who would become one of the biggest stars on the planet.