Over the years, countless wrestlers have come and gone in WWE. While very few wrestlers get to reach Shawn Michaels and John Cena levels of success, many performers don’t even reach, like, Carlito levels. Then there are the true unicorns – those rare few wrestlers who depart the company so quickly that they become odd little footnotes in the history of the promotion.
With that in mind, here are ten wrestlers with mayfly-like WWE careers – who were released by the company so early in their runs that some of them failed to make an impression except with those gifted with really, really good memories.
10 Cain Velasquez
Cain Velasquez may have a 14-3 record in MMA, but he only had two matches in Mexico’s AAA promotion – including an impressive debut at 2019’s Triplemania – before WWE snapped him up and immediately put him in a feud with Brock Lesnar on the first Fox episode of SmackDown.
One two-minute match at a Saudi Arabia show, followed by a Mexican house show match, and Velasquez disappeared, only to be released along with the other COVID-19 budget cut firings in 2020.
9 Braden Walker
Chris Harris – a WCW alum and six-time Tag Team Champion alongside James Storm in TNA – was pretty well established when he signed to WWE for a quietly disastrous run in 2008.
Renamed Braden Walker, he failed to make much of an impression after two matches and was quickly released from the company a month after debuting on television, so quickly that his entire WWE career is kind of a joke. Save for an extremely brief return to TNA, Harris’ career never really recovered after his release.
8 Kizarny
Of all the wrestlers WWE fired before they could even find their footing, Kizarny is the most infamous. WWE aired vignettes for this carny-themed wrestler for months in Fall 2008 before debuting him in a singles victory over MVP on the January 2, 2009 edition of SmackDown.
One would think the character would have been Bray Wyatt by way of Tod Browning, but instead, Kizarny was a babyface who came out to jaunty carousel music and won his only WWE singles match with the world’s most gentle DDT before being released two months later.
7 Buff Bagwell
Marcus Alexander “Buff” Bagwell was employed by World Wrestling Entertainment for about a week in 2001, and the only thing he managed to do was kill WCW for good.
It’s a strange scenario, as Bagwell and Booker T went out to put on a Raw main event match that was apparently supposed to establish WCW as the WWE’s second brand, but the bout went over so poorly with the live crowd that the idea died on the vine and Bagwell was out of the company days later.
6 Key
Vic Grimes is a victim of circumstance. Introduced as a coke dealer named Key, Grimes was being set up for a feud with The Godfather in a 1999 storyline that predates both The Shield and The Wire as far as gritty cable network crime dramas go.
The Godfather ended up getting injured before the feud could happen, so WWE quickly put Key out to pasture, setting the stage for Grimes’ biggest claim to fame – two extremely dangerous shoot incidents with New Jack in ECW and XPW.
5 Aloisia
Fans with great memories will recall the early promos for the all-female NXT season 3 that included a giant woman named Aloisia, only for her to never appear.
Curiously, Aloisia – also known as Isis the Amazon – had some wrestling experience before signing with WWE, but she didn’t spend time in FCW or anything when she was slated for NXT. Reportedly, WWE grew uncomfortable with some explicit photo shoots Aloisia did in her past, so they replaced her with Kaitlyn before the season started.
4 Phantasio
Phantasio is a staple of listicles like “10 Wacky Gimmicks You Forgot About,” but he honestly ruled. Reportedly the first “developmental” talent ever signed by WWE, Harry Del Rios rocked a persona that was basically “a mime who strategically used close-up magic” and made a singular appearance on television, on WWE’s show Wrestling Challenge in 1995.
The match is an absurdist classic, as Phantasio does a bunch of silly magic tricks to get the win, and is never seen again. Fans like to rag on Phantasio, but his one appearance is a fun diversion, and you can never argue that he overstayed his welcome. Rumor has it that Undertaker killed his career because he felt Phantasio was too similar a gimmick.
3 Mordecai
Mordecai had a unique gimmick – he was a religious zealot who dressed all in white and was being set up as the heel in a major feud with The Undertaker.
However, soon after his debut, he lost a four-minute match to Rey Mysterio Jr. on SmackDown and was never seen again thanks to a real-life bar fight that made management lose faith in him. He’d later resurface on ECW with a vampire gimmick under the name Kevin Thorn.
2 Willie Mack
Some readers are probably thinking, “Wait, when was Willie Mack in WWE? You're not thinking of Rodney Mack?” No, Willie Mack signed to WWE in 2014 but was released a week before he was supposed to report to the Performance Center.
According to Mack, WWE doctors had some issues with his blood pressure and knee, but Mack believes that he was dropped because WWE signed another athletic black wrestler with a better body. He’d go on to have a great run in Lucha Underground and capture the X-Division Title in Impact Wrestling.
1 Hade Vansen
Hade Vansen sounds like the name Big Van Vader would have been given in NXT, but Vansen was a promising English wrestler in the UK and independent scene who signed to WWE in 2007.
The following year, SmackDown aired vignettes featuring Hade Vansen hijacking the feed to deliver speeches reminiscent of Bane meets Magneto. Reportedly, Vansen was going to gather a group of Brotherhood of Mutants-esque followers (!) to feud with The Undertaker, but WWE pulled the plug on the storyline and immediately released Vansen, who decided to pursue an acting career instead.