LA Knight and WWE's 5 Most Poorly Booked Superstars

Booking can make or break a WWE Superstar's current trajectory and outright career.

Countless examples exist, though notable is the resurgence in compelling character work and storytelling found in the new Triple H-led era of creative.

Before it, a poorly booked star like Dean Ambrose wound up leaving the company, for example.

During it, someone like Solo Sikoa has done a complete 180 from a lackey who couldn't win a match and wasn't believable as an enforcer to outright spearheading the Bloodline narrative. Fans are watching in real-time as booking performs life support on Chad Gable and Otis, too.

To its credit, WWE has flexed the ability to quickly overcome poor booking lately. Look at the Cody Rhodes debacle in which he mind-numbingly gave up his Royal Rumble win and two-year story to The Rock before changing course.

Which is to say poor booking isn't the end of the world for a Superstar. But the following wrestlers are in booking purgatory right now, so let's examine those and how things might be able to turn around with better decisions.

Ricochet

Say hello to one of the long-running kings of bad booking.

WWE has attempted to push Ricochet in the past, only for the material and interactions to flop, leaving him mostly with only the flips and feats in the ring as things capable of getting him over with fans.

No dice.

Ricochet appears to have it all as perhaps the most captivating high-flyer since Rey Mysterio, plus he's got the look, etc. But the character work and feuds are just never there.

Hence, exiting the latest Royal Rumble in a matter of minutes, doing the same in the King Of The Ring tournament, taking multiple losses on Raw and otherwise being relegated to a gimmick WWE Speed program reserved for a social media company.

It's a shame, too, because one could easily see Ricochet with a proper manager who combines with his in-ring ability to become huge with fans and a main-event threat, but the powers in charge of such decisions seem to ignore that angle.

Karrion Kross

Wild.

That may be the best word to describe the ongoing Karrion Kross crisis. And it's a crisis—the man came back with the Triple H era, has the look, has the presence, (had) the epic entrance and Scarlett Bordeaux at his side.

And yet everything flops.

It's hard to marry Kross' epic presentation with what unfolds in the ring and what his character attempts to be. Because there's no explained motive for his character (remember that time they put an hourglass near the ring of main-eventers and then never mentioned it again?) and there's a weird supernatural element to his character that is never fleshed out.

One could be lazy and assume Kross' struggles are because the WWE roster is so stacked right now. But we saw his strong heel work in NXT. If he doesn't go back there to excel, then there needs to be an Aleister Black-styled leaning into the supernatural or at least some heel explanation for what he does as he starts to pick up wins.

Omos

It should not be this hard to book Omos.

We're talking about a 7'3", 400-pound wrestler who could be running over half the roster on three-hour programs while building up a character.

Instead, he's been missing in action, which is pretty wild for a guy who had a WrestleMania match with Brock Lesnar not all that long ago. It was admittedly short, but most guys who have an encounter with Lesnar don't just up and disappear.

It sure feels like WWE could get Omos over in a variety of ways. Give him a great speaker as manager. Let him hit on a Mark Henry-styled Hall of Pain run. Put him in a fun stable or tag team if the heel thing doesn't work. Do something.

Giant characters without major stories don't have to be a relic of the Vince McMahon era. This new era has the storytelling chops and attention to character work that could help Omos excel, provided all involved actually pick a direction and get to work on it.

Naomi

Naomi returned at the Royal Rumble this year and it was amazing, a return roughly two years in the making.

But little has happened since.

Sure, Naomi had a brief flirtation with title contention while riding the hype of that return. But she's since been lost in tag-team purgatory, working alongside Bayley and Jade Cargill while taking a loss to Nia Jax in a match that went hardly over the eight-minute mark in the Queen of the Ring tournament.

There's a logjam in the women's division right now, no doubt. But Naomi needs something beyond the Glow entrance to stand out because it feels like nothing has changed in the two years since her departure.

Perhaps that's a heel turn. Heck, maybe it's getting her in the Bloodline-adjacent stuff. But WWE has kept right on evolving over the years and Naomi will either sink or swim based on whether something changes soon.

LA Knight

LA Knight is booking whiplash personified.

Knight wasn't even Knight as fans know him at the tail end of the Vince McMahon era, to the point it was worth wondering if he might be on the chopping block. Then he exploded in popularity when permitted to be himself, going on an almost Daniel Bryan-esque run at the very top of the promotion.

So, Knight is now in a much, much better place than he was, to say the least. But he's also settled into that booking purgatory fans have known to accept for certain guys—and it doesn't look like there's room for him to actually win a major main-event title.

Case in point, Knight's moving big merch and throwing the catchphrases out as usual. He won over AJ Styles at WrestleMania XL, but has traded wins since and fallen into tag-team filler stuff otherwise.

Given the current happenings on the roster at the very top, it's hard to see when Knight's booking or even a gentle push might occur next.

Bayley

Unfortunately, it felt like a matter of time before Bayley fell right back into booking purgatory.

The fact that Bayley finally getting her deserved 'Mania moment was a big, bold part of the build to this year's massive event says it all—WWE has been at least mildly fumbling her for years.

So much so that Bayley's triumph to win the women's title over Iyo Sky at 'Mania had to be a little bittersweet. What has followed has been predictable, as she retained her title at Backlash in a triple threat that squeaked past the 13-minute mark and retained over Chelsea Green on an episode of SmackDown—in a match that didn't hit the five-minute mark.

Bayley deserves the mega-star treatment WWE might give someone like Becky Lynch. She's the headliner of a brand. One would think that the bookers, knowing she was finally getting that moment, would have post-moment plans.

Instead, it feels like the company mind-bogglingly just doesn't know what to do with her yet again. As always, that won't stop fans from throwing support behind her in a big way, regardless.