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Ember Moon and More Superstars Who Deserve a Push from WWE Creative
November 9, 2018Ember Moon and More Superstars Who Deserve a Push from WWE Creative
Theoretically, the pecking order in WWE could always shift and all Superstars have a chance to rise to a higher position, but more often than not, the same people remain at the top.
Once in a while, though, someone can attain enough upward mobility to get somewhere, whether by pure undeniable talent or blind luck of being at the right place at the right time.
Whatever the case may be, at any given point in time, there are always plenty of men and women on the roster who aren't being prioritized but are deserving of a vote of confidence and a boost to their careers.
By definition, not everyone can be the best, and everyone has their own favorites and biases, but in an attempt to remain fair and honest, here are just some of the Superstars who could be argued are worthy of more than what WWE Creative is giving them to work with.
Honorable Mentions and Quick Hits
It's arguable that every Superstar in WWE is talented enough that if they were allowed to make some mistakes and fail a few times before striking oil, nearly everybody would be worthy of a push.
Some names just aren't moving the meter quite as much as some others, though, and while they should be talked about, there isn't a lot to discuss at the moment.
For instance, Chad Gable has proved himself more than capable in the ring, but he's saddled in a lame tag team with Bobby Roode.
Gable could find better success in 205 Live, where athleticism is a bigger focal point, and Roode never should have turned babyface to begin with, nor been moved to Raw, as a SmackDown heel spot for him right now would be, well, glorious.
Someone else with wasted potential is EC3, who is good enough that he could have gone straight to the main roster. But he is hanging around NXT with nothing to do, never quite in contention for either of the titles and rushing through mini-feuds rather than having something substantial.
It often feels like WWE Creative forgets The Good Brothers even exist, as they went from a major deal to guys who only show up a few times every couple of months. Their associations with AJ Styles and Finn Balor proved fans like them and want to get behind them, but without a push, there's nothing to get behind.
You can apply this logic to almost anybody and their name could be on the list, so if you don't see someone here, that doesn't mean your favorite isn't deserving, as an argument can be made!
Ember Moon
Ember Moon quickly rose through the ranks in NXT to become the most likely person to finally beat Asuka, but she wasn't ready and failed on more than one occasion.
This was counteracted when she still managed to win the NXT Women's Championship once The Empress of Tomorrow was no longer a factor, but even then, her title reign didn't last quite long, as Shayna Baszler swooped in and took it away.
After coming up to the main roster, Moon has been given such little to do that it calls into question why they even bothered graduating her to begin with, instead of keeping her in NXT.
She's lost every big win that she's been in the running for and has recently even been positioned as the stepping stone to make Nia Jax look better.
Perhaps she would have done much better had she gone to SmackDown instead of Raw, where Ronda Rousey and Alexa Bliss took priority over everyone else, leaving no real room for advancement.
If she were to go to the blue brand, she'd be a perfect opponent for a heel Becky Lynch, as we've yet to see those two clash and they'd give it their all in the ring together.
In general, she's proved herself fun to watch and is passionate about the job, so she should be given more of an opportunity to grow.
WWE doesn't have to go overboard by having her beat Ronda Rousey for the Raw Women's Championship or something, but if she had more matches, could score a few more wins and be considered for spots like fighting for Team Raw at Survivor Series, it could do wonders in adding a fresh face to the title hunt for the future.
Finn Balor
Yours truly isn't someone who thinks Finn Balor should have been given the main event of WrestleMania to win the Universal Championship over Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 34 or something along those lines, but he's still being underutilized just the same.
Plenty of people have had injuries just as bad or worse than what happened to him and WWE didn't hold that against them, but ever since that, he's never been able to reach that same level.
Instead, he's floundered on Raw as a jobber to the true main-eventers and hasn't been able to maintain a proper feud for more than a few weeks at a time before bouncing to a new one.
More often than not, he's just been having a series of matches with different opponents, rather than a true storyline, so there's nothing for him to sink his teeth into, save for that awful Bray Wyatt feud, which did him no favors.
He suffers from the problem many others do: He's on the wrong show for someone with his size and strengths.
If he were on SmackDown instead of Raw, he'd be a much bigger fish in a smaller pond and the atmosphere would cater to his in-ring skills and popularity much better, so he could be a legitimate contender to both the WWE and United States Championship.
On Raw, he's only temporarily sniffed the intercontinental title, which would have been perfect for him if WWE doesn't think he has what it takes to be the big draw at the top of the marquee.
There's no denying he is popular, has a good look to him and has paid his dues, so WWE should consider making him at least a midcard priority in the title picture and maybe the next in line after Dean Ambrose takes the belt from Seth Rollins, rather than just some guy who gets to wrestle and take up some time every week.
The Revival
The Revival was a fantastic duo in NXT who frequently stole the show on TakeOver events, wrestling in some of the best matches of the year not just in NXT, but in the entire WWE.
The two-time champions seemed poised for a major push on the main roster but fell victim to two injuries that sidelined them before any momentum could be achieved.
That killed them, as they haven't been able to make any headway toward achieving a push ever since.
Whether there is hesitation due to the injuries or they're just suffering from Vince McMahon's lack of fondness for the tag team division in general is unknown, but when you've gone from being a main focal point of a brand to only popping up here and there to lose to The Lucha House Party and company, you've downgraded.
Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder aren't the most charismatic, over-the-top characters. They aren't flashy, their promos are pretty standard and they would go nowhere as singles stars.
But together, they make magic in the tag team scene—at least, they do if they're allowed to, rather than being booked like losers who can only get wins on Main Event against jobbers.
The fans love them and want to see them succeed, so WWE should capitalize on that popularity and start rebuilding their credibility as soon as possible.
Now that The Authors of Pain are holding the Raw Tag Team Championship, they'll need viable contenders to challenge them and The Revival have proved before that they have great chemistry with Akam and Rezar.
Even if The Revival doesn't capture the titles in the next few months, at least making them seem like they have a shot is a good step forward, and in the next Superstar Shake-up, they should be heavily considered to move to SmackDown where they would be much more appreciated and able to achieve their goals.
Sonya Deville
So far, Sonya Deville has been kind of a one-trick pony who isn't allowed to show off her trick.
Her background in MMA is the single basis of her character, but she's never been treated like a dangerous fighter. Sure, she claims she is, but what has she done to prove it?
With this type of gimmick, the more she loses, the less credible she appears, and that is why she comes off less like Ronda Rousey and more like Marvelous Marc Mero—someone who claims to be tough but doesn't back it up.
At some point, she and Rousey are going to be in the ring together, and for it to really matter, WWE has to lay the groundwork now while it still can to build Deville up as a legitimate threat.
It's the only opportunity they have to do a story between two MMA fighters in the women's division, beyond having Shayna Baszler, Jessamyn Duke or Marina Shafir turn on Rousey, which shouldn't happen any time soon.
If not, and Deville remains stuck in the same position, she'll never be anything more than Mandy Rose's tougher buddy who equally can't win an important match to save her life.
Thankfully, the first step in doing this was taken this week on SmackDown with Deville getting a spot on Team SmackDown for Survivor Series, which could have easily gone to Lana or Rose.
Here's hoping that doesn't turn out to be a false promotion with Deville jobbing out quickly as the first person eliminated in the match or anything of the sort.
Sanity
The clock is ticking for Sanity, and that isn't a statement on how frustrated the WWE Universe should be with the product's current writing overall, but on how the tag team is running out of time to find their place.
Since coming up to the main roster, they've accomplished nothing on SmackDown and aren't even featured on a tri-weekly basis, let alone one being treated like a prominent part of the tag team division.
For a group who is supposed to bring chaos, they've been mild, losing more than they've won, not sticking to a single feud for more than a handful of weeks and then dropping off the face of the earth again.
WWE had a chance to strike while the iron was hot and immediately throw them into title contention after the Superstar Shake-up, but they sat on their debut for a long while and never followed through with any of it.
Had they been chosen to dethrone The New Day instead of The Bar, fans could have seen a fresher tag team hold the gold and it would have been a great clash of styles between the power of positivity and the horrors of mayhem.
If this is something WWE wishes to explore in the future, Sanity needs to start getting a push immediately in order to properly cast them as noteworthy stars in the eyes of the audience by the time WrestleMania comes around.
Otherwise, Eric Young, Killian Dain and Alexander Wolfe will just follow the same trend as The Ascension, where the best they'll have to hope for will be filling up three pointless spots in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
Tamina Snuka
Tamina made her WWE television debut on May 24, 2010, and in the span of nearly a decade, hasn't accomplished a single thing—not one title reign, no big victory like the Royal Rumble or Money in the Bank, and not even a single Slammy award.
She's had injuries, she lacks mic skills, she's yet to put on a particularly memorable match and her character's never been super popular, but that hasn't stopped WWE in the past from pushing someone based on their size and hoping the rest will figure itself out.
By this point, it seems she's missed the boat on being something, but WWE could have corrected that recently with the Battle Royal at Evolution.
That could have been her time to shine and given her some credibility to challenge Ronda Rousey at TLC, rather than Nia Jax, since that match has already happened.
Of course, Tamina wouldn't dethrone Rousey, but at least she'd have that win at Evolution to look back on as the biggest moment of her career, and it might even have given her enough of a boost to carry her into a title reign on SmackDown in 2019.
Tamina has a presence to her that few women on the roster have, yet WWE seems content with her having less credibility than characters who are half her size and specifically written to look like cowardly losers, which continues to destroy her chances of getting anywhere.
All it takes is a few dominant wins and some genuine effort to show that we should get invested in her and Tamina could be a tall mountain for others to climb.
Instead, now that she's teaming with Jax, the reverse of this will happen. She'll be used as the fall girl who can take a hit so Jax can stay strong.
The Entire Cruiserweight Division
SmackDown is always called the B-show in the pecking order compared to Raw, but 205 Live isn't even brought into the conversation, which is a shame.
Ask anyone who watches the show, and you'll find out that it is perhaps the most consistently entertaining chunk of programming throughout a normal WWE week.
Every single person on that roster can go in the ring and put on some of the best matches you'll see in a long while, whether it's a random exhibition of two people paired up for no reason, or a bitter rivalry with a quality story to go along with it.
TJP's current gimmick of stealing the masks from The Lucha House Party is much better than having the luchadors just beat The Revival. Drew Gulak is one of the most underrated overall performers both on the mic and in the ring.
Mustafa Ali shows more heart in one match than what can be conveyed through countless promos shoved down our throats on Raw or SmackDown.
Despite all this, the cruiserweight division is always overlooked, especially after the co-branded pay-per-view model started.
While the Cruiserweight Championship was once a staple of the pre-show for most events, it's now become a rarity to pop up even on the bigger ones, indicating WWE officials see it as not important enough to dedicate time to.
When fans notice the lack of faith in a show like this, they have no reason to watch it, cause WWE is effectively telling them it isn't worth checking it out. Then, everything snowballs, as the viewership goes down, so WWE thinks the cruiserweights aren't pulling their weight, give them less time to gain fans, and so on.
More of a push for this division helps not just the division itself's clout to boost its numbers, but the talented wrestlers become bigger stars within the WWE Universe, too, and showcasing a wider array of talent would only help cut down on the overbearing repetition of WWE's stagnant, dragged out feuds with rematches that happen far too often.
Making Lio Rush the manager of Bobby Lashley was a good start for pushing his personality. WWE should keep putting in more effort to find ways to expose the rest of 205 Live to help establish that brand as a must-see hour of TV every week.
Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.