Curt Hawkins and the Biggest Losers of 2018 in WWE

2018 is drawing to a close, and as such, it's important to reflect back on the past 12 months and assess the damage from all angles, good and bad.

It's easier to receive bad news first, so before highlighting the positives of WWE in 2018, let's address the negatives.

We all would like to think at the start of a new year that the coming months will bring nothing but joy, but sometimes, that isn't in the cards.

Between health scares, injuries, legal nightmares, creative struggles and even just pure losses, there were a ton of troubles to go around within WWE this year, and some people had more than their fair share of suffering.

Let's take a look at some of WWE's biggest losers in 2018.

Honorable Mentions

Credit: WWE.com

Here lies Bray Wyatt, losing to a jobber in Curtis Axel before spending the rest of 2018 off-screen, doing nothing.

There are so many people to pick from for this list that, in the interest of trimming it down, some need to be relegated to a shorter rundown.

For instance, there's nothing much to say about The Ascension, Mojo Rawley and No Way Jose other than that they rarely get any airtime on Raw, and when they do, it's pretty much guaranteed that they'll be losing.

They have been relegated to Main Event and can't even secure victories there on a regular basis, so they are four of the lowest-ranked people on the roster.

Someone else at the bottom of the totem pole was James Ellsworth, who was brought back temporarily to fill the role of a punching bag before being released again. Allegations then emerged about his conduct in his day-to-day life.

The Bludgeon Brothers had to drop the SmackDown Tag Team Championships as a result of an injury to Rowan. Both he and Harper have been missing ever since, with the latter suffering an injury of his own.

Asuka would have made this list for having lost her undefeated streak at WrestleMania and suffering other losses since then, but she turned things around by winning the SmackDown Women's Championship at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs on Sunday.

Shinsuke Nakamura is in a similar situation, winning the Royal Rumble and riding a high to WrestleMania before coming up short and wrestling an elongated and lackluster feud with AJ Styles, which saw him continually lose. He is the United States champion, but he's been without a true feud for months and rarely features on SmackDown—and even less on pay-per-views.

Finally, there's also The Deleters of Worlds, who captured the Raw Tag Team Championships and did nothing of value with their reign before dropping the belts to two jobbers, The B-Team.

After that, Matt Hardy's medical problems prevented him from getting back into the ring, and Bray Wyatt has been kept off television for months, making 2018 almost a complete waste of a year for the former world champion.

Curt Hawkins

Credit: WWE.com

Obviously, WWE is scripted, and the wins and losses don't matter the same as they do in traditional sports. But it's still better to come out a victor and be booked as a capable Superstar than to be the enhancement talent who exists purely to lose.

In terms of taking falls to put other people over, nobody in WWE today can compare to Curt Hawkins.

The former tag team champion is in the midst of a losing streak of over 237 matches and cannot catch a break.

Even when he has partners, he drags them down into his vortex of failure, which is how Ember Moon was eliminated from Mixed Match Challenge after a good run with Braun Strowman.

Although most of his losses have been happening on Main Event, which is only slightly above house shows in terms of importance, the streak has become the most noteworthy part of Hawkins' entire career.

It's taken on a life of its own and given him a purpose on the roster, helping him stand out from the other jobbers who also have no credibility but lack the sensationalism around their losses.

When he does win, it's going to be a big deal. It's just not likely to happen for a long time—certainly not in 2019—given the way he is going.

Enzo Amore

Credit: WWE.com

Enzo Amore didn't spend much time in WWE in 2018. In January, he was suspended and released because of a series of issues, namely allegations of sexual assault.

He was forced to abandon the Cruiserweight Championship and his role as the top star on that brand and would spend the majority of the year dealing with his legal situation and seeing his unstable reputation going down the drain.

By May, the investigation against him ceased and Amore launched his rap career with his single "Phoenix", and it seemed as though things were picking up for him, at least in some regards, and that his time in WWE was behind him.

Then, after some troubles on a flight saw him booted from the plane, he decided to crash the party at Survivor Series, sitting in the front row and making a scene as he was ejected from the arena.

If it were a publicity stunt, it worked to an extent. But more than anything, it went down as a sad call for attention among many people, who looked at the situation with pity.

Whether under the name Enzo Amore, Real1, nZo or whatever else Eric Arndt plans to call himself in the future, 2018 will go down as a year with plenty of lows.

Big Cass

Credit: WWE.com

At one point in time, Big Cass and Enzo Amore were one of the most popular tag teams in WWE and seemed poised for great things, either as a unit or as singles stars.

Then their feud happened in 2017, and before it could have a proper conclusion, Cass suffered a torn ACL and was put on the shelf for many months.

2018 was supposed to be the year he returned and made up for lost time, but when he came back in April, there wasn't much success waiting for him.

His program with Daniel Bryan was a disaster that saw him fail to gain momentum and eventually make enough mistakes backstage to get himself fired from WWE in June.

Since then, he's been working the independent circuit under the names Big Cazz and Big C and has gone through even rougher times, gaining weight and suffering a seizure at a recent House of Hardcore show.

It's clear there is a lot of darkness in his life, and while some of this list is humorous, this situation is no laughing matter. We can only hope Cass is able to sort everything out and turn things around for a much better 2019 in all regards.

Drake Maverick

Credit: WWE.com

Though Drake Maverick signed with WWE in October 2017, issues with his work visa prevented him from making his debut until January 2018, when he was named the general manager of 205 Live.

This was a great start, and he was the face of change for the brand in the wake of Enzo Amore's departure, so all was well and good.

Later in the year, though, WWE decided to start utilizing him as the replacement for Paul Ellering as the manager of The Authors of Pain, which came off silly from the start. It was as if the entire point were to laugh at the size difference between he and Akam and Rezar.

That joke got worse, though, at Survivor Series, where he peed himself out of fear of Big Show, starting several weeks of references to the fact that Maverick wet his pants or, in one case, urinated over Bobby Roode's robe—something few fans found to be as humorous as it was intended to be.

He was an unfunny laughing stock on Monday Night Raw whom fans were supposed to enjoy seeing get humiliated, while on Wednesdays, he was meant to be a serious babyface leader of an entire brand. The two elements continue to not mix well, and the juxtaposition has hurt both sides of his character.

At the start of the year, he was a fresh authority figure and a force of good. Now he's a weasel who took the pin and cost AOP the tag team titles.

Bobby Lashley

Credit: WWE.com

This segment alone puts Lashley on the list.

Speculation that Bobby Lashley would make his grand return to WWE surrounded WrestleMania, particularly as Braun Strowman needed a partner to fight The Bar for the Raw Tag Team Championships.

Instead of the former ECW and United States champion, Strowman won the belts alongside a 10-year-old boy, and Lashley was kept off the show, making his return the night after.

For months, WWE tried to position him as a big deal and as a major babyface on a crowded roster that featured Roman Reigns as the true golden boy, but he wasn't getting over with the crowd.

Rather than playing to his strengths and just being a tough, muscular athlete, Lashley was given horrible storylines revolving around his fake sisters and atrocious promos that couldn't have ended fast enough if he had not spoken a single word.

WWE learned from these mistakes and, in September, gave him a manager in Lio Rush, who handles the talking for him and helped usher in a heel turn to salvage his career, but he's not yet managed to accomplish anything.

In 2018, he hasn't won a single championship, was eliminated from the World Cup tournament in the first round and hasn't had one feud worth looking back on fondly. Nowadays, rather than being someone who is built up as a legitimate threat to Brock Lesnar, his shtick is bending over and showing off his rear end to the crowd.

If his 2019 ends up even half as bad as his 2018 was, Lashley will remain the butt of many jokes.

Jinder Mahal

Credit: WWE.com

In 2017, Jinder Mahal enjoyed the biggest surge in his career, winning the WWE Championship and joining an elite club of less than 50 men to accomplish that feat.

He held the title for 170 days before losing it to AJ Styles, but at the start of 2018, he was still relevant enough to win the United States Championship at WrestleMania.

Mahal promptly lost it to Jeff Hardy slightly over a week later, and since then, he's had a rough time as a midcarder at best on the Raw brand.

No longer does he have that mystique of being a world champion around him because he's right back in the spot he was before as a comedic loser who is booked to be humiliated and take the fall instead of someone who could be in title contention.

When WWE tries to do something serious with him, it doesn't work because it isn't believable, so he reverts to making a fool of himself and losing quick matches against equally silly opponents like R-Truth and Carmella.

The Modern Day Maharaja may practice all of the spiritual techniques and meditation he wants, but none of it is working to help restore him to his glory days of being the top champion on SmackDown.

WWE Ratings and Fan Morale

Credit: WWE.com

Frustration with WWE's lack of creativity, boring storylines, repetitive feuds that are dragged out for months at a time, a universal champion who isn't on the program most of the year and more have pushed wrestling fans to the breaking point.

As a result, the ratings on Raw and SmackDown are at their worst levels ever, and there aren't any excuses to fall back on other than poor performance.

There were no big changes in how people view entertainment or new massively popular shows stealing viewers from Monday and Tuesday nights any more than normal. Nor were any competing wrestling organizations putting up a fight.

Fans have simply checked out, and it's a bad enough situation that CEO Vince McMahon felt the need to come out on the latest edition of Raw to issue an apology with promises that if we stick around, things will change.

It's hard to believe in any of that, though, as the Raw episode that followed was as standard as it's been, and the tapings for the next edition don't promise anything better, either.

Exiting 2018 as a wrestling fan isn't so much a time of looking back on so many good things and anxiously awaiting the surprises that are in store for the next year but rather being desperate for change and hoping it doesn't take until after WrestleMania to start.

Otherwise, WWE will continue to lose fans, and the audience that sticks around will keep suffering—as has been the case for far too long.

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.