Shinsuke Nakamura and 8 Forgotten WWE Stars Who Need an AEW Contract

Credit: WWE.com

If WWE did its due diligence, it could find ways to feature more of its active roster on television. It's not acceptable for talents to be sitting backstage, collecting checks and getting older, week after week.

Wrestlers have a short shelf life, and many are giving the prime of their careers to WWE Chairman Vince McMahon in the hopes of getting noticed.

The bare minimum the company could do is to put these wrestlers on TV and allow them a chance to get over with the fans, but it doesn't.

Some of this has been made difficult by the Wild Card Rule, which allows for wrestlers to appear on both Raw and SmackDown Live, irrespective of their assigned brand.

That's why we've seen Roman Reigns and Shane McMahon on both Mondays and Tuesdays, rather than a variety of other faces. And it also explains why Samoa Joe will be competing for the WWE Championship (the SmackDown men's title) on Extreme Rules, despite competing for Raw.

Here are seven promising WWE Superstars who need to stop sitting backstage and sign with new promotion, All Elite Wrestling. They are all built for better things than they are currently getting.

Poor Luke Harper.

Here's a guy who announced on social media he wanted to leave WWE, and not only did the company refuse to sanction his release, it also tacked on an extra six months due to time off through injury, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (h/t Robert DeFelice for eWrestling News).

The most talented member of the Wyatt Family should sign with AEW once this is all over and prove WWE wrong.

The other notable talent who's sitting on the bench is Sasha Banks.

The situation has been at an impasse since WrestleMania 35, when she and Bayley dropped the women's tag titles to The IIconics.

Signing Banks to AEW would be an incredible get. She is the type of talent a promotion can build a roster around, and there would be no better individual to carry and lead the AEW women's division.

Asuka and Kairi Sane are currently a tag team called The Kabuki Warriors, and they'll soon be challenging The IIconics for the Women's Tag Team Championships.

And although they'll definitely win the titles and hold them for a long time, they are both better as singles performers.

WWE has incrementally made Asuka less creepy and less intimidating, which won't serve her well if she ever goes back to being a singles competitor. And The Pirate Princess is a relatively small performer in a promotion that favors the big and powerful.

With AEW, both could get the respect they deserve, from both management and fans.

The former heavy for Sanity is currently wrestling NXT shows overseas.

There's simply no room for him to be the sort of hoss he's meant to be with WWE.

As the standout member of his old stable, Killian would easily be a monster who can ragdoll the rest of the competition in AEW.

The most athletic women on the WWE women's roster is typically missing in action, but Naomi deserves to be competing for a title.

Perhaps, once Becky Lynch is done with Lacey Evans, she could fight either and get some of her mojo back. Otherwise, she's better off headed to AEW.

A move could also be a nice refresher. Naomi could finally drop some of her more gimmick moves, such as the Rear End, and build up a repertoire that highlights her athleticism.

There's no way EC3 saw this coming when he signed with WWE.

The two-time TNA world heavyweight champion with a million-dollar body is now running through the backstage areas of WWE in a chase for the 24/7 title.

He needs to sign with AEW and pretend the last two years never happened.

Shinsuke Nakamura appears to be stuck in a go-nowhere partnership with Rusev, and the tag team haven't picked up a win since early February.

The King of Strong Style is 39, which might make him hesitant to start over, and there was a promising confrontation between him and Finn Balor on Tuesday's episode of SmackDown.

If this doesn't pan out with a feud and an eventual title run, though, Nakamura needs to go somewhere where his considerable skills are appreciated.