Now, of course, wrestlers themselves have to take some responsibility for things going south,

but it would be bold to imply that any champion on this list deserved to be completely buried by

WWE. They were simply let down by a machine that cheerfully criticised them or pushed them aside

whilst they were key champions.

What's the point of that?

So I am Gareth, this is What Culture Wrestling, and you are watching 12 times WWE buried its own champions.

Number 12, Carrying Cross makes NXT look less than.

At the risk of making Carrying Cross sound like Gene Snitsky, it wasn't his fault.

Cross was reigning NXT champion when he was called up to the WB main roster and debuted

on the 19th of July 2021 Raw, and anyone excited by the thought of this would soon come crashing

right back down to Earth, when the menacing

heeled champion lost to Jeff Hardy in around two minutes. Ouch. Yeah, this wasn't quite the

raw debut that anyone had envisioned for the guy, to say the least. From there, Carrion dropped

his NXT belt to Samoa Joe at Takeover 36 on the 22nd of August, and officially joined the

main touring crew after that. Not content with jobbing his new man out, Vince McMahon changed

up Cross's look to include some goofy props that sort of made him look like the cast member

of a 1990s children's TV show. Everything that turned Carrion into such a force on

NXT immediately vanished. Scarlett wasn't by his side, and he lacked the presence

he'd had by the bucket load down in developmental. It was a masterclass in stripping away

everything that had made Cross viable for a promotion in the first place. Just baffling, really.

Oh, but worse followed.

Both Carion and Scarlet's got released on the 4th of November,

...