Breakup Breakout: Difference between revisions

*** Gangrel was also The Jannetty to the next group, the Hardys, from when the two were briefly packaged as The New Brood.

** Speaking of Edge and Christian, during their indy days they were part of a stable called THUG Life which also contained Rhino Richards, Joe E. Legend, Bloody Bill Skullion and Zakk Wyld. Rhino had a successful career and held the ECW World Title although he didn't come close to the success that E&C did. On the other hand, Legend only had a short stint in WWF as Just Joe, and Skullion and Wyld never did anything important enough to warrant having a wikipedia article.

** Earlier in the decade it looked like Matt was the one who would become the breakout star, as he started the immensely popular Version One character while Jeff got fired. But then the Matt / Edge / [[Lita]] debacle happened and Matt's career got completely derailed, and Jeff redeemed himself. Long enough to win a World Title at least.

* Inverted with The Radicalz: [[Eddie Guerrero]], [[Chris Benoit]], Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn. Yes, the first two went on to become major stars. Guerrero died. Benoit killed his entire family and himself. Malenko retired in the early 2000's and is still respected for a wrestler of his build and skill. Saturn disappeared, was homeless for quite awhile, and is just now granting public interviews.

** To be fair, the main reason for this was Pillman's untimely death at age 35. At the time, both Pillman and Austin were both very over high mid-carders (Austin being only a few months into developing the foul-mouthed, beer-swilling, [[Anti-Hero]] we know him as today). In fact, Pillman's death came [[What Could Have Been|at the beginning stages of a feud between the two]].

* The Thrillseekers: [[Chris Jericho]] and [[Lance Storm]]. Not a total example. Jericho is the more well-known of the two outside of wrestling, but Storm was certainly not a terrible wrestler himself.

** Ironically, before the split, the Steiner Brothers were generally thought of as "Rick Steiner and his less-interesting brother". Then Scotty put on 100 pounds of muscle, bleached his hair, and reinvented himself as a [[Kavorka Man]] with "freaks" in every city. Rick, on the other hand, floundered about in the upper midcard and then turned heel. Although he was a pretty good face, as a heel he was a complete heat vacuum.

* Harlem Heat: [[Booker T]] becomes a six-time, six-time, six-time, six-time, six-time, six-time World Heavyweight Champion, and who knows what Stevie Ray is doing currently. (Working for Booker at his wrestling school, actually).

* The Fabulous Freebirds were actually notorious for their refusal to break up - if a promoter tried to split the team up all of them would leave the promotion. However, Michael Hayes and Terry Gordy both had notable careers outside the Freebirds. Buddy Roberts did next to nothing outside the tag team. And when the team finally did break up for good, it was with Hayes and Gordy turning [[Face]] on Roberts. Hayes and Gordy went on to mixed success elsewhere, and Roberts retired.

* MNM: Johnny Nitro became [[John Morrison]], won the ECW Title, joined another successful tag team, and is currently a upper-midcarder on ''SmackDown'' being primed for the big time. Joey Mercury... had a few spots for [[ROH]], and later joined the Straight Edge Society. Even their valet Melina did better than Mercury, wining the Women's Title on a couple of occasions.

**** It seemed that everything had come full circle with [[The Miz]] winning the WWE title after cashing in the Money in the Bank contract against [[Randy Orton]] the RAW after Survivor Series. However, the trope is temporarily back in subverted status after Morrison started a feud with [[Sheamus]] and beat him ''twice'', the second time in a #1 Contender's Ladder's Match at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs 2010, which earned Morrison a WWE title opportunity in the first match of 2011. Morrison would prove a great challenge for [[The Miz]], only losing because he missed [[Finishing Move|Starship Pain]] through a table. Even though Miz has crashed through the glass ceiling, it would seem that Morrison isn't too far behind.

***** Sadly the competition is officially over by the end of 2011. And in an ironic sense, [[The Miz]], after main eventing Survivor Series with [[Dwayne Johnson|The Rock]], beat [[John Morrison]] to start a new pursuit of the WWE Championship while the defeated [[John Morrison]], after long months of constant jobbing, was released from the company.

* This has happened with Curt Hawkins and [[Zack Ryder]] as the latter was been established as a hot new heel on [[ECW]] with his memorable [[Catch Phrase]] and [[Ear Worm|theme music]], while the former completely disappeared from WWE television and returned to FCW. Hawkins would later return as part of a very unmemorable tag team with Vance Archer which would later break up with Hawkins going nowhere on Superstars while Archer got released. However, it was during that short period of time that it would like Hawkins might have a shot at surpassing his partner as ECW went off the air and was replaced by NXT, [[Demoted to Extra|leaving Ryder stuck on Superstars as well]]. However, Ryder would become an underground hit when he debuted his [[Web Original]] series, [[Z True Long Island Story]]. With a huge following on the IWC, Ryder would eventually [[Heel Face Turn|turn face]] and get featured on both RAW and Smackdown as a result (Ryder recently defeated [[Dolph Ziggler]] at the WWE TLC PPV for the United States Championship), all while Curt Hawkins will occasionally make cameos on the show if he's lucky.

* Even if he had moderate success, Billy Gunn hit superstardom in comparison to what happened to Bart Gunn from The Smoking Gunns. He also outlived Road Dogg in the WWE even if they later reunited in [[TNA]].