Was there any wrestler this decade with a bigger fall from grace than Alberto Del Rio?

stro

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Starts out the decade being brought into WWE as an instant main eventer, high hopes that he'll be the next big Latino star with Rey Mysterio on the decline and seeming like he was limping to the end of his career (lol).

2011: Wins the largest Royal Rumble of all time (at that time, at least) 6 months into his WWE career. Goes on to WM in a WHC match. Wins MITB, cashes in at Summerslam in the middle of Summer of Punk. Spends the rest of the year in main event feuds with Punk and Cena. Ends the year with a groin injury.

2012: Returns to action in April, immediately back in the WHC title scene, gets a concussion, feuds with Sheamus all Spring, Summer, and Autumn. Feuds with Randy Orton after that and turns face at the end of the year.

2013: Wins the WHC in January as a face, heads into WM in a Us vs Them storyline with Jack Swagger where in a twist the white person was the heel, and he got to win the feud. He would lose the title to Dolph Ziggler in a MITB cash in, then regain it in a double turn shortly after. He would retain his title in feuds with Christian and RVD until dropping the title to John Cena in late October.

2014: Engages in a feud with the returning Batista, is in the Andre battle royal at WM 30, spends the rest of his time failing to win the IC and US titles before getting fired in early August for striking a WWE employee who made a racist remark in his presence. He spent the rest of 2014 working mostly for AAA, but also making his debut in ROH, Wrestle 1, and WWC.

2015: Del Rio, now under the name Alberto El Patron, has successful runs in AAA and Lucha Underground, only to return to WWE without notice to AAA while holding the AAA Mega Championship. He returned at HIAC and defeated John Cena in under 10 minutes to win the US Championship, which he renamed the Mexican Championship. Shortly after, he joined Sheamus' new League of Nations stable and swapped the US title with Kalisto.

2016: The League of Nations defeated New Day at Wrestlemania and disbanded a few weeks later. Begins publicly dating Paige, despite still being married and having 3 children, and also being 15 years older than her. His wife filed for divorce shortly after. Del Rio and Paige were engaged in October as his wife filed a restraining order against him. He lost numerous title shots until he was suspended in a Wellness violation in August. He opted out of his contract and officially left in September. He refused to sign contracts with any companies going forward and would only take 60 dates a year. His first major booking was to be a return to AAA, which he no showed. He claimed to have been attacked by a man with a knife in a bar, which caused him to miss the event. He began working WCPW and also no showed a PPV event for them. He also opened a restaurant.

2017: Alberto would join Impact Wrestling, quickly winning both the Impact and GFW championships, unifying the titles and phasing out Global Force branding. During this time, Paige's sex tapes were leaked online with increasingly erratic behavior from both leading to drug issues, Del Rio posting threatening videos online, and domestic abuse charges leading to Del Rio being stripped of his title and suspended from TNA. After no showing multiple events but still taking money from promoters, he returned from his suspension with an angle having him turn heel because no one supported him against the charges. His relationship with Paige ends and his restaurant closes.

2018: Del Rio is terminated from TNA for no showing a TNA vs LU event Wrestlemania weekend. He was scheduled to return to AAA at Triplemania, only to go dark and refuse contact with anyone in the promotion. The rest of the year sees him working mostly Mexican indies, when he isn't stiffing promoters.

2019: Forms an indie promotion with Chavo Guerrero Jr. at the start of the year, although they don't start running shows until July. He ends the year getting utterly smashed by Tito Ortiz in a MMA fight.







TLDR version: Starts the decade with the full rocket push from WWE, winning the Rumble, MITB, and WWE Championship all in his first year. By the middle of a decade he leaves and returns to WWE, develops a coke habit, leaves WWE again, gets a reputation for no showing, publicly starts dating a co-worker while he's married leading to him losing his wife and kids, gets hit with domestic abuse charges, slums it in TNA at perhaps their darkest time, can't even keep a job there because of no showing, gets one last chance at AAA and bails on them (after bailing on them to return to WWE while he was champ before), can only work for random Mexican indies by the end of the decade because none of the majors will take him, has to open his own promotion to get regular bookings, gets destroyed in a MMA fight to end 2019.



:flabbynsick:
 

R=G

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Could of been real special if they amplified his character to a Million Dollar Man/Cartel leader hybrid who could pay Steph for title shots and setting super faces up to keep the title. Limited creative ruined him. There is much I could of got out of him to make him stand out like no one else over the last 9 years.
 

TheGodling

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I think you downplay how badly he fukked up his Lucha Underground run. He came in hot as fukk and holding the AAA championship and you could tell they were gonna build the show around him as a lucha legend, but he was mad they didn't push him into the title picture right away so he left. His legend spot in LU was then filled by Rey Mysterio who ended up having a major career resurgence in that position. :heh:
 

Dave7

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Damn you might be right...he was literally placed as a top guy everywhere and couldn’t get over:francis:


I was at the LU taping when he debuted... the pop for him was huge since he was looked at as the underdog that beat out the big machine and was still succeeding...he could have easily rebuilt off of that but lackluster performances, no shows, and him all around being a mark for himself ended that real fast.
 
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TheGreatShowtime

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Dude was done after they scaled back everything that made him appealing. The cars, the scarfs, the pyro laced ring entrances and Ricardo. Once they took all that away, he was just a Mexican Create A Wrestler.

He could've still worked with Ricardo without the cars/pyro/etc. Separating Ricardo from Alberto and putting Ricardo with RVD is one of the dumbest things they've ever done. From what I remember, Ricardo wanted to wrestle. They could've let him wrestle on Main Event/NXT to keep him happy.

From all I've heard/read, I think Cokeboy still likes Alberto & Triple H was the proponent for driving him out. As long as Cokeboy is still kicking it, I think Alberto has a chance of coming back.
 

richaveli83

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