Squashed into the Main Event

Hi Scott,
I imagine Bryan/Sheamus WMXXVIII wasn’t meant to be complete burial of DB that it looks like in retrospect but I think everyone can agree, turning DB into a main event superstar was NOT the point of the match. Had the match essentially gone as designed, I imagine Bryan would’ve been shunted to mid-card and feuded interchangeably with Miz/Dolph/Kane/Etc. Instead, he’s winning the world title at WM 2 years later.

Has there ever been a match like that one? Has there ever been a match where the intent was, basically, to make someone look bad and ended up turning them into a superstar?

Thoughts?

​The Bryan thing was obviously very unique, but the closest I can think of was Chris Jericho’s losing streak gimmick at the beginning of 1998, where they didn’t really have any clear direction for him and he seemingly got beat all the time until he "snapped" and reinvented his own character into Conspiracy Victim Jericho.

Maybe they should try squashing Reigns in 18 seconds and see if that works?

​