This article and future parts is based on those wrestler's who, whether it be as a major star in WWE and went to Impact or ROH etcetera, or vice-versa, and went from from main event scene to curtain jerking shows and becoming enhancement talents for others to step over.
Here is part one, with a list of of five stars, handpicked stars by the Through The Ropes team, depicting the biggest transformations of big time to nothing and nothing to big time.
1. CURT HAWKINS
We start off with Curt Hawkins, who started off in WWE with a fairly big push, even though it wasn't as the highlighted star. Hawkins was apart of main eventer Edge's faction called La Familia and Edge's "Edgeheads" backup team with Zack Ryder. Hawkins would then go off the rails and find himself struggling to find anything that would reboot his staggering career. Following a brief departure from WWE, Hawkins would rebrand himself as Brian Myers, with a cool new look and see moderate success in Jeff Jarrett's newly found promotion Global Force Wrestling. While Myers' pinnacle since leaving the WWE was being one half of the TNA World Tag Team Champions with Trevor Lee as apart of the GFW Invasion, If given time, I'm sure that he would have surely been signed to ROH or NJPW in the near future, But Myers would head back to WWE, where the best gimmick that he could be given was a losing streak gimmick.
2. TJP
He was a former TNA/Impact X-Division Champion, he was repackaged on-air by Hulk Hogan none-the-less, But following a run with James Storm in his Revolution faction, then known Manik, TJ would struggle to rebounce. However, Following an immediate signing with WWE, Perkins would hit gold when he would win the first ever Cruiserweight Classic tournament and become the first WWE Cruiserweight champion of the new era. While TJ has yet to see the heights that he achieved when he first walked through the WWE doors, he is certainly being used better than he was in the latter part of his TNA career.
3. CHRISTIAN CAGE
From struggling with humiliating segments and matches to stupid gimmicks, Christian had a tough singles run following his breakup with tag team partner Edge. But in 2005, Christian would leave WWE and make way to the promised land of TNA, Where he would procure the NWA World Championship on two occasions, and see major success, making the path clear for more legends and stars such as Kurt Angle and The Dudley Boyz to see career revivals outside of the WWE. Cage would then head back to WWE after a hugely successful tenure in TNA, and become ECW World Champion in the revived brand. While that WWE-ECW era wasn't looked on with much happiness, Christian would again get a big push as he became WWE World Champion around 2011, He was back in the main event picture, where he was rightfully supposed to be.
4. SAMOA JOE
In the final part of his TNA career, Joe was looking very slobbish in the ring and it was clear that he didn't give two craps about the company or the matches, as he bouts proved. Even tough he had a good role in the faction "The Beat Down Clan" with MVP, Low-Ki and Homicide, Joe decided that it was time to leave, and would leave his longtime home and head back to ROH for a short time, before debuting in WWE NXT, where he would become revamped and replenished, as his matches with [Shinsuke] Nakamura proved. Joe now resides in the main event scene with fellow TNA alumni AJ Styles, a place that Joe hadn't seen in TNA for a very long time.
5. EC3
EC3 by far, had the single biggest career transformation in many years. From being a relatively unknown contestant on the duff version of NXT, to becoming the undefeated, unpinned, unsubmitted, 2 time World Champion in Impact Wrestling/TNA. EC3 would be given a gimmick which simply couldn't just be cancelled or be made to job by management, as he was billed as the Nephew of the then president of the company, Dixie Carter. Despite the big pressure, EC3 didn't fail, He shun unlike anything that TNA has ever seen since the days of Kurt Angle in his first year in TNA. EC3 would improve in the ring tremendously, to the point where he simply just couldn't not be put in the main event scene. EC3 in 2018 felt he needed redemption in WWE, so he departed from the company, despite being near the main event scene at the time of his departure.
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