WWE’s Von Wagner, who was still highly regarded two and a half years ago, is part of the wave of layoffs after WrestleMania, it has now been revealed.
Vince McMahon sees him as an upcoming WrestleMania headliner. That’s all you need to know about his internal status with WWE.
This statement from an unnamed league insider – quoted by the portal WrestlingHeadlines.co – caused quite a stir in the wrestling scene almost three years ago.
The main match of WrestleMania, the most important show of the WWE year, that year featured Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins and megastar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The showdown market leader and its then all-powerful founder McMahon had big plans for Von Wagner – this impression was also fueled by other media and not least WWE itself with the way Wagner was staged.
However, it is now clear that the high hopes have not been fulfilled. The 29-year-old was quietly and secretly released last week, as reported by the well-informed portal Fightful. The highly touted talent has turned out to be a flop
Ex-WWE boss saw all the assets in Von Wagner
The potential of the 1.96-meter man from Minnesota seemed enormous, and not just from McMahon’s point of view: Wagner – real name: Calvin Bloom – had an imposing look, great athletic ability and wrestling genes.
Bloom was a high-profile college football player as a tight end for the UCF Knights from Florida and is the son of former WWE and WCW wrestler Wayne Bloom (Beau Beverly).
In March 2019, WWE announced Bloom’s signing, he trained at the Orlando Performance Center and was gradually introduced to bigger roles under the direction of legend Shawn Michaels: The circumstances surrounding his TV debut in September 2021 made it clear what the McMahon regime saw in him.
Stepless start in the NXT developmental squad
Wagner’s television debut coincided with a major internal shakeup at WWE: McMahon, under pressure from a ratings crisis and successfully established rival AEW, had his entire rookie system revamped at the time.
He fired numerous talents who did not fit into his concept (including the newly crowned AEW World Champ Swerve Strickland), curtailed the power of his crown prince “Triple H” Paul Levesque and ordered a restructuring of the NXT developmental roster – with even more focus on young, physically outstanding college athletes and less on lightweight independent stars.
Wagner fit this mold and was presented in a big way at “NXT 2.0”. He fought for the NXT Title in his debut and was given a bigger program with established veteran Kyle O’Reilly.
A quick promotion to the main roster was also on the cards, with Wagner appearing on SmackDown in November 2021 as an unnamed bodyguard for General Manager Adam Pearce – a storyline that was quickly dropped.
The potential has not unfolded
A lot has changed at WWE in the past two and a half years, McMahon, who was ousted over disturbing scandal allegations, no longer rules, Levesque is now the strong man and the league is in a new boom era. The change of concept in the promotion of young talent has long since been put into perspective.
While the son of legend Bron Breakker, who started out at the same time as Wagner, has defied all the political upheavals and has since embarked on a promising main squad career, things went quiet around Wagner some time ago.
Although he was officially promoted to the main roster as a “free agent” in last year’s WWE Draft, he was only used once in an A-show: as a participant in a Battle Royal for an Intercontinental title match in May last year.
The potential McMahon attested to Wagner has not unfolded, and in his TV appearances he clearly lacked the star aura WWE was looking for. The decision-makers responsible are now said to have come to the conclusion that Wagner’s progress has not been sufficient.
According to Fightful, Wagner was shown the door last week, along with former champion Jinder Mahal and several other talents whose development WWE was dissatisfied with (Veer, Sanga, Xia Li, Xyon Quinn). However, word of Wagner’s departure didn’t get out until a few days later