I had a chance to re-watch the debut of Chris Harris on ECW the other week and my god was it disappointing. This guy was once dubbed one half of the new Edge and Christian (in TNA as America’s Most Wanted with James Storm), and now he sports a generic jobber’s singlet and has a name that just makes you want to call him Bradley or Brandon. A Braden Walker sounds like something my elderly grandmother might use.

This is either an extreme case of development failing a good wrestler and sucking all the life out of him, or a wrestler who just decided to give up, right as he made it in to the big leagues. You couldn’t put it better than former ECW/WCW/WWE star Lance Storm:

“Speaking of huge wastes, quite the debut for Braden Walker. I don’t know Chris Harris but anyone who shows up for their WWE debut in the worst shape of their career, deserves to be fired. Wellness policy aside, I don’t believe the treadmill is on the banned substance list!”

It’s quite probable that he was worried and wanted to bulk up for WWE’s big man fetish, but didn’t have the nutritional knowledge to do so effectively, who knows?

It’s as if somebody set him up to fail deliberately. I mean if they thought he was ready in the ring because he can half near flatten people with a cross body and they deliberately made him dress like that and cut that promo then they either want him to come off bad for some political reason or development in itself is a big fat failure.

Chris Harris was one of my favorite wrestlers in TNA despite hanging up on a radio show I used to work for during an interview. He was sound in the ring, had a good amount of size and was passable on the mic. Maybe WWE just isn’t suited to everyone.

Still I look forward to seeing how he develops unless he’s already back in development. Some of the worst debuts have resulted in some of the biggest stars.