5 onscreen pairings with the least chemistry

Honourable mention goes to Lita’ÂÂs forgettable partnership with Essa RiosThere are some pairings on screen that shout instant chemistry like when the defiant Stone Cold Steve Austin was the perfect opponent for Vince McMahon's oppressive boss character.Shawn Michaels would never have been celebrated as an all-time great had it not been for his matches with Bret Hart and vice versa.However, there have been onscreen pairings that have baffled the WWE fans with their lack of chemistry. Remember how Lita used to run around with Essa Rios before joining Team Xtreme?If you don’t, that is not really your fault!This list takes a look at those onscreen partnerships in the WWE that reeked of - well, something quite opposite to awesomeness.

#5 Rob Van Dam and Ricardo Rodriguez

The picture says it all – RVD and Rodriguez combo was never going to be successful

This partnership stank from the first night of its existence.

Ricardo Rodriguez had been the personal ring announcer for Mexican aristocrat AlbertoDel ‘Rrrrrrio’ and their partnership succeeded in gaining quite a lot of heat from the WWE fans.

So when the WWE Creative decided to let Del Rio turn on Rodriguez, the latter needed a baby face to take on his Mexican opponent. Against all logic and grey matter, enter Rob Van Dam.

Van Dam had been an extremely popular babyface ever since coming to the WWE and a part of his ‘coolness’ was attributed to his laid-back attitude that had endeared him to a large number of fans. So it was not a bad idea to pit him with someone who could act as his mouthpiece. But that someone should never have been Rodriguez.

It seemed to baffle everyone as to what RVD and Rodriguez had in common so as to pair up. Rodriguez continued to serve in his capacity as a personal ring announcer – only this time, he was wearing an RVD t-shirt. All other mannerisms remained exactly like his Del Rio days.

Needless to say, the fans never bought into this and the partnership fizzled out almost as soon as it began.

RVD had proven throughout his WWE stint that he worked better either alone or as part of a wrestling tag team. The only time he had worked with a manager during his time in the WWE was with Paul Heyman in 2005 as part of the ECW reincarnation angle ( if you forget the Invasion storyline).

While that angle came off well due to the past history between Van Dam and Heyman, the experiment with Rodriguez failed miserably. The WWE fans just saw the partnership as another one of those lazy booking decisions that the WWE Creative had become famous for and refused to go along with it.

#4 Rusev and Summer Rae

Rusev and Summer Rae never caught on as a team

Summer Rae always gives her best, but sadly she has never understood the subtleties of how to develop an onscreen chemistry in the WWE.

Summer did pretty well as the dancing valet of Fandango when the latter tip toed on to the scene – but that role involved zero mike skills and no serious acting prowess. Summer’s flaws came out in to the open as soon as she became involved in those awful triangle love storylines with Fandango and Layla.

Her acting was downright pathetic and she never convinced any one to take her seriously as a face ora heel, whatever she was trying to portray. She was shunted out of TV for a while before making another horrible appearance as Mizdow’s and later Miz’s valet.

But nothing was as bad as the time when she was forced to become Lana 2.0 and was paired up with Rusev.

The partnership of Rusev and Lana had worked magic and Lana’s portrayal as the Russian manager of Rusev – with the tight office suits and the sexy bun - had fans begging for more. WWE decided that Lana would be better off if she was a face and paired her with DolphZiggler. Meanwhile, they needed some one to manage Rusev.

Soon enough, Summer was roped in for doing exactly that – only problem was that Summer – Rusev had as much chemistry as Pete Gas would have if he had ever teamed up with Scott Steiner.

They were downright awful. Summer copied Lana’s choice of apparel and tried her best to recreate her magic with Rusev, but nothing ever came out of it. WWE seemed to have big money written on Ziggler and Lana vs Rusev and Summer, but the lack of chemistry inside both teams – mostly among the latter – soon saw the project shelved.

That segment when Summer took to one knee and proposed to Rusev with a supposedly heart warming plea still makes me want to puke every time I think of it.

The fans were getting tired of the quadrangular love story and Summer’s acting skills were not helping that in any way. Thankfully, Rusev and Lana’s real life relationship became all too well known and WWE decided to pull the plug on the feud.

Nowadays, Summer accompanies Tyler Breeze to the ring. But it is anybody’s guess as to how long that will last.

#3 La Familia

La Familia failed to entertain the WWE fans

WWE Hall of Famer Edge rarely gets it wrong when it comes to his choice of partners – whether it be Christian, Lita or Randy Orton.

However, when it came to building a stable around himself, the group that he came up with was absolutely horrendous.

Named La Familia, it involved his on-screen girlfriend/wife Vickie Guerrero, Vickie’s brother in law Chavo, Bam Neely, Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins. While Edge forming a stable with the nephew of his girlfriend’s late husband was weird to begin with, La Familia definitely bored everyone to death with their lack of chemistry soon enough.

A successful stable focusses on the character development of each of its members and the desirable result is to have each member get over once the stable breaks up. Remember how the Evolution angle that extended for nearly two years unearthed two of the greatest stars of the past decade in Randy Orton and Batista.

Well, La Familia did nothing of the sort for Edge’s companions in the group and all were back to jobbing status once the stable split up.

While Hawkins and Ryder interfering in the Rated R Superstar’s match with The Undertaker as fake Edges did have some appeal, the remaining acts really sucked this group up.

Vickie’s overbearing nature as the SmackDown GM had passed its sell by date and the show was becoming pretty stale. What Bam Neely saw in Chavo Guerrero to become his sidekick was anyone’s guess and it was soon apparent that it was a stretch to imagine the four members of the group save Edge – ever successfully registering a beat down on Undertaker.

They were more often than not used as glorified jobbers and while it did result in a tag team title reign for Hawkins and Ryder and an ECW title reign for Chavo, the stable never really took off.

And when Edge finally disbanded La Familia after cheating on his wife onscreen and administering a Con-chairto to Chavo, everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

#2 The New Rockers

The New Rockers had zero onscreen chemistry

Any tag team named the ‘New’ something is a definite death knell in wrestling.

Whether it be the multiple reincarnations of the Road Warriors, The Four Horsemen or many other stables over the years. But nothing was as bad as the New Rockers.

Shawn Michaels had just sent Marty Jannetty through Brutus Beefcake’s Barbershop glass, signalling the dissolution of the Rockers and was well on his way to becoming the new cocky face of the WWE.

Jannetty who had a short feud with Michaels over the Intercontinental title during the aftermath of the split decided to recreate the old magic of the Rockers with a new partner. Who would be able to replace the charismatic Heart Break Kid?

Quite incredibly, the substitute was Al Snow!!!!! Let me reiterate what I have just written – Al Snow was roped in to replace Shawn Michaels.

Now to be fair, no body would have imagined the rise in popularity Michaels would have over the years and how Snow – wrestling as Leif Cassidy would remain in perennial jobber status. Any ways, Snow did not do his case any good with the horrible chemistry he had with Jannetty.

The New Rockers were nothing like the energetic and crowd favourite first version and the tag team died a quick and embarrassing death soon after.

Jannetty’s real life problems would catch up with him soon enough and he would leave the WWE where as Snow would have multiple gimmick changes and would never quite live up to his potential either.

#1 Mark Henry and Mae Young

Mark Henry and Mae Young were once an on-screen item

Downright, the most baffling angle that WWE has ever produced.

When WWE signed Olympic wrestler Mark Henry on a ten-year contract in 1996, they seemed to have big plans for him. Henry’s initial angles alongside D-Lo Brown and The Nation of Domination did not exactly set the roof on fire, but nobody thought he warranted the ‘Sexual Chocolate’ gimmick.

Henry was portrayed as a lovable sex addict – how a sex addict can be lovable is open to conjecture – and was portrayed on screen to be in a relationship with the nearly 100 year (!!!) old Mae Young.

To be fair to Henry, the storyline was so bad that no chemistry with Young would have saved the angle, but it is difficult to look past their pairing in this list purely because of the disgust WWE fans felt when they saw them together in the ring.

Henry never came across as a charming man who could woo the ladies – unlike Val Venis’ porn star gimmick – and him and Mae becoming a couple seriously threatened the intelligence of the WWE fans at that time.

The angle proceeded to show Henry having intercourse (kayfabe) with Young and the couple awaiting their child because apparently Mae had gotten pregnant (geez – it pains me to write this).

And when Mae gave birth, the baby was a hand – a hand!!

If you think Ted Turner’s money was the only reason for WCW to surge ahead of WWE in those times, this angle would definitely make you think again.

Henry – Mae angle was so bad that the fan backlash to it was one of the reasons to usher in the Attitude era. Henry would have to wait a decade to be taken seriously ever again by the WWE fans.