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In WWE, when you're not on television and pay-per-views, it's very easy to be forgotten about.
The longer this goes on, the worse it is for someone's career, as there are mostly three reasons why someone would be off TV for several weeks or longer.
At best, this is because the wrestler is busy filming a movie or doing other promotional work that WWE will reward them for later down the road when they're ready to return. This is the only reasoning that has a positive yield, while the other two are awful.
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Sometimes, it's because a Superstar is injured or otherwise incapacitated and unable to perform. When that happens, WWE will once in a while find a way to utilize them in other roles just to keep them on screen.
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The worst case scenario is when nothing is preventing them from wrestling, but the writing staff feels it would be a waste of time to invest in them.
The phrase "creative has nothing for you" can be a death knell to performers who sit on the shelves for too long and are unable to get back in good graces as they aren't given an opportunity to showcase their skills on a bigger platform than just the house shows.
Currently, there are several wrestlers in WWE who have not competed in the ring in over 30 days, for various reasons. Let's take a look at who those men and women are.
The Colons
Both Primo and Epico Colon have been out of action for quite some time, although they don't have exactly the same situation going on.
Primo's last match was on the pre-show for Money in the Bank on June 18th where he and Epico lost to The Hype Bros.
Following that, he suffered an injury and has been healing from that setback, while Epico has remained healthy.
Since Primo has been out of action, there's been less for Epico to do as a singles performer and his last appearance on SmackDown was the Independence Day Battle Royal to determine the No. 1 contender to the United States Championship, which was on July 4th.
Four More Battle Royal Participants
There were actually four more men who competed in the Independence Day Battle Royal who have not made appearances since then.
Erick Rowan, Luke Harper, Sin Cara and Dolph Ziggler have all been missing in action since that July 4th match, although the first three have wrestled consistently on house shows, even facing off in tag team matches where Rowan has teamed with Aiden English to face Harper and Cara.
The most interesting of the bunch, though, is Dolph Ziggler, who was unceremoniously dumped out of the ring very early on in that battle royal, particularly as he was one of the biggest names in the match.
Since then, not a peep has been heard, and with Shinsuke Nakamura possibly spoiling Ziggler's future plans to leave WWE and wrestle in Japan, this may be a sign that WWE decided not to put him on television any longer as he'd be out the door soon enough.
Goldust
While Goldust has made appearances in vignettes such as the one this week where he said he would be doing something at SummerSlam, he hasn't actually wrestled a match since his victory over R-Truth on the July 10th edition of Monday Night Raw.
While "more than a month" has not truly passed by since that date quite yet, given that there is only a small chance he will wrestle on the episodes of Raw leading up to SummerSlam, it appears as though the next time we'll see him in the ring will be August 20th at the very least, if not the August 21st edition of Raw or possibly even later than that.
Titus O'Neil
Titus O'Neil is in a similar position to Goldust in that he's made appearances as the manager of Apollo Crews and Akira Tozawa on both Monday Night Raw and 205 Live, but he hasn't actually gotten his hands dirty in the ring in quite some time.
His last match was June 19th where he and Apollo Crews lost to the current Raw tag team champions, Cesaro and Sheamus.
At any given moment, WWE could decide to put O'Neil in a match on Raw, but it appears unlikely he'll have a match at SummerSlam and with the current trend of having him purely as a manager, I wouldn't bet on him stepping between the ropes over the next few weeks.
The Singh Brothers
Technically speaking, The Singh Brothers have not had a match on television ever in WWE as far as Raw and SmackDown are concerned.
Since joining the main roster as Sunil and Samir, the two have been Jinder Mahal's lackeys on nearly every episode of SmackDown Live, but during the course of their partnership, they've oddly never wrestled an official match.
The last time these two performers competed in the ring was on the April 5th edition of NXT where they lost to Heavy Machinery, but they were still going by the moniker of The Bollywood Boyz Gurv and Harv Sihra at the time.
Nikki Bella
Our first woman on the list is Nikki Bella, who has been taking time off to heal from lingering injuries as well as keeping herself busy with a multitude of other projects.
She's certainly had her time occupied with the launch of her and sister Brie's Birdiebee line as well as the assumed wedding planning for her and John Cena's ceremony.
The last time Nikki Bella was in action was at WrestleMania 33 on April 1st where she and her future husband defeated The Miz and Maryse in a mixed tag team match.
James Ellsworth
Yes, James Ellsworth returned to television this week after a storyline suspension, but while he's interfered in plenty of Carmella's matches over the past few months, he himself hasn't actually wrestled in any of them for a long time.
Ellsworth's last match was on the March 7th edition of SmackDown Live where he and Carmella teamed up to face John Cena and Nikki Bella in a losing effort.
Darren Young
2017 has been almost entirely devoid of Darren Young, as his last match on WWE television was the January 16th episode of Main Event, wherein he lost to Epico.
This is a particularly atrocious statistic to have, as a loss is bad, a loss to Epico is even worse, a loss to Epico on Main Event of all shows is just horrendous, and he followed this up with an injury that has shelved him for eight months.
Young is supposedly cleared and will be returning to action somewhat soon, so hopefully, for himself and his fans, he'll come back with more vigour instead of picking up where he left off in the land of the jobbers.
Kane
At this point in the list, the final three wrestlers have actually been off WWE television in a wrestling capacity for the entirety of 2017 and longer.
First up is Kane, who is currently busy running for Mayor of Knox County in Knoxville, Tennessee.
There's a possibility he may even be retired from the wrestling business, but no official announcement of the sort has been made at this point.
Kane was last seen on the November 29, 2016, edition of SmackDown Live where he defeated Luke Harper.
Summer Rae
Summer Rae has had little luck on the main roster since coming up from NXT, where her most prolific time was spent as Fandango's valet.
For the most part, she's hovered around with nothing to do and filled the Rosa Mendes role of being a go-to jobber who never receives much of a push, or if she does find herself in a storyline, it only lasts a few weeks.
This has been even worse for the most recent chunk of her career as it has been over one full year since Summer Rae has wrestled on WWE television.
Her last televised in-ring appearance was in the July 18, 2016, edition of Superstars—which has since been cancelled and most people didn't watch, to begin with—wherein she defeated Alicia Fox.
Summer Rae is supposedly healed up enough to return to action, but weeks have gone by since those reports came out and there's been nothing to indicate that she will be returning.
It seems as though her job for the past year has been to just post bikini photos on Snapchat and Instagram instead of actually being a WWE wrestler.
Paige
Finally, the WWE Superstar with the longest time absent from wrestling on screen is Paige.
For a while, Paige was The Anti-Diva and the figurehead of the division, taking the mantle from AJ Lee both physically and symbolically.
Nowadays, she has become a near constant source of tabloid gossip as she perpetually causes scenes in public with the equally embarrassing Alberto Del Rio, has two suspensions to her career, may possibly be charged with battery and could be fired from WWE.
Her injuries and all these problems have prevented her from competing in a WWE ring since June 27, 2016, if you would believe it's been that long.
Paige's last match was a tag team match where she and Sasha Banks defeated Charlotte Flair and Dana Brooke on Monday Night Raw.
It will be interesting to see which of these Superstars returns to action first and which ones may never wrestle for the company again.
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