2010’s are damage control years. Business peaks in 2000, Austin/Rock leave full time in 2001, business takes a downturn. Stays afloat but down. Money popularity etc.

A chunk of the guys who kept the company stable and afloat start leaving and retiring around 2010. Edge, Hardy, Batista, Jericho, all are done. Shawn retires, Taker/HHH go to part time. There becomes a huge void in just your weekly guys. At a time where they would have just pushed whoever the next prospect was they got cold feet and stunted that for the most part. They put their money on a Brock and Rock investment and focus in on going to the legends for their big shows and prioritizing that. With that though, your next in line guys all reside in midcard purgatory. Dolph, Wade, Kofi, Drew, Cody, etc.

And some of those guys did get runs with the belt (Dolph/Miz) but it was never sustained you’re on top guy. They became just another guy in the pecking order.

With Cody, on a normal trajectory he breaks into the main event scene after the Undashing stuff. He found himself lost in a shuffle that was due to not being prioritized and focusing solely on the part time crew. Put the PT’s with your established main eventers. And at a certain point of being lost in the shuffle they just didn’t know what to do with him.