And You Thought It Would Fail / Other Media

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• Hal Johnson, an African-Canadian athlete turned TV journalist, tired of the racist mistreatment he was enduring on The Sports Network among other Canadian broadcasters, proposed the Body Break series of TV fitness and nutrition informational spots with himself and his white wife, Joanne McLeod. TSN turned it down flat, claiming that the Canadian public would not accept a mixed-race couple on TV. Johnson and McLeod approached the Federal government funded fitness promotion organization, ParticapACTION, and they agreed to fund the series. Body Break would become a mainstay of Canadian TV for decades, and when Johnson came forward in 2020 about the story of the series' creation, TSN posted an official apology for how they mistreated him.
• Executives at advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners thought a little campaign called Got Milk? wouldn't work, because its name "was lazy, not to mention grammatically incorrect". The campaign was a runaway success, became a pop culture icon, and was a Trope Codifier for Snowclones.

Anime & Manga

• Assassination Classroom hinges on kids learning how to kill their teacher with guns (It Makes Sense in Context), which given the history of school shootings in America, didn't seem it would fly high. That fact is why it took so long to avert No Export for You. However, once it finally did, it's been a fixture on the New York Time's bestseller lists, so it's safe to say it's done well despite all the fears.
• Masayuki Ozaki, the executive producer of Tiger & Bunny, stated that no one expected the series to be successful (namely because of the belief that nobody would want to watch a superhero anime with a middle-aged single father as its primary protagonist), much less become the instant Cash-Cow Franchise it is now.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion was a last-ditch attempt by Studio Gainax to stay afloat, and was not expected to turn out extremely well. An Urban Legend even claims that investors were hoping for a Springtime for Hitler situation.
• Before the English release of SHUFFLE!, anime based on eroge with the porn removed from the adaptation were not commonly licensed, with rumors flying around that Moral Guardians would throw a fit if they ended up on store shelves. When Funimation licensed the series, nearly every blog and forum was raising its collective eyebrows and wondering why the distributor obviously hated making money. The first volume of SHUFFLE! came out and sold tons of copies, and Funi decided to give the final volume a special edition art box release (which had been common a few years earlier, but in the wake of Geneon's fall, not so much) if the second volume sold as well. It did. Now you can't walk into a video store without tripping over eroge adaptations, whether or not they actually have a plot.
• Code Geass was the very definition of Troubled Production thanks to this trope. Director/co-creator Goro Taniguchi asked for a 50-episode series, but Bandai Namco only gave him 25, for reasons that remain unclear^note Some say they felt Taniguchi was "untested", others say it's because he's a perfectionist and somewhat hard to work with — or because previous works of his like Planetes and GUN×SWORD had not done too well in the Japanese market. Even then, the staff had limited resources and had to piggy-back off of other Bandai shows in production at the time. When the show took off and became the Next Big Thing, Bandai was quick to embrace it, though unlike Yoshiyuki Tomino and Gundam, Taniguchi and fellow co-creator Ichiro Okouchi were smart enough to hold onto the rights.
• Many within the gaming and anime fandoms questioned whether Cyberpunk: Edgerunners would amount to anything special. For one, the series serves as a prequel to Cyberpunk 2077, a game that became infamous for its rough launch two years prior. Moreover, when showrunner Rafal Jaki initially pitched it to several anime studios during pre-production, most were skeptical and uninterested (outside of TRIGGER), as they found the story to be too "crazy" and "unsuitable" for animation. However, since the series' premiere, critics and viewers concur that Studio TRIGGER nailed it, with the series scoring a 8.7 IMDb score and a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. The anime hit the top 5 in Netflix's most-watched shows in Western and Japanese markets alike, and its Love Theme "I Really Want to Stay at Your House" became a viral musical hit with the song topping Spotify's viral chart and entering the Top 100 charts in Australia, Canada, and the UK. Moreover, the anime's success has triggered a Newbie Boom for the game. 22 months after its troubled launch, the game became the top-selling game on Steam and its daily peak concurrent players on Steam spiked to 136,724 in September 2022, a 7x increase compared to the previous month.
• The first Attack on Titan manuscript was sent to Shueisha to publish in Weekly Shonen Jump, who said it was good, but not good enough for Jump, and rejected it. The author then sent it to rival Kodansha, who published it in their monthly Bessatsu Shounen Magazine. It goes without saying it became a Sleeper Hit, growing in popularity to surpass famous long-runners like Bleach.
• Ask any voice actor of any anime that was successful in the US. None of them expected the shows they were working on to be anything more than weird little projects with quick paychecks. This goes all the way back to Speed Racer, later Robotech, and continued with Ranma ½, Tenchi Muyo!, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon: The Series, Cowboy Bebop, and others. The Pokémon voice actors didn't expect to work more than 26 episodes, let alone hundreds, for their show to be parodied on South Park and The Simpsons, and continue to have a lasting fanbase twenty years later.
• Yuri!!! on Ice: Before its first episode was released, there was not much hype for the anime, especially since there were two anime adaptations from popular Cast Full of Pretty Boys-focused franchises airing in the same season (the fourth season of Uta No Prince Sama and Touken Ranbu - Hanamaru). The anime not only outdid the other two, it also became an internet juggernaut, constantly trending on Twitter and Tumblr (in the latter network, the anime steadily kept first place on the trending tags every Wednesday and Thursday, even on the day of the 2016 US Elections, and crashed Tumblr when the final episode came out). The anime even attracted the attention of professional figure skaters, and has a large LGBT Fanbase, besides the average sports anime fan. The fact that it went to groundbreaking lengths by making the two male leads an Official Couple, portraying a healthy normalized same-sex interracial couple, besides the diversity of nationality and race of the rest of the cast, a first in mainstream and sports anime, helped the show go neck-to-neck with other extremely popular series like One-Punch Man and Attack on Titan and surpass all other sports anime that aired in 2016.
• While he never outright stated it would fail, Eiichiro Oda never dreamed that One Piece would become the smash hit it did, planning on ending the series after five years. He was off by a few decades.
• Nobody involved with the 5 year production of Odd Taxi thought it would be successful or gain much traction. There weren't any plans for a Blu-Ray release, English dub, or anything beyond what they were making, and the exception by the team was that very few would turn into watching the show. Thanks to strong word of mouth during and after it's release, Odd Taxi would become one of the highest rated anime originals of all time while being a critical and commercial success.
• Prior to its release, people unfamiliar with Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid were angry at KyoAni because they were under the impression that it was generic fanservice and moe. Those who had read the manga merely laughed as everyone else quickly changed their tune when it came out.
• The Irregular at Magic High School was this for its Dengeki Bunko publishing house. While this novel was quite popular on the Internet, none of the publishers wanted to license it, since the settings for Invincible Hero with his ideal Big Brother Worship sister, which are a step away from Brother–Sister Incest, would obviously have very poor sales. Even the editor who gave him the greenlight said that this work "completely contradicts all those rules, which must correspond to a good light novel." Nevertheless, he decided to take a risk, and in the end, this novel became the second title for the popularity and sales of volumes in the publishing house.
• Kemono Friends: Based on a dead mobile game about animal girls with only ten people working on it for five hundred days, No Budget and full of incredibly obvious 3D mixed with 2D, even the creators expected it to flop terribly. Yet the generally decent writing, solid character designs and surprisingly compelling Ontological Mystery made for a solid watch, and it ultimately became extremely popular through internet word-of-mouth. Its first episode became the most-watched anime episode on Nico Nico Douga; disc sets and merchandise quickly sold out, and the "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune reached #3 on Japan's iTunes rankings.
• King of Prism was initially planned as a 13-episode late-night television series, and Masakazu Hishida had always wanted to create a spin-off of Pretty Rhythm: Rainbow Live that would focus on the male characters. However, Avex rejected the proposal twice, the second time after they had reworked it into a film, and told them that they would only follow through if they could provide evidence people wanted it. After Hishida and other staff members managed to accrue evidence, Avex allowed them to make the film but gave them very little budget and promotion in addition to limiting the film to only 60 minutes. In fact, the film was actually given screening events in 14 theaters. However, when the cheer screenings became popular and famous media figures like Tomokazu Sugita promoted it, the film actually ended up grossing 800 million yen and became one of the most successful films in 2016. A sequel immediately followed, along with a franchise.
• When he first released the first chapter of his third manga series, Kōhei Horikoshi felt it might not stay popular, but carried on with it because he enjoyed it. My Hero Academia ended up becoming one of the most popular mangas of the modern age.
• Not many analysts even made any predictions about Dragon Ball Super: Broly's international release. Those that did predicted the film's limited release would probably do about as well as the two other recent Dragon Ball movies — which is to say, not well at all. Those within the Dragon Ball fandom were skeptical that a film starring a re-imagining of such a Base-Breaking Character like Broly could do well. Dragon Ball Super: Broly ended up being the number one movie in the USA for several days, and stayed in the top five during its opening weekend. It far surpassed any of the previous international releases of Dragon Ball movies, and was the third most successful anime movie ever in the international market. It also was met with fairly positive critical praise, again atypical for anime movies. Experts were baffled that a movie that hadn't been on their radar was crushing it.^note  It helps that the company treated the marketing of the film more seriously than any of the franchise's other films, treating and marketing it as a "proper" movie rather than some cartoon tie-in.
• Dropkick on My Devil is an interesting example of this. While it did moderately okay during it's run in the 2010s, it was expected by most to not last beyond one anime season when it given an adaptation in 2018, which quietly came and went without any fanfare. Thanks to a strong cult following buying Blu-Ray sales to make a 2nd season happen and later crowdfunding for a 3rd season, it was able to be saved from complete obscurity as it became profitable in Japan, to where it'd later get a better reception than when it did when it was originally released as it continued along.
• In 2010, Bang Zoom! Entertainment's CEO, Eric P. Sherman, made a very controversial statement stating that the studio will most likely will stop producing dubs for anime if the industry doesn't improve (as well as addressing the issue of piracy and fansubs), thus fans thought this will be the end of dubbing as we know it. Years later, Bang Zoom still continues to dub anime for Aniplex USA, Viz Media, and even NIS America with the reissuing of Toradora! with an English dub.
• Steven Spielberg and George Lucas called AKIRA "unmarketable" in the United States. The manga and its film adaptation are now widely considered to be the greatest of all time by many, and even highly influential in Western media.
• Before the anime of KonoSuba aired, the editor of Sneaker Bunko that was in charge of publishing the original light novels told Natsume Akatsuki to make sure he was gonna have fond memories about it since there wasn't going to be a second season. Said editor fell victim to this trope again when said show did indeed get a 2nd season, in which he outright stated that this would be the last animation of the franchise. The editor himself tweeted about it.
• Articles on Shonen Jump-focused 2ch blogs back in Spring 2016, as well as its comment sections, were filled with comments expecting Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba to not last 10 weeks, or that it won't click with Jump readers well and belongs in a more seinen magazine, among other remarks. Scroll down further and you'll see more recent comments laughing at how off-the-mark such notions were. Examples in Japanese can be seen here.
  • What's interesting is that in those same articles Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs was also getting hit with similar sentiments of it not lasting long, despite also getting an Anime adaptation^note 6 months before Kimetsu did, in fact and a 4-year long run^note albeit more modest than Kimetsu, but still impressive given that the manga was on Jump.
  • Fuji Television passed on broadcasting rights for Kimetsu when Aniplex and Shueisha were looking for a television channel to air the then-upcoming adaptation. Skip to 2020, Fuji found itself having to beg for them to give them the same rights it gave up as the now-super-popular Anime ended up going to smaller, local stations^note Fuji was able to air Kimetsu reruns in the lead up to the release of the Mugen Train movie, as well as Bonds of Siblings and a reedited version of the Natagumoyama Arc on their weekly movie time-slot, and eventually the 2nd season starting in the Fall 2021 coeur.
• Shunpei Maruyama, President of Anime studio Actas, was told by his peers when he entered the company that animating tanks is a fool's errand and not worth the effort required to make it work. Maruyama ended up pitching and overseeing the creation of Girls und Panzer.^note Though not without the infamous Troubled Production which led to the last two episodes being pushed back for three months

Comic Books

• Hergé started with Tintin in 1929, at a time when Europe had no tradition in creating comic strips with text balloons. The comic strip was some filler material in Le Petit Vingtième, the youth section of newspaper Le Vingtième. After he had finished the first story the redaction proposed a publicity stunt in which an actor playing Tintin would arrive on the Brussels station, just like Tintin did at the end of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Hergé agreed, though he was sure that nobody would be around to witness it. To his surprise, the place was full of people! In an interview, he said: "From that moment on, I realized Tintin was on its way up!" And it did. By the end of Hergé's life Tintin had become and still is the most successful European comic strip in the world, about as widespread and popular as any of the Walt Disney comic strips!
• "Come on, Stan, people hate spiders. They're creepy. And everybody knows that teenagers are sidekicks, not superheroes. This Spider-Man idea just won't sell." — Martin Goodman, founder of Marvel Comics (paraphrased by Stan Lee), 1962.
  • Speaking of Spider-Man, when John Romita Sr. replaced Steve Ditko on penciling in 1966, he thought he'd only be working on the book for about six months because he thought superheroes had overstayed their welcome. He has been involved with Marvel Comics' Earth 616 in general, and Spidey in particular, on some level ever since.
• In 1933, two teenage comic strip artists tried to pitch a character they had created, intended for a nationally syndicated strip. It took them six years to find a newspaper publisher who would take it. Every publisher they went to told them the character looked ridiculous and would never catch on. That character? Superman.
• Originally, publishers at Marvel didn't think Storm of the X-Men would be popular because she had white hair and they thought people would think she would look like an old woman. Guess who is one of the most recognizable female superheroes, as well as the most recognizable black superhero, in the industry?
• In 1962, DC Comics purchased the rights to republish a Dr. No comic, and only noticed they had the rights to make James Bond comics when they were about to expire a decade later. Jack Kirby and Alex Toth were even contacted at that point, but the higher-ups ultimately discarded as Sean Connery left the series and they did not know if 007 would still be popular. Not only Connery's replacement Roger Moore kept Bond beloved for over a decade, but the movies are still strong to this day!
• During a 1993 stunt where Marvel introduced a new character in each of their annuals, Mark Gruenwald famously cited Squirrel Girl as an example of the type of character they were trying to avoid. Specifically, he argued that while Squirrel Girl was a fun and interesting character, she was likely never going to be used again. Pretty much all of the characters introduced in the annuals faded into Comic-Book Limbo (save for Genis-Vell, and even he ended up being killed off later), while Squirrel Girl made a comeback in the 2000s and has been appearing as a fan favorite for years. Her series, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, even made it on the New York Times best-seller list.
• In the '80s, Tom Veitch, Cam Kennedy, and Archie Goodwin pitched a comic book sequel to Return of the Jedi called Dark Empire. Marvel was originally going to publish the series, but dropped it after those in charge concluded that nobody would still be interested in Star Wars after the original trilogy had already ended. Not only did Dark Empire prove to be a huge seller for Dark Horse Comics, but the Star Wars franchise as a whole is still extremely popular to this day.
• When Roger Leloup left Hergé's studios to create Yoko Tsuno, Hergé said a female heroine going on science-fiction adventures isn't going to sell and offered him a place back if he needed a job. He never needed to. Yoko Tsuno became a hit and is still being sold to this day.
• This is why Wolverine is Canadian. Back then when John Byrne created him, Marvel allowed the character to be from Canada as they thought he lacked appeal to be anything more than a background dweller in a The Incredible Hulk comic. Once Wolverine became as popular as he is, there were several attempts at retconning his backstory to make him American, to no avail.

Fanfiction

• The Bolt Chronicles: invoked Happens in universe with the new TV show Bolt, in "The Pilot." Despite poor reviews and production values that leave something to be desired, the first episode is a massive runaway hit, described as becoming "a cultural icon of sorts."

Fan Webcomic

• While she was making the drafts of "Athens and Sparta Adventures" (a Fan Webcomic about the personifications of the two titular city-states, which is inspired but not constrained by Axis Powers Hetalia), the creator Hapo was sure that everyone would hate Athens and find him annoying and everyone would love Sparta (considering that the former was a Narcissist, Small Name, Big Ego with few redeeming qualities, while the later was far more well-known in modern culture, it made sense). However, fans enjoyed Athens' ego and his jerkass, but nevertheless, entertaining personality and he ended up becoming "everyone's favourite character" (as she puts it), something she cannot understand. Meanwhile, while Sparta has his fans, he isn't nearly as popular as Athens.

Podcasts

• Random Assault: The podcast had many naysayers back when it was starting out on the Games Radar forums, especially with people thinking of them as a PCN-Gen rip-off.
• When Mike Duncan started The History of Rome in 2007, he thought it might be a hobby during his study days and he'd eventually get bored or nobody would listen to it and he'd abandon it. Fifteen years, two podcasts and a book deal later, he still shows no sign of abandoning podcasting or Roman history.

Pro Wrestling

• Ronda Rousey's badass image took a significant hit after her two back-to-back bad losses in UFC (the first loss actually ending a long undefeated streak, in fact), giving people who had previously liked the idea of her coming to work in WWE serious doubts about it. But when she finally made her in-ring debut at WrestleMania 34 in a mixed tag match with Kurt Angle against Stephanie McMahon and Triple H, it was considered by many to be the show-stealing match on the card- and despite the combined years of experience WWE had put in the ring with her to help guide her in the match, most of the credit for its awesomeness was laid squarely at Ronda's feet, with everyone who had expressed doubts about her eating their words and admitting that she looked amazing. Since then, she's been regarded as one of the best-booked women in the company throughout 2018 and has been hailed as having one of the best rookie years in a long time, including winning the Raw Women's Championship without feeling like she was being rushed to it.
• Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson were put together as The Rock 'n' Roll Express in Memphis in 1983, based off of their first initials. Jerry Lawler hated the name and thought it was the worst name he had ever heard and that they'd use it for one night but would try to come up with something better. As all those screaming girl fans shouting "ROCK N ROLL! ROCK N ROLL! ROCK N ROLL!" proved, he was wrong.
• ECW's Tod Gordon originally dismissed The Dudley Boys and The Blue Meanie as "drunken Raven ideas" (from watching Slap Shot and Yellow Submarine, respectively). While it took a while for the Dudleys to find the right combination (Buh Buh Ray and D-Von), they did eventually get over and became very successful, and are now known as one of the most prolific tag teams in the history of the business. The Blue Meanie couldn't match the Dudley Boys' career achievements, but, the fans did come to love him.
• On paper, WhatCulture Pro Wrestling/Defiant Wrestling should have never worked. A YouTube channel-backed wrestling promotion originally centered around its cast with many unknown faces alongside some of the best indie talent in the world. Yet, it ended up introducing many wrestling fans to the british wrestling scene, managed to produce many memorable matches, storylines and events, and became itself the launching pad for many other wrestlers. And it managed to pull off a big world tournament which went mostly without any big hitches. At its peak, it was considered one of the (if not THE) best promotions of the UK wrestling scene. Too bad that YouTube's demonetization of anything wrestling-related, the departure of the What Culture Wrestling cast and the eventual launching of NXT UK happened.
• WWE Evolution had quite a lot of skepticism at first. While the women of the company have been treated much better over the past couple of years compared to the mid-aughts, many still doubted they'd be able to pull off an all-female show, especially with some questionable booking choices leading up to the event. In addition, many felt that the show was WWE trying to save face after their highly controversial Saudi shows (including the upcoming Crown Jewel) would not allow women to compete due to cultural reasons. Come the day of the event, and many were caught by surprise at how well done the show ended up being, with particular praise going towards the production, crowd energy (comparable to that of NXT), usage of the women on the card, and especially the brutal Last Woman Standing match between Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, which many deemed a Match of the Year contender in a year full of them (Omega/Jericho, Gargano/Almas, Gargano/Ciampa II, Okada/Omega IV, NOLA Ladder Match just to name a few). By the decade's end, many were naming it one of WWE's best shows of the decade, while the aforementioned Crown Jewel (which WWE tried so hard to hype up as a Saudi WrestleMania) was constantly named as one of, if not the worst show WWE put out in that same period.
• WrestleMania 36:
  • In general, many weren't sure if the company should've still hosted the event considering the COVID-19 Pandemic, and when they revealed that they were still going to host it via stitching together pre-taped matches and segments that would be broadcast over two nights, fans were skeptical over the final product. It turned out to be one of the better WrestleManias over the last few years, with some even calling it the best since WrestleMania 31.
  • There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the Boneyard Match between The Undertaker and AJ Styles. While the build was good, the Undertaker's matches for the last few years generally haven't been the best and many weren't sure if even AJ (oft-regarded as this generation's Shawn Michaels) could get a good match out of him. Not helping the matter is that, since the announcement of the match, no one was exactly sure what a Boneyard Match was (including the participants).^note It turned out to be a Buried Alive match that took place at an actual graveyard WWE allayed these fears...by filming it as a campy horror-esque cinematic vignette in the vein of the Broken Universe and Lucha Underground with Undertaker returning to his biker roots under an amaglamation of something he called "The Unholy Trinity". By the time it was over many were unironically calling it the greatest WrestleMania main event ever.
  • John Cena vs. "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt in a "Firefly Funhouse Match" had the fans nervous if it would be like the infamous "House of Horrors Match" Wyatt had with Randy Orton three years ago. To people's surprise, it was more like a twenty-minute vignette that has multiple references to WWE, deconstructing John Cena's career and a lot of meta Mind Screw as if it was something filmed by David Lynch or an episode of Black Mirror. The consensus was that the crowd was loving this at the end, and could give the Boneyard Match a run for its money.
• WrestleMania 37 has a tag-team match with The Miz and John Morrison vs Damian Priest and a musician known as Bad Bunny. Barring Ronda Rousey's match three years ago, most celebrities who take part of wrestling matches don't fare well. However Bad Bunny completely changes everyone's tune with his acting, selling, and unleashes a Falcon Arrow and a Canadian Destroyer on John Morrison, wowing his detractors. It helped that Bad Bunny himself is a wrestling fan.
• WrestleMania 38 had three celebrity matches innvolving Logan Paul teaming with Miz against Rey and Dominic, Johnny Knoxville goes toe to to with Sami Zayn and Pat McAfee fights off against Austin Theory. Needless to say, all three delivered. Logan Paul plays the role of a Heel by performing Eddie Guerrero's Three Amigos and Frog Splash, Johnny Knoxville in a crowd-pleasing match which had Johnny take in lots of bumps and perform a top rope Tornado DDT, and Pat McAfee had the fans screaming when he jumped onto the top turnbuckle to perform a Superplex. Needless to say, celebrity matches now have a new standard to fill.
• Speaking of Logan Paul, when it was announced that he would not only fight in the main event of Crown Jewel 2022, but that he would fight Roman Reigns for the WWE Title, fans were skeptical to say the least. While Logan had surprised everyone with his skills at two of WWE's biggest events of the year, some felt he wasn't ready for a big money match like this and that WWE was using both his and the Saudi shows' controversy to drum-up hype and let it sell itself. Come match night, and he more than succeeded expectations, being a natural in terms of ring ability and psychology and giving the Tribal Chief a run for his money, with even the likes of Dave Meltzer and Jim Cornette admitting they were impressed by his skills.
• Chris Jericho had one when he was working in Mexico. As he wrote in his Autobiography, he had a friend visit him in his hotel room with a kid "that looked to be 12 years old". When his friend started using colorful language, Jericho was worried about swearing in front of the kid, who then showed Jericho his ID, proving him to be 18. The youth went on to say that he was also getting into wrestling. Jericho thought that the kid had no future in the business and would be lucky to be working ring crew. That kid? Rey Mysterio Jr..
• The sad part story of WCW. See, in 1989-1990, long before Bischoff got control of the company, there was this guy called "Mean" Mark Callous. Despite being everything a promoter could want in a wrestler at that time (a big man who could wrestle well), they never did anything meaningful with him. Mark, knowing how things would go if he stayed, asked for his release and jumped ship to the then-WWF. He was then repackaged, lasting with an unparalleled "streak" of decades of popularity, under another name — The Undertaker.
• When CMLL received a jobber from International Wrestling in Quebec, they initially gave him the Vampiro gimmick as a joke. Little did they realize Vampiro would become popular enough to star in movies!
• NWA World Superstars Wrestling, an attempt to make an "Americanized" version of New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 1993 naturally inspired this belief. WSW didn't catch on because it had to change its name due to confusion over the World Wrestling Federation, which had a television program called Superstars but Ring Warriors, as it would come to be known, got more viewers in Africa and Europe than both WCW and the WWF till founder Hiro Matsuda's death in 1999. Also, Ring Warriors would be the first wrestling company to stream matches online in 1997, a service people also thought would never catch on, however, Ring Warriors finally started to slowly gain a USA audience in 2011, when all major promotions streamed.
• WCW had this attitude towards quite a few talents, variously attributed to Eric Bischoff's lack of faith in people not named Kevin Nash or Hulk Hogan, and Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan's inability to let go of the spotlight. You could probably fill this page with a dozen examples involving Bischoff, ranging from letting future legends go – people who would later go to the WWF, become popular, win championships, and become the stars they knew they were, to poor match booking or promotional decisions (see Mick Foley, below). Eventually, this string of bad decisions led to the WCW's failure as a business, and buyout by its chief competitor, the WWF.
  • Reportedly, after jobbing out a "Stunning" to "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan in record time, WCW vice president Eric Bischoff had a phone conversation with the wrestler, who suggested a change in his character from Jerk Jock to no-nonsense '90s Anti-Hero. Bischoff told him: "[W]e can have you run around in your little black tights and your little black boots, but that just wouldn't be marketable," and then fired him. After a brief stint in ECW, that man went on to the WWF, where he met a manager who reluctantly listened to his character input, and ran around in his little black tights and his little black boots (and a little black vest, shaved his head, and grew a goatee) — and became one of the biggest wrestling superstars in the world: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.
  • Bischoff took Jim Ross off of commentary because Ross was fat and Southern and wouldn't appeal to mainstream America. "J.R." then left for WWE. Jim Ross is now immortalized in the WWE Hall of Fame.
  • Add Chris Jericho to the list of easily recognizable faces Bischoff let get away. The scary part? He didn't see Jericho as a headliner... as of 2010, well after Jericho established himself as one of the most popular names in the history of the WWE.
    "Bischoff's right. I can't headline in TNA... cause I'm not in my 50s." – Jericho
  • Eric Bischoff, along with Hulk Hogan and Goldberg, felt that a Squash Match between WCW World Heavyweight Champion Goldberg and WCW World Television Champion Chris Jericho would not have been a popular draw. The same Chris Jericho who would later win and unify the WCW World Heavyweight Championship with the WWF Championship to become the very first WWF Undisputed Champion, an even higher honor. One of those titles was won off of Steve Austin (see above).
  • Kevin Nash, while a booker in WCW dubbed many of the cruiserweights as "Vanilla Midgets," smaller wrestlers who could never hope to become popular main eventers and lacked any charisma. The WCW cruiserweight roster at the time included Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and Rey Mysterio Jr., the four of whom would go on to have a combined 12 reigns as world champion in the WCW or WWF/E. Others included Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko, who when leaving WCW for WWF with Guerrero and Benoit, formed the popular stable the Radicals.
    • Speaking of Rey, he's a double example. On top of being kept down the card, Eric Bischoff claimed that masked wrestlers weren't "marketable", have Rey unmask on television, and proceed to do nothing with him. After WCW folded, Rey convinced the Mexican Athletic Commission to let him re-mask via copious amounts of Loophole Abuse, and signed with WWE, where he proceeded to become the most popular luchador in mainstream wrestling and make himself and his new promotion millions and millions of dollars with their top-selling line of Rey masks.
  • With so much ammo to choose (or poach), Vince McMahon had a habit of taking so-called "Vanilla Midgets" and letting them do their thing back in the Attitude Era. It got to the point that by the end of WCW, practically the only main-eventer in WWE that wasn't a former WCW employee was The Rock... and that was only because he never worked for them.^note  The reason he never worked for WCW is that his uncles, The Wild Samoans, were already working for WWF and helped him get a spot. The closest wrestler to The Rock's claim as Attitude Era's main-eventer that has never worked for WCW is Kane, who wrestled one match as Bruiser Mastino against Sting in 1993.
• Mick Foley thought this way of The Rock back when he was Rocky Maivia. To quote his book, Have a Nice Day!:

  "The next day, one of the guys asked for my impression of Rocky. 'Hey, he's a nice guy,' I said, 'but he just doesn't have it. The office should really cut their losses and get rid of the guy'. I had no idea I was talking about the future 'People's and Corporate Champion.'"

• CM Punk briefly worked for CZW and TNA. They saw nothing in him. He then went on to be a five-time world champion and the longest reigning WWE Champion in the last twenty-five years.
• So there was this young kid who really, really wanted to be a wrestler. He was well built but didn't have a distinct look. He was dedicated and hard-working, but a bit sloppy at times and tended to mix up moves. And he had, quote, "the charisma of a robot." That lead to his indie-league persona of "the Prototype", a cyborg-like concept, but after getting the bump up to the full WWF he just couldn't find a niche and nobody figured he'd be anything more than an overeager curtain-jerker. Then one Halloween episode he came out dressed as Vanilla Ice and started rap-dissing his opponent, being shockingly good at it. Thus began the career proper of the Doctor of Thuganomics, and for better or worse the John Cena train hasn't stopped chugging since.
• Ring of Honor's own fanbase didn't want anything to do with Kevin Steen in 2005, nor were they particularly thrilled to see him come back, even with the backdrop of the hot CZW feud. By 2011, they couldn't cheer for Steen loud enough as he campaigned to destroy Ring Of Honor. The same could be said of Steen's Tag Team partner El Generico. What won the ROH fans over was putting them together as a tag team after they failed to impress as individuals and putting them against the Briscoe Brothers. The hardworking, hard-drinking chicken farmers from slower lower Delaware got to intimately verbalize everything the fans didn't like about the goofy French Canadians, who fans got into as they fired back.
• Booker, promoter and The Four Horsemen member Ole Anderson made a bad habit of this.
  • Ole let the likes of Hulk Hogan, the Undertaker (see above) and Mick Foley go because he was convinced they would never draw money. All three of those men would become huge stars who drew enormous amounts of money...but that money went to rival promoters like Vince McMahon and Paul Heyman. Even Jim Ross criticized Ole for letting Foley go.
  • When McMahon was taking the Wrestling/WWE national, he repeatedly invited Ole to join him in working his pay per view shows. Ole repeatedly told McMahon to "go fuck himself" because he had no idea what a pay per view was. Ole does regret his actions today, as by his own admission he was a "dumb shit" who didn't understand what McMahon was doing.
• In 2017, a random fan asked Dave Meltzer if Ring of Honour can ever sell out an arena with 10k+ fans, in which the latter responded dismissively. Cody Rhodes took it as a challenge and a bet to initiate the All In event, which was the biggest indie PPV. Just half a year later, it resulted in the creation of All Elite Wrestling, which quickly became a bigger threat to WWE than any other promotion at the time ever could be and it's biggest rival since it bought out WCW.
• When Matt Hardy unleashed his BROKEN gimmick, people were suspicious of whether or not it would go far, given of how absurd it was. Come The Final Deletion, a So Bad, It's Good cinematic event that involved so many shoddy special effects, stunts, and overdramatic music, combined with hologram-projecting drones and Roman candles, along with how Matt and later Jeff were so into the role, and wrestling fans and critics were lauded at the high risk that Matt took with the gimmick, which ended up being his Career Resurrection.

Puppet Shows

• Jim Henson couldn't get any of the US networks to support a prime-time variety show featuring those puppets from Sesame Street. Lew Grade, of the UK-based ITC Entertainment, saw something no-one else did and agreed to produce the show and broadcast it on ITC's ITV station ATV. That was, of course, The Muppet Show.
• Henson dealt with this again trying to succeed again with more adult fare. Many on Saturday Night Live looked down on his work. Granted, those segments are criticized by even die-hard fans, but his puppetry work, in general, was also generally derided as "not ready for primetime." And what about that skit show starring a frog, pig, bear and... whatever? Oh right, almost everyone took a pass when it was being shopped around. And a later movie based on those very same characters? Few thought it would work — let alone be a smash hit and lead to a successful, continuing series.
• This article protests the idea of The Noddy Shop for being unfaithful to the original Noddy's Toyland Adventures show, and thought that it would fail in ratings because of competition from other shows. However, it went on for two seasons and became as popular as Sesame Street was on PBS Kids.
• According to TV producer John Lloyd, when trying to fill space on Not the Nine O'Clock News in 1979, he approached two artists known for producing sculpted caricatures of politicians for the newspapers and suggested that puppets in that style would be a good fit for satirical comedy. They weren't interested. A few years later, however, Fluck and Law would indeed work with Lloyd on Spitting Image.
• When Abby Cadabby was first announced for Sesame Street, The Boston Globe believed that she wouldn't be as popular as Zoe or Rosita because they thought that the only reason for her existence was to Follow the Leader with the Disney Princess line that took away most of Sesame Street's toddler girl audience, compared to how most girl characters on the shows liked unisex things. She later became almost as popular as Elmo.

Sports

• Any North American expansion team is bound to be a terrible squad, being players the other teams considered expendable and maybe a few rookies. And so it was assumed that the National Hockey League's Vegas Golden Knights would be no different in the 2017-18 season, with the location (Las Vegas never had a major league franchise, and its climate is nowhere near optimal for ice hockey) only making it more laughable. So what a surprise when the Knights won their first game... and eight of their first nine... and 51 total in the regular season, finishing fourth overall in the league! The playoffs were even more successful, as Vegas won the conference losing only three games in those three rounds. Only in The Stanley Cup did Vegas' luck run out, as they took the first game against the Washington Capitals, only for the perpetual underachievers to win the next four and become champions. And it wasn't exactly a one-time case of beginner's luck, as it took until year 5 for Vegas to miss the postseason, only for them to come back with a vengeance and win in their sixth season becoming the youngest franchise to win the Cup and fulfilling the owner's bet of winning the Cup in Six!
• When the International Olympic Committee announced in 1990 that Atlanta would be hosting the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, the response ranged from amusement to horror. Every late-night comic was ready to go with jokes about how college football, mud wrestling, tractor pulling, and NASCAR would be included in the first Olympics hosted in the Deep South, and on a more substantial level, Atlanta in The '90s was associated with commerce and Sun Belt suburban sprawl rather than the kind of high culture and sport normally associated with Olympic host cities. Many predicted disaster, and indeed, the Games were criticized by Europeans as garish and overly commercialized (and were unfortunately marred by a terrorist bombing). However, in an age when the Olympics are increasingly notorious for Troubled Productions, Atlanta's organizing committee managed to bring the Games in on time, on budget, and turning a profit, all while leaving downtown Atlanta with a ton of valuable infrastructure that is still in use today. The 1996 Atlanta Olympics very quickly came to be seen as a model for how to run the Olympics right.
• In the 2010 World Series most analysts predicted the Texas Rangers would beat the San Francisco Giants, stating the Giants offense was too weak, only able to put only 2-3 runs up a game (with their superb pitching that's all they needed.) The Giants ended up beating The Rangers 4 games to 1. A ESPN◊ state-by-state online poll showed that 49 states predicted that the Rangers would win. California, the Giants' home state, was the only one that had them in the majority to win.
  • History repeated itself in 2012 with most analysts favoring the Detroit Tigers over the Giants, stating specifically that the Giants would never be able to handle Tigers ace Justin Verlander. In the Series opener, Verlander lasted only four innings, giving up two home runs to Pablo Sandoval (who would hit a third that night as well), who isn't known as a big home run hitter. In fact, the Giants were dismissed pretty early on in the playoffs. They ended up facing elimination 6 times and went on to sweep the Tigers, 4 games to 0. (People who followed the Tigers closely were less surprised; Verlander had been showing signs of age and fatigue since August—to the point where most Tigers fans were more excited about games with Max Scherzer—and the Tigers bullpen was notoriously shallow.)
  • While a slight majority of analysts rooted for the Giants, most fans considered the Kansas City Royals would win (69 to 31 percent, sweeping all fifty states), as did betting houses (the Giants paid twice the amount of the Royals on Bet365 the day of Game 1). Although the predictions were based on baseball fundamentals (KC had been building up a solid team from its farm system for years), the opinions may have been skewed by the Royals' sudden appearance from nowhere and a sense that after decades of hovering at the bottom of the American League, it was "time" for the Royals to come back. However, fate would be on San Francisco's side once again, with the Giants narrowly defeating the Royals (3 to 2) in Game 7, becoming SF's third World Series in five years (and increasingly cementing the idea of the Giants as the Team of the '10s).
• The Bay Area MLB teams are known for this: Oakland's legendary "Swinging A's" won the Series between 1972 and 1974. However, the NL teams (Reds in '72, Mets in '73 and Dodgers in '74) were the most favored in predictions (the Athletics were more noted for their internal tensions instead). However, Oakland trounced each of those teams to become one of baseball's biggest dynasties of The '70s.
• They said he was too weak, too slow and that he would flounder in the NHL. The Great One was unfazed.
• In the 1984 NBA Draft, the Portland Trail Blazers (who has the 2nd draft pick) drafted Kentucky center Sam Bowie ahead of some guy named Michael Jordan. (The Houston Rockets, who had the 1st draft pick, get a free pass: Hakeem Olajuwon was the No. 1 draft pick; although no Michael Jordan, Olajuwon was not a bad pick, especially for the Rockets—he led them to back-to-back championships the years Jordan was out of the NBA. Olajuwon eventually joined MJ in the Hall of Fame.)
  • Actually entirely justified from the Blazers' perspective. A less famous example from the year before justified the Bowie pick (in Portland's mind) because the Bulls had passed on the Blazers' 1st round pick: Clyde Drexler. (another then-future Hall of Famer who was already playing the same role on the court as Jordan would... and would lose one NBA final to Jordan and only get a title when joining the aforementioned Olajuwon in Houston).
  • Unfortunately for Portland, they would make the same draft mistake again in 2007. They have the No. 1 draft pick, and they chose Greg Oden, who had been a star at Ohio State when healthy but had battled knee injuries all the way back to high school. Continued injuries to his knees and ankles derailed his career, while the Seattle SuperSonics, as they were still known at the time^note They moved to Oklahoma City and were renamed the Thunder a year later, drafted Kevin Durant with the number 2 pick.
  • The Bulls passed on Bill Cartwright (their starting center for the first three championship teams) in the 1980 draft before trading Charles Oakley to the Knicks for him.
  • And going back to Jordan, he was cut from his high school team in his sophomore year. One imagines that provided some motivation.
• Joe Montana and Tom Brady would become one of the most successful quarterbacks of their respective generations in the National Football League, with them winning eleven Super Bowls between them (Montana winning four of them, while Brady won seven), despite only being drafted in the third (82nd overall, 1979) and sixth (199th overall, 2000) rounds, respectively.
  "Poor build. Very skinny and narrow. Ended the '99 season weighing 195 pounds and still looks like a rail at 211. Looks a little frail and lacks great physical stature and strength. Can get pushed down more easily than you'd like. Lacks mobility and ability to avoid the rush. Lacks a really strong arm. Can't drive the ball down the field and does not throw a really tight spiral. System-type player who can get exposed if he must ad-lib and do things on his own." — Tom Brady's scouting report for the 2000 NFL Draft
• The 1991 Atlanta Falcons drafted Brett Favre as a backup QB in the second round, 33rd overall, but coach Jerry Glanville did not approve of him. Favre only threw five passes for the Falcons, two interceptions (one for a touchdown) and not a single completion. The following year, he was traded to the Green Bay Packers and went on to be the Ironman of football, breaking nearly every passing record in the books, and retired as the winningest QB in the history of the NFL (later passed by Peyton Manning, who was in turn passed by Tom Brady).
• Before 2008, it was common knowledge that the Spanish national football team would never get past the quarter-finals, let alone win a tournament. Two consecutive Euros and one World Cup later, and they started looking boring and invincible instead, at least until 2014.
• "Possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation." – an early scouting report on NFL coach Vince Lombardi.
• "Claudio Ranieri? Really?" Former Leicester City player Gary Lineker wasn't the only one skeptical of Ranieri's appointment as manager of his former team. Bookies also had him as the favorite to be the first manager of the 2015-16 Premier League season to be sacked. The relegation candidates ended up winning their maiden league title that season.
• In 1961, a 16-year-old midfielder was released from Wolverhampton Wanderers' youth team, then turned away from Bolton Wanderers for being too short - manager Bill Ridding told him he'd have a better chance as a jockey. He eventually signed for Blackpool... and five years later, Alan Ball became the youngest member of England's 1966 World Cup-winning squad, and provided the assist for Geoff Hurst's controversial second goal against West Germany in the final.
• The 2001/02 edition of Championship Manager included a 15-year-old Everton youth player whose stats and growth potential were unimpressive, suggesting the game's scouts didn't expect much from him. In August 2002, that youth team player made his first team debut against Tottenham Hotspur, whose fans jeered and heckled "Who are ya?" every time he touched the ball. Just two months later, everyone in England knew exactly who Wayne Rooney was—and he went on to become one of the greatest strikers of his generation, and the England national team's record goalscorer between 2015 and 2022.
  • And who would overtake him? Harry Kane, who was dismissed as a one season wonder after scoring 21 goals in the 2014/15 season, making him the second highest scorer in the Premier League that season, and another ten in the EFL Cup and Europa League. He kept on scoring - his lowest return was 24 in all competitions in two separate seasons - and, by 2023, had not only become the top scorer for England and become the highest-scoring one club player in the Premier League^note Alan Shearer has scored more than Kane, but his were split between Blackburn and Newcastle; Kane's all came for Tottenham, he had also win the 2018 World Cup Golden Boot before signing for German giants Bayern Munich for €110 million, a Bundesliga record.
• NASCAR:
  • While covering a televised practice session for the 2013 Sprint Showdown (the "last chance" race for drivers not already in the Sprint All-Star Race), Darrell Waltrip recalled the opening of the condominiums located by Turn 1 of Charlotte Motor Speedway, in 1984. After winning a race at the track in 1985, he had been offered his pick of any of the condo units for $75,000. His response was to say that no one would ever want to buy one because there was no interest in living at a racetrack. Within two years, the average price had jumped by $200,000; by 1991, a second condo suite had opened; and today, they go for upwards of a half-million dollars, with a lengthy waiting list to boot. Other tracks, including but not limited to Charlotte's sister tracks Atlanta and Texas, have installed their own condo suites.
  • During a practice session at Atlanta in August of 2014, Waltrip related the story of the time Rick Hendrick called him at the end of 1993 to ask him what he thought of Hendrick's new superstar, Jeff Gordon. Darrell bluntly told Rick that Jeff "would never make it" and referred to him as a "crash artist" because of how much equipment he had torn up in his rookie season on the circuit. That Atlanta race was the occasion of Gordon's 750th start in the Cup Series, in a first-ballot Hall of Fame career that produced four championships, the fourth-best mark in series history, and 93 wins, 325 top fives and 477 top tens, all third-best in series history. Not to mention that all of Gordon's starts are consecutive from his debut at that same track in the 1992 season finale,^note other Gordon benchmarks to occur at Atlanta include his first national series victory in a then-Busch Series (currently the Xfinity Series as of this writing) race earlier in 1992, and his 85th Cup win in September 2011, which propelled him out of a tie with Waltrip and Bobby Allison to third on wins list which is the longest streak from the start of a career and would go on to become the longest streak of all time after surpassing Ricky Rudd's mark of 788 at the New Hampshire playoff race in 2015, ending with 797 at Homestead the same year, after which Gordon retired from racing full-time and joined Waltrip as an analyst for Fox Sports.
  • Gordon himself also ran into this later in his career, ironically with Hendrick being the reluctant party this time. In 2000, Gordon ran a race in what is now known as the Xfinity Series, NASCAR's 2nd-tier league, at Michigan International Speedway, and found himself struggling with one driver in particular. This kid managed to pass Gordon on a late restart despite Gordon having by far a better car, surprising the more experienced driver. He went back to team owner Rick Hendrick and pushed him to sign the kid for the then-Winston Cup (now just the NASCAR Cup, though the Championship trophy itself is called the "Bill France Cup" after "Big Bill" France) Series; Hendrick was reluctant to field a fourth car, and after a few weeks of Gordon hounding him, finally offered Gordon a partnership to buy the fourth car himself, which Gordon gladly accepted. That kid's name was Jimmie Johnson, and he would go on to win over 80 races (placing him sixth on the all-time career wins lineup as of this writing) and become the second person to tie Richard Petty's record seven championship wins.
• Formula One:
  • When Renault debuted the first turbocharged F1 car, the RS01, in 1977, it was overweight and chronically unreliable, earning it the disparaging moniker "Little Yellow Teapot". In truth, the RS01 was little more than a test bed while Renault worked out the kinks in the engine. Once they did, its successor, the RS10, showed up to the 1979 French Grand Prix, took pole position, and won. By the end of the year the RS10 had taken four further pole positions, and the entire grid had gone from laughing at Renault's efforts, to frantically trying to develop turbo engines of their own.
  • When Nigel Mansell left Lotus in 1984 after 4 years and no race wins, team boss Peter Warr remarked to the press: "He'll never win a Grand Prix as long as I have a hole in my arse". Less than a year later, Mansell won his first Grand Prix, then became one of the main championship contenders in 1986, '87 and '91 before finally taking the title in 1992 in dominant fashion. He held the record for the number of Grand Prix wins by a British driver for the next twenty years (before being de-throned by Lewis Hamilton) and is the only man ever to hold both the F1 title and the CART title at the same time.
  • The 1995 McLaren featured an unusual mid-wing on the engine cover, as well as a less-conventional shape on the rear of the cover itself, quickly becoming an object of ridicule within the paddock and the press who thought that it was pathetic how one of the great F1 teams would have to resort to such a gimmick. By the mid-2000s, it was unusual to see a team NOT running extra wings such as these on their cars. The wings were banned in 2009, yet by 2014 the rear of the engine covers on most cars bore a resemblance to that of the McLaren experiment.
  • Similarly, the 1997 Tyrrell was regarded as laughable within F1 circles. The car, as long-time fans may recall, ran an "X-Wing" configuration at several high-downforce circuits where 2 high supports with mini-wings on top were mounted on the sidepods. When the 1998 season came round with a massive amount of regulation changes, several teams struggled. Their response? X-Wings of their own! By the San Marino Grand Prix, Tyrrell, Prost, Jordan, Sauber and even Ferrari had used them. Eventually, someone at the FIA saw sense and banned them for "safety reasons" (a botched pitstop in San Marino supposedly the straw that broke the camels back) although it is generally accepted that they were simply banned for being ugly to look at.
• At the 2011 national championships, an elite gymnast fell off the balance beam three times in one routine; experienced gymnastics reporter Lauren Hopkins described it as "watching a career die". The gymnast in question was Gabby Douglas, 2011 World team member, 2012 Olympic All-around champion and 2015 World All-around silver medalist.
• Robert Kraft bought the New England Patriots in 1994 for $172 million, which was very expensive at the time for a historically awful team that saw itself try to move to two different cities under two previous owners (Victor Kiam and James Orthwein tried to move the Patriots to Jacksonville and St. Louis, respectively). Under Kraft's ownership, the Patriots became one of the most successful teams in the NFL, as they went to ten Super Bowls, winning six of them (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLIX, LI, LIII), as well as having multiple ten or more winning seasons from 2003-2019, a rare accomplishment in the league's era of free agency and the salary cap.
• When German TV station Sat1 took over Super Bowl coverage, there were plenty of doubters saying they didn't have enough American Football experts on hand. Similarly were the skeptics when coverage was expanded to most of the Playoffs. When Ran NFL started few people gave it more than a year of life, what with having no recognizable faces besides Frank Buschmann (who isn't an American Football expert) and what with the "gimmicky" setup with a "netman" who above all has long hair and speaks in a Brandenburg dialect. As of 2017, numerous other stations wish any of their non-soccer sports coverage were even half as successful.
• With the fourth pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, New York Knicks fans were dismayed that the team drafted some guy from Europe that most people had never heard of and those in attendance made their feelings known by booing him. By his third season, Kristaps Porziņģis became the star of the team, one of the first players from that draft class selected to the All-Star Game^note  Alongside Karl-Anthony Towns and one of the NBA's most versatile players.
• Sportscaster Michael Lombardi had zero faith in the Philadelphia Eagles' hiring of first-time coach Doug Pederson in 2016. Comparing him to infamously bad basketball coach Roy Rubin and telling them it was a mistake. What did Pederson do? Oh, just take to Philly to the Super Bowl. Which they won (making their first title since 1960). Against Tom Brady and the Patriots. In his second season. Despite this, Pederson would later be fired one week after a disappointing 2020 season as well as disagreements with the Eagles' front office.
• Aaron Rodgers was the 25th pick in the 2005 NFL Draft (by the Packers), partly because he was seen as a "system quarterback" by various NFL scouts that came as a result of having Jeff Tedford coaching him at Cal; Tedford's quarterbacks at that point failed to perform well in the NFL. After replacing Brett Favre in the 2008 season, Rodgers would help the Packers win Super Bowl XLV in the 2010 season, as well as earning three NFL MVP awards (2011, 2014, 2020).
• Being a brand new expansion team filled with castoffs, no one expected the Vegas Golden Knights to do much in their inaugural season. Even team staff expected at least a 4-5 year span before they'd even entertain the thought of becoming a playoff team. What did Vegas do? Reach The Stanley Cup Finals. Despite losing in 5 games to Washington, they were the story of the hockey season.
• A football manager sacked by St Mirren in 1978 sued its chairman for wrongful dismissal, but lost the case with the tribunal board concluding, "He possesses, neither by experience nor talent, any managerial ability at all." The manager's name? Alex Ferguson.
• On the opening day of the 1995/96 Premier League season, Manchester United were beaten 3-1 by Aston Villa, having played a side full of emerging young talent. BBC pundit Alan Hansen insisted that United needed more strength and depth, remarking, "You can't win anything with kids". Those "kids" included David Beckham, Paul Scholes, and Ryan Giggs, three of the greatest midfielders of their generation, along with Gary Neville and Nicky Butt, who went on to become legends at the club. Oh, and they went on to win the league and the FA Cup that season. Needless to say, Hansen's "you can't win anything with kids" line has become one of the most infamous moments in British sporting history.
• The 2017 NFL Draft was considered by experts to be a weak class in terms of quarterback talent and many doubted any of the prospects would be viable long term starters. The 2018 season saw all three quarterbacks taken in that draft's first round, Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City Chiefs), Mitch Trubisky (Chicago Bears)^note although Trubisky is considered by some to be something of a one-season wonder, and Deshaun Watson (Houston Texans), named to the Pro Bowl, with Mahomes selected as the NFL MVP. And one of those QB's (Mahomes) won the Super Bowl and was the MVP of that game barely 3 years later.
• In the 2018 NFL Draft, some analysts side-eyed the Cleveland Browns for taking Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield with the first overall pick, with scouts saying that he was too small and lacked the skill set of other top prospects in that draft class, namely Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen. Mayfield proved to be exactly what the Browns needed, taking them from being one of the worst teams in the NFL to a respectable contender that even made the playoffs in 2020. And just to put the icing on the cake, Darnold and Rosen, the two quarterbacks everyone thought the Browns should have taken over Mayfield, ended up being average at best.
• Downplayed in the case for the 2019 LSU Tigers football team. The team was expected to be potential contender for the College Football Playoff, but they were projected to be the runner-up to Alabama, who was expected to be in the Playoff once again, in the SEC West Division. What no one saw coming, however, was that the Tigers, a team who is normally known for their running backs and their defense, would finish with the best offense in the FBS thanks to eventual Heisman winning quarterback Joe Burrow's record-setting performance, throwing for sixty touchdown passes and would lead the team to a perfect 15-0 season, with wins against perennial national powerhouse Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, and defending national champions Clemson. Some would consider this team to be one of the best college football teams of all time thanks to their explosive offense.
• In 1983, a renowned ice dancing team debuted a free dance so risky and cutting-edge that common wisdom said it would either tank their medal chances, or get them disqualified altogether. It was called "Bolero", and it won Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean Olympic gold medals, the only complete set of perfect scores ever awarded in figure skating, the hearts of millions around the world, and an enduring place in the pantheon of Greatest Athletes of All Time.
• Born from a family line with little accomplishments in terms of horse racing, and with leg shapes deemed undesirable, Sunday Silence was expected by virtually no one to become a successful racehorse, to the point that no one put a price on him when his breeder put him up for sale TWICE, and the breeder, Arthur B. Hancock III, had to buy him back. From there, Sunday Silence went on to win 9 out of the 14 races^note two of which were Triple Crown races he ran from 1989 to 1990, with him finishing the 5 other races in 2nd place; earning him the 1989 American Horse of the Year. Sunday Silence's story doesn't stop there, however; as after his retirement in 1990 due to injuries, Hancock tried to have him stand stud for 10 million dollars but no one took up the offer due to the aforementioned family history. Yoshida Zenya^note who had bought a share of Sunday not long before, on the other hand, went ahead and bought him for 11 million to stand stud at their farm in Hokkaido, earning them a lot of mockery from Stateside breeders. Sunday Silence would go on to sire so many successful race horses that the Leading Sire of Japan has gone to him or his sires, most notably Deep Impact, for every year since 1995, with the exception of 2009 and 10.
  • Sunday Silence wasn't the only instance the Yoshidas took part in this trope. When Zenya Yoshida told his son Teruya to buy the best sire of Northern Dancer he could get his hands on, Teruya went ahead and bought Northern Taste for $100000, and after several years of racing in France, it was time for the horse to be brought to Japan... It was there that Zenya reportedly saw Northern Taste's small posture and regretted he ever let Teruya have a say in this. Northern Taste ultimately went on to be the leading sire of Japan from 1982 to 1992, with many of its descendants still racing in Japan.
• Another racer like this was Seabiscuit. He was a grandson of Man o' War, but was smallish and had an odd gait and knobby knees and hadn't won a lot of his first races, which resulted in no takers in his claming races. Things changed when trainer Tom Smith paired him with jockey Red Pollard and he became a champion, even beating his uncle, triple crown winner War Admiral.

Tabletop Games

• When Catalyst Game Labs announced that they were going to have a Kickstarter drive to fund a Clan Invasion Box Set for BattleTech, there was a lot of doubts about whether or not it would succeed. When it finally went live, it met its funding goal of $30,000 in seven minutes and ended up receiving in excess of two and a half million dollars in pledges, making it not only one of the most successful gaming Kickstarters ever but one of the 100 most successful Kickstarter projects of all time.
• Princess: The Hopeful was initially designed as a parody with no intent to be taken seriously. People ended up liking it so much it was developed into an actual fan line. Nowadays, it's considered one of the best fan-games in the community.
• Someone told Kevin Crawford of Sine Nomine Publishing that a game set in a fantasy version of Africa would never sell. Taking that as a challenge, he wrote Spears of the Dawn, which proceeded to be one of the hottest retroclones of its year.
• After it flopped in Japan, many analysts doubted the viability of Bakugan succeeding in America. It became a huge hit getting new episodes before Japan did and even won an award for the best toy of 2009.
• Gary Gygax pitched the first iteration of Dungeons & Dragons to various publishers of traditional board– and wargames. He was always turned down with some variation of "Why would anyone want to play a game that has no winner?"

Theatre

• The concept of doing a hip hop themed musical about Alexander Hamilton sounded very stupid to many people, and Jon Stewart even mocked the premise in an episode of The Daily Show. Hamilton star Daveed Diggs thought it was a terrible idea before signing up. Even the guy who came up with the idea, wrote the music, book, and lyrics, and played the lead man thought it wouldn't do very well. Despite this, Hamilton became a smash at the box office, and won near-universal acclaim.
• Oklahoma! is apocryphally associated with reluctant backers' premature verdict of "no girls, no gags, no chance," referring to the musical's relative lack of Fanservice and broad clowning compared with the oversexed star-comic vehicles that proliferated on Broadway during World War II (and flopped more often than not).
• The SpongeBob Musical was dismissed as nothing more than a cash grab by Nickelodeon. Instead, critics found a surprisingly heartwarming and funny musical.
• Forty years before Hamilton, the other great political musical — 1776 — encountered much the same. Sherman Edwards didn't find many takers for his idea for a musical where everyone in the audience would know the ending in advance; by the time it finally reached Broadway, it had a first-time songwriter (Edwards), a producer who had never had a hit, a book writer whose only previous Broadway credits were two musicals that flopped, and a director whose only previous Broadway credits were as a lighting designer. It had no stars — the lead role was played by character actor William Daniels — only two women in the cast who both have minor roles, and several long scenes with no music where men argue over Congressional votes and the wording of a document. It became a smash hit.
• Spring Awakening:
  • The original, containing a lot of teen angst, a masturbation scene, underage sex, gay kisses, incest, suicide, and advertised "real onstage nudity", had a lot going against it. Ended up nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won 8.
  • The revival, which incorporated American Sign Language, censored nothing from the original, and had cast members with varying hearing abilities, turned off some hearing audience members who didn't want to see a "deaf musical", assuming it'd be incomprehensible. Result: Nominated for three Tonys and got a national tour announcement slated for 2017 (which sadly never ended up happening).
• Older Than Steam: When Romeo and Juliet premiered, supposedly one reviewer described it as "a mawkish melodrama which, God willing, will see no second performance."
• Robert Greene, an Elizabethan playwright, wrote an autobiographical pamphlet, Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, in which he decried all other playwrights of the age. He is now only remembered for the particular contempt he heaped on the "upstart crow" William Shakespeare.
• In 1948, legendary Broadway producer Cheryl Crawford turned down a play by a young Arthur Miller, arguing that the story was too depressing and the use of flashbacks would confuse the audience. As she later put it in an interview, "Who would want to see a play about an unhappy traveling salesman?"
• As captured in the documentary Show Business: The Road to Broadway, Avenue Q was considered a risk by a lot of industry people on Broadway, who believed it to be a strange concept that had no chance of catching on and would probably close shortly after it opened. Then the play opened, and it became a critically acclaimed blockbuster with crossover appeal which ultimately won Best Musical at the 2004 Tonys and ran on Broadway for six years.
  • For comparison, three other musicals opening that year were featured in that documentary. The first was Wicked which from the start was pegged to become a phenomenon, which it inevitably became. The other two? Caroline, or Change, the hotly anticipated new work from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, and Taboo, Boy George's autobiographical tribute to the New Romantic scene. Both wound up receiving the fate that some of the interviewees in the documentary had believed Avenue Q was going to get: Caroline, or Change, which was pegged to be the critical darling of the season, received middling reviews and closed after just 136 performances; It's best known now as the first major role for Anika Noni Rose, who won a Tony for her supporting role. Taboo, also tipped for success, premiered to scathing reviews and was chased off-Broadway after under 100 performances.
• When Disney CEO Michael Eisner approached Disney Theatrical Group President Thomas Schumacher about adopting The Lion King into a Broadway musical, Schumacher thought it was "the stupidest idea he ever heard" and there was no way it would work. As of September 2014, the Broadway, West End, and all other productions have generated '$6.2 billion in revenue and several awards.
• Agatha Christie herself believed that The Mousetrap would only last a few months. Six decades later...

Theme Parks

• Disneyland was known as "Walt's Folly" in Hollywood while he was building it and 'Walt's Nightmare" in the press after a disastrous opening day. After said opening day, it has become one of the most successful theme parks in America, even acquiring many more theme parks around the world.
• Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon at Universal Orlando Resort was initially thought to be a failure by theme park enthusiasts, stating that Universal was hitting the bottom of the barrel when it came to simulator rides. However, the ride is immensely popular at the park, even to this day.
• Back in its early days, Disney Theme Parks in general, when Walt was trying to get funding to build Disneyland. The critics couldn't have been more wrong. Demonstrated by Some Jerk with a Camera.
  Walt Disney: I want to build Me Land!
  Wealthy Businessman: You fool, that'll never work!
  Walt Disney: Hey, look, I built Me Land, and it worked!
  Wealthy Businessman: Good, now build more of them.
• Disneyland Paris faced this initially, with almost every prominent French intellectual equating its mere existence to the end of civilization as we know it (a journalist for Le Figaro, a right-wing newspaper, even wanted "the rebels" to burn the resort down, and stage director Ariane Mnouchkine called the park "a cultural Chernobyl"). Subverted in that the park almost failed at first (this was when it was called Euro Disney) but was able to rebound and become one of the most visited theme parks in Europe.
• This was said a lot about the Futuroscope in France at the time of its beginning. It was even nicknamed "Monory's Madness" ("La Folie Monory", from the name of its main instigator, René Monory). But although it has known some difficult times, it is now more than 30 years old, and one of the most visited amusement parks in France (after Disneyland Paris, and along the Parc Asterix and Le Puy du Fou).

Toys

• Mattel initially passed on Jurassic Park merchandising because they weren't sure how the dinosaur toys could be distinguished from all the other dinosaur toys on the market. They chose Last Action Hero instead, only for it to get destroyed in sales by Jurassic Park and Kenner to come up with the JP logo and the mark all JP toys had on them. Mattel did get a second chance with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, though after Hasbro's toys for Jurassic World proved less than spectacular, and they are doing quite well.
• In 1993, a man named Joel Glickman and his brother Bob started up a company to manufacture a construction toy product that would use basic rods and connectors that could be easily attached together to make various constructions. They called their product K'Nex and presented it to Hasbro, Mattel, Lego and Tyco, all of whom turned it down, thinking it wouldn't sell, and it was only through encouragement from Toys "R" Us executives that K'Nex chose to sell the product themselves. And the gamble paid off, as K'Nex became an overnight success, going on to be sold in over 25 countries and even selling building sets based off licensed properties.
• Several toy companies rejected the idea for My Little Pony when the creator was trying to get it off the ground. Hasbro ultimately accepted the idea and the franchise is now a big hit.
• A (likely apocryphal, given it's the company that made Star Trek toys in the '70s) story says that Mego Corporation was the first company approached to make Star Wars toys, but it turned down the offer because "there's no money in doing toys for every flash-in-the-pan sci-fi B-movie". Kenner took a chance on the Star Wars license instead, and history was made. History that doesn't include Mego, as they went bankrupt in 1982. And while Kenner may have taken the chance, even they had their doubts about Star Wars. They produced a limited line of toys and were caught completely off-guard when the film became a smash hit. By then, it was clear that customers would not be satisfied with the meager puzzles and posters that usually tied-in with a film; they needed action figures, dolls, playsets, and more, all of which could take a year from designing to being in stores. Unable to fulfill orders in time for Christmas, they created an "empty box campaign," in which toys would be mailed as they became available from purchase vouchers.
• In the mid-80s, a licensing agent tried to get deals for some independent comic. He was turned down by LJN, Mattel and Hasbro, and only a Hong Kong company which was attempting to go stateside bought into the idea, on the condition of also having a cartoon that would help sell this kooky idea about "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". And the gamble by Playmates Toys paid off handsomely, making rejections such as "turtles aren't heroic and green doesn't sell" and "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard" very shortsighted.
• Mattel, Hasbro and even Disney's own consumer products division turned down the offer to do Toy Story merchandising, because they weren't sure if they could get anything out in the 8 months before the film was released. Eventually, Disney settled on outsourcing the production of Toy Story toys to an obscure Canadian company by the name of Thinkway Toys, and even then they were unsure if the gamble would pay off since they thought the film would flop. The initial Buzz Lightyear and Woody toys were among the hottest that year's Christmas season, with the Buzz figures in particular selling out nationwide (with it [allegedly] getting so extreme that Buzz Lightyear toys were being sold on the black market), and Disney would partner with Thinkway again several more times. The franchise itself later made a joke about it in the sequel, with Barbie telling the other toys that "short-sighted retailers did not order enough toys to meet demand".
• The Toys That Made Us covers a plethora of franchises that, when they were just trying to take off, were rejected by multiple companies for this very reason. Said plethora includes such juggernaut franchises as LEGO, Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Barbie, He-Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Transformers.

Web Videos

• The DVD commentary of The Nostalgia Critic's Pixels review had Rob mocking anti-clipless people by saying the episode was the second highest viewed on the YouTube page, and that all the other clipless reviews have done really well regarding hits too.
• This is one of Muselk's main sources of humor. Strats like the sexy Junkrat and surprise Bastion were admonished by his friends for being useless and foolish, but worked insanely well for quite a while until the fanbase caught on.
• The idea of an English branch of hololive was long treated by many as a joke: after all, why would English-speaking audiences turn out to streams of new Vtubers from a Japanese company when they could watch established streaming personalities on Youtube and Twitch? Once the first generation of hololive EN launched, however, it became a runaway success, with all five founding members earning a combined total of around $100,000 in Superchat donations from their debuts. Gura Gawr, one of the members of hololive EN, would later go on to be the first hololive star to break a million subscribers, helping to solidify her place, as well as those of her companions, in the video game streaming landscape and the Vtuber industry.
• Achievement Hunter:
  • An example with their Tower of Pimps. Beginning as drunken buffoonery on the part of Gavin Free in episode 2 of Let's Play Minecraft, using loads of Ray's gold to build four gold blocks and place them outside a house. When it is torn down by the others, he declares that the Tower of Pimps was not a success. In later videos, this became the prize for winning competitions in their Let's Play Minecraft episodes, and even became an Ascended Meme in Minecraft itself.
  • In the "Halo 4: Terminus Achievement Guide", Gavin messes up his mic test and accidentally calls himself "Vav". Later, we get this as part of a Seinfeldian Conversation between Gavin and Ray:
    Gavin: Do people ever call you "X-Ray"?
    Ray: No. Under no context does anybody call me "X-Ray". Why would they call me "X-Ray"? Because Ray is my name?
    Gavin: New nickname!
    Ray: [laughs] Let's see if that sticks.
  • Less than a month later, not only did "X-Ray and Vav" become their official team name within Achievement Hunter, but they developed a complex backstory for the nicknames as the aliases of a duo of wannabe superheroes, which Rooster Teeth made into a cartoon two years later.
• Critical Role:
  • Neither Matthew Mercer nor the rest of the cast had any great expectations for a stream of "a bunch of nerdyass voice actors sitting down and [playing] Dungeons & Dragons". Mercer gave it a few episodes before going back to play at his house. The show exploded in popularity nearly immediately, and once more as people in quarantine for the COVID-19 pandemic discovered it. Critical Role Productions is now its own company, overseeing the eponymous flagship show, spinoff shows (Talks Machina, Narrative Telephone, Critter Hug, etc.), publishing their own games (via Darrington Press), and the world of Exandria is now official D&D canon (via the acknowledgment of Arkhan acquiring the Hand of Vecna and the publishing of Explorer's Guide to Wildemount)!
  • The cast got hit with this again when they went to raise money on Kickstarter for a single animated special of the Briarwood arc, not expecting much. The Critters overdelivered — stretch goals kept being added and they kept hitting them. At the end of the campaign, Amazon Prime picked The Legend of Vox Machina up for two whole seasons.