Worst written storylines in WWE History

[nickcave]

What do you think are the worst written storylines WWE had produced?

I think the saga of Big Show’s failed strip mall is my pick. They take a character that has almost no heat in Big Show, try to have him leech off of Daniel Bryan’s man of the people momentum with a convoluted tie-in to economic hardships using the one character who a year prior you had made an entire storyline revolving around him getting an iron-clad contract so he could not be fired.

Then you remember he had the contract, give him a storyline where he could sue and financially ruin the WWE. Have him make the choice to drop the lawsuit that would save his finances in favor of a title shot that he doesn’t even win which would be the logical payoff to the storyline even though no one wanted that which makes him look like a huge idiot. And the next night he’s dancing in a diaper as baby new year like nothing happened. I think it’s hard to top that one.

[Hit Girl]

HBK's financial troubles.

[Jake, The Jake, Jake]

The Cena/Eve/Ryder/Kane love quadrangle that helped nobody.

[Ben Wyatt]

The Higher power. Especially when you consider that the Vince reveal torpedoed the previous 6 months of storylines

[Perd]

It may be recency bias, but the latest exploits of Dolph Ziggler tank pretty high.

[Pushed to the Moon]

Alexa spends weeks and weeks saying Bayley is too much of a coward to use weapons. The grand finale of this story: Bayley is too much of a coward to use weapons.

[Deleted]

Seth Rollins' post-screwjob antics are a standout to me. He gets screwed, he vows to "burn the establishment down," and does so by trying to rise up the ranks match by match and hope nobody screws around with him anymore. Takes him six months to utter Triple H's name again and then he finally does everything he should've done months earlier. Once it got going it was fine, but as a revenge storyline this was the most plodding, unsatisfying thing.

[crowley1986]

It would be quicker if we wrote the best ones

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

A few favorites:

- failed strip mall ex machina
- Booker T versus Edge: Japanese shampoo commercials are serious business
- Kurt Angle doesn't know what bestiality means. Or more horribly, he does.
- Zack Ryder vs. Kane: textbook definition of wrestling burial featuring Zack Ryder's magically healing back.
- Bossman: when they want to scare Ser Gregor Clegane, they tell him stories about me!

[Hit Girl]

Hornswoggle as the computer GM

[Push R Truth]

The one time Vince/The Authority tried to punish somebody by giving them a title shot

[axebomber]

Summer of Punk

[Jobes]

Kane rapes and impregnates Lita. Lita gets attacked and has a miscarriage. This makes Kane a babyface.

[JoDaNa1281]

Mar 29, 2018 16:01:07 GMT -5 Jobes said:

Kane rapes and impregnates Lita. Lita gets attacked and has a miscarriage. This makes Kane a babyface.

Speaking of Kane, the Katie Vick angle...because nothing makes people wanna see a match quite like necrophilia.

[Deleted]

The Bella Breakup and reunion

[Deleted]

The Cena fired by the Nexus angle has to be up there. There were some stumbling blocks along the way certainly but the logical payoff was Barrett wins the belt, finds an excuse to fire Cena anyway, then Cena eventually works his way back and takes it from him.

So instead we get Cena fired and doing this big long passionate goodbye, only to come back immediately afterward and suddenly be able to curbstomp the entire group every single week, at one point even having his music play after he finished a beatdown.

It's no wonder after the crowd had been cheering for Cena for awhile they were right back to being all in on booing him right after TLC.

[Mozenrath]

One of the best-worst examples of this is the end of the InVasion, which was obviously fraught with problems, anyway, but Kurt had become a mole and costs Austin and makes the Alliance lose to save WWE.

So, naturally, Kurt is now a heel again and Austin is a face, with literally no justification.

It's the closest WWE has ever come to admitting, "This story sucked, sorry fans. Here's a huge-ass reset button."

It was shit, amateur writing, but it also was giving fans what they largely wanted, so a lot of fans gave them a pass on it.

[carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army)]

Cena vs. Wyatt.

Cena has to prove he won't submit to the dark side by hitting people with chairs..... by hitting a dude with a chair.

[Mozenrath]

Mar 29, 2018 16:11:37 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

The Cena fired by the Nexus angle has to be up there. There were some stumbling blocks along the way certainly but the logical payoff was Barrett wins the belt, finds an excuse to fire Cena anyway, then Cena eventually works his way back and takes it from him.

So instead we get Cena fired and doing this big long passionate goodbye, only to come back immediately afterward and suddenly be able to curbstomp the entire group every single week, at one point even having his music play after he finished a beatdown.

It's no wonder after the crowd had been cheering for Cena for awhile they were right back to being all in on booing him right after TLC.

That was pretty bad. It's a shame that Barrett was the de facto leader, since while he could talk and had a good look, he was really mediocre in the ring at this point, and had the second worst finisher in the stable, next to Tarver. (Jeff Cobb does Tarver's finish MUCH better, while Tarver looked like he was doing it with about as much force as someone would use to empty a full laundry bag.)

So, storyline wise, Barrett winning would make sense, I think they rushed to that payoff too fast to begin with. Still sucks they pulled the rug out from under the group, and they should have stayed the course, but I think it'd have bombed there, too.

[Deleted]

Mar 29, 2018 16:13:59 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

It's the closest WWE has ever come to admitting, "This story sucked, sorry fans. Here's a huge-ass reset button."

It was shit, amateur writing, but it also was giving fans what they largely wanted, so a lot of fans gave them a pass on it.

See also Rikishi going back to being happy and dancing just because he was told to.