WWE's first major booking mistake?

[David-Arquette was in WCW 2000]

It's generally a given that WWE has been on a slow decline since the end of the Attitude Era, with people looking at the death of WCW and lack of competition as the reason it started. While this is definitely a factor, the booking has been terrible for years now.

Watching the Wrestlemania x7 episode from Bruce and Conrad, they talk about the ill judged Austin heel turn being a move that switched off a lot of viewers and overall loss of interest in the company. I've heard this a few times.

Could this be the first big, needle moving booking mistake from the company in their history, in that it set of a chain reaction of terrible booking the rest of the year, and signalling the end of the wrestling boom?

[realist]

Oh no. Waaaay before that. Almost the entire New Generation era, for one. They tried to turn a naturally charismatic giant in Diesel into a carbon copy of Hulk Hogan. It was destined to fail. They sped up the failure by trying to manufacture monsters like King Mabel for him to "Hulk up" on and overcome.

[Hit Girl]

Booking HHH as the top guy, then bulldozing everyone for the sake of pushing Cena.

[nickcave]

Booking Slaughter as an Iraqi sympathizing heel during a real war is an underrated example of a booking mistake that turned off a lot of viewers.

[Pushed to the Moon]

I don't know if it's the worst mistake ever or anything but Austin himself says it was a mistake and he wishes he'd called an audible and stunned Vince.

[Bo Rida]

The hhh/Steph/Kurt love triangle fizzling out was the big one before that.


Gave WWE the idea that poor or none existant pay offs to big stories was acceptable.

Drove away many casual viewers, especially women iirc from an article/interview I read years ago.

[David-Arquette was in WCW 2000]

Apr 4, 2019 13:57:54 GMT -5 realist said:

Oh no. Waaaay before that. Almost the entire New Generation era, for one. They tried to turn a naturally charismatic giant in Diesel into a carbon copy of Hulk Hogan. It was destined to fail. They sped up the failure by trying to manufacture monsters like King Mabel for him to "Hulk up" on and overcome.

I had thought of that myself, but then the wrestling business as a whole was in the shit at the time, I don't know if they'd been much better off keeping Hart as Champ or putting the belt on Michaels earlier.

[abjordans]

Stan Stasiak as champion

[fw91]

Apr 4, 2019 14:03:48 GMT -5 abjordans said:

Stan Stasiak as champion

Nah that was like a 6 day reign to transition for Morales to Bruno’s second reign. No harm there.

[GuyOfOwnage]

Apr 4, 2019 13:57:54 GMT -5 realist said:

Oh no. Waaaay before that. Almost the entire New Generation era, for one. They tried to turn a naturally charismatic giant in Diesel into a carbon copy of Hulk Hogan. It was destined to fail. They sped up the failure by trying to manufacture monsters like King Mabel for him to "Hulk up" on and overcome.

I do wonder how 1995 might've gone if they just tapped into Nash's natural charisma instead of making him a Hulk Hogan clone.

[karl100589]

Trying to make Luger the face of the company. While I understand the need for someone to fill Hogan's void Luger's push was painfully contrived. The all-American patriot was hokey even by 1993 and Luger didn't have the charisma or likability to pull the role off. It was the first time where the crowd went for the naturally popular every-man over the company's chosen one, a trend which has become more prominent in recent years.

[Mid-Carder]

3 major ones. Turning Austin heel the second time. HHH dominating TV and never putting anyone over. The forced Cena push that nobody wanted and killed everybody else's momentum.

[Deleted]

With Rock leaving for a while it didn't make sense for Austin to turn heel especially with the Alliance storyline coming up. He should have been leading the WWF. Anyway the whole Invasion should have been held off until they had the rest of the WCW guys on board.

WCW going out of business, The botched Invasion angle, Austin and Rock no longer being full time, WWE going public, the brand split diluting the quality of each show were all factors in the decline. I think a lot of people thought the Attitude Era was what wrestling would always be like. It was the time when I got into wrestling and around 2002 is where I started to no longer watch weekly as you could see it wasn't the same shows anymore. WWE no longer had to take risks. You're telling me Triple H would have been dominating Raw if WCW was still competing?

[RedSmile]

Ricky Steamboat after WMIII.

[Milkman Norm]

Putting the belt on Bob Backlund when Superstar Billy Graham was hot & the audience want to see him turn babyface.

[Wieners=$$$]

Keeping Hulk Hogan in the spotlight for too long. The one feud left that people had interest in with Hogan was Flair, and there was no pay-off to it, despite a half-year long build. By the time they met in WCW, no one wanted to watch the same-old Hogan schtick.

[Allie Kitsune]

Something having to do with Hogan.

Probably when they had him beat Yokozuna for no good reason at WM 9.

[Starshine]

Wasn't Bob Backlund a pretty unpopular champion for them, at least for a time?

[the2ndevil]

Apr 4, 2019 16:21:41 GMT -5 Milkman Norm said:

Putting the belt on Bob Backlund when Superstar Billy Graham was hot & the audience want to see him turn babyface.

This creates an interesting butterfly effect.

Does Iron Shiek still win the title? Does Hogan still win the title at the start of the company using cable to go national?

[CeilingFan]

Apr 4, 2019 17:32:44 GMT -5 Starshine said:

Wasn't Bob Backlund a pretty unpopular champion for them, at least for a time?

Backlund got stale in 1983. Luckily he dropped the belt in December of that year.