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Biggest mistake/booking decision in Wrestling history?

14K views 117 replies 98 participants last post by  bigdog40 
#1 · (Edited)
What in your opinion was the worst booking decision or mistake in all of Wrestling?

Obviously, WCW will be brought up a lot in this conversation. So if your top pick is something WCW related, pick the worst mistake in WWE as well.

I'd put my pick, but I'm not really sure. Part of the reason I made this thread was to see who can come up with the worst booking decision/mistake and eventually choose from one of those.

Note: Try to pick something else other than the Owen Hart incident. I'm referring more to something like David Arquette winning the heavyweight title.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Forget WCW.
The Invasion angle is the biggest botch in history.

WCW made some stupid mistakes in their time, but nothing cost more people more money than the shit invasion.
 
#10 ·
Daniel Bryan's 2014 and 2015 booking.

2014 - he should have won the royal rumble. At least they found a way to rectify it, and made the RTWM pretty epic, with culmination at WM30. But 100% that this wasn't plan A, they just adjusted their course because they had no choice.

2015 though? Horrible failure. Everyone wanted to see Daniel Bryan return as a hero and win the rumble and go back to mania to have a chance at winning his title back. Yet nope.

As a casual tv viewer - I strongly feel that you have Hogan, Austin, Rock in whatever order - and than Daniel Bryan. Maybe he's even among the first 3. In terms of popularity, i have never seen that level of fan support outside of those guys. Not for Taker, Cena, HBK, Bret, Warrior...it was crazy.

So to me - common sense - take advantage of it. Stick a rocket to Bryan's back and roll with it. Which they didn't do.
 
#54 ·
If you'll allow me to go Old school, I think a huge one would be Verne Gagne and the AWA being unable to hold on to Hogan in the early 80s. They had his Rocky 3 hullabaloo, hulkamania was their biggest draw, and they let him go to Vince over apparent unreasonable demands and not giving him the AWA title.

I think that trumps all this crap about Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns lol :grin2:
 
#6 · (Edited)
WCW: The decision to first work creative control into wrestler contracts (I think it was Hogan) which ultimately led to a series of infamous bookings contributing to the death of the company.

WWE: The booking of Roman Reigns / Daniel Bryan in the 2015 Royal Rumble. Now on the surface, it's not that bad. But here's what it really meant:

1. The Undertaker lost his Wrestlemania streak to Brock Lesnar
2. Brock Lesnar was built up as an unstoppable beast for over a year
3. Roman Reigns was supposed to beat Brock Lesnar to win his first WWE WHC title in the main event of Wrestlemania

On paper, it was supposed to be epic... but they completely botched the booking of that Royal Rumble, causing a further 14 months of back-pedalling to get Reigns over, giving him the title on Raw, delaying Brock's eventual clean loss, and spoiling Taker's streak for no payoff until possibly 3-4 years later, losing some of it's effect. Taker's streak was supposed to help propel Reigns as the next top guy, but the plan failed. In two months we'll know more about the extent of this booking mistake.
 
#86 ·
I whole-heartedly agree with this. If it had done right, it would've been awesome by the end of Wrestlemania 31. Brock Lensar's beating the streak is losing its steam the more the delayed it. I wonder if WWE could somehow make it effective as we move forward and closing into Wrestlemania 32.

With that said, I could also add King Mabel winning the King of the Ring 1995. The winners should've been either Undertaker or Shawn Michaels. You have Undertaker and Shawn Michaels in one King of the Ring tournament and THEY DID NOT WRESTLER OR ANY OF THEM WIN??? Vince went with Mabel. Even the whole Savio Vega would've been good by defying the odds and fighting his way to win the tournament.

People claim they have seen the worst PPV either in 2013, 14, or 15 but you have NEVER experienced King of the Ring 1995. If this PPV would've happened in 2015 or 16, it would've killed the WWE for good. Just think about it.
 
#65 · (Edited)
Because of this thread, I re-watched Nitro from Jan 4, 1999, where they give away Mankind's title win and then did the finger poke of doom.

I'm shocked because the finger poke of doom was actually good booking in context of the Goldberg storyline, but was ruined by the absence of a comeuppance immediately after when the crowd was yearning for Hogan, Nash, Hall, and Steiner to have justice served on them.

Why the finger poke of doom? Because after being screwed and beaten by Nash at the previous PPV, Goldberg had a re-match for the title. To avoid losing the title, Nash handed it over to Hogan to screw Goldberg out of a re-match.

They didn't make his intentions clear, and after Goldberg got out of the police station and ran down to the ring (to a huge pop after 2 hours of being wrongly accused) it was great, Goldberg dominated. Justice was served. Great storyline... but then they overdid it. His friend, Lex Lugar at the time, turned on him, and Goldberg was swamped and handcuffed to the ropes and tasered...

All they had to do was let Goldberg rip into them and the crowd goes home happy. Or even more logical, Ric Flair comes out (first night as president) and says he's not letting a screw job happen under his watch - ring the bell it's Goldberg vs Hogan for the title right now.

It so easily could have been a brilliant episode if they didn't announce the Mankind title win and they let Goldberg get justice by Flair coming out and surprising the crowd with Goldberg vs Hogan.
 
#5 ·
They should have tried to move Bill Goldberg to Smackdown in 2004 instead of let him go, he would had great feuds there with Kurt Angle, JBL and John Cena.
 
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#16 ·
The biggest mistake IMO hasn't happened once but multiple times, whenever Vince has a panic attack he puts the title on Orton or Cena, now a few years down the track they are both out injured and they've got to now rely on older talents such as Triple H because their roster appears so watered down due to no one (besides Reigns) getting a decent chance in the past few years.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Ryback losing to Mark Henry while Fandango beat Jericho at WM29.

I remember Jericho was interested in putting Ryback over during that time. Why wouldn't they let him do it?

This decision ended up ruining Jericho's credibility and Ryback's push as a main eventer while it did nothing for Mark Henry and Fandango.

I know there are a bunch of worse booking decisions. But this one bothers me a lot when I remember it.
 
#37 ·
Sting not squashing Hulk Hogan at Starrcade 97 and that embarrassing finish. WCW botched the greatest storyline ever with it's ending.

Goldberg losing the streak to KEVIN NASH who was head booker in WCW at the time. Fingerpoke of doom, and RAW results given away only for people to watch Mankind win the belt. WCWLOL.

Stone Cold's heel turn was ignorant. Rock was at that point a megastar and WWF's top draw, but you don't have Austin shake hands with McMahon. Just pure ignorance.

Triple H's reign of terror sent ratings and fans out in droves.

Triple H going over CM Punk during the summer of 2011, only to fall back into "part timing"

Current Roman Reigns push, that should have went to Dean Ambrose is happening right now.

I'm sure there's many more I missed. But these have all affected business.
 
#38 ·
I agree with Starrcade 97 and Goldberg's streak ending. More Starrcade 97. At the time WCW was notorious for bad booking decisions. If you think WWE in the last few years were bad at booking decisions. WCW beats WWE by 10 miles.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Lately:

-Giving Eva a title shot and plowing through 5 of NXT's up and coming girls. People only hated her more for it, and I felt she should have been on TV for 6 months to a year before giving her any slack. I wouldn't have even considered it until she put on at least 1 good match that didn't have any botches (cause he matches were barely NXT House Show worthy, and even the actual House Show ones ended badly).


-Having Ambrose's story arc with McMahon given to Roman Reigns. The Samoan Baddass who grew up fighting in the streets and being a street tuff, but then gets beat up by everyone, it just didn't fit the story. Ambrose was the one who was Lunatic Fringe and was building up major steam in his Asylum (only the greatest gimmick ever for a Vs McMahon story), and people cheered like crazy when Ambrose won the Title, but then he was stripped and house of boos took over a once happy universe. They should have built him up from there, using McMahon with Rollins, instead we got Roman against Sheamus with McMahon. Imagine Ambrose with title, and Rollins using Vinces help, and big blow out in time for Royal Rumble.

Continued from the mistake, Ambrose's Survivor Series tournament win given to Roman, when Roman should have lost in semi-finals. They gave Roman the title, only to take it off him cause they thought it is better to win at WM rather than defend win.

Continued from the two previous mistakes, Ambrose's Royal Rumble win given to fucking HHH the COO of the company, a dude who should have retired when he took full time job as a corporate person. An even bigger mistake, letting Ambrose's beat down of HHH, handed once again to fucking Roman Reigns.

Continued, Future Mistake, Ambroe's WM Main event Title Win, handed to Roman Reigns. When everyone knows Brock vs HHH is a bigger headliner, and Ambrose vs HHH is gonna help this company move forward better when Rollins returns.



THE GREATEST MISTAKE OF ALL TIME:
Ambrose, a guy who has constantly been stripped, and removed from everything that should be his, and guess what, the man reaping all the great things is his fucking best buddy. FUCK THAT. Ambrose should hate Roman, and I'm sick of Ambrose being 2nd fiddle to Roman, and having to be all nice.

He is fucking Lunatic in the Asylum, why on earth would he give a shit about Roman, especially after another "brother" betrayed him for a title shot. Roman has basically betrayed Ambrose more than Rollins, and Roman is a morose mother fucker holding Ambrose back yet Ambrose never does shit about it. While Roman, who didn't deserve shit after blowing his RR win, and his main event WM, is sitting back taking easy ride. <-Why didn't WWE learn from their huge mistakes.
 
#9 ·
Starting the Invasion storyline while all of WCW's biggest stars were essentially getting paid to sit at home. Vince should have waited it out and the story could have revolved around WCW wrestlers being tired of waiting around, and trying to take over by force. The fact that they wasted a potential Austin babyface after an awesome pre-PPV RAW because they lacked star power was a terrible booking decision.
 
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#11 ·
Turning Austin heel - as much as I enjoyed it I don't think it was a good move.

Undertaker losing the streak.

Kane losing the mask - his call but someone should have just said no.
 
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#14 · (Edited)
WCW not letting DX ride in to the Nitro arena. They could have gained ratings, especially if they had the NWO Hollywood attack them. (I'm sure the NWO was split between BW and RB then).

WWE, not keeping Shelton Benjamin and Randy Orton feud going. That could have been the potential next Rock vs HHH, Black athlete vs White athlete dynamic, which could have eventually led to them trading WWE title reigns back and fourth in their feuds. But nah, WWE let HHH ride with the WWE *world* title throughout the whole Ruthless Aggression period.
 
#19 ·
having wcw guys treated unequally during the invasion angle

letting Victory Road 2011 end the way it did

WCW not letting DX ride in to the Nitro arena. They could have gained ratings, especially if they had the NWO Hollywood attack them. (I'm sure the NWO was split between BW and RB then).
vince would probably have been liable to sue
 
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#22 ·
being a Kane mark i think Kane losing his mask was really bad. Even though he had garbage booking up to that point, they still could of rectified it and kept him as a monster, although his booking after the mask removal as a psychopath was decent, I just wish they booked him consistently as the monster he deserved to be and not in shitty contrast tag teams, among other things. In general I wish they didnt fuck up Kane. dude was scary.
 
#25 · (Edited)
There are so many to it's tough to pick just one. With that being said, I'll try to think outside of the box.

Ok, WWE not trying harder to get the people on John Cena's side around 2005-2006 when he was getting booed is high up there for me personally. I don't think a top babyface has ever been treated like that with the company doing nothing to fix it. Didn't happen with Sammartino, Hogan or Austin, the fans turning on Bret was kinda orchestrated by storylines in favor of Austin, HBK's led to a much needed heel turn and Rock being rejected happened before he reached the main event and was rectified became a top guy. I'm not saying they should've turned Cena heel or find someone else to lead the company (there was no on else LOL) but at least try something else besides pretending he's not getting booed, blame it on his "wrestling" skills or the fans.

It's been a decade since but Cena still isn't universally loved and plus now, things are happening all over again with Roman Reigns. WWE may never have a truly beloved face of the company for years or even decades. Situations like these have wronged the fans, the performers and ultimately wasted WWE's time.
 
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