History Horrible / WWE

# To ensure that the match, event, gimmick, etc. is judged with a clear mind and the hatred isn't just a knee-jerk reaction, as well as to allow opinions to properly form, '''[[Administrivia/NoRecentExamplesPlease examples should not be added until at least one month after release]]'''.

Wrestling/{{WWE}} (formerly CWC, then WWWF, then WWF) is a LongRunner in both its history and its talent, so it's no real surprise that it's hit more than a few snags along the way - bad wrestler ideas, bad pay-per-view events, and bad gimmicky storylines. And perhaps most disappointingly, good ideas botched due to various errors in judgement or other factors.

Wrestling/{{WWE}} (formerly CWC, then WWWF, then WWF) is a LongRunner in both its history and its talent, so it's no real surprise that it's hit more than a few snags along the way - bad wrestler ideas, bad pay-per-view events, and bad gimmicky storylines.

* ''[[Horrible/WWEGookerAwardWinners Gooker Award winners]]''
* ''[[Horrible/WWEOther Other]]''

!!Examples:
[[foldercontrol]]

!! [[Website/WrestleCrap Gooker Award]] [[MedalOfDishonor winners]]

[[folder:The [=InVasion=] Angle (2001)]]
Ah, Wrestling/TheInvasionAngle - the greatest feud there ever could have been, and [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot the biggest disappointment there ever was.]]

* By April 2001, the then-WWF had bought both of its major competitors - [[Wrestling/{{WCW}} World Championship Wrestling]] and [[Wrestling/{{ECW}} Extreme Championship Wrestling]] - after both companies had gone out of business. The WCW buyout was the major acquisition, with the WWF acquiring the company's assets (including many of the contracts of its remaining roster and its extensive video library); they went so far as to have a special ''[[Wrestling/WCWMondayNitro Nitro]]''/''[[Wrestling/WWERaw Raw]]'' simulcast segment after the last match on the final ''Nitro'' to announce that Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon had ({{kayfabe}}) bought WCW instead of his father Wrestling/{{Vince|McMahon}} (which, itself, was where the problems started).
* WCW vs. WWF was a dream match that fans looked forward to, but it quickly turned sour in the weeks leading up to the ''[=InVasion=]'' PPV. ECW wrestlers invaded an episode of ''Raw'', and Wrestling/PaulHeyman himself declared the WWF vs. WCW war would be "taken to the extreme". This was the absolute high point of the storyline, as it appeared the top three wrestling promotions of the Wrestling/AttitudeEra would be duking it out with each other in a no-holds-barred winner-take-all big battle... and then it all went downhill. At the end of that night, ECW joined with WCW and became a singular entity known as The Alliance. The group would be called "the Alliance" through the rest of the storyline; mentions of ECW and WCW were kept to a minimum, partly because of trademark issues with usage of the ECW name. To top it off, Wrestling/StephanieMcMahon had been announced as the new owner of ECW, thus making the feud Shane and Steph vs. Vince, with the wrestlers as pawns in their family squabble. After having the Austin/[=McMahon=] feud appear to end because of the main event at ''[=WrestleMania=] [=X7=]'', Vince threw himself and his family into the spotlight again, overshadowing everyone else and infuriating a lot of fans.
* The very first time the WWF tried to promote a WCW match counted as this all on its own, for a whole bunch of reasons - some of which weren't even anyone's fault. The match was Wrestling/BookerT vs. Wrestling/BuffBagwell in front of a very hostile Tacoma, Washington crowd. The crowd had been booing and heckling the wrestlers all night, and many of them walked out before the WCW match even started. Booker and Bagwell didn't help, putting on a truly awful match (most of the blame went to Bagwell, who didn't exactly have a reputation for being a stellar worker to begin with, and who was in exceptionally poor form that night - Bagwell later blamed his performance on nerves from the hostile fans, though). The only thing that got cheers during the match was when Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin and Wrestling/KurtAngle, the WWF's top heels at the time, came out to beat up Booker and Bagwell before tossing them out of the arena. From this show, Vince took the belief that fans wouldn't cheer any WCW wrestlers and that WCW wrestlers didn't know how to work anyway. To put this in metaphor, the [=InVasion=] got off on the wrong step. This show was the wrong step, and WWE has rarely been back to Tacoma since. Bagwell was legitimately fired because the match was that horrible. Its induction into the annals of the Website/WrestleCrap archives didn't come ''[[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/induction-bookervsbuff/ until 15 years after the initial taping]]'' because RD Reynolds was so infuriated by it that [[BrainBleach "he never wanted to relive it."]]
* The next problem with the [=InVasion=] was the lack of star power on the part of WCW. Many top-tier WCW stars were not acquired by the WWF because their contracts were supposedly too expensive to buy out, the most notable amongst these names being Wrestling/RicFlair, Wrestling/{{Sting}}, Wrestling/{{Goldberg}}, Wrestling/ScottSteiner and (most damning of all), the ''entire'' original [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder nWo]] (Wrestling/HulkHogan, Wrestling/ScottHall and Wrestling/KevinNash). This meant that the two biggest names on the WCW side at the beginning of the angle were Wrestling/BookerT and Wrestling/DiamondDallasPage. This, of course, prevented many of the most anticipated WCW vs. WWF matches from happening. Instead, in a combination of trying to put higher drawing wrestlers in the main event and an unwillingness to treat WCW (and later ECW) like they were actually on par with WWF, Vince had both Austin and Angle turn {{turncoat}} and join the Alliance. The only Alliance members who were allowed to look halfway decent against the WWF guys were those who had already been working in WWF previously - [[Wrestling/TheDudleyBoys The Dudley Boyz]] and Wrestling/{{Rhyno}}, for example. In other words, the feud, for the most part, was very blatantly WWF vs. WWF. Most of the WCW and ECW guys were kept in the background and those that weren't were treated rather horribly, bar Wrestling/RobVanDam. Vince responded by booking Van Dam against WWF heels as often as possible.
* Wrestling/DiamondDallasPage's treatment during the [=InVasion=] deserves its own explanation. DDP was so eager to continue his career, as well as be a major player in the [=InVasion=], that he accepted a buyout for his WCW contract to the tune of 50 cents on the dollar. He was brought in as the stalker of Wrestling/TheUndertaker's then-wife at the time Sara, and then he and fellow WCW refugee [[Wrestling/{{Kanyon}} Chris Kanyon]] feuded with Undertaker and Wrestling/{{Kane}} - and they were absolutely buried; the average match resembled a CurbStompBattle, and the feud ended with Page getting pinned by ''Sara'' from within a ''Raw'' match after ''Wrestling/SummerSlam'' 2001. He was reduced to a lower midcarder with a motivational-speaker gimmick, and had only just started getting over again when he was severely concussed in a match with [[Wrestling/BobHolly Hardcore Holly]], essentially ending his wrestling career (aside from a brief run with [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]]). The Undertaker's lack of interest in the entire angle certainly didn't help anything -- he went out of his way to make Page look bad. As the next entry also suggests, 'Taker the consummate WWF company man appeared to have taken the Wrestling/MondayNightWars more personally than he should have and was simply unwilling to work properly with ex-WCW guys, possibly the single most unprofessional thing the Deadman ever did in his otherwise legendary career, which may have played a hand at being named Most Overrated that year by the ''Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter'' awards.
* ''[[Wrestling/UnforgivenWrestling Unforgiven]]'' 2001 featured an infamous match between the Brothers of Destruction and Kronik. Taker was [[NoSell no-selling]] everything any WCW guy did to him with impunity, and Kane was only slightly better; meanwhile, told they were losing, Kronik decided they just wouldn't try very hard in the match. Botches, no-selling, extended rest-holds, miscommunication between the wrestlers, everything that could go wrong did. Both members of Kronik were ordered to go to development after the match, but refused and lost their jobs.
* Then, finally, there was ''Wrestling/SurvivorSeries'' 2001. The final match was a "Winner Take All" Survivor Series Match between the Alliance and the WWF where the loser of the match would be forced to withdraw from the wrestling business (which should have told you who was winning right from the start). The match put Team WWF (Wrestling/BigShow, Wrestling/ChrisJericho [[note]]{both WCW alumni!}[[/note]], The Undertaker, Kane, and [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]]) against Team Alliance ("Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Kurt Angle [[note]]{who had only ever wrestled for the WWF}[[/note]], Booker T, Rob Van Dam, and [=Shane McMahon=] [[note]]{yes, that's right: ''Shane [=McMahon=]'' was one of the men tasked with wrestling on behalf of the Alliance's existence, and he didn't have a non-wrestler counterpart on the WWF side, making the outcome all the more blatant}[[/note]]). Of the ten men in the match, only two had been in the Alliance's originating companies when they went out of business (Booker T in WCW and Rob Van Dam in ECW), essentially making the main event an all-WWF affair. This becomes even more blatant given that the final two men in the match were Steve Austin and The Rock. That's right, the fate of the wrestling world didn't hinge on a WCW star vs. a WWF star or an ECW star vs. a WWF star - it hinged on the two biggest WWF stars of the Attitude Era. And Rock won thanks to Angle nailing Austin with the title belt and betraying the Alliance!
* After the [=InVasion=] ended, all the WCW main eventers who had been supposedly too expensive to bring over were hired over the years, with Ric Flair showing up the very night after the [=InVasion=] ended. Over the years, every WCW main eventer would end up in WWE, with Sting eventually being the last; though he was invited several times in the interim, he didn't trust WWE creative to treat him well and declined to hop onboard until 2014. In a shoot interview, Sting admitted that the reason he thought this was because of seeing how WWE treated Booker T during the [=InVasion=] angle. [=InVasion=] was so bad, it ruined even the future possibility of the dream match of Sting vs. Undertaker, as they're both long past their prime in the ring and Sting announced his retirement from wrestling at his induction into the Wrestling/WWEHallOfFame in 2016.
** Incidentally, it turned out that Sting was ''[[ProperlyParanoid 100% correct]]'' in his assumptions, as when he finally did debut in WWE it was just so the company could drag out WCW's corpse to piss on it one more time - during his ''Wrestling/WrestleMania'' 31 match against Wrestling/TripleH, the commentators constantly harped on Sting for being a "WCW interloper" out to ruin the company for them when during the feud Sting had ''pointedly gone out of his way'' to deny this - in fact, his reason for opposing Wrestling/TheAuthority was because he didn't want to see their backstage politics ruin WWE the same way WCW had gone and then he lost the damn match anyway! Though that was honestly not even the worst thing the Authority did, and you can see their folder for a full overview of the angle.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Katie Vick Saga (2002)]]
Murder, necrophilia, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking puppets]], this saga had it all!
* The storyline had Wrestling/{{Kane}} challenging Wrestling/TripleH to his World Title, when H started talking about a mysterious woman named 'Katie Vick' that upset Kane. It was soon revealed that she was Kane's [[DisposableWoman dead high school sweetheart]] that he had killed in a car accident. A distasteful subject, but nothing was too offensive... until Wrestling/TripleH wore a Wrestling/{{Kane}} mask, entered [[TheFunInFuneral the funeral parlor]] where Katie's body was apparently on display, climbed into the casket, and proceeded to ''[[{{Squick}} have sex with the corpse]]'' (actually a doll). The scene [[DoubleEntendre climaxes]] in a handful of spaghetti bolognese getting thrown at the camera and the punchline ''"I finally did it! [[IncrediblyLamePun I screwed your brains out]]!"''
* It was later reported that Wrestling/VinceMcMahon was the only person who found the angle amusing, and literally everybody else involved tried their damnedest to convince him otherwise. For years afterward, the skit was castigated by such folks as [[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4x6rl_triple-h-returns-to-the-opie-and-an_shortfilms Triple H]], Wrestling/MickFoley, [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]], Shawn Michaels, Wrestling/CMPunk, even Wrestling/{{Kane}} himself, and it is universally considered by fans to be one of the most embarrassing moments in professional wrestling.
* The vignette was also filmed in an actual funeral parlor where actual funeral business was still actually being conducted that day. Apparently there was a service going on in the next room, and the funeral director had to come in to interrupt because Triple H was making too much noise having fake sex with a corpse/doll.
* This is just one of a long line of attempts to apparently kill Kane's career. The [[Film/SeeNoEvil May 19, 2006]] angle and Wrestling/{{Lita}}'s pregnancy come to mind here, along with his previous gimmicks of the Fake Diesel, Isaac Yankem, and the Christmas Creature.
* This angle also tanked Scott "Sick Boy" Vick's career. Vick was seen at the time as an underrated wrestler with a big upside, and the entire reason Vick was chosen as Katie's last name was for bringing him onto the main roster: He was going to be her kayfabe brother. Then, when the angle tanked, WWE lost interest in him, and he in turn lost interest in the wrestling business.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:"Eddiesploitation" (2006)]]
Wrestling/VinceMcMahon's "tribute" to the late Wrestling/EddieGuerrero, a tasteless and disrespectful angle that lasted for over a year starting from 2006, and involved every superstar connected to Latino Heat [[MoneyDearBoy just for the sake of ratings]].
* It featured "shining moments" such as Wrestling/RandyOrton telling Wrestling/{{Rey Mysterio|Jr}} to his face that Eddie was "in hell" (something that Orton absolutely hated doing, as like everyone else, he loved Eddie), and Mysterio being given a world title push, which would probably have been viewed as a tribute to his fallen friend... if not for the fact that through said push, it was implied that Mysterio was receiving spiritual assistance from Eddie's spirit in Heaven. It didn't even stop there--everyone from Eddie's best friends to ''[[Wrestling/VickieGuerrero Eddie's still-grieving widow]]'' was forced to take part in feud after feud, fight after fight, and promo after promo referencing him and his death. Only one thing kept it from dragging on even longer: Wrestling/ChrisBenoit finally called Vince out, after he tried to set up a feud between Benoit and Chavo Guerrero over Eddie's "estate." To this day, Eddiesploitation is easily [=McMahon=] at his most shameful. According to Wrestling/{{Konnan}}, [=McMahon=] himself was the only person in the company who didn't see how awful an idea it was. When Website/WrestleCrap awarded it the [[MedalOfDishonor Gooker Award]] [[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/eddiesplotation-2006-gooker-award-winner/ for 2006]], RD Reynolds didn't include any soundbites or images--it was so ''loathsome'' he couldn't bring himself to go through it again, article or none.
-->'''Reynolds:''' On the marquee of this site, it says, "The Very Worst of Professional Wrestling." Truly, this induction is the very embodiment of that tagline. The seemingly never-ending exploitation of the late, great Eddie Guerrero is [[SarcasmFailure the absolute worst of pro wrestling]], bar none.
* Just to underscore the utter disgusting magnitude of this ghoulish travesty, due to these angles, some people, including some wrestling pundits, believed that ''[[HesJustHiding Eddie was faking his death]]'' and that he would just pop up at Wrestlemania to help his good friend Rey Mysterio win the World Title.
* To add insult to injury, Vince evidently didn't learn anything from this travesty. After Wrestling/RomanReigns was forced to temporarily leave the company in October 2018 due to a resurgence of leukemia, Vince had Wrestling/DeanAmbrose -- as part of a FaceHeelTurn -- mock Roman and his situation with a promo line saying that his illness was a "punishment" and "him having to respond to the man upstairs." And that wasn't even the most offensive promo he wanted Ambrose to cut! According to Dean, [=McMahon=] had in mind a promo that, had the former not refused to go through with it, would've lost WWE all business with cancer-related organizations ''and'' required them to fire him and the writers to save face. Dean has not shared the details publicly, nor have the handful of people he's told, but he cited it as one reason [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere he left WWE]].
* On the bright side, this angle did give Wrestling/VickieGuerrero a career as a spokesperson and manager that has lasted even into her tenure in Wrestling/{{AEW}}. Although some, if not many, would say that her presence and gimmick make her a really annoying [[TheScrappy Scrappy]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Jinder Mahal: WWE Champion (2017)]]
In 2017, WWE decided to give the WWE Championship to Wrestling/JinderMahal. The end result was a total disgrace to the company that completely derailed Jinder's career and tarnished the once proud championship.

* During his first run with the company, Jinder was a lower-midcarder at best, and ended his tenure being released while part of [[Wrestling/ThreeMB 3MB]], who, despite being [[EnsembleDarkhorse over]], existed just to {{job|ber}}. When he was rehired in 2016 to fill out the roster following the second Brand Extension, he resumed his WWE tenure doing just that. On the 2017 Superstar Shake-up, he was sent to ''[=SmackDown=]'', where the story begins:
* In the blue brand, no less than two weeks removed from being embarrassed at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania'' 33 by [[UsefulNotes/NFLOffensivePlayers football player]] Rob Gronkowski, he was entered as a seeming extra body in a #1 Contender's match for Wrestling/RandyOrton's WWE Championship. [[FromNobodyToNightmare He shocked the world by winning, then beating Orton for the title]] at ''Wrestling/{{Backlash}}'' 2017. Speculation soon arose that he had been given the belt to promote WWE's forthcoming tour of India, which made business sense--it's one of the largest and fastest-growing countries in the world, and a perfect place for wrestling to make inroads. The problem was that Mahal wasn't a very good choice to promote the company: for one, he [[FakeNationality wasn't born in India]].[[note]]He ''is'' an Indian Punjabi Sikh, but he was born and raised in {{Canada|Eh}}.[[/note]] His in-ring ability was SoOkayItsAverage at best and on par with anything else listed here at worst, and hadn't really improved since he left the first time.[[note]](About the only pops he got during his matches were from his lackeys the Singhs, the former Bollywood Boyz, constantly running interference and bumping like madmen, which ended up being the way Jinder always won his matches- having the brothers distract his opponent while he recovered and hit him with his finisher afterwards)[[/note]] What's more, his character was just boring, a dead-straight stock ForeignWrestlingHeel that would've been out of date more than twenty years prior.
* From there, his title reign went on to defy all understanding of how credible champions were booked. "Highlights" include defending the title against Randy Orton in a Punjabi Prison Match[[note]]rated as one of the worst gimmick matches of all time--the only other match they brought it back for was with Wrestling/TheGreatKhali that same night, who also was responsible for helping Jinder win his match to audible boos[[/note]] at ''Battleground'' 2017, an attempted cash in by Wrestling/BaronCorbin during a match with Wrestling/JohnCena that was thwarted by a roll up, damaging the images of all three wrestlers involved, and a feud with Wrestling/ShinsukeNakamura that nearly destroyed the latter's already shaky career in the main roster.[[note]]and also featured some of the most racist promos aired on WWE television since Wrestling/TheNationOfDomination, famously met [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/09/20/wwe-has-dealt-with-racism-before-but-a-scripted-rant-has-fans-chanting-thats-too-far/ with cries of "THAT'S TOO FAR!"]] from the crowd)[[/note]] After enduring months of backlash from both fans and talent alike WWE ultimately had Wrestling/AJStyles defeat Jinder on a random episode of ''[=SmackDown=]''.
* The consequences of the run were devastating:
** WWE had to cancel every show but one on their India tour due to low ticket sales--Jinder Mahal hadn't even gotten over there, defeating the entire point of the run. To give you an idea of how bad the ticket sales were, the previous tour in the same city was a two night event. On the one show that wasn't cancelled, his "homecoming", Jinder faced off against Triple H, and jobbed to him in front of a 70% filled arena. That's right, the push was such a failure that they couldn't even let him win in his supposed homeland.
** The whole run torpedoed the WWE Championship's lineage and prestige, so much so that on dual-branded pay-per-views, its matches were secondary to the then-''very''-recent Universal Championship.
** After this run, Jinder did win at least two other titles but aside from the obligatory rematch with Styles, which he lost, Jinder was kept far away from the WWE Championship, never to sully its legacy again.
* [[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/jinder-mahal-gooker-2017/ This disastrous title run won]] Website/WrestleCrap's [[MedalOfDishonor 2017 Gooker Award]]. Fun fact: The Wrestling/RandyOrton vs. Wrestling/BrayWyatt "House of Horrors" match at ''Payback'' was awarded the title by default earlier that year; the hosts assumed [[TemptingFate no decision WWE could possibly make since might ever be as bad]].
* Meanwhile, Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter was clear on their judgement of Jinder Mahal: not only did he won the "Most Overrated" award (by a landslide margin even against '''''Wrestling/RomanReigns'''''), but he got second and fourth place in "Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic", the former for his racist promos against Nakamura and the latter for the title reign as a whole -- and he likely would have won had the two been combined into one entry -- he lost only to WWE re-personing Wrestling/JimmySnuka after having been {{Unperson}}ed due to the investigation of the death of his ex-girlfriend.
* As a side note, WWE didn't give up on promoting in India, but it's perhaps telling that, near the end of Mahal's reign, they signed three new Indian wrestlers: Rinku Singh (former pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates and subject of ''Film/MillionDollarArm''), Saurav Gurjar, and Amanpreet Singh, all of whom were born in India.[[note]]And that's not counting Kishan Raftar and Jeet Rama, who were signed well before Mahal even returned[[/note]] It took three more years for Singh and Gurjar to debut on NXT television, and by that time WWE had stopped mentioning India entirely.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Crown Jewel'' (2018)]]
Considered one of the worst pay-per-views in WWE history, the inaugural ''Crown Jewel'' event proved to be a disaster in both booking and business decisions. This was a train wreck from start to finish.

* The deal that led to the event wasn't at all a good idea to begin with. It was a 10-year, 20-show deal with the Kingdom of UsefulNotes/SaudiArabia: for a net total of [[MoneyDearBoy $450 million USD]] [[note]]for perspective on that number, by 2021 the Saudi deal over four years had already paid WWE more money than ticket sales for every ''Wrestlemania'' combined[[/note]] the latter got ten straight years of propaganda, for itself and its new crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Nevermind how badly it contradicted their progressive image, the whole deal was surrounded by controversy. They'd already kicked the hornet's nest circa the first ''Crown Jewel,'' with ''Greatest Royal Rumble.'' WWE's female talent were all strictly forbidden from performing by Saudi law--even as WWE relentlessly pushed women's wrestling stateside. Despite that, the show itself was considered to be passable, its most memorable moment being Wrestling/TitusONeil's [[Funny/{{WWE}} trip heard round the world]].\\
\\
Their next event there, however, was another story entirely. WWE's relationship with Saudi Arabia suddenly raised even more troubling questions, starting just a month prior. The dismembered body of Jamal Khashoggi, an outspoken bin Salman critic, was found in Istanbul's Saudi consulate--while investigations were still underway, most agreed that it was very likely an assassination ordered by Mohammed himself. Celebrities, superstars, and even U.S. Senators begged WWE to cancel the event; most famously, ''Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver'' put them through the wringer. The only concession WWE made was to prohibit all mention of Saudi Arabia.
* The event was marked for notorious absences:
** The entire female roster; in what may be the closest this event had to an upshot, they instead fought on the all-female PPV, ''Evolution'', held only about a couple weeks prior. By far, this was better-received than not just ''Crown Jewel,'' but many of the other WWE [=PPVs=] in that year alone.[[note]](Highest point: A Last Man Standing match between Wrestling/BeckyLynch and Wrestling/CharlotteFlair, which received ''four and three-quarter stars'' from [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Dave Meltzer]])[[/note]]
** Wrestling/JohnCena stepped down from competing in the WWE World Cup, as his agent was worried that it might hurt his image. He instead continued to further his acting career, leaving a post-FaceHeelTurn Wrestling/BobbyLashley to take his place. This was a net gain.
** [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]], who was highly critical of the Saudi Kingdom's crimes against homosexuals, outright refused to participate. He even wanted to ''[[TheBadGuyWins lose]]'' his feud against Wrestling/TheMiz at ''Super Show-Down,'' and with it his shot at the WWE Championship, if it meant avoiding the event. Wrestling/AJStyles was meant to defend the title against him on the PPV, culminating both said feud and Styles' own with Wrestling/SamoaJoe. Instead, the whole thing was quickly resolved on the [=SmackDown=] go-home show three days prior. Ironically, AJ vs. Joe at ''Crown Jewel'', without any feud in between, ended up being the best match both men had all year, and one of the scant few good points.
** Wrestling/RomanReigns announced that he had to drop the Universal Title due to a recurring battle with leukemia. This forced WWE to make the three-way between him, Wrestling/BraunStrowman, and Wrestling/BrockLesnar a one-on-one for the vacant title. [[note]]Although [[https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/exclusives/exclusive-roman-reigns-told-wwe-he-didn-t-want-go-saudi-arabia-leukemia-diagnosis reports]] after his February return indicate that he did not want to participate as well, even before his diagnosis.[[/note]] More on that later...
** Wrestling/SamiZayn, in a badly hushed-up case. On paper, he'd be a no-brainer for a show like this; he's Syrian-Canadian, speaks fluent Arabic, and had been one of the faces of the company even while he was in NXT. He even performed on the 2015 Middle East tour. He'd been advertised for ''Greatest Royal Rumble'', but was dropped a few days prior, officially because Wrestling/BobbyLashley had injured him in a match. Turns out Zayn is an incredibly outspoken critic of Saudi Arabia, for financing the Assad regime in Syria. That, and he runs a charity that brings medical services to Syria. He's also PersonaNonGrata in Saudi Arabia, who ordered WWE to never even mention him at any event in the country; as you might expect, this carried over to ''Crown Jewel'' as well. If nothing else, numerous other wrestlers also decided to have no part of the deal. Meanwhile, Wrestling/MustafaAli, Wrestling/TitusONeil, and others donated their paychecks from this to charity.
* November 2 came, and how did the event open? With an underwhelming speech from a recently reinstated Wrestling/HulkHogan.[[note]]Baffling in and of itself, given how they handled the sex tape incident.[[/note]] This set the tone for the rest of the PPV. Turns out the crown prince had a nostalgic streak, and wanted to see the stars he used to watch back in the WWF years. Hogan was among the few specific requests who had not ''[[CriticalResearchFailure been dead for years]].''[[note]]Wrestling/{{Yokozuna}} and the Wrestling/UltimateWarrior were among these requests.[[/note]]
* The WWE World Cup. A "World Cup" where the entirety of its participants came ''from the United States'',[[note]]Although Rey Mysterio is commonly associated with Mexico and is of Mexican ancestry, he was born and is billed from San Diego, California.[[/note]] even though WWE itself has competitors from at least 10 countries on ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'' alone. And on NXT, they even have a Saudi Arabian wrestler, [[Characters/{{WWENXT}} Mansoor]]. The early rounds were composed of 5-8 minute matches where perennial midcarders Wrestling/TheMiz and Wrestling/DolphZiggler reached the finals... against proven [[Wrestling/SethRollins main]] [[Wrestling/KurtAngle eventers]] and [[Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr world]] [[Wrestling/RandyOrton champions.]] Then, come the finals, Miz couldn't participate due to a {{kayfabe}} injury. Instead of being replaced by his last opponent Rey Mysterio, or forfeiting the match, he was replaced by Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon, who hadn't wrestled at all that day. Naturally, Shane won, to announcements of "Shane is the Best in the World". And the worst part? This wasn't a last-minute switch--it '''was intended from the get-go,''' as part of Shane's long-planned FaceHeelTurn.
* Next was the Universal Title match. WWE's efforts to push Roman as ''the'' face of the company fell flat when he vacated the title, leaving the match as a one-on-one between Strowman and Lesnar. The sad announcement had the sole benefit of turning Braun face; most felt his heel run was just to feud with Roman. Come ''Crown Jewel'', a lot of people expected Strowman to put a definitive end to Lesnar's Universal Title prospects; he was the only superstar on ''Raw'' who could plausibly be the face of the company. It was good and well, the match was going on without hitches... until Wrestling/BaronCorbin hit Strowman with the title, which allowed Lesnar to hit him with F5 after F5, securing the match and the Universal Title. Long story short: Corbin was tasked with bringing the Universal Championship to ''Raw'', and instead conspired to get the title '''off''' ''Raw''.
* And then there's the main event, the very first match announced for the PPV: Wrestling/DGenerationX vs the Brothers of Destruction. This would've been a must-see... twenty years prior, during the Wrestling/AttitudeEra. Now, [[DentedIron all four of them are past their prime and over their physical peak]], with their wrestling careers otherwise far behind. Taker and HHH did have a good match at ''Super Show-Down'' weeks earlier, but the promos for this match were beyond the level of the match itself. It started with Triple H tearing his pectoral muscle, and from there it [[FromBadToWorse delved]] into a comedic botch fest. Not that it stopped Hunter, as only a chokeslam upon the announcers' desk would put him out of the match. As for Shawn, his ring rust had showed up too much during the match itself. At one point, both Kane and Shawn were setting up a spot from one of the corners, but Shawn forgot that Kane was wearing a wig and threw it. Then there's the botched moonsault, which broke Michaels' nose and forehead. The match mercifully ended with Hunter pedigreeing Kane.
* Little changed in the aftermath of the event, and most of those few changes were '''for the worse''':
** Perhaps the most notable thing was the beginning of a multiple month-spanning angle involving both Shane and The Miz that led to them forming a team and ''becoming [=SmackDown=] Tag Team Champions''...for a couple of weeks, reducing the prestige of a title that had very good runs until that point. Meanwhile, fans had to endure the ring announcers constantly calling Shane "The Best in the World" and drawing it out longer each week, which quickly got on their nerves.
** The ''[=SmackDown=]'' roster was subjected to an ignominious sweep from ''Raw'' at ''Survivor Series'' [[note]]to make things more ludicrous, WWE completely ignored a lone victory ''[=SmackDown=]'' got on the pre-show of the event, apparently because it was the result of a botch, for the sake of promoting ''Raw''[='s=] "sweep"[[/note]], all for [[HistoryRepeats the protracted non-starter that was Shane's heel turn.]] [[note]]Which eventually happened... on ''[[Wrestling/WWEFastlane Fastlane 2019]]'' over three months later. Even then, of all the things that happened in the previous months, the sweep seemed to be the one thing ignored when Shane did finally turn heel.[[/note]]
** WWE's already doubtful ratings ''plummeted''. Wrestling/BaronCorbin wound up [[TheScapegoat taking the fall]] onscreen for everything bad that happened on ''Raw'' due to having played an on-screen authority role at the time, and the [=McMahons=] began "taking the power back" in an attempt to scrub everything to do with this from view. And although Corbin's widely-despised reign as Raw’s general manager came to an end, it also cost [=SmackDown=] their much more beloved general manager Wrestling/{{Paige}}, and resulted in more airtime for the [=McMahons=], in particular Shane.
** The Universal Title [[StatusQuoIsGod went back to a mostly-absent title]], making it even more meaningless, and Strowman was left out of the title picture. [[Wrestling/FergalDevitt Finn Bálor]] replaced him for ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'' 2019. Lesnar was booked to retain the title at ''Royal Rumble,'' and apparently Vince [=McMahon=] was concerned about Strowman losing too many times to Lesnar. However, this attempt to protect his image didn't stop him from jobbing to Baron Corbin with interference from Bobby Lashley and Wrestling/DrewMcIntyre at ''Wrestling/EliminationChamber'' 2019, so it was meaningless.
** Probably the only remotely good thing to come out of the event was the state of the WWE Title: it ended up in the hands of Daniel Bryan on the go-home show for ''Wrestling/SurvivorSeries'' 2018, who pulled off a massive heel turn the same day he won it. He began a bizarre yet brilliant run as an eco-friendly WellIntentionedExtremist, complete with a "100% organic" new design for the title made out of wood and hemp.
** The United States Championship finally changed hands at the last ''[=SmackDown=]'' of the year, ending in Rusev's hands... until ''Royal Rumble'' 2019, where he lost it at the hands of Nakamura ''yet again'' only for him to lose it on the following ''[=SmackDown=]'' to, of all people, [[Wrestling/RonKillings R-Truth]]!
** And last, but definitely not least, the plans for the road to ''Wrestling/WrestleMania'' 35 that involved HBK and Taker [[note]](which included Taker vs. Shawn and Shawn vs. Wrestling/AJStyles)[[/note]] were all nixed in light of the main event's failures--it was so awful that Shawn ''swore off ever returning to the ring'' as a result.
* As expected, when the time came to pick the worst thing that has happened in wrestling in 2018, not only did it [[http://wrestlecrap.com/inductions/gooker-2018/ run away with]] Website/WrestleCrap's [[MedalOfDishonor Gooker Award]], but did so [[EpicFail in record-breaking fashion]]: majority of the vote, margin of victory, and the first Gooker to get over 50%. Which also means that not only did it surpass every other candidate of the year,[[note]]including "Shane winning the World Cup" as a separate entry, which came in a distant second in the voting[[/note]] but also made [[Horrible/ImpactWrestling anything]] from '''[[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA/Impact Wrestling]]'''[='s=] worst days ''look good''.
** What's more this event played a key part in the WWE being picked as ''the worst wrestling promotion of the year'' by [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Dave Meltzer himself]], breaking an ''11-year streak'' of TNA/Impact Wrestling "winning" that award. The event also swept many of the negative categories: The pay-pew-view was named "worst show" with 638 votes, while the runner up got 239 votes, and the main event won "worst match" with 289 votes to 57 to the runner-up. The whole controversy got the notorious "Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic" award with a whopping 901 votes, while nothing else reaching 100.
* The worst part of all this is that ''Evolution'' PPV, in spite of everything, ended up being a serious candidate for best PPV of the year, while the overpromoted ''Crown Jewel'' was a candidate for '''worst'''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt, ''Hell in a Cell'' (2019)]]

Two main event matches from early October 2019 (and the build up to one of them) showcased everything wrong with the creative direction WWE was taking after the abysmal ratings of 2018: a lack of faith in building new stars, and nonsensical booking for commercially successful ones, and both matches happened just two days apart. This was one of them, the other being the Kofi Kingston vs. Brock Lesnar match two days earlier, explained at length in the "Brock Lesnar saga" folder.
* The match started out well enough, even with a constant red filter staying on throughout the entire match. However, things went awry when Rollins, supposedly having the upper hand, couldn't pin Wyatt despite having thrown as many objects and finishers as he could on him. Fans started to notice the repetitive pacing and began to boo Rollins as Wyatt continued to NoSell his moves. Shit started to hit the fan when Rollins, against the wishes of the referee Rod Zapata, decided to strike Wyatt with a sledgehammer to finish him off, forcing Zapata to call for the bell. '''In a Hell in a Cell match''', which normally goes on until one of the wrestlers is pinned or submits. The whole arena melted down in boos and jeers, with chants of "RESTART THE MATCH!", "[[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW!]]" and "BULLSHIT!" reverberating throughout the arena.[[note]]What's worse, the [[https://twitter.com/CodyShamoon/status/1181032499503173632 fans still]] [[https://twitter.com/saffronromiet/status/1181032708106899456 continued booing]] after the lights came on and everyone was leaving, with fans chanting "REFUND!" as well[[/note]] By the next day, #[=CancelWWENetwork=] was once again trending.
* Both wrestlers saw their image take a major beating in the aftermath, with Rollins' heel-like actions during the match causing much of the fans to turn against him. It's no surprise that Rollins didn't show up the next night on ''Raw'', likely to avoid the potentially '''[[XPacHeat huge]]''' [[XPacHeat boos]] he would've gotten.[[note]]Rollins would later admit on Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin's ''Broken Skull Sessions'' that he was legitimately furious to the point of wanting to ''strangle Vince'' over it when he got to the back -- it took Wrestling/TysonKidd holding him back and a talk with Wrestling/PaulHeyman to calm him down.[[/note]] While The Fiend didn't see his image tarnished as badly as Rollins did, he ended up losing ''a lot'' of momentum as he was essentially seen as an indestructible machine that could withstand any finisher thrown at him, making him difficult to book for future matches with ''anyone''. Even before the match, many in the wrestling world felt Wyatt was pushed into the world title too soon (the match was only Wyatt's ''second'' match as The Fiend, after he cleanly beat Wrestling/FinnBalor at ''[=SummerSlam=]'' 2019) and weren't impressed by the rushed build towards the HIAC match. Many went into the bout with fairly low expectations, but they weren't at all ready for the bungled up finish at the end.
* To add more salt in the wound, the whole no contest/DQ result in a Hell in a Cell main event match? '''They did the same damn thing last year.'''[[note]]In a match between Wrestling/BraunStrowman and Wrestling/RomanReigns, with Wrestling/MickFoley as the special guest referee. How does that match end? With Brock Lesnar coming down the ramp, ripping the cell door open, and laying waste to both wrestlers, while Mick Foley, one of the toughest men who ever lived, gets taken out by Paul Heyman with ''pepper spray.''[[/note]] The only reason people tolerated that mess was because it was used to build a planned Triple Threat match between Braun, Roman and Brock at ''Crown Jewel''...[[AllForNothing which, as mentioned in that folder, never happened because of Roman's leukemia returning]]. That match combined with this debacle had the terrible effect of minimizing the significance of one of WWE's most cherished and romanticized gimmick matches they've utilized for 22 years, as not only did it show WWE could change the rules at any time if they feel like protecting their [[CreatorsPet top faces of the company]] is more important than entertaining the fans, but that the match type can no longer hold up to the strict PG rules the company has implemented since 2008. Many now doubt that future Hell in a Cell matches will ever receive the kind of hype or brutality that defined them in the past in the aftermath of Rollins vs. Wyatt, especially after reports that both Wrestling/SashaBanks and Wyatt got injured during their respective matches.
* In a perfect demonstration of how ''everyone'' watching felt about the finish, Wrestling/SeanWaltman himself, at the WWE live watch along, couldn't help but [[https://youtu.be/tyJLz81SqmY shoot on how idiotic it was]]:
--> '''Sean Waltman:''' Alright, you may not ask me back for another one of these, but how the hell do you get DQ'd in a Hell in a [[PrecisionFStrike frickin']] Cell!?
* To put the final nail in the coffin, [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Dave Meltzer]] gave the match -2 stars, and the ''Wrestling Observer Newsletter'' later gave it the "Worst Match of the Year" award.
* This disgrace to wrestling even [[http://wrestlecrap.com/inductions/gookerwin/induction-hellinacell2019/ won the 2019 Gooker Award,]] just barely beating out the abysmal [[Wrestling/RusevAndLana Rusev-Lana]]-[[Wrestling/BobbyLashley Lashley]] love triangle arc by nine votes, as well as beating ''[[Horrible/VideoGameGenerationsSeventhOnwards WWE 2K20]]'', their first ever video game candidate. On a funny little note, they did recognize that they should have known what people were in store for with the match being brought to its viewers by ''WWE 2K20'' itself. To quote directly from the article, "seeing the Gooker winner being sponsored by the second runner up for the award is a whole new rancid territory."
* Fortunately, WWE did not repeat the mistake of having a no-contest finish for a third year in a row at the 2020 Hell in a Cell event, clearly indicating they had finally learned their lesson. Notably, during the Wrestling/RomanReigns vs. Jey Uso match, the ref ''tries'' to throw the match out, only for Reigns to toss him out of the ring, as if WWE were doing a bit of SelfDeprecation at their own past failures. Rollins would also later redeem himself in the Cell with his highly-praised match at ''Crown Jewel 2021'' against Wrestling/{{Edge}}.
* As far as Wyatt was concerned, his gimmick continued to be a heavy merchandise draw for late 2019 to early 2020, but it had become clear that creative was growing less fond of him. He would win the Universal Championship from Rollins at that year's ''Crown Jewel'', only to lose it cleanly to ''Wrestling/{{Goldberg}}'' of all people at ''Super [=ShowDown=]'' a few months later. Aside from a cinematic "Firefly Funhouse match" with John Cena that he won at [=WrestleMania 36=], he would end up mostly as an afterthought for much of 2020, only getting a second Universal Championship reign by defeating Wrestling/BraunStrowman at ''[=SummerSlam=]''....only to lose it the following week to Wrestling/RomanReigns at Payback. While Wyatt would then establish an intriguing alliance with Wrestling/AlexaBliss in the fall (with her becoming a co-host for his ''Firefly Fun House'' segments), he suddenly took a three-month absence at the end of the year. After returning and losing in an unconvincing fashion to Wrestling/RandyOrton at ''[=WrestleMania=] 37'', Wyatt took what was planned to be a four month hiatus for "medical reasons"[[note]]Rumors abounded that Wyatt asked for time off to grieve the death of his close friend [[Wrestling/BrodieLee Luke Harper]], though these were eventually debunked[[/note]], but was unceremoniously released just before his return due to budget cuts.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:RETRIBUTION (2020)]]
RETRIBUTION was a short-lived stable that was supposed to be a modern-day [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder nWo]]; however, it ended up being an example of everything bad about the WWE call-up of NXT superstars into their main roster. The stable was composed of five call-ups hellbent on destroying anything WWE-related.
* The thing that probably doomed the stable right from the start was when people immediately noticed their similarities with Antifa, which was not helped by a rumor a few months prior that WWE was planning to debut a stable with such a gimmick.[[note]]And it could have been worse. There were rumors they were planning to revive Wrestling/TheNationOfDomination. ''[[ValuesDissonance In 2020]]'', a year marked in the U.S. by protests over the treatment of African-Americans.[[/note]] While there was no evidence that the rumors were true, the optics were still terrible, especially considering the political climate at that time, which to put it simply, was shifting ''away'' from the attitude WWE was trying to convey, [[RealitySubtext and is likely what led to the team's subsequent neutering into ineffectual troublemakers instead of dangerous disrupters]].
* The faction kept trashing the set of ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'' until they decided to settle on ''Raw'' after it was announced that management gave them contracts for no discernible reason, thus ''also'' undermining their "anti-establishment" component.
* Then there were [[EmbarrassingNickname their awful names]]. Mace, T-Bar, Slapjack, Reckoning, and Retaliation. They also came out in really goofy masks, with Slapjack's being possibly the worst, looking like a bad replica of the [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason Voorhees mask]] made out of literal toilet paper with the added effect of making him look cross-eyed due to the eyeholes being placed too far apart.
* Their goofy mannerisms, confusing metaphor-riddled promos, and ridiculous presentation [[DullSurprise undermined their credibility]]. They also never did anything particularly dangerous that would indicate this was truly an 'invasion', and instead just jumped around and screamed a lot like a bunch of teenagers. In particular, they never damaged ''anything'' that cost actual money; when they "invaded" the first ''[=SmackDown=]'' to use the Thunderdome, the group completely, carefully avoided ever risking causing harm to any of those very expensive video screens. The most they ever did was cut a few ring ropes with a chainsaw.
* In an episode of ''Raw'', they confronted Wrestling/VinceMcMahon, the chairman of the company. Having the perfect opportunity to display upon them how much they hate the company... they chose NOT to attack him. Furthermore, on that same night, all the wrestlers ''made'' distinctions between men and women. For the rest of the episode, they vanished.
* And, in order to show how much laughable a group that was supposed to be dangerous became, they ''[[{{Jobber}} hardly ever]]'' won any match. Not even after their leader Mustafa Ali was revealed.
* All this was not helped by the fact that Wrestling/TheHurtBusiness debuted at the same time, [[BreakoutCharacter became one of the most compelling wrestling acts WWE had for that year]], and despite The Hurt Business being also heels, they engaged in an EvilVsEvil feud with RETRIBUTION (since their motto of wanting to do business in WWE meant they didn't take kindly anything wishing to "bring down" WWE as RETRIBUTION claimed) that saw The Hurt Business [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter handily best RETRIBUTION]] whenever they crossed paths, including Wrestling/BobbyLashley dispatching Slapjack [[SquashMatch in just under four minutes]] in an US Title match at ''Hell in a Cell''. Just to make it clear, WWE debuted two brand new factions, and made their first feud be ''between each other''. Why did the company pit two brand new factions against each other, meaning one team would by necessity have to lose to the other and thus kill their menace right out of the gate? Either party could have feuded with literally anyone else.
* Tellingly, when the time came to choose the winner of the 2020 Gooker Awards, they won by a landslide (40% over the second, third and fourth place's 11%) over other "highlights" such as the "Eye for an Eye" match between Seth Rollins and Rey Mysterio, ''Raw Underground'', and the dud of a match between Matt Hardy and Sammy Guevara at [[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW's]] ''All Out'' 2020 that saw Hardy hit his head on concrete yet was allowed to continue the match despite said injury. Website/WrestleCrap even nicknamed the faction [[Wrestling/TheDarkOrder "The Dork Order"]].
* The faction ended up being disbanded for good on ''the kickoff show'' of ''Fastlane 2021'', after Ali's defeat at the hands of Wrestling/MattRiddle, with Ali's [[BadBoss bad treatment]] of Reckoning and Slapjack [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal causing Mace and T-Bar]] [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere to walk out on him]]. The faction tanked essentially all of their members' respective careers: Mercedes Martinez (Retaliation) went back to NXT before eventually being released and joining Wrestling/{{Impact|Wrestling}}, Mia Yim (Reckoning) disappeared for a while before being released in November of that year, Dominik Dijakovic (T-Bar) went from having [[Awesome/WWENXTTakeover stellar matches in NXT]] with Wrestling/KeithLee prior to RETRIBUTION to forming a TagTeam with Dio Maddin (Mace) while still carrying the overall aestethic they had on the group (except for wearing facepaint instead of masks) but did almost nothing of note before being split up in the Draft, Shane Thorne (Slapjack) was last seen in the André the Giant Memorial Battle of the go-home ''[[Wrestling/WWESmackdown SmackDown]]'' episode before ''Wrestling/WrestleMania 37'', and Mustafa Ali entered in a feud with Ricochet... [[DemotedToExtra in the C-Show]] ''Main Event'', then he formed a team with Mansoor.
[[/folder]]

!! Other examples

[[folder:The Authority]]
One of the darkest chapters in WWE history was the reign of Wrestling/TripleH and Wrestling/StephanieMcMahon's faction Wrestling/TheAuthority. It lasted [[ArcFatigue three straight years]], generated nuclear levels of XPacHeat, and became so hopeless and overbearing that [[TooBleakStoppedCaring fans tuned away in droves]].

* The angle began at ''Wrestling/SummerSlam'' 2013, where Triple H guest-refereed a title match between Wrestling/JohnCena and [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]]. Bryan won the title, only for Wrestling/RandyOrton to [[HappyEndingOverride immediately cash in his]] Wrestling/MoneyInTheBank contract, after which Triple H [[YankTheDogsChain screwed Bryan over]] with a Pedigree and handed Orton an easy win. This quickly became a trend for the Authority — if it looked like a face would win, they'd get screwed over as hard as humanly possible.
* From there on, the angle became an example of how ''not'' to book authority figures. Every week, Triple H and Stephanie antagonized anyone they could; roped in nearly every major heel on the roster and [[KarmaHoudini always got away unpunished]]. Even worse, the first twenty minutes of ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'' were usually spent on long-winded, ''annoyingly'' self-congratulating speeches. As a result, fans began getting so tired of the Authority that they tuned out in droves, causing steep ratings drops.
* Bryan got buried week after week by the Authority at every chance to get the title, in what became a wild goose chase. He won it back at ''Night of Champions''... but was stripped of it the following day, because Triple H had ordered Scott Armstrong, the match's referee, to do a fast count. Then at ''Battleground'', his match with Orton ended in a no-contest because of a run-in from Wrestling/BigShow, who [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor bounced back and forth]] between helping and hindering the Authority. Then at ''Hell in a Cell'', Triple H had Wrestling/ShawnMichaels act as guest referee just to attack Bryan and cost him his match. And when Bryan '''finally''' won at ''[[Wrestling/WrestleMania WrestleMania 30]]'', he had to vacate the title over two months later due to serious head and neck injuries, ending his world title aspirations for nearly five years and giving the Authority even more chances to bully the rest of the roster.
* At ''Wrestling/SurvivorSeries'' 2014, Wrestling/JohnCena's team seemingly ended the Authority with a run-in from Wrestling/{{Sting}} — but five weeks later, Wrestling/SethRollins, who'd betrayed Wrestling/TheShield for the Authority, forced Cena to reinstate the faction anyway. Not only did this kill the star power earned by Cena's team, it only happened because Creator/USANetwork [[ExecutiveMeddling executives]] thought bringing the Authority back would help with ratings... even though ''The Authority'' was the source of the ratings drops.
* After that, Rollins won the WWE Championship after cashing in his Money in the Bank contract during the main event of ''[=WrestleMania=] 31''. In his reign, Rollins became a ''frustratingly'' incompetent DirtyCoward that only kept the title for eight months due to the Authority's help — and he had to vacate the title due to an injury at a house show. Leading up to ''Survivor Series'' 2015, a tournament was held to crown a new champion... only for the Authority to recruit Wrestling/{{Sheamus}}, who won the title ''after the final match'' with ''a third'' Money in the Bank cash-in, rendering the entire tournament AllForNothing. Tellingly, the following ''Raw'' episode had the lowest ratings in series history since '''1997'''.
* After Survivor Series, Wrestling/RomanReigns, who won the tournament and thus the title before the cash-in, attempted to get the title back, and even nearly took out Triple H at ''Tables Ladders Chairs'', but the Authority forced him into a stipulation that, at the 2016 ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'', the match would entirely be for the title this time, and went so far as to rig the drawing so that he would be the first entrant. Although Reigns did his best, the Authority once again abused the system and had Triple H himself enter at the 30th spot and win the title, which, for some reason, the announcers seemed to think was a very good thing despite the fact that now the title was on someone who had spent the past few years being unstoppable.
* The angle was finally ended for real in one of the most confusing payoffs in wrestling history. In 2016, Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon returned to confront his family and demanded control of ''RAW'' to which Wrestling/VinceMcMahon (who openly supported the Authority) forced him to face Wrestling/TheUndertaker at ''[=WrestleMania=] 32''. Not only did the Undertaker, by this point a long-time {{face}}, do Vince and thus the Authority's bidding with no apparent FaceHeelTurn or other explanation (aside from orders that if he lost, he would never appear in another ''[=WrestleMania=]''), but Shane ended up losing the match... and then was given control of ''RAW'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'' anyway due to "overwhelming fan support", despite it being clear that the Authority didn't care about the fans one bit. Reigns also got the title back from Triple H, but that match, and indeed the entirety of the event, was panned by critics and audiences, actually winning that year's Gooker Award.
* The angle damaged the reputations of ''everyone'' involved. The [=McMahons'=] already-checkered reputation was permanently tainted by their constant abuses of power; the faces that fought them[[note]]except Daniel Bryan, who quit due to injury, though he would resume wrestling later[[/note]] had been buried too deep to get over; the wrestlers who allied with the Authority lost fan support; and television ratings fell so hard they've never really recovered. There were even rumors that during the angle, pay-per-view providers began offering ''refunds'' for WWE events due to underwhelming buyrates, which proved an obvious truth: the Authority, despite their claims, was the opposite of what was "best for business".
* By being unstoppable {{Invincible Villain}}s, The Authority [[GenreKiller killed heel authority figure characters]] for good. Those have been played well before, even by Vince [=McMahon=], but by refusing to let themselves ''lose'' and abusing their power, the use of the trope ground to a screeching halt. By the time [=SmackDown=] moved to Creator/{{Fox}} in 2019, the [=McMahon=] family stopped being involved in storylines and many rival promotions dropped the trope outright; while the General Manager position survived the angle, it was irreparably damaged by the Authority's abuses of power and retired. Nowadays, the two authority figures that appear on ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'', Adam Pearce and Wrestling/SonyaDeville, are simply referred to as "WWE Officials", and even when Deville started a storyline with Wrestling/{{Naomi}} on ''[=SmackDown=]'' that saw Deville as the heel, it was definitely ''far'' from being the main angle.
* Historically, The Authority was the tipping point for ''Raw''[='=]s viewership decline. While ratings had been trickling out since 2001, that was chalked up to the end of the Attitude Era and the rise of streaming sevices. ''Raw'' ratings around the [=2010s=] typically hovered around 3.00; but past 2013, when audiences realized the Authority was here to stay, ratings dipped into 2.00 and so far below that they'd occasionally get beat by then-new rival Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling's flagship show ''AEW Dynamite''. On the other hand, ''[=SmackDown=]'', which typically had better matches and storylines, got ''higher'' viewership consistently above 2.00. It proved that low numbers weren't just an industry-wide phenomena: the quality of the program drove viewers away. On the subject of AEW, it's interesting to note that six of the wrestlers that the Authority tormented, those being Bryan, Big Show, Sting, Wrestling/CMPunk, Wrestling/DeanAmbrose, and Wrestling/CodyRhodes, all joined AEW long after the angle was over and WWE was starting to circle the drain, with Cody being in fact one of its founding wrestlers, and AEW has treated them much better than the Authority and the WWE booking team.
* ''WebVideo/WrestlingWithWregret'' has a [[https://youtu.be/96kxx0pd3-k highly comprehensive summary]] of the angle and its fallout, including less-important parts that were not mentioned here. The host Brian Zane ultimately admits that, while there were highlights, the vast majority of it greatly damaged WWE in the long run.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:October 2019: The Brock Lesnar saga]]
* Wrestling/KofiKingston vs. Wrestling/BrockLesnar. This match was the other of the two infamously reviled matches from October 2019 that happened only days apart from each other, after the aforementioned Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt Hell in a Cell match at 2019's ''Hell in a Cell'':
** On the October 4, 2019 edition of ''[[Wrestling/WWESmackDown SmackDown]]'', the show premiered on Creator/{{Fox}} for its first special episode. The match saw Lesnar deliver a ''single'' F5 to defeat Kingston and win his WWE Championship in '''9 seconds'''. The way Kingston was absolutely [[CurbStompBattle crushed]] by Lesnar in the match led many to suspect WWE never had any faith in Kingston as champion, and in 2020, this lack of faith was revealed to be '''100% true''', as former WWE writer Dave Schilling revealed that Kingston being squashed by Lesnar had been the plan ''from day one of his title reign'' -- meaning that WWE had absolutely no interest in making Kingston champion or belief in him whatsoever and only did it to pop the fans for a "[=WrestleMania=] Moment". [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG75bcKtjPI This link]] has the entire "match", though you may wish you didn't watch it afterwards.
** Even worse, it was only done to introduce Lesnar's former UFC rival Cain Velasquez to the company, allegedly for a match at the upcoming ''Crown Jewel'' -- and for more teeth-gnashing stupidity, rumors were that Velasquez wasn't even '''signed to a contract''' and had also been in negotiations with both Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling and new rival Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling, showing the company hasn't learned from their mistakes in signing people just to keep them from other promotions, meaning that, if a deal couldn't be reached, Kofi lost his title for ''nothing''. (To add insult to injury, the Kofi/Brock match was over so fast that Mysterio, Dominic, and a debuting Velasquez, who were scheduled to surprise and confront Lesnar, were left with plenty of extra time to stand around doing nothing, as the episode ''ran short''.) [[SarcasmMode Fortunately]], he was signed to a contract the whole time, yet the fact the rumors of it leaked suggest it was a Hail Mary move. In any case, that contract wound up only being of minimal actual work. [[Wrestling/KevinOwens Once again]] Vince had suddenly pulled the rug out from under a champion to put the belt on Brock for a feud that didn't need a belt involved to be engaging - just like the Brock/Goldberg feud from 2016/2017, the Lesnar/Velasquez feud was a personal affair based around their past history and Brock going after Cain's godson Dominic Mysterio. It's like Vince doesn't believe that Lesnar is enough of an attraction in his own right unless he's a champion, despite the obscene amounts of money he pays for him.
** The eventual Lesnar/Velasquez match at ''Crown Jewel'' ended up being ''incredibly'' underwhelming; Velasquez was in serious need of surgery and incapable of working properly, so he and Brock worked a short and underwhelming 2 minute MMA-style match before Lesnar caught Velasquez in a Kimura Lock and Velasquez tapped out. Then Rey Mysterio had to run out to save Velasquez from Brock's beatdown and make the feud Brock vs. Rey again, [[AllForNothing making the whole stupid affair for nothing]]. As for Kofi? He was shuffled right back to the tag team division as his old, positive New Day self [[AngstWhatAngst like the past six months of him being champion never happened]], leaving a bitter taste in fans' mouths.
** In some bizarre combination of HopeSpot and beating a dead horse, Kingston and Mysterio would both get the opportunity for revenge at the 2020 Royal Rumble. Lesnar, who voluntarily came out first, was running roughshod over everyone who entered, with minimal difficulty. Kingston entered at the end of the first third of the match, and lasted longer against Lesnar than anyone else in the match, in part because Lesnar was toying with him. Next came Mysterio, who also barely got into the ring before Lesnar embarrased him, as well. But as Lesnar didn't actually eliminate either of them yet, Kofi's tag partner Big E came out 3rd, and gave the two a HeroicSecondWind as they hit combination moves on Lesnar only for Lesnar to throw them all out of the match and only ''start'' to get tired. No Rey Mysterio ironman performance. No Kofi Kingston miraculous save. No closure. "Your heroes are dead. Move on."
** As a final note on this sordid affair, Brock would hold the belt for six long months before finally losing it to Wrestling/DrewMcIntyre at ''[=WrestleMania=]'' 36 the following year in a similar short match, the difference being that at least multiple finishers were used by both wrestlers, while Velasquez was released at the end of April having only worked one other match in his WWE career. Brock would also never be seen for almost a year and a half until the 2021 edition of ''[=SummerSlam=]''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:NXT callups]]
[[Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} NXT]] has been called one of the best wrestling shows of the modern age, with matches and strong booking rivalled only by the likes of NJPW. But the politics-laden, heavily-scripted mess that ''Raw'' and ''Smackdown'' became in the latter part of TheNewTens have proven to be graveyards for the careers of NXT stars that were called up to the main roster. Regardless of their accomplishments and talent, these wrestlers are often lost in the undercard instead of being properly utilized, and their loss in relevance has begun to increasingly hurt the integrity of the NXT brand, since if these guys can do the best work possible in developmental and still be reduced to jobbers in the main roster, why should audiences invest any time or emotion in them in the first place? Here are some of the worst cases:

* Reference videos and articles: ''[=Parts FunKnown=]''[='=]s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnMxCoHYqEY "5 best and 5 worst callouts from NXT"]], ''[=WrestleTalk=]''[='=]s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pn8TiGb54g 5 botched NXT callups]], ''WebVideo/WhatCultureWrestling''[='=]s [[https://www.thesportster.com/wrestling/nxt-call-ups-best-worst/ "The 5 Best NXT callups (and the 5 worst)"]].
* Wrestling/AleisterBlack went from one of the most dominant breakout stars of NXT with an intense yet compelling Satanist gimmick to barely even an afterthought once he was called up to the main roster in 2019. Initially paired with Wrestling/{{Ricochet}}, the duo were quickly separated due to the Superstar Shakeup. For Black's first singles angle, he sat in a room and waited for someone to "pick a fight" with him. This storyline lasted well over two months, where Black literally sat and did nothing but issue challenges before [[Wrestling/ClaudioCastagnoli Cesaro]] answered him. Black would then go on to have a decent run throughout 2020, including a feud with Buddy Murphy, before [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome disappearing from television for 6 months]] (later revealed to be because of creative simply not having ideas for him). This was someone whom many figured could be another legitimate successor to Wrestling/TheUndertaker, and he now had less than nothing to do. Black would return once again in 2021 in dominant fashion with a new look and intriguing vignettes that set up a feud with [[Wrestling/BigELangston Big E]]... only to be released by WWE two weeks later due to supposed budget cuts, making many fans and commentators question why he was given a build up after a long absence if he was going to be cut anyways.
** What was even more bizarre was that instead of the usual 90-day non-compete clause for main roster stars, his was only ''30 days'' due to WWE [[EpicFail failing to update his original NXT developmental contract when he was promoted]]. This allowed Black to debut in [[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW]] only a month after his release as Malakai Black, [[SerialNumbersFiledOff with pretty much the same aesthetics and continuity of the character he was using in WWE]]. He was such an afterthought in WWE that not only was his contract not looked at or updated for 2 years, they didn't even check before they released one of their hottest stars, which meant that he was still fresh in audiences' minds when he debuted at the competition.
** What made this even funnier was that WWE would realize this mistake shortly after releasing Black... and [[RunningGag mistakenly]] call Buddy Murphy to ask if they could extend his contract. Buddy, who had been released at the same time as Black, had the standard 90-day non-compete clause, but mused in interviews why WWE would offer to extend a contract [[SpottingTheThread while also having 'budget cuts']].
* Buddy Murphy had a well-received team with Wesley Blake and Wrestling/AlexaBliss in NXT before becoming a highly-respected up-and-comer through his excellent performances ''205 Live'', including winning the new incarnation of the WWE Cruiserweight Championship in an event in his native Australia. Then he was called to the main roster in April 2019, with about the most relevant things he was put into being getting involved in the storyline of Wrestling/RomanReigns being targeted by a mysterious attacker, which resulted in him getting stellar matches with Reigns and the man revealed as the eventual responsible, [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]] (and Murphy actually ''beating Bryan'' in their match), the aforementioned feud with Alesiter Black, and being in Wrestling/SethRollins's PowerStable. Once said-team was reduced to only Rollins and Murphy, they entered into a feud with Wrestling/ReyMysterio and his family; the angle included "gems" such as the Eye-for-an-Eye match between Rollins and Mysterio, and Murphy's romantic involvement with Rey's [[AgeGapRomance 19-year old daughter Aalyah]]. After being released at the same time as Black, he admitted that the Aalyah Mysterio romance angle had made both of them extremely uncomfortable but they still went through with it for the sake of being professional.
** In an indication of how much actual trust WWE actually had on Murphy (read: not so much), it was later revealed that him getting involved on Reigns's "mysterious attacker" storyline ''was entirely a fluke'': during one of the incidents Reigns suffered, in which a stack of scaffolding fell onto him backstage, Murphy was shown in the background of the event. As it turned out, he was just being used as an extra backstage, but his appearance caused so much speculation among fans on social media that WWE writers decided to just ThrowItIn.
* One of the most egregious examples came when Karrion Kross, the NXT Champion who had been on an undefeated year-long streak, made his main roster debut on the ''Raw'' after ''Wrestling/MoneyInTheBank 2021''. He came out for a completely random, unannounced match, having been stripped of his [[BigEntrance flashy, dramatic entrance and his valet Scarlett]], which were widely considered a pivotal part of his act. His opponent, Wrestling/JeffHardy, who hadn't won a match in the entire year so far, beat him in ''less than 2 minutes'' with a roll-up, putting his feet on the ropes ([[WhatTheHellHero an uncharacteristically heel move]]). Kross tried to salvage the situation afterwards by cutting a promo about how Hardy had made a huge mistake, but the damage was done - between the lackluster presentation and the appallingly lame match result, the fans didn't give a damn about him. Apparently, the long-term story (before Jeff Hardy was taken off the program after contracting COVID-19) was to have Kross lose ''twice'' to Hardy, before bringing in Scarlett and his flashy entrance, whereby Kross would reassert his dominance once again. So in case you didn't notice the subtext: The reigning NXT Champion, who once demolished every serious challenger he faced on the NXT roster, couldn't get past 2 minutes on the main roster without his entrance and his girlfriend by his side, only for the sudden absence of the other wrestler involved in the storyline meaning that this supposed long-term story had been instantly derailed in two weeks.[[note]]Making matters worse, even if Jeff Hardy was still available, it was later reported that Scarlett later had to go on hiatus due to personal reasons, reportedly health-related.[[/note]] Adding insult to injury, his gimmick was later tweaked to give him an outfit that drew unflattering comparisons to a gimp.[[note]]And Kross would unequivocally state his displeasure with it following his release; in response to a fan on Twitter wondering if Kross would gift him the helmet he used with the outfit, he answered that nobody would actually want that.[[/note]]
** It got better. On the same show as Kross' debut, former NXT and NXT North American Champion Wrestling/KeithLee, who had been called up the previous year but then disappeared due to what was later revealed to be a very dangerous heart condition caused or exacerbated by COVID-19, returned after recovering to challenge WWE Champion Wrestling/BobbyLashley... and lost in 5 minutes (likely so that Lee wouldn't be overstrained due to his condition). While many defenders have said that this match was [[DamnedByFaintPraise at least more competitive than Kross']], immediately after the match, Wrestling/{{Goldberg}} came out to challenge Lashley, thereby relegating Lee to an afterthought, which many fans had feared since he was called up. Furthermore, while Lee got praise on NXT (and on the independent circuit) for his impressive agility despite his massive size (while giving smooth-talking promos), following his main roster (re-)debut, he was saddled with a generic WrestlingMonster gimmick that saw him being renamed to Keith "Bearcat" Lee.[[note]]While the gimmick had some defenders that pointed out that the nickname might be a reference Bearcat Wright, a pioneering African-American wrestler, and speculated that it might've been Lee's idea, after he was released Lee absolutely denied it being his idea. Some Black commentators had already predicted this, since Lee had never referenced nor is he related to Bearcat Wright, plus Wright was famous for being a career babyface, whereas Lee was portrayed as a heel during this time.[[/note]]
** The cherry on top? Karrion Kross, Keith Lee, Scarlett, along with Wrestling/EmberMoon (another failed NXT callup) and several others were all released from their contracts on November 5th, 2021 due to "budget cuts".
** For the record, that's 7 out of a total 18 NXT Champions who have either been released or left the WWE in 2 years (Wrestling/AdrianNeville, Wrestling/BoDallas, Wrestling/AndradeCienAlmas, Wrestling/AleisterBlack, Wrestling/KeithLee, and Wrestling/KarrionKross, with Wrestling/AdamCole being the one guy who declined to re-sign a new contract), 8 if you want to include Wrestling/SamoaJoe who was also released but then brought back. That's over 30% of potential main event-level talent who have strong track records and brand recognition, who had had money, time, and effort invested into developing and promoting them as the next generation of superstars, all unceremoniously dumped without making much, if any impact on the main roster. And that's not getting into the released NXT North American, Women's, and Tag Team champions.
* [[Wrestling/TrevorMann Ricochet]] has been wrestling for over 15 years at smaller but still successful promotions all over the world, with his most internationally recognized accomplishment easily being the gravity-defying match against Wrestling/WillOspreay at the 2016 NJPW Best of the Super Juniors. Ospreay has gone on to become IWGP World Heavyweight Champion and by 2020 was considered one of the best wrestlers alive. Upon his arrival to the main roster in 2019, Ricochet had a three-week run as the United States Champion before becoming a regular on the C-show ''Main Event''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pay-Per-Views]]
* ''Wrestling/WrestleMania'' IX (1993) remains one of the worst ''[=WrestleManias=]'' in history. Poor booking, poor matches, it had it all.
** In the dark match, Wrestling/TitoSantana defeated [[Wrestling/CharlesWright Papa Shango]] in his first 'Mania victory since ''[=WrestleMania=]'' I... ''offscreen.'' Some tribute to a guy who's been a part of 'Mania since the beginning.
** The opening bout has Wrestling/{{Tatanka}} and Wrestling/ShawnMichaels fight in one of the only good matches on the card for the Intercontinental Championship, but everything reaches garbage towards the end: Tatanka hits his finisher on Michaels, only the referee refuses to count because, apparently, he had counted Michaels out beforehand. Not only did this ending completely ruin what was a good match, it made neither man look strong as Michaels only retained the title by sheer luck and Tatanka won the match but not the Intercontinental Championship and would never receive another title shot for it again.
** The Steiners were the only [[{{Face}} babyfaces]] on the show to win a fair fight, against Wrestling/TheHeadshrinkers.
** Wrestling/DoinkTheClown faces [[Wrestling/BrianAdams Crush]]; as Crush has his head vice applied, a second Doink [[note]]played by Steve Keirn, who prior to this was known as alligator hunter Skinner[[/note]] comes out from under the ring as the ref is distracted and hits Crush with a loaded prosthetic arm. Now, this could have been funny in a normal match, but not on Wrestlemania. Oh and even worse: After the match, "Macho Man" Wrestling/RandySavage tried to pass off the second Doink "as a figment of everyone's imaginations."
** [[Wrestling/ScottHall Razor Ramon]] meets Wrestling/BobBacklund in one of the strangest matchups ever. Razor Ramon ended up being cheered, [[RootingForTheEmpire despite being a heel]].
** Wrestling/LexLuger vs. "Mr. Perfect" Wrestling/CurtHennig should've been a great match, as Hennig was one of the best wrestlers in the world and Luger was as good as his opponent was. However, neither seemed incredibly motivated and it led to a so-so match that didn't steal the show as it should have.
** Wrestling/HulkHogan and Wrestling/BrutusBeefcake completely dominate Money Inc. from within their Tag Team Championship match when Hogan hits both members of Money Inc. with Beefcake's facemask during the third ref bump of the night. It looks like Hogan and Beefcake win when another referee comes out and disqualifies them for using the facemask. When does this ever happen? It makes no sense considering how several matches have been won by cheating and no second ref came out to DQ the cheaters. What makes this especially notable is the fact that it looked like the typical Money Inc. finish - they flee the match to take the countout loss but hold on to the belts since titles don't change hands by countout or DQ, robbing the challengers of the belts and, arguably, the fans of a solid finish - would be averted; Money Inc. started to head for the back only to have Wrestling/HowardFinkel announced that the referee had decided that if they did not return to the ring in time, the countout would basically be ruled a forfeit, and the title would indeed change hands.
** The show goes from bad to worse with the next match: Wrestling/TheUndertaker vs. Wrestling/GiantGonzalez. Largely hailed as one of the worst matches ever, Undertaker tried to pull a watchable match out of the irredeemably awful González. After seven-and-a-half painful minutes, Taker wins the match by DQ after González uses chloroform, in Undertaker's only match at [=WrestleMania=] to end in DQ.
** The main event between Wrestling/{{Yokozuna}} and Wrestling/BretHart for the WWF Championship isn't too bad until the ending: Hart goes for the Sharpshooter, despite showing prior that he's too smart to go for moves like that in the match, and Yoko gets out easily. Then, when Hart has Yoko in the Sharpshooter, Mr. Fuji throws salt in his face Yoko doesn't even go for and hit his [[SignatureMove Signature]][=/=]FinishingMove, the Banzai Drop - he just blithely grabs Bret's legs and gets the pin. While the ending was stupid, what happened afterward was far worse.
** Hulk Hogan comes out, apparently to check on "his friend" Bret. He also issued an open challenge to take on the winner of the main event. Yokozuna and Fuji have no reason to accept, yet Fuji does just that. In a pull so cartoonish it might as well have been on ''[[WesternAnimation/HulkHogansRockNWrestling Rock N' Wrestling]]'', it takes only 22 seconds for Fuji to inadvertently throw salt in Yoko's eyes and Hogan to drop the leg, get the pin, and walk out the champion. Behind the scenes, Hogan convinced [=McMahon=] that a heel couldn't walk out of 'Mania with the title, but instead of allowing Bret to retain, he should run in and squash Yokozuna to steal the title.
** Aftermath: Hogan is slated to drop the belt to Bret after the PPV, but refuses because he thinks it'll make him look weak. Then he skips out of the promotion to shoot movies (he was also caught on video badmouthing the WWF at a Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling event). Wrestling/VinceMcMahon, understandably pissed off, has Hogan lose the belt to Yokozuna at ''Wrestling/KingOfTheRing'' 1993 as punishment, and it takes the better part of a year before any of the fallout from ''WMIX'' is finally cleared. Bret Hart is booked to win the ''King of the Ring'' '93 tournament as compensation, but the tournament itself meant nothing and the fans and Hart himself knew it.
* ''King of the Ring'' 1995 was the absolute low point for WWF's mid-90s slump in ratings. It had an array of bad matches, including a match that ended by time-limit draw, a match that ended by countout, a match that ended with outside interference, a match that ended with botched outside interference, and an inexplicable rise of Savio Vega. You can [[XPacHeat actually hear the air getting sucked out of the arena]] after Wrestling/TheUndertaker gets pinned and eliminated from the tournament by Mabel in thoroughly underwhelming fashion, after a boot to the head by the interfering Kama and a legdrop by Mabel. This is the same Undertaker who'd NoSell some of the most devastating moves the roster had to offer, and two midcarders dispose of him just like that. When Mabel was crowned the king, he had garbage thrown at him. Of course, Mabel's subsequent main-event push tanked, and slowly withered and died by the end of the year - appropriately enough, after losing a Casket Match to the Undertaker.
* ''Over the Edge''. May 23, 1999: the night Wrestling/OwenHart [[FatalMethodActing died]]. Working as the Blue Blazer at the time, he was to be lowered to the ground by harness from the rafters in a pastiche of Wrestling/{{Sting}}'s gimmick in WCW. Instead, the harness failed, and he fell 70 feet, his chest hitting a turnbuckle on the way down. The only positive was that the accident was not seen live on TV, so they could extend backstage activity while dealing with the accident. Hart was taken to a Kansas City hospital, while WWF [[TheShowMustGoOn decided to continue the event]], a decision that proved extremely controversial once Owen's death was announced. The event wouldn't see the light of day until the premiere of the WWE Network, where it was made available with heavy edits. The WWF would eventually settle with Owen's wife Martha Hart for $18 million, but still occasionally catch heat since part of the settlement was they could never mention Owen again on WWE programming, something the WWE Network has made impossible.
* ''The Great American Bash'' 2004 was the crowning example of how '''not''' to revive one of Wrestling/{{WCW}}'s most beloved annual shows. The Norfolk crowd was almost completely dead, though you can't really blame them with a card as bad as they got. The general feeling of the show is an episode of ''[[Wrestling/WWESmackdown SmackDown]]'' for 3 hours, which is ''never'' a good thing.
** The opening Fatal 4-Way for the WWE United States Championship between Wrestling/JohnCena, Wrestling/BookerT, Wrestling/RobVanDam, and... [[Wrestling/LaResistanceWrestling René Duprée]] proved to be a surprising bore, with half the match at the start having both Cena and Duprée clashing while the other two just stand around.
** Luther Reigns beats Charlie Haas in a match that shows why Luther never really became the next big star.
** Kenzo Suzuki beats Wrestling/BillyGunn in a match that'd be bad enough for ''[=SmackDown=]'', let alone a pay-per-view, with Suzuki himself mostly doing chops and his finisher, and that's about it.
** Mordecai beats [[Wrestling/BobHolly Hardcore Holly]] in a snoozer. One month later, he would disappear and be brought back as Kevin Thorn in WWE's Wrestling/{{ECW}}.
** Wrestling/TheUndertaker fought Wrestling/{{The Dudley Boy|s}}z in a handicap match in the main event(!), with a nonsensical stipulation that if the Undertaker lost, Wrestling/PaulBearer would be drowned in cement. Despite winning, the Undertaker himself drowned Bearer in cement anyways.
** The only two matches that were decent for the pay-per-view itself were Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr and Wrestling/ChavoGuerreroJr's match for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship and [[Wrestling/JohnBradshawLayfield JBL]] and Wrestling/EddieGuerrero's Texas Bullrope match. The problem here is that both Rey and Chavo had battled in better matches before and JBL and Eddie had battled in a ''brutal'' main event at ''Judgment Day'' one month before in a much better brawl.
** Afterwards JBL started a world championship reign that grossly wore out its welcome, especially given he wasn't exactly the best wrestler going at the time. Most of the wrestlers who were clearly being pushed in this show had turned out to be major flops and were either relegated to jobber status or sent back to development. Most tragically, the cracks in ''[[Wrestling/WWESmackdown SmackDown]]''[='s=] own prestige and relegation to the B show until the second brand split in 2016 begins to show.
* The 2018 ''Backlash'' was ''not'' well-liked by fans. It did not help that the preshow started at 7 pm Eastern and the show closed at almost ''Midnight'' on a ''Sunday''. The only good point was the opener for the Intercontinental Championship between Wrestling/TheMiz and Wrestling/SethRollins. The rest of the event, however, was widely criticized for having extremely bland, predictable contests:
** The somewhat well-received Wrestling/AJStyles vs. Wrestling/ShinsukeNakamura match had suffered from a dull double-knockout finish.
** Wrestling/NiaJax's match had people doubting that she could be a draw as champion.
** Both Wrestling/RandyOrton and Wrestling/JeffHardy had put on a snoozer of a match.
** The lowest point was the non-title main event: Wrestling/RomanReigns vs. Wrestling/SamoaJoe. It was a snoozeworthy match comprised almost entirely of rest holds and other bland spots ending with yet another [[AssPull contrived]] [[CreatorsPet Reigns victory]], at which point fans were [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere already clearing the stands]] while those who remained showed their "enthusiasm" with a series of "beat the traffic" chants. The worst part is that Samoa Joe and Roman Reigns previously had a longer match on the New Year's episode of ''Raw'' that was actually rather well-received and showed both men had a lot of chemistry. Whether or not it was due to Joe having recently come back from injury or some other factor, the match that happened at a pay-per-view couldn't hold a candle to something broadcasted ''on weekly TV''!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Angles]]
* In 1998, the WWF did a ''[[Wrestling/WWEBrawlForAll Brawl For All]]'', a boxing tournament between various wrestlers. As per Russo's LeaningOnTheFourthWall style of booking, this was booked as a "shoot" i.e. the wrestlers were actually beating each other up. Aside from the complications this puts on the kayfabe for the rest of the show, the wrestlers then proceeded to have real fights that looked terrible and injuring each other. The angle was set up to get Wrestling/DrDeathSteveWilliams over as a tough guy for a potential "who's tougher" match with Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin. However, the very obvious variable of having unpredictable finishes in unscripted matches meant Dr. Death pulled a hamstring and was taken out in the quarterfinals by Bart Gunn. The bookers then put Gunn in a ''[=WrestleMania=]'' XV match with professional boxer Eric "Butterbean" Esch where Gunn was utterly destroyed in half a minute. Accounts differ as to whether Gunn was being punished for winning the Brawl For All when he wasn't supposed to, or whether Russo thought that Gunn would beat Butterbean [[note]](Gunn himself claims he was offered a payoff to lose to Dr. Death, and that the Butterbean squash was his punishment, and Butterbean claims he offered to put over Gunn in a worked fight, but Russo refused it)[[/note]] - but either way, Gunn was fired when he got back to the locker room. The angle led to no less than four injuries, a lot of animosity between the wrestlers who beat each other up, and the destruction of two promising careers. And, of course, the big selling point - that these were ''real'' fights - fizzled with the fans who either didn't buy that they were unscripted or wanted them to just wrestle instead. When interviewed on ''Series/DarkSideOfTheRing'', Russo revealed that he came up with the whole thing just to shut Bradshaw up, as he'd been bragging to the entire locker room that he was the toughest.
* As bad as Creator/DavidArquette: WCW World Heavyweight Champion was, it was just barely the worst angle that year. Over in the WWF, Wrestling/MarkHenry at the time worked a sex addict gimmick as "Sexual Chocolate", which saw him involved with female bodybuilder[=/=]Wrestling/DGenerationX enforcer Wrestling/{{Chyna}}, and then with her friend Sammy who turned out to be a transvestite. Then he got involved with Wrestling/MaeYoung (then in her seventies) and got her pregnant. Three months later, Mae gave birth on ''Raw'' - ''to a disembodied hand'', leading to the punchline: Vince declaring "Let's all [[JustForPun give her a hand!]]" And let's not forget the way it opened - Mae [[FanDisservice flashing her audience]] in defiance of the [[Wrestling/JerryLawler "show me your puppies"]] gag. In Website/{{WrestleCrap}}'s annual "Gooker Award" voting, Arquette beat this by '''0.5%'''. The whole shebang actually placed at #62 in ''Literature/WhatWereTheyThinkingThe100DumbestEventsInTelevisionHistory'', the only pro wrestling entry on that list. The only thing it was good for was an over-the-top BrickJoke, and even that doesn't cancel out them repeating the angle - only to have her give birth to Wrestling/{{Hornswoggle}}.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Individual Matches]]
* As bad as the Wrestling/MontrealScrewjob was, the "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQAidOQo20w Original Screwjob]]" on Wrestling/WendiRichter is even more JustForFun/{{egregious}}. One could charitably characterize Montreal as Wrestling/VinceMcMahon being excessively paranoid about having his champion leave with the belt and dumping it in a trash can on ''[[Wrestling/WCWMondayNitro Nitro]]''; this screwjob, on the other hand, was around a time when Richter's contract was being renegotiated. [[note]]According to Vince, she had refused to sign a new contract. According to Wendi, she had been having disputes over pay but was still under the original five-year deal. If you go by Wendi's side of the story, her whole career with WWE was one big horrible moment. By her own words, her contract stipulated that she would earn a minimum of $25 per match and a lot of times that was all she got. She was also not paid for promotional events she did with Music/CyndiLauper, spots she did on WWF's cartoon show ''WesternAnimation/HulkHogansRockNWrestling'', and she was given no royalty checks for merchandise related to her. Considering for a while Wendi was almost as popular as Hogan and was allegedly making ''far'' less money, the contract disputes with Vince make a lot more sense.[[/note]] The critical moment was when Wrestling/TheFabulousMoolah, in the guise of "Spider Lady", gets Richter in a small package, at which Richter blatantly kicks out at one and has one shoulder obviously up at two. Even Wrestling/GorillaMonsoon didn't initially notice that the three-count was made.
* Wrestling/TheUndertaker was given two matches with Wrestling/GiantGonzalez - one at ''[=WrestleMania=]'' IX, the other at ''[=SummerSlam=]'' 1993. Both are regarded as some of the worst matches of all time. The only good thing that came from those matches was González's [[http://ecwfrenchtribute.free.fr/HTLM/Photos/G/Giant_Gonzales/Giant_Gonzales_-_Jorge_Gonzales_08.jpg suit]], which [[HilariousInHindsight makes him look]] like [[Manga/AttackOnTitan a Titan]].
* A contender for worst ''Wrestling/SurvivorSeries'' match of all time happened at the 1993 edition of the event. The teams were Wrestling/BamBamBigelow, [[Wrestling/MikeShaw Bastion Booger]] [[note]]in his only WWE pay-per-view appearance[[/note]], and Wrestling/TheHeadshrinkers against, ostensibly, "four [[Wrestling/DoinkTheClown Doinks]]". After the better part of a year of Doink's shenanigans featuring himself and a second Doink, the implied payoff was to see four Doinks wrestling at once. However, this was during a period where Vince was fixated on catering to young children, and the original Doink, Matt Borne, was released from the company due to drug problems after ''[=SummerSlam=]'' '93, so instead, we got Luke and Butch of Wrestling/TheBushwhackers and Mo and Mabel of [[Characters/WWENewGeneration Men on a Mission]] wearing Doink greasepaint and green clown wigs. After a confused crowd started chanting "we want Doink" over the bait-and-switch, the resulting "match" contained scooters, water balloons, the heels messily eating raw turkey and bananas, and blatant double-teams by the faces that the referee does ''nothing'' about. The only redeeming portions of this match were Bam Bam and Wrestling/BobbyHeenan's commentary. And after the match, Doink finally appears on the video wall and cuts a promo that sounded like a six-year-old wrote it. This whole mess is a classic example of Vince being out of touch with his audience.
* Wrestling/AlSnow vs. Wrestling/BigBossman inside the Kennel from Hell Match at ''[[Wrestling/UnforgivenWrestling Unforgiven]]'' '99. While it was an interesting concept, the match was just dull. Exacerbating this were the allegedly {{angry guard dog}}s, in reality, [[BigFriendlyDog they were just the opposite]]. [[NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals Rather than keep the wrestlers in the cage as intended]], they urinated, defecated, and mated ''right there in the Hell in a Cell'' during the match, in front of the whole audience. [[note]](Hilariously, on Mick Foley's ''Hard Knocks and Cheap Pops'' DVD, he [=MSTs=] the match with Kevin Kelly, calling it as if it were a five-star classic.)[[/note]]
* The Wrestling/ChristopherNowinski and Wrestling/JackieGayda vs. [[Wrestling/JohnBradshawLayfield Bradshaw]] and Wrestling/TrishStratus match from the July 8, 2002 episode of ''Raw''. Gayda blew a boatload of spots, including Trish Stratus' finisher, a bulldog from the top turnbuckle. She missed it by a mile - she didn't sell it until a few seconds after Trish hit her, making the whole spot look utterly ridiculous. Wrestling/JimRoss famously declared it "bowling shoe ugly" and all but apologized to the fans at its conclusion ("Mercifully, it's over."). Most fans simply refer to it as "''That'' Jackie Gayda Match". Bradshaw said that it was one of the worst matches he'd ever participated in.
* Triple H vs. Wrestling/ScottSteiner at ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'' 2003. Steiner blew up a couple of minutes into the match, and had a foot injury that stopped him from being able to lift up his leg. As a result, his offense was mostly limited to spamming the belly-to-belly suplex, falling and nearly dropping Trips on his head while trying to do a Tiger Driver which became known as the [[FanNickname "Double-Underhook What-The-Fuck-Was-That?"]], dumping himself and Trips onto the floor while attempting a ring apron powerbomb, which became known as the [[FanNickname "Stumble Bomb"]], and hitting Trips on the head with the leather strap of the belt, to which Trips ''did a bladejob''. At the same time, Steiner botched several sell attempts, including selling a Diamond Cutter by falling backwards, and completely failing to sell a facebuster knee smash. The only saving grace is that this was immediately followed by Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit, which many consider to be their greatest match against each other.
* Wrestling/{{Goldberg}} vs. Wrestling/BrockLesnar. Two men with similar gimmicks - big, charismatic, intense wrestlers who were nigh unstoppable by most other wrestlers. What could go wrong with a showdown between them? Well, Lesnar was ditching WWE to try out for the NFL, Goldberg's contract was set to expire and he wasn't renewing, and the show they wrestled at (''[=WrestleMania=]'' XX) was being held in Madison Square Garden, a location that skews towards the {{Smar|tMark}}k section of the fanbase. Goldberg and Lesnar decided not to bother having a good match knowing each other's fate, and the viciously negative fan reaction certainly didn't inspire them to give a good performance. The end result was quite possibly the worst match in ''[=WrestleMania=]'' history, with Lesnar and Goldberg both using stalling tactics and low impact rest holds with both men not wanting to risk getting hurt. Guest referee Steve Austin was even getting visibly frustrated at the spectacle, and the only saving grace came after the bell when Austin gave both Lesnar and Goldberg a Stone Cold Stunner as a lovely parting gift. You know it's bad when the fans are getting a better reaction from one another than the match - the biggest pop went to a fake wrestling match between a Wrestling/HulkHogan cosplayer and a "Macho Man" Wrestling/RandySavage cosplayer. One {{Smar|tMark}}k recapper described "Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg vs. the NYC crowd" as "the greatest {{squash match}} in history." They went to the Lesnar vs. Goldberg well again 12 years later, with somewhat better results.
* Wrestling/{{Batista}} vs. Wrestling/BigShow for the ECW World Championship on August 1, 2006. Doesn't sound ''quite'' as bad as you'd think, and to give credit where it's due the match itself isn't horrible. However, it was held '''at the Hammerstein Ballroom''', home to the ''wrong'' kind of audience for that exact sort of thing, as Hammerstein has traditionally been the original ECW's unofficial "Home Away From Home" and neither Batista or Big Show had any relationship with the original ECW whatsoever. When Big Show won the title from ECW Original Rob Van Dam, it was assumed that it was for the sake of {{Heel}} heat, but with this match putting two wrestlers who never wrestled in the original ECW for the ECW World Championship, many of the "ECW Mutants" became convinced of their fears that WWE seemed to try to scrub any trace of the original ECW out of their revival. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26MXMI0Bx-c See for yourself all the boos they got.]] Big Show, who considers the match a major OldShame in his career, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB5RwQw5njM recalled]] his thoughts during the match in an episode of ''WWE Untold'' centered on the ECW relaunch, and he didn't mince words:
-->'''Big Show:''' That's the worst feeling in the world, when people start, you know, shitting on your match, 'cause you've lost them somewhere in your match. Back then, I didn't know how to get them back. I didn't know to get them then. I was just like, "Oh, crap. Here we go. How much time do we have left? Ugh, can we just go home now?" Like, you're just embarassed.
* The January 8, 2007 edition of ''Raw'' featured an attempt to cash in on the brief media feud between UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump and Rosie O'Donnell. Two poorly-disguised {{jobber}}s posed as the two and had a sluggish, no-effort, unbearable fight. It was so bad that the crowd, having gone past "You Can't Wrestle!" and "Boring!", ''began chanting for [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]] right in front of Vince [=McMahon=]''.
* Wrestling/{{Kaitlyn}} vs [[Wrestling/KarleePerez Maxine]] from [[Wrestling/{{NXT3}} Season 3]] of the competition-based ''[[Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} NXT]]''. Neither of them had much time to train, thanks to a dawdling tech crew setting up a stunt for ''Wrestling/WWESmackDown''. The resulting "match" was so bad the announcers broke kayfabe and called it the worst match ever. Hell, Wrestling/MichaelCole even got up to take a phone call during the middle of it.
* Wrestling/{{Sheamus}} vs. [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]] at ''[=WrestleMania=]'' XXVIII for the World Heavyweight Championship, which lasted ''18 seconds!'' Worse, it was WWE's attempt at beating a record that shouldn't have even been shot for - quickest match at [=WrestleMania=] - and came seven seconds short of even tying. Hard to envision a better way to utterly waste what could have been a good bout. Fortunately, this didn't seem to hurt either's career in the long run.
* ''Royal Rumble'' 2014: [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]], who at that point and beyond was [[BreakoutCharacter immensely over with the fans]], was a favorite amongst smarks to win the match, and when the countdown began for Entrant #30, fans were on the edge of their seats. When the buzzer rang and [[Wrestling/{{Rey Mysterio|Jr}} Rey Mysterio]]'s music played, the arena went into meltdown, booing any bit of Rey's offence and cheering his elimination. It got worse when the returning Wrestling/{{Batista}} won it, as they immediately turned on him. It's notable for being Wrestling/CMPunk's last wrestling appearance until 2019 when he returned to WWE, albeit in a non-wrestling role, and for forcing the company to change the WWE World Heavyweight Title Match in order to stop it from imploding on itself.[[note]](The original plans for ''[=WrestleMania=] XXX'' were for Bryan to face Sheamus again, with CM Punk to face down The Authority. When Punk walked out, Bryan took his place and won the title, which drew universal acclaim.)[[/note]] Even Wrestling/MickFoley verbally bit WWE's head off over this fiasco, posting the tweet [[ArmorPiercingQuestion "Does WWE really hate their own audience?"]] that was retweeted ''20,000 times'' in 24 hours.
* ''Royal Rumble'' 2015: In light of not just the 2014 edition, but everything that had happened between then and this point,[[note]]including a podcast appearance from Wrestling/VinceMcMahon that beat out said Royal Rumble for that year's Gooker award[[/note]] it was expected that WWE wouldn't be stupid enough to rehash last year's results. It was also expected that they wouldn't be suicidal enough to rehash them in ''UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}'', Smark Central and the birthplace of Wrestling/{{ECW}}. [[GoneHorriblyRight And yet, they did.]]
** After a night that boasted, among other matches, [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome Rollins vs. Cena vs. Lesnar]], the time for the eponymous main event came, and WWE darling Daniel Bryan entered at #10, to roaring applause... only to be eliminated in ten minutes. At this point, the audience went into a rage, booing all but [[Wrestling/ClaudioCastagnoli the]] [[Wrestling/DolphZiggler most]] [[Wrestling/DamienSandow beloved]] [[Wrestling/DeanAmbrose participants]], who in turn were unceremoniously beaten by Wrestling/{{Kane}} and Wrestling/BigShow, riling the audience further. After Wrestling/RomanReigns eliminated Kane and Big Show to appear to win the match, the crowd recalled that the monster heel Rusev, who got thunderous boos everywhere else, was never eliminated and began to cheer for him to come back into the ring and beat Roman. It all came to a head when Rusev hit the ring to continue the match, and Reigns threw him out in seconds to be declared the winner - the crowd jeered so fervently that not even the presence of The Rock, who was dragged out onto the ring to join Reigns in celebrating, could placate them. The marks rioted outside the arena, preventing WWE staff from leaving.
** Its impact was felt for days - [=#CancelWWENetwork=] promptly became Twitter's #1 worldwide trend. The amount of subscriptions to the WWE Network dropped by 300,000, and the page to cancel subscriptions ''crashed'' [[DemandOverload due to heavy traffic]]. Perhaps in order to avoid the PR disaster, on the plus side, the aftermath not only had Bryan resuming the involvement with the championship, but the main event of ''[=WrestleMania=]'' was rewritten to involve a cash-in from Wrestling/SethRollins.
*** The worst thing about all of this is that it could have been avoided completely. Daniel Bryan had been out for months due to injuries, to the point where the question of if he would retire was banded about. A few weeks before the Rumble, WWE made a huge fuss about him returning and entering himself in the match. Given they could have announced his return ''after'' the show, a lot of fans saw his involvement as WWE {{troll}}ing everyone.
*** Adding to the accusations of outright trolling was that Goldust began to make his entrance to the match just after Bryan was thrown out. Goldust's entrance video begins with "A SHATTERED DREAMS PRODUCTION" splayed on the obscenely huge Titantron screen, leading to a mean/hilarious picture of Bryan looking dejected at ringside with that on the screen above him.
** Probably the most-enduring fallout of this debacle was the unfortunate impact it had on Roman's career going forward. What was supposed to be the start of the biggest push of his life was instead a ''crippling'' blow that he has never fully recovered from, and indeed [[NeverLiveItDown probably never, EVER will]]. As Adam Blampied pointed out in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx81qTfNVzE his assessment of (and fantasy rebooking of) Roman's early singles career]], Roman didn't do anything wrong except not be Daniel Bryan on the one night when Daniel Bryan ''should'' have won the Royal Rumble, and many fans have never gotten over that one single booking travesty. Even as Roman's career has recovered and he's become a legitimate star, he will ''always'' have a set of hardcore haters who will never accept him because of Royal Rumble 2015. It ultimately took a heel turn and siding with Wrestling/PaulHeyman to get Roman over.
--->'''Adam Blampied:''' See, at its absolute simplest, what happened to Roman is that at a very specific point in time he wasn't Daniel Bryan and WWE fans have ''never'' forgiven him for it.
* The Wrestling/{{Bayley}} vs. Wrestling/AlexaBliss at ''Extreme Rules'' 2017, a Kendo Stick-on-a-Pole Match that might as well be named the Bayley Burial Match. First of all in the build, we had the awful Bayley "This is Your Life" segment which gave the feud lots of [[XPacHeat Go-Away heat]] as crowds chanted "Boring" and [[Wrestling/MattHardy "DELETE"]] as awful actors attempted to make people hate Alexa. Bayley would "run in" at the end of the segment...and by "run in" we mean she pouted down the ramp as her music played, stood there waiting for everyone else to leave the ring, ''then'' rushed into the ring and immediately got the boots put to her by an expectant Alexa, making her look dumber than [[Wrestling/NickDinsmore Eugene]] and making people hate Bayley for forcing them to sit through this awful segment with no clear retaliation as payoff. Alexa then beat the crap out of Bayley, making her look weak and making the whole thing pointless if the intention was to get Bayley more over, as instead it did the opposite. During the match itself Bayley had the kendo stick and was chasing Alexa when she had her cornered, but hesitated until the last possible second to hit Alexa, who was able to take it from Bayley, making her look even stupider. The match ends after Alexa hits Bayley repeatedly with the Kendo stick and hits the DDT for the win. Finally, this match was somehow shorter than the one at ''Payback'', breaking the cardinal rule of not having the face be dominated by the heel in the final match. Remember how Bayley was supposed to be the female Wrestling/JohnCena? Because not even the Cena vs. Wrestling/BrockLesnar match at ''[=SummerSlam=]'' 2014 was this one-sided.
* ''Payback'' 2017 and the infamous House of Horrors Match between Wrestling/RandyOrton and Wrestling/BrayWyatt. What sounds interesting on paper instead becomes one of the most boring and idiotic matches that year. The entire "match" is pretaped and there's nothing to explain even how it works. Keep in mind they decided to do this ''on a live PPV'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag-5oZE-7QU which only helped to hide the crowd's shouts of "BORING" while they watched it.]] The entire match was just creepy imagery with Orton and Wyatt brawling in the house... for a few seconds before dragging out even more creepy images. It ends with Wyatt toppling a fridge on top of Orton and leaving for the arena... and taking a whole other 20-minute match before arriving. ''Somehow'', Orton manages to be there at the arena without any explanation and attacks Wyatt for a very short match, only for Wrestling/JinderMahal (with whom Orton was scheduled to defend the WWE Championship against at the following PPV, ''Backlash'' 2017) to come out with the Singh Brothers and cost Orton the win. As stated above in Jinder's WWE Championship run section, this match was so bad that not only did RD skip waiting a year to induct it into ''[=WrestleCrap=]'', but along with the entire Wyatt-Orton feud in general, [[TemptingFate preemptively called it as the winner for]] [[MedalOfDishonor the 2017 Gooker Award]] before Jinder's WWE Championship run turned out to be ''even worse''.
* ''Super [=ShowDown=]'' 2019: While the event as a whole was negatively received by wrestling critics, The Undertaker vs. Goldberg match in particular had shaped up to be a depressing and unfortunate case of BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor due to the fact that both performers were [[DentedIron well past their physical and athletic primes]] and that the match itself had come a good 15 years too late. Despite an impressive opening with a pair of Spears from Goldberg, it quickly became obvious to everyone watching that both men truly and undoubtedly lacked the stamina that was needed and required for a sustained match. Before too long, the match fell into a horrendous case of NightmareFuel ''for all the wrong reasons'' when a Tombstone Piledriver from Taker had ended with Goldberg's head impacting the mat and shortly after that, a botched attempt at a Jackhammer from Goldberg had just narrowly avoided a disastrous landing on Taker's own neck. A Tombstone Piledriver reversal attempt fell apart immediately afterwards as both stars were clearly too fatigued and exhausted to perform the spot, leading to an obviously-audible-called finish with a very flaccid Chokeslam from Taker, putting Goldberg down for the three-count and putting the match itself out of its own misery. Appropriately enough, [[http://wrestlecrap.com/inductions/undertaker-vs-goldberg/ it was inducted into]] ''Website/WrestleCrap''.
* The ''TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs'' 2019 main event, a TLC tag team match for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship between The Kabuki Warriors ([[Wrestling/KanakoUrai Asuka]] and Kairi Sane) vs. Wrestling/CharlotteFlair and Wrestling/BeckyLynch. The match quality began to dip as it approached its ending, as Kairi had suffered a legitimate concussion halfway through the match. It was clear she was in trouble given her body language, though Charlotte apparently didn't seem to catch the signs. Whether she knew Kairi was in no condition to work or not, Charlotte began roughing her up a bit, even going for a spear, to which Kairi couldn't sell properly. Charlotte seemed frustrated at that point, cursing Kairi out and even slapping her, before powerbombing Kairi through a table. When it came time for Charlotte and Becky to use chairs, Kairi uncharacteristically ran away from Charlotte, and it took Becky to finally catch on and check on her, rolling her under the ring for her own safety and directing Asuka to go on to the finishing spot to end the match. Asuka would go on to win it solo, but had only celebrated it for mere seconds before the cameras panned away towards a group of male wrestlers brawling outside the ring as part of an ongoing story. Most wouldn't call this match outright horrible, but the danger Kairi was in, in addition to the recklessness of Charlotte, made it really uncomfortable to watch and it's inexplicable why an audible wasn't called backstage to protect her. Just months later, Kairi would depart from the company, having recently married and wanting to return to Japan, though some reports emerged that she was looking to get out due to repeatedly being injured by unsafe workers.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Wrestlers/Gimmicks]]
* In 1988, Terry Taylor, then known as a stellar worker and up-and-coming star, debuted with Wrestling/BobbyHeenan as his manager, who claimed he could make any "red rooster" a champion. Eventually, Taylor broke away from Heenan, but continued being the Red Rooster, complete with a red fauxhawk, clucking during matches, and a "small fan base" of plants known as the "Rooster Boosters". While not offensive or repulsive, this gimmick ruined Taylor's career - everywhere he went, he got "rooster" chants and could NeverLiveItDown.
* Wrestling/TheGobbledyGooker, perhaps the template of Horrible gimmicks. Has its own page, but in a nutshell: A man dressed in a turkey costume hatches from a giant egg at the 1990 ''Wrestling/SurvivorSeries'' and dances in the ring with Wrestling/MeanGeneOkerlund, to a chorus of boos from a disappointed audience. The gimmick even inspired the "Gooker Award" (for the year's worst gimmick/storyline) at the Website/WrestleCrap website.
* Mid-1993 saw one of the company's biggest flop gimmicks to date with Friar Ferguson, played by the late Wrestling/MikeShaw. Ferguson was a [[WrestlingDoesntPay wrestling monk]], complete with a bottle of holy water and a big brown cloak. [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext And he danced.]] In Friar's one match, the fans had no idea whether he was {{Heel}} or {{Face}}, but the match, with jobber Chris Duffy, was such a plodding, tedious waste of time that fans stopped caring (at one point, Friar picked up his opponent before a count of three, and you can audibly hear fans turning on the segment right there). Wrestling/VinceMcMahon was the only one entertained by the gimmick, and it was probably one of the first big disasters of ''Raw''. [[note]](Mike Shaw did get another chance with the company, and his next gimmick wound up being Bastion Booger, whose gimmick was that he was a [[ThePigpen smelly, disgusting slob.]] This one was also stupid, but veered a bit closer to SoBadItsGood.)[[/note]]
* The saga of bad gimmicks given to Chaz Warrington (Mosh of Wrestling/TheHeadbangers) in 1999, which, as the examples shown below indicate, may have affected more than just the WWE.
** First, there was Beaver Cleavage, a parody of ''Series/LeaveItToBeaver'', [[AdultsDressedAsChildren complete with both a beanie and a sailor uniform]], shown in a series of black-and-white vignettes. The vignettes showed the exploits of Beaver and his mother (Marianna Komlos), who'd respond with [[ParentalIncest sexually suggestive]] [[DoubleEntendre remarks]]. [[note]](Beaver falls into a puddle: "Oh no, Harry Beaver's all wet!")[[/note]] After only two weeks and hostile fan reaction, Vince [=McMahon=] ordered the character axed, and Warrington never had quite a career after this. Oddly, despite the gimmick ending with Chaz supposedly [[TakeThisJobAndShoveIt breaking character and walking out of a skit]], Chaz himself was reportedly amused by the skits.
** Chaz and Marianna didn't make out much better in the follow-up storyline, which took them from creepy and dumb to offensive and horrific. Chaz and Marianna carried on under their own names, ditching the gimmicks and simply being themselves on TV. Which was fine, until they suddenly broke up, which turned into a ''domestic violence'' angle where Marianna would keep showing up on TV with bruises on her face, accusing Chaz of beating her. This caused the WWF to turn against Chaz to the point that his fellow wrestlers shunned him and the referees would refuse to count his pinfalls - which isn't ridiculous in itself, but this was going on at the same time when Wrestling/JeffJarrett was hitting women in the head with guitars and putting them in the figure four leglock during live broadcasts, to a fraction of the criticism. And in a typical WWE [[TheReveal Reveal]], the angle concluded with Headbanger Thrasher revealing that Marianna made the whole thing up for ''some reason''; she was arrested and never heard from again while the Headbangers reunited and proceeded to do absolutely nothing. ''Man,'' it sucked to be Chaz Warrington in 1999.
** The kicker of all this? The Beaver Cleavage gimmick in particular was Wrestling/VinceRusso's pet gimmick, and he fought hard with Creative to get it on the air, and [=McMahon=] ordering it axed was the cause for Russo to jump to WCW and screw ''it'' up, too.
* Vince [=McMahon=] was convinced that flippy cruiserweights couldn't draw right up until he hired Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr. Once he learned that they could, he decided he wanted another one, and so he hired Wrestling/UltimoDragon. The problem was, Vince didn't bother to watch any Dragon matches before hiring him, and Dragon wasn't particularly flippy. After watching Dragon wrestle, Vince became enraged, declared that Dragon's style was absolutely incompatible with everyone else on the roster, and depushed the guy as hard as he could get away with, even going so far to ''edit out the cheers'' Dragon got when he appeared on ''Velocity'' and ''Heat''.
** As a follow-up, WWE, wanting to get rid of Dragon, said something about releasing him and then rehiring him without the Dragon gimmick, under his real name Yoshihiro Asai. Asai even unmasked in Japan in preparation for this. Then it didn't happen. Asai ended up taking the Tiger Mask gimmick. After that, he opened the promotion Dragondoor. He booked the main angle around his mask-related ordeals and multiple impostor Ultimo Dragons and Tiger Masks. Imagine the [=Undertaker/Underfaker=] angle with a half-dozen Underfakers instead of just one. Dragondoor ended up having a six-show lifespan - the only good that came out of it was that the mask issue got muddled enough that Asai was able to resume using the Último Dragón gimmick afterwards.
* 2012 was a very, very long year for Wrestling/ZackRyder. After becoming popular in 2011 thanks to ''WebVideo/ZTrueLongIslandStory'' and extenstive social networking, he ended the year as the US Champion. Too bad for him Creative was ''really'' not happy he managed to get over by himself. Within a month into 2012 he is regulated to being Wrestling/JohnCena's perennial rescuee. Because Wrestling/{{Kane}} wants Cena to give in to ThePowerOfHate, he keeps on using Ryder as [[DistressedDude his personal Fay Wray]]. He then loses his US Title (unceremoniously) along with his girlfriend, Wrestling/EveTorres, who turned out to be a GoldDigger. The end result was a broken Ryder who never recovered from his attack and subsequent burial. While Cena on the other hand shrugged off the attempt to corrupt him and went on his merry way. To sum it up: [[http://img.ifcdn.com/images/ad2b3a9cd76ad2a7b3ae1b735ccacba45d454e02daa889c19204096aa5ba74a7_1.jpg Cena: Not Even Once]]
** A few years later, Zack Ryder finally seems to catch a break at ''[=WrestleMania 32=]'', where he gets inserted into a ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship as a replacement for the injured [[Wrestling/AdrianNeville Neville]]. In a true shocker, he takes advantage of Wrestling/TheMiz prematurely celebrating a little too long to push him off the ladder and grab the belt himself. This ultimately leads to nothing, as he drops the belt back to The Miz ''the very next day''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other]]
* ''[[Wrestling/WWEToughEnough Tough Enough 2]]''. Head trainer Al Snow, in just about every ConfessionCam segment, was agonizing over how poorly the training was going. In fact, "These kids aren't ready" was practically the CatchPhrase for the entire season. Then when it was time to select the winners, they deviated from the "one male winner, one female winner" thing at the very last split-second, to the point that the person announcing the winners was audibly confused. The first winner announced was Linda "Shaniqua" Miles, aka Linda "miss a missile dropkick by" Miles, named after an incident in a match she wrestled on ''Heat''. Yes, Linda was '''worse''' in the ring than Jackie Gayda (the second winner) following ''Tough Enough 2''. In 2013 this was [[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/tough-enough-2/ inducted into the annals]] of Website/WrestleCrap.
* The 2003 WWE/''Girls Gone Wild'' PPV special. Viewers were promised all sorts of R-rated hijinks that the networks would never allow. The audience got one shot of Wrestling/TorrieWilson ''almost'' flipping her skirt at the crowd. The main attraction was supposed to be the crowing of Miss Girls Gone Wild 2003; what happened was a glorified Diva Search sketch, with an occasional flash of skin. Even when the "contestants" would start to get frisky and start doing what girls traditionally do in a ''Girls Gone Wild'' video, Jonathan Coachman would literally jump in and break things up.
* The entire ending sequence to ''NXT'' Season 2 was such a trainwreck it may have stopped several careers in their tracks. It started off with [[Wrestling/LowKi Kaval]] winning, which was about the only thing that went well here. After the announcement was made, runner-up [[Wrestling/CurtisAxel Michael McGillicutty]] was handed the mic and cut a very {{Narm}}y promo where he trips over his lines. In that promo, he basically promises a Genesis of the career of Michael [=McGillicutty=]. Then he leaves the ring. Kaval tries to cut a celebration promo, but is cut off when the rookies eliminated in the previous weeks come in and attack him. The WWE Pros try to intervene, and we get what ends up being the very antithesis of what made Wrestling/TheNexus work. Even the people in the nosebleeds could have heard the spots being called and the refs yelling instructions to the angry rookies. After that promo, only Kaval and Riley would find themselves appearing on television in the weeks that followed, and [[CanonDiscontinuity the end of NXT Season 2 was never mentioned again]]. [=McGillicutty=] and Harris would finally resurface at ''Hell In A Cell'', costing Wrestling/JohnCena his match against Wrestling/WadeBarrett and acting as unofficial Nexus lackeys, before being officially inducted into the group a few weeks later. If there were plans for a Genesis stable involving NXT Season 2, they were quickly axed.
[[/folder]]

* By being unstoppable {{Invincible Villain}}s, The Authority [[GenreKiller killed heel authority figure characters]] for good. Those have been played well before, even by Vince [=McMahon=], but by refusing to let themselves ''lose'' and abusing their power, the use of the trope ground to a screeching halt. By the time [=SmackDown=] moved to Creator/{{Fox}} in 2019, the [=McMahon=] family stopped being involved in storylines and many rival promotions dropped the trope outright; while the General Manager position survived the angle, it was irreparably damaged by the Authority's abuses of power and retired. Nowadays, the two authority figures that appear on ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'', Adam Pearce and Wrestling/SonyaDeville, are simply referred to as "WWE Officials."

* By being unstoppable {{Invincible Villain}}s, The Authority [[GenreKiller killed heel authority figure characters]] for good. Those have been played well before, even by [=Vince McMahon=], but by refusing to let themselves ''lose'' and abusing their power, the use of the trope ground to a screeching halt. By the time [=SmackDown=] moved to Creator/{{Fox}} in 2019, the [=McMahon=] family stopped being involved in storylines and many rival promotions dropped the trope outright; while the General Manager position survived the angle, it was irreparably damaged by the Authority's abuses of power and retired. Nowadays, the two WWE Officials on ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'', Adam Pearce and Wrestling/SonyaDeville, are not only more [[BenevolentBoss benevolent]] than anyone in the Authority, but also rarely get involved in angles... but then, proving that [[HereWeGoAgain WWE never really learns anything]], Sonya turned heel on Wrestling/{{Naomi}} in 2021, screwing her around in a blatantly unfair way for absolutely no discernable reason other than her being a WWE authority figure and [[StrictlyFormula doing what WWE authority figures have to do]]. On the bright side, the feud is not the main angle on that show, with the main angle being Reigns' continual dominance over the roster after siding with Wrestling/PaulHeyman, which got over much better than any time when he fought the Authority.

* '''Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease''' While the WWE's management of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic has been deemed questionable at best, it doesn't count as an example, as it doesn't pertain to anything {{Kayfabe}} but rather a RealLife situation.

* The angle began on the 2013 ''Wrestling/SummerSlam'', where Triple H guest-refereed a title match between Wrestling/JohnCena and [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]]. Bryan won the title, only for Wrestling/RandyOrton to [[HappyEndingOverride immediately cash in his]] Wrestling/MoneyInTheBank contract, after which Triple H screwed Bryan over with a Pedigree and handed Orton an easy win. This quickly became a trend for the Authority — if it looked like a face would win, they'd get screwed over as hard as humanly possible.

* At ''Wrestling/SurvivorSeries'' 2014, Wrestling/JohnCena's team seemingly ended the Authority with a run-in from Wrestling/{{Sting}} — but five weeks later, Wrestling/SethRollins, who'd betrayed Wrestling/TheShield for the Authority, forced Cena to reinstate the faction anyway. Not only did this kill the star power earned by Cena's team, it only happened because [[ExecutiveMeddling USA Network executives]] thought bringing the Authority back would help with ratings... even though ''the Authority'' was the source of the ratings drops.
* After that, Rollins won the WWE Championship after cashing in his Money in the Bank contract during the main event of ''[=WrestleMania=] 31''. In his reign, Rollins became a ''frustratingly'' incompetent DirtyCoward that only kept the title for eight months due to the Authority's help — and he had to vacate the title due to an injury at a house show. Leading up to ''Survivor Series'' 2015, a tournament was held to crown a new champion... only for the Authority to recruit Wrestling/{{Sheamus}}, who won the title ''after the final match'' with ''a third'' Money in the Bank cash-in, rendering the entire tournament all for nothing. Tellingly, the following ''Raw'' episode had the lowest ratings in series history since '''1997'''.

* By being unstoppable {{Invincible Villain}}s, The Authority [[GenreKiller killed heel authority figure characters]] for good. Those have been played well before, even by [=Vince McMahon=], but by refusing to let themselves ''lose'' and abusing their power, the use of the trope ground to a screeching halt. By the time [=SmackDown=] moved to Creator/{{Fox}} in 2019, the [=McMahon=] family stopped being involved in storylines and many rival promotions dropped the trope outright; while the General Manager position survived the angle, it was irreparably damaged by the Authority's abuses of power and retired. Nowadays, the two WWE Officials on ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'', Adam Pearce and Wrestling/SonyaDeville, are not only more [[BenevolentBoss benevolent]] than anyone in the Authority, but also rarely get involved in angles... but then, proving that [[HereWeGoAgain WWE never really learns anything]], Sonya turned heel on Wrestling/{{Naomi}} in 2021, screwing her around in a blatantly unfair way for absolutely no discernable reason other than her being a WWE authority figure and [[StrictlyFormula doing what WWE authority figures have to do]].

* Historically, The Authority was the tipping point for ''Raw'''s viewership decline. While ratings had been trickling out since 2001, that was chalked up to the end of the Attitude Era and the rise of streaming sevices. ''Raw'' ratings around the [=2010s=] typically hovered around 3.00; but past 2013, when audiences realized the Authority was here to stay, ratings dipped into 2.00 and so far below that they'd occasionally get beat by then-new rival Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling's flagship show ''AEW Dynamite''. On the other hand, ''[=SmackDown=]'', which typically had better matches and storylines, got ''higher'' viewership consistently above 2.00. It proved that low numbers weren't just an industry-wide phenomena: the quality of the program drove viewers away. On the subject of AEW, it's interesting to note that six of the wrestlers that the Authority tormented, those being Bryan, Big Show, Sting, Wrestling/CMPunk, Wrestling/DeanAmbrose, and Wrestling/CodyRhodes, all joined AEW long after the angle was over and WWE was starting to circle the drain, with Cody being in fact one of its founding wrestlers, and AEW has treated them much better than the Authority and the WWE booking team.

* Historically, The Authority was the tipping point for ''Raw'''s viewership decline. While ratings had been trickling out since 2001, that was chalked up to the end of the Attitude Era and the rise of streaming sevices. ''Raw'' ratings around the [=2010s=] typically hovered around 3.00; but past 2013, when audiences realized the Authority was here to stay, ratings dipped into 2.00 and so far below that they'd occasionally get beat by then-new rival Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling's flagship show ''AEW Dynamite''. On the other hand, ''[=SmackDown=]'', which typically had better matches and storylines, got ''higher'' viewership consistently above 2.00. It proved that low numbers weren't just an industry-wide phenomena: the quality of the program drove viewers away. On the subject of AEW, it's interesting to note that many of the wrestlers that the Authority tormented, such as Bryan, Big Show, Sting, Wrestling/CMPunk, Wrestling/DeanAmbrose, and Wrestling/CodyRhodes, all joined AEW long after the angle was over and WWE was starting to circle the drain, with Cody being in fact one of its founding wrestlers, and AEW has treated them much better than the Authority and the WWE booking team.

* Historically, The Authority was the tipping point for ''Raw'''s viewership decline. While ratings had been trickling out since 2001, that was chalked up to the end of the Attitude Era and the rise of streaming sevices. ''Raw'' ratings around the [=2010s=] typically hovered around 3.00; but past 2013, when audiences realized the Authority was here to stay, ratings dipped into 2.00 and so far below that they'd occasionally get beat by then-new rival Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling's flagship show ''AEW Dynamite''. On the other hand, ''[=SmackDown=]'', which typically had better matches and storylines, got ''higher'' viewership consistently above 2.00. It proved that low numbers weren't just an industry-wide phenomena: the quality of the program drove viewers away. On the subject of AEW, it's interesting to note that many of the wrestlers that the Authority tormented, such as Bryan, Big Show, Sting, Wrestling/CMPunk, and Wrestling/CodyRhodes, all joined AEW long after the angle was over and WWE was starting to circle the drain, with Cody being in fact one of its founding wrestlers, and AEW has treated them much better than the Authority and the WWE booking team.

This match was the other of two infamously reviled matches from October 2019 that happened only days apart from each other, after the aforementioned Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt Hell in a Cell match at 2019's ''Hell in a Cell''.
* Wrestling/KofiKingston vs. Wrestling/BrockLesnar:
** On the October 4, 2019 edition of ''[[Wrestling/WWESmackDown SmackDown]]'', the show premiered on Creator/{{Fox}} for its first special episode. The match saw Lesnar deliver a ''single'' F5 to defeat Kingston and win his WWE Championship in '''9 seconds'''. This put Kingston's reign as champion in a terrible light. The way he was absolutely [[CurbStompBattle crushed]] by Lesnar in the match led many to suspect WWE never had any faith in Kingston as champion. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG75bcKtjPI This link]] has the entire "match", though you may wish you didn't watch it afterwards.
*** In 2020, this lack of faith was revealed to be '''100% true''', as former WWE writer Dave Schilling revealed that Kingston being squashed by Lesnar had been the plan ''from day 1 of his title reign'' -- meaning that WWE had absolutely no interest in making Kingston champion or belief in him whatsoever and only did it to pop the fans for a [="WrestleMania=] Moment".

Two main event matches from early October 2019 and the build up to one of them showcased everything wrong with WWE's creative direction that the promotion was taking after the abysmal ratings of 2018, and they happened just two days apart: a lack of faith in building new stars, and nonsensical booking for commercially successful ones. This was one of them, the other being the Kofi Kingston vs. Brock Lesnar match two days earlier, explained at length in the "Brock Lesnar saga" folder.

* Both wrestlers saw their image take a major beating in the aftermath, with Rollins' heel-like actions during the match causing much of the fans to turn against him. It's no surprise that Rollins didn't show up the next night on ''Raw'', likely to avoid the potentially '''[[XPacHeat huge]]''' [[XPacHeat boos]] he would've gotten.[[note]]Rollins would later admit on [[Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin Steve Austin's]] ''Broken Skull Sessions'' that he was legitimately furious to the point of wanting to ''strangle Vince'' over it when he got to the back -- it took Wrestling/TysonKidd holding him back and a talk with Wrestling/PaulHeyman to calm him down.[[/note]] While The Fiend didn't see his image tarnished as badly as Rollins did, he ended up losing ''a lot'' of momentum as he was essentially seen as an indestructible machine that could withstand any finisher thrown at him, making him difficult to book for future matches with ''anyone''. Even before the match, many in the wrestling world felt Wyatt was pushed into the world title too soon (the match was only Wyatt's ''second'' match as The Fiend, after he cleanly beat Wrestling/FinnBalor at ''[=SummerSlam=]'' 2019) and weren't impressed by the rushed build towards the HIAC match. Many went into the bout with fairly low expectations, but they weren't at all ready for the bungled up finish at the end.

* In a perfect demonstration of how ''everyone'' watching felt about the finish, Wrestling/SeanWaltman himself, at the live watch along, couldn't help but [[https://youtu.be/tyJLz81SqmY shoot on how idiotic it was]]:
---> ''"Alright, you may not ask me back for another one of these, but how the hell do you get DQ'd in a Hell in a [[PrecisionFStrike frickin']] Cell!?"''

* This angle also tanked Scott "Sick Boy" Vick's career. Vick was seen at the time as an underrated wrestler with a big upside, and the entire reason Vick was chosen as Katie's last name was for bringing him onto the main roster. He was going to be her kayfabe brother. Then when the angle tanked WWE lost interest in him, and he lost interest in the wrestling business.

** Incidentally, it turned out that Sting was ''[[ProperlyParanoid 100% correct]]'' in his assumptions, as when he finally did debut in WWE it was just so the company could drag out WCW's corpse to piss on it one more time - during his ''Wrestling/WrestleMania'' 31 match against Wrestling/TripleH, the commentators constantly harped on Sting for being a "WCW interloper" out to ruin the company for them when during the feud Sting had ''pointedly gone out of his way'' to deny this - in fact, his reason for opposing Wrestling/TheAuthority was because he didn't want to see their backstage politics ruin WWE the same way WCW had gone and then he lost the damn match anyway!

* This angle also tanked Scott "Sick Boy" Vick's career. Vick was seen at the time as an underrated wrestler with a big upside, and the entire reason Vick was chosen as Katie's last name was for bringing him onto the main roster (he was going to be her kayfabe brother). Then when the angle tanked WWE lost interest in him, and he lost interest in the wrestling business.

Two main event matches from early October 2019 and the build up to one of them showcased everything wrong with WWE's creative direction that the promotion was taking after the abysmal ratings of 2018, and they happened just two days apart: a lack of faith in building new stars, and nonsensical booking for commercially successful ones. This was one of them, the other being the Kofi Kingston vs. Brock Lesnar match two days earlier (explained at length in the "Brock Lesnar saga" folder).

* Historically, The Authority was the tipping point for ''Raw'''s viewership decline. While ratings had been trickling out since 2001, that was chalked up to the end of the Attitude Era and the rise of streaming sevices. ''Raw'' ratings around the [=2010s=] typically hovered around 3.00; but past 2013, when audiences realized the Authority was here to stay, ratings dipped into 2.00 and so far below that they'd occasionally get beat by then-new rival Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling's flagship show ''AEW Dynamite''. On the other hand, ''[=SmackDown=]'', which typically had better matches and storylines, got ''higher'' viewership consistently above 2.00. It proved that low numbers weren't just an industry-wide phenomena: the quality of the program drove viewers away. On the subject of AEW, it's interesting to note that many of the wrestlers that the Authority tormented, such as Bryan, Big Show, Sting, Wrestling/CMPunk, and Wrestling/CodyRhodes, all joined AEW long after the angle was over (with Cody being in fact one of its founding wrestlers) and the damage to WWE was done, and AEW has treated them much better than the Authority and the WWE booking team.

This match was the second of two ''infamously'' reviled matches from October 2019 that happened only days apart from each other.

Two main event matches from early October 2019 and the build up to one of them showcased everything wrong with WWE's creative direction that the promotion was taking after the abysmal ratings of 2018, and they happened just two days apart: a lack of faith in building new stars, and nonsensical booking for commercially successful ones.

* Historically, The Authority was the tipping point for ''Raw'''s viewership decline. While ratings had been trickling out since 2001, that was chalked up to the end of the Attitude Era and the rise of streaming sevices. ''Raw'' ratings around the [=2010s=] typically hovered around 3.00; but past 2013, when audiences realized the Authority was here to stay, ratings dipped into 2.00 and so far below that they'd occasionally get beat by then-new rival ''[[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW Dynamite]]''. On the other hand, ''[=SmackDown=]'', which typically had better matches and storylines, got ''higher'' viewership consistently above 2.00. It proved that low numbers weren't just an industry-wide phenomena: the quality of the program drove viewers away.
** On the subject of AEW, it's interesting to note that many of the wrestlers that the Authority tormented, such as Bryan, Big Show, Sting, Wrestling/CMPunk, and Wrestling/CodyRhodes, all joined AEW long after the angle was over and the damage to WWE was done, and AEW has treated them much better than the Authority and the WWE booking team.

** On the subject of AEW, it's interesting to note that many of the wrestlers that the Authority tormented, such as Bryan, Big Show, Sting Wrestling/CMPunk, and Wrestling/CodyRhodes, all joined AEW long after the angle was over and the damage to WWE was done, and AEW has treated them much better than the Authority and the WWE booking team.

** On the subject of AEW, it's interesting to note that many of the wrestlers that the Authority tormented, such as Bryan, Big Show, Wrestling/CMPunk, and Wrestling/CodyRhodes, all joined AEW long after the angle was over and the damage to WWE was done, and AEW has treated them much better than the Authority and the WWE booking team.

* After that, Rollins won the WWE Championship after cashing in his Money in the Bank contract during the main event of ''[=WrestleMania=] 31''. In his reign, Rollins became a ''frustratingly'' incompetent DirtyCoward that only kept the title for eight months due to the Authority's help — and he had to vacate the title due to an injury at a house show. Leading up to ''Survivor Series'' 2015, a tournament was held to crown a new champion... only for the Authority to enlist Wrestling/{{Sheamus}}, who won the title ''after the final match'' with ''a third'' Money in the Bank cash-in. Tellingly, the following ''Raw'' episode had the lowest ratings in series history since '''1997'''.