History Horrible / WWEOther

* ''Royal Rumble'' 2015: Even after the 2014 edition, other cases of fans rejecting booking and backlash against Vince [=McMahon=] for claiming buried fan favourites "didn't grab the brass ring", WWE still thought it would be a good idea to misbook a Royal Rumble again, and this time in ''UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}'', Smark Central and the birthplace of ECW. The story was perfect for Daniel Bryan to face Brock Lesnar for the championship he never lost, and when he was announced for the Rumble, hype was high... until he entered at #10 and was tossed in 10 minutes.[[note]]The next entry happened to be Goldust; seeing "SHATTERED DREAMS" immediately after Bryan's elimination just felt like rubbing it in.[[/note]] After that, the audience made their rage known, booing throughout as [[Wrestling/ClaudioCastagnoli so]] [[Wrestling/DolphZiggler many]] [[Wrestling/DamienSandow fan]] [[Wrestling/JonMoxley favourites]] were eliminated by Kane and Big Show like they were nothing. Wrestling/RomanReigns, the obvious anointed winner, received most of the ire, to the point that fans outright cheered monster heel Rusev when he became the last wrestler standing in Roman's way. Even an appearance from the Rock, endorsing Roman, couldn't turn the crowd; you can see Rock's visible confusion as to why this crowning moment is being booed. This extended even beyond the arena: WWE staff were made unable to leave due to a fans' blockade, and the web page to ''cancel'' WWE Network subscriptions [[DemandOverload crashed due to overwhelming traffic]] after over 300,000 subscriptions had been pulled. WWE tried to salvage things by having Bryan challenge Reigns for his title shot at the next show, ''Fastlane'', but this did not help and they'd eventually have to call an audible on ''the day of [=WrestleMania=] 31'' to have Seth Rollins use Money in the Bank to insert himself into Reigns vs. Lesnar and win the title. This ultimately doomed any attempts to use Roman Reigns as a top babyface forever, with everything he did being rejected by fans, and yet WWE continued with this course for ''four painful years''. Only a legitimate leukemia diagnosis could stop fans from treating him like he'd killed their pets in front of them, and since his 2020 heel turn, he has finally shaken off go-away heat.

* Ever since Gorgeous George entered to "Pomp and Circumstance" in the 50s, music has been regarded as a central part of a wrestler's presentation. WWE seem to have forgotten that as of late, as their current in-house composers, def rebel, have a reputation for indistinguishable themes which, for the most part, consist of a {{sting}} followed by incredibly slushy [[PostGrunge butt-rock/butt-rap]]. This means that most wrestlers aren't getting the pops that will help get them over, and matches like the Wrestling/RoyalRumble that rely on those instant pops suffer too. It's telling that on their returns to the WWE, both Wrestling/RandyOrton and Wrestling/CMPunk -- who have iconic themes that have served them both well for over a decade -- both said "thanks, but no thanks" to the prospect of a def rebel remix. WWE are reportedly "well aware" of the negative reputation def rebel have, but for the meanwhile, they are still under contract.

** The April 3, 2023 episode of ''Raw'' contained just over half an hour of wrestling. I mean, sure, it was the first ''Raw'' after ''[=WrestleMania=]'', so you might be willing to cut them a little slack, but even by the standards of those ''Raw''s, half an hour is incredibly paltry. But it was also the first ''Raw'' in which Vince decided to exert creative control after his ignominious return to the company, and it showed, with segments clearly being rewritten on the fly and, most notably, Wrestling/CodyRhodes -- the company's biggest babyface -- getting buried by Lesnar ''yet again''. Thankfully, Vince would be KickedUpstairs a few months later after the merger with UFC was completed, before being forced back into retirement in January 2024, due to further sexual misconduct coming to light.

* The Bloodline storyline in general has generally (if not unanimously) received good reviews, but there is one stop on the saga that WWE would like you to forget: the February 2, 2024 [=SmackDown=], the first after that year's Royal Rumble. Already light on wrestling, Roman Reigns first came out for the segment and cut a promo that only served to bury Seth Rollins and the entire Monday Night Raw roster, and the world championship that Rollins was holding at the time. Then back-to-back Rumble winner Cody Rhodes -- whose two year return in WWE to that point had been almost laser-focused on him finally being the first Rhodes to win the Big One -- came out and... surrendered his [=WrestleMania=] title shot to the Rock.[[note]]Who, it should be pointed out, had not wrestled a proper match in over a decade at that point.[[/note]] When it came out The Rock pulled strings to book this himself, the resulting backlash was so severe that the video of the segment became the most disliked video on WWE's channel and the Rock received tons of XPacHeat[[note]]It got to the point where fans were sending death threats to both the Rock ''and his daughter, Ava'' resulting in the latter deleting her social media accounts[[/note]]. WWE ended up changing course almost overnight, having Cody take back his title shot at the [=WrestleMania=] press conference and turning The Rock heel and allying with the Bloodline as well as retooling his character into a CorruptCorporateExecutive ala Wrestling/VinceMcMahon with elements of his "Hollywood Rock" persona. Cody would finally win the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at [=WrestleMania=] despite interference from the Bloodline (with the Rock in particular on the receiving end of a chokeslam from Wrestling/TheUndertaker).

* The Bloodline storyline in general has generally (if not unanimously) received good reviews, but there is one stop on the saga that WWE would like you to forget: the February 2, 2024 [=SmackDown=], the first after that year's Royal Rumble. Already light on wrestling, Roman Reigns first came out for the segment and cut a promo that only served to bury Seth Rollins and the entire Monday Night Raw roster, and the world championship that Rollins was holding at the time. Then back-to-back Rumble winner Cody Rhodes -- whose two year return in WWE to that point had been almost laser-focused on him finally being the first Rhodes to win the Big One -- came out and... surrendered his [=WrestleMania=] title shot to the Rock.[[note]]Who, it should be pointed out, had not wrestled a proper match in over a decade at that point.[[/note]] When it came out The Rock pulled strings to book this himself, the resulting backlash was so severe that the video of the segment became the most disliked video on WWE's channel and the Rock received tons of XPacHeat[[note]]It got to the point where fans were sending death threats to both the Rock ''and his daughter, Ava'' resulting in the latter deleting her social media accounts[[/note]]. WWE ended up changing course almost overnight, having Cody take back his title shot at the [=WrestleMania=] press conference while turning The Rock into a mix of a Wrestling/VinceMcMahon {{expy}} and his previous "Hollywood Rock" persona. There was indeed a light at the end of the tunnel, as Cody finally won the title, and the Rock got a well deserved chokeslam from Undertaker.

* Ever since Gorgeous George entered to "Pomp and Circumstance" in the 50s, music has been regarded as a central part of a wrestler's presentation. WWE seem to have forgotten that as of late, as their current in-house composers, def rebel, have a reputation for indistinguishable themes which, for the most part, consist of a {{sting}} followed by incredibly slushy [[Post-Grunge butt-rock/butt-rap]]. This means that most wrestlers aren't getting the pops that will help get them over, and matches like the Wrestling/RoyalRumble that rely on those instant pops suffer too. It's telling that on their returns to the WWE, both Wrestling/RandyOrton and Wrestling/CMPunk -- who have iconic themes that have served them both well for over a decade -- both said "thanks, but no thanks" to the prospect of a def rebel remix.

* '''Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease''' While 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.

* After ''Wrestling/SurvivorSeries'', Wrestling/RomanReigns, who won the tournament and thus the title before the cash-in, assaulted Triple H at ''Tables, Ladders, and Chairs'', and later regained the title by defeating Sheamus on the following episode of RAW.[[note]]It says a lot about how despised both the Authority and the associated angle were at this point that Reigns -- who was currently dealing with nuclear levels of XPacHeat -- was able to get over as a face (albeit briefly) via all of this. In Philadelphia, of all places.[[/note]]The Authority however 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 further 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 a tyrannical heel. They didn't even express any anger at the Authority's flagrant cheating or even acknowledge Triple H's hospitalization.

* Thankfully, all was forgiven by ''Survivor Series'' 2016, where Goldberg squashed Lesnar in 86 seconds to a massive ovation. Again, on paper, the feud wrote itself; Lesnar wanted to finally prove that, no, where he was concerned there wasn't AlwaysSomeoneBetter. The feud itself was nothing to write home about, but the real crime was the way it absolutely ''killed'' the feud between Wrestling/KevinOwens and Wrestling/ChrisJericho which, going into ''Fastlane'' 2017, was one of the hottest stories going. Goldberg squashes Owens in 22 seconds to become the new WWE Universal Champion, and both feuds go from white-hot to mediocre in an instant. Lesnar would finally get his W and go on a 504-day reign of terror, whilst Goldberg sat at home for two years, until...

The 2014-2021 incarnation of [[Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} NXT]] was called one of the best wrestling shows of the modern age, with matches and strong booking rivaled 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:

* The cherry on top? Karrion Kross, Keith Lee, Wrestling/{{Scarlett|Bordeaux}}, along with Wrestling/EmberMoon (another failed NXT callup) and several others were all released from their contracts on November 4th, 2021 due to "budget cuts". For the record, that's 8 out of a total 18 NXT Champions who have either been released or left the WWE within the last 3-4 years (Wrestling/AdrianNeville, Wrestling/BoDallas, Wrestling/AndradeCienAlmas, Wrestling/AleisterBlack, Wrestling/KeithLee, and Wrestling/KarrionKross, with Wrestling/AdamCole and Wrestling/JohnnyGargano being the two guys who declined to re-sign a new contract), with [[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW]] scooping up five of them (Neville/PAC, Andrade, Black, Lee, and Cole)[[note]]In 2022, Karrion Kross, Johnny Gargano, and Bo Dallas are re-signed, and 2024, Andrade left AEW and returned to WWE[[/note]].
** That number grew to nine in January 2022 as Wrestling/SamoaJoe was also released again. After being originally let go in the previous April, he was quickly brought back by Triple H to NXT, only to be released again not long after Triple H was removed from power. That's over 30% of potential main event-level talent who have strong track records and brand recognition, who 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. In fact, some people have suggested that the NXT North American Championship is cursed, as of the first eleven wrestlers who have held the title, only ''five'' are still with WWE,[[note]]Ricochet, Damien Priest, Carmelo Hayes, Wrestling/JohnnyGargano and Bronson Reed; of the remaining seven, Wrestling/AdamCole and Roderick Strong left when their contracts were up while the other four were unceremoniously sacked, Velveteen Dream was fired for misconduct, thought Bronson Reed has returned in 2022. [[/note]] And even for those four men, it took Triple H's ascension to the head of WWE Creative in mid-2022 to get any semblance of momentum.

* The Bloodline storyline in general has generally (if not unanimously) received good reviews, but there is one stop on the saga that WWE would like you to forget: the February 2, 2024 [=SmackDown=], the first after that year's Royal Rumble. Already light on wrestling, Roman Reigns first came out for the segment and cut a promo that only served to bury Seth Rollins and the entire Monday Night Raw roster, and the world championship that Rollins was holding at the time. Then back-to-back Rumble winner Cody Rhodes -- whose two year return in WWE to that point had been almost laser-focused on him finally being the first Rhodes to win the Big One -- came out and... surrendered his [=WrestleMania=] title shot to the Rock.[[note]]Who, it should be pointed out, had not wrestled a proper match in over a decade at that point.[[/note]] When it came out The Rock pulled strings to book this himself, the resulting backlash was so severe that the video of the segment became the most disliked video on WWE's channel and the Rock received tons of XPacHeat[[note]]It got to the point where fans were sending death threats to both the Rock ''and his daughter, Ava'' resulting in the latter deleting her social media accounts[[/note]]. WWE ended up changing course, having Cody take back his title shot at the [=WrestleMania=] press conference while slowly turning The Rock into a mix of a Wrestling/VinceMcMahon {{expy}} and his previous "Hollywood Rock" persona. There was indeed a light at the end of the tunnel, as Cody finally won the title and the Rock got a well deserved choke slam from Undertaker.

* By 2021, it's become obvious that Wrestling/VinceMcMahon is tired of even ''pretending'' to have any "sports" in "sports entertainment". After the December 3, 2021 episode of ''[=SmackDown=]'', it was pointed out that the entire show had less actual wrestling than just the main event of that night's 1-hour episode of ''[[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW Rampage]]''.[[note]]A tag match between Death Triangle (Wrestling/{{Pac}}, Wrestling/PentagonJr and Wrestling/{{Fenix}}) and [[Wrestling/TheRevival FTR]], which went over 20 minutes.[[/note]] The main event was Wrestling/RomanReigns vs. Wrestling/SamiZayn for the Universal Championship, which Roman won in ''15 seconds'' because Wrestling/BrockLesnar attacked Sami before the match. In total, it was less than ''nineteen minutes'' of in-ring action on a ''two-hour'' show -- way less than the infamous episode of ''Wrestling/WCWMondayNitro'' (mentioned in [[Horrible/{{WCW}} WCW's page]]) that Wrestling/KevinNash booked to have no wrestling in the first hour.
** The July 8, 2022 episode set a new record low, with barely ''13 minutes'' across the entire 2 hour show, with the longest match (Shinsuke Nakamura vs Ludwig Kaiser) lasting about 5 minutes. Anyone who attended the show hoping to get to see some wrestling basically got robbed. Any hope that WWE is even ''trying'' to get better rather than worse in this regard would've been dead if it hadn't been for Vince's retirement about a month later due to a sexual misconduct scandal, and Triple H taking over booking.
** And then Vince came back. The April 3, 2023 episode of Raw contained roughly a half-hour of wrestling. Which would be a problem by itself, but was made worse by being the ''first Raw after [=WrestleMania=]''. It also saw Wrestling/CodyRhodes, fresh of a loss to Reigns that felt off-kilter, get buried by Lesnar yet again, putting a major dent into his credibility. Vince would continue to have final say on creative plans during the process of WWE's merger with UFC, at which point he was promptly KickedUpstairs around September 2023 before being forced back into retirement in January 2024, due to further sexual misconduct coming to light.

* The angle was finally ended for real in one of the most confusing and anti-climatic payoffs in wrestling history. As Stephanie received an award for being truly evil, Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon returned to confront his family and demanded control of ''RAW'', citing that he had a lockbox containing some humiliating secret (the contents of which were never revealed) 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=]'', which probably would've hit a bit harder if he wasn't pretty much fully-retired by that point), 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. Plus, in-story for the entire angle up until this point, the Authority justifying all of their actions with "giving the fans what they want" and "best for business" were meant to be seen as nothing but excuses for them to do whatever they felt like, and willingly relinquishing their power apparently for no reason besides pure altruism after years of tyrannical rule over the company was such a sudden and out-of-character move that for many fans, this didn't even register as an ending to the angle at all, they just assumed the leave was part of the Authority's schemes and that they'd be back in a few weeks. 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. And just to prove how sick fans were of the angle at that point, an official poll asking how Shane was doing recorded just '''5%''' of the pollers wanted the Authority back.

* The angle was finally ended for real in one of the most confusing and anti-climatic payoffs in wrestling history. As Stephanie received an award for being truly evil, 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=]'', which probably would've hit a bit harder if he wasn't pretty much fully-retired by that point), 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. Plus, in-story for the entire angle up until this point, the Authority justifying all of their actions with "giving the fans what they want" and "best for business" were meant to be seen as nothing but excuses for them to do whatever they felt like, and willingly relinquishing their power apparently for no reason besides pure altruism after years of tyrannical rule over the company was such a sudden and out-of-character move that for many fans, this didn't even register as an ending to the angle at all, they just assumed the leave was part of the Authority's schemes and that they'd be back in a few weeks. 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. And just to prove how sick fans were of the angle at that point, an official poll asking how Shane was doing recorded just '''5%''' of the pollers wanted the Authority back.