History YMMV / WWE

** An indication of how bad the fans had this was shown when Wrestling/DeanAmbrose finally won the WWE Championship in 2016, breaking the chain of heel and/or disliked champions that held it ever since Wrestling/DanielBryan was forced to vacate it due to injury in 2014. While the fans were ''very'' happy that he won it (absolutely ecstatic, to be exact), the company had beaten them down so much that many were convinced he was a transitional champion and that Wrestling/SethRollins or Roman Reigns would win it back soon. A part of that was due to Ambrose's own booking, where he had come frustratingly close to winning the title many times -- so many times that many thought that they would never pull the trigger on him. It wasn't until Ambrose pinned both men clean in the space of a week to retain the championship that the fans realized that Ambrose had become a permanent main eventer, and that they were getting a long reign with the first true {{Face}} champion since Daniel Bryan.

** The [[Wrestling/WWENewGenerationEra New Generation Era]] (1993-1997). 1995 was the worst fiscal year in WWE history. To paint a picture, the Monday Night War still didn't happen just yet. Wrestling/{{WCW}} was little better than the WWF in '95: they had just signed Hulk Hogan and Wrestling/RandySavage, but they were just playing the same characters they played during the WWF's [[Wrestling/WWEGoldenAgeEra Golden Age]] in the '80s, which was already seen as played-out at the time. Wrestling/KevinNash a.k.a. Diesel was champ during an especially directionless time. This was the year people remember for the hokey, uncool gimmicks (albeit those began in '93), the insufferable [[http://wrestlecrap.com/inductions/wwf-mania-episode-1-an-hour-straight-of-todd-pettengill-thatll-be-good-right/ Todd Pettengill]], Mabel winning the King of the Ring tournament (becoming "King Mabel") and being pushed as a world title contender, and ''Raw'' being held in high school gyms. And, of course, Diesel's World Title reign.

** The midcard has a few, with some of the biggest examples being Dolph Ziggler and Zack Ryder.

** The Headbangers were not booked very strong for champions and didn't have a very long run with the WWF belts, but chances are if any fan remembers the period, they remember it fondly. Most seem to be thinking of their slightly longer and all around more impressive [[Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance NWA]] Tag Team Title run, which is understandable because most of it was still on WWF television.
** Anyone who follows wrestling knows what happened with [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]]. In turn, his success is crediting with making "Can we do this with Wrestling/DeanAmbrose? [[Wrestling/ClaudioCastagnoli Cesaro]]? [[Wrestling/KevinSteen Kevin Owens]]?" a frequently asked question on internet wrestling forums.
* EpilepticTrees: Bray Wyatt has generated a few of these, in regards to the "whatever happened to Husky Harris" question. The "Husky Harris" chants during Wrestling/TheWyattFamily's ''Raw'' debut didn't exactly quell this, either. It's been said that a fan once held a conversation with Wyatt and asked him whatever happened to "[[{{Acrofatic}} the Army Tank with a Ferrari Engine]]" (this was Husky's RedBaron). What was Bray's response? "[[ContinuityNod Oh, he's still here.]] [[DemonicPossession He's my vessel now.]]"

** The latter half of 2015 seemingly reached the boiling point of this. To give you context as to how ''bad'' the Reigns/Sheamus feud is going, the main event of ''TLC 2015'', their TLC World Title match, was arguably the least-anticipated match on the entire card. People were more excited about the triple threat Tag Team Title match between the New Day, the Lucha Dragons, and the Usos. Hell, the Seasonal Rot has gotten so bad that the most anticipated match of that card was the Intercontinental Title match between Wrestling/DeanAmbrose and Wrestling/KevinOwens, which A) doesn't have a stipulation, in a PPV centered around them and B) had its build completely shot when Owens got sick for a week midway the storyline before the PPV (there were only three weeks of build between ''TLC'' and ''Survivor Series''). When a standard midcard title match with practically no build is more anticipated than the TLC-stipulated main event title match that has been the focus of every show not named NXT for the last three weeks, for the last PPV right before ''Wrestling/WrestleMania'' season, there is something seriously screwed up about the booking. The fans have no reason to care about Reigns and Sheamus, and the feud has failed to the point where two wrestlers who have been left on the sidelines without any meaningful storylines for the last six months and are basically relying on the popularity they got from their last major singles feuds are ''still'' more over than them. Hell, despite being DemotedToExtra Ambrose and Owens still remain the most over singles wrestlers on the roster who aren't injured -- which attributes to their talent as performers, and management and creative's complete inability to get anyone else over.

** In 2000, the WWF wanted another Chris Benoit. So they hired Brent Albright and told him to pattern himself after Benoit. In 2006, WWE fired Albright, now going by the name Gunner Scott, for being too much like Chris Benoit!
** R-Truth went from a fairly popular rapping but somewhat bland face used to fill up the numbers when a group of faces were needed, to a paranoid heel who frequently blamed his problems on WWE's child audience, which he called "Lil' Jimmy". He became an EnsembleDarkhorse and even headlined a pay-per-view against John Cena. After coming back from an on-screen injury, Truth turned face again but retained the SanitySlippage, but gradually fell out of focus, before quietly dropping the crazy guy gimmick and going back to the rapping persona. Hell, his rapping persona had a lot more mileage pretty much everywhere he went with it but here.

** Eric Escobar got the company's attention through his partnership/rivalry with the Colons but was seemingly called out of developmental just so Shawn Michaels and Triple H could mock his pre WWE career, as he was released without fanfare shortly after they did so. His most memorable moment beside that was being defeated in a two on one handicap match after insulting Vickie Guerrero.
** Wrestling/ZackRyder was big around 2010-ish, which coincided with ''Series/JerseyShore'' being around, but his gimmick predated the show and was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Long Island "broski" culture. He made a self-deprecating Website/YouTube show to connect with the fans which became popular thank to its bled of inside jokes (e.g. climbing a fence and shouting "I CAN'T GET OVER"), weekly episodes with storylines, and funny guest stars ranging from his dad and one of his friends to members of the roster. He got endorsed by all the big names for his effort: Wrestling/TheMiz, Wrestling/ChrisJericho, Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin, Wrestling/DolphZiggler, Wrestling/CMPunk, and Wrestling/JohnCena himself was a big fan. He was one of the most-followed WWE guys on social media, reaching more followers than Cena at one point. [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] even [[ColbertBump gave him a mention]] on TV. Initially it seemed that the company would capitalize on it, as he finally started making appearances on ''Raw'', and beating Ziggler for the U.S. title on pay-per-view. However, this soon took a turn to the bad with Zack losing [[Wrestling/EveTorres his girl]] as she dumped him to try to get with Cena (who wasn't interested), and then a wheelchair-bound Zack was thrown off a stage by Wrestling/{{Kane}}. Supposedly this negatively-affected morale backstage as the company constantly tell talent to "grab the brass ring", but seeing what happened to Ryder made the locker room think twice. At Ryder's peak, he had merchandise all over the WWE shop. Shirts, sunglasses, foam fingers. It was selling near the top, but when they killed his momentum the sales stopped and his items were dropped from the shop. It seems his social media gimmick was something WWE weren't used to yet, and their historical reluctance to accept unconventional ideas hurt him in the end.

** The Matt Hardy/Lita/Edge love triangle. WWE took a real story and turned it into a big storyline when, after initially firing Matt due to what they deemed unprofessional conduct on social media after he discovered the affair, they resigned him and had him attack Edge at ringside from the crowd, yelling that fans could watch him at Wrestling/RingOfHonor and so forth, confusing the fans and making them wonder if the whole thing was a work or a shoot. This made Matt became perhaps the most-over wrestler in all of wrestling at the time...and then Vince [=McMahon=] embraced him on-screen, killing his outsider status, and Matt cut a morbid promo about how he hoped Lita and Edge would die in a car accident. Weeks later, Edge cut a scathing response where he took Matt's car crash comment and used it against him, which some say buried Matt, as in the face of the morbid comment, Edge came off as [[VillainHasAPoint someone who did have a valid point]].

*** While in kayfabe terms, the point of this feud was that Team PCB and Team BAD wanted to end Nikki Bella's reign as Divas Champion,[[note]]Which technically PCB did: they won the triple threat tag team match between the three teams at ''[=SummerSlam=] 2015'' and then Charlotte ended Nikki's long reign at ''Night of Champions'', although based on a metric of which team lasted longest without breaking apart due to internal strife, Team Bella won, as Team PCB flew apart at the seams, while Team BAD also got a lot of infight, too.[[/note]] the real failure of this storyline was that WWE's apparent real motive was that it thought it would be a good vehicle for the Bellas. While Nikki's in-ring performance improved over time, the fan perception was that it wasn't quite enough to justify holding the Divas Championship for over 300 days while many talented female wrestlers were still slumming in ''NXT''. Notice that most of Nikki's appearances in wrestling matches during that time were all in tag team matches, in contrast with a lack of 1-1 matches. For months, WWE kept stalling with boring, six-woman tag team matches as it became clear that they were waiting for Nikki to break Wrestling/AJLee's record for longest Divas title reign, the most believed assumption being that they didn't want to acknowledge AJ as the longest-reigning champion after she left due to her relationship with Wrestling/CMPunk, who had left the company in acrimonious terms.

** The New Day were launched in late 2014 as a babyface stable featuring Wrestling/{{Big E|Langston}}, Wrestling/KofiKingston, and Wrestling/XavierWoods. Their gimmick is that of an overly optimistic stable that claps their hands and dances before, during, and after matches. The gimmick, however, went down very poorly with fans, who had, by early 2015, taken to booing them and, whenever one of the members would yell "NEW DAY ROCKS!", shouting "NEW DAY ''SUCKS''!" instead. Like Bo Dallas, New Day turned into oblivious heels after the crowds took a massive dump on them. Ironically, their [[EvilIsHammy creatively hammy]] [[ActuallyPrettyFunny and hilarious]] heel personas were so popular that [[RootingForTheEmpire they ultimately became faces again]]. In addition, the fact that Woods hosts ''WebVideo/UpUpDownDown'', a Website/YouTube channel where he plays video games with celebrities and other wrestlers, only adds to his individual popularity. The New Day's escape from X-Pac Heat also launched Kingston into main event status, culminating in his 2019 run with the WWE Championship.

* TheEmpire: WWE as a whole is half-jokingly referred to as "The Evil Empire" by some members of the IWC.

** From the territories to the national WWF, from Rasslin' to cartoon characters, from cartoon characters to bird-flipping potty mouths, from that to the John Cena PG era, and now, changing their promotional name to "WWE, Inc." (the company is still legally known as World Wrestling Entertainment), which resulted in fans saying that the WWE is trying to drop "wrestling" from its product. And of course, the speculation that the PG-era changes were made to help Linda [=McMahon=]'s political career[[note]]If that really was the reason, [[EpicFail her two failed Senate campaigns in a row indicate that it didn't help]].[[/note]] rather than to improve the product certainly hasn't helped. Really any time the company enters a "new" era, this trope is invoked. Although as for the name change, according to various WWE officials, including Triple H, they say that it's NotSoDifferent from Kentucky Fried Chicken and Apple Computer, which changed their names to KFC and Apple Inc., respectively.

** Wrestling/TheBellaTwins. They ushered in the so-called "Reality Era" where supposedly "reality" dictated the direction of the WWE product, but in practice it was more like RealityTV did so. They couldn't act, they were green in the ring, weren't particularly atheltic, showed little to no legit amateur skill and showed little motivation for their actions. The nadir of this was when they feuded with each other following ''Wrestling/SummerSlam 2014'', which led to Nikki's infamous "I wish you died in the womb!" promo (which incidentally even Nikki admitted to having detested), which was was handed ''Website/WrestleCrap''[='s=] [[http://wrestlecrap.com/inductions/bella-vs-bella/ 2014 Gooker]] after she was EasilyForgiven for all the terrible things that she said or did to Brie, and it was arguably the reason why the whole "Divas Revolution/Women's Evolution" rehabilitation occurred. All the same, ''Total Divas'' got almost as many viewers as TNA during its last run on Spike TV(if nowhere near TNA's heyday) and All Elite Wrestling when it runs unopposed, so there was clearly a reality audience, even if it wasn't quite as big as WWE would have people believe. And when the Bella Twins got their own reality show it did well enough to remain on air, so it seems they were a major reason for ''Total Divas'' having a million viewers.

** The TagTeam division as a whole. CWC was a tag team company, and Wrestling/AntoninoRocca's tag team with Miguel Perez turned a popular face who happened to be disliked by many more legitmate wrestlers who wouldn't agree to make him look good one on one, and another wrestler who simply had bad heat with the fans, into the top draw of the United States. They tore it up not just in CWC but when in danger of getting stale got fresh pops in Championship Wrestling From Florida, Jim Crockett Promotions, Capitol Sports Promotions and more accross the country. But where Vince Sr's biggest mistake was thinking Rocca and Wrestling/BrunoSammartino would do more money just because Sammartino was a bigger star than Perez, Vince Jr came to believe breaking up tag teams for the sake of it was a good thing after only one wrestler (Wrestling/ShawnMichaels) became a star out of the breakup of his tag team, The Rockers, while the other (Wrestling/MartyJannetty) faded into obscurity. Not one team or singles wrestler coming out of a team's breakup has come close to Rocca and Perez together since...except Wrestling/TheRoadWarriors, who were already approaching them before they entered the WWF and ended up in danger of stagnating once in WWF.

** Since 2016, this has changed due in large part to the "Divas Revolution/Women's Evolution" which allowed more time and matches featuring WWE's female talents. Now the order of importance features the following basic match types: a main-event match which features either the WWE Champion or the WWE Universal Champion and even either the RAW Women's Champion or the SmackDown Women's Champion on some occasions; a mid-card match which features either the United States Champion or the Intercontinental Champion; a storyline non-title match featuring two popular wrestlers (male or female); a tag team match featuring either the RAW Tag Team Champions, the SmackDown Tag Team Champions or the WWE Women's Tag Team Champions and occasionally, a match for the WWE 24/7 Championship.

* CharacterTiers: Prior to 2016, on both ''Monday Night Raw'' and ''Friday Night [=SmackDown=]'' themselves, this trope is in effect every week. You're guaranteed to see, on average, five or six matches each episode, and usually only two of them are true crowd-pleasers. In order of importance, the basic match types will be: main-event match (featuring the world champion or someone of his caliber going up against another prominent opponent); midcard match (often revolving around the Intercontinental or United States Championships, which are more likely to be contested away from the pay-per-view events than the two world championships); storyline match (in which two popular wrestlers, usually a face and a heel, act out a non-title feud in order to settle a fictional or non-fictional grudge); tag-team match (usually concerning the Tag Team Championships, although in theory any match can be held under tag-team rules); women's match (usually only a few minutes in length); and (if time allows it) "joke" match (which can feature anything from slapstick with comic-relief characters to a monster heel quickly defeating a "jobber").

** Since 2016, this has changed due in large part to the Women's Revolution which allowed more time and matches featuring WWE's female talents. Now the order of importance features the following basic match types: a main-event match which features either the WWE Champion or the WWE Universal Champion and even either the RAW Women's Champion or the SmackDown Women's Champion on some occasions; a mid-card match which features either the United States Champion or the Intercontinental Champion; a storyline non-title match featuring two popular wrestlers (male or female); a tag team match featuring either the RAW Tag Team Champions, the SmackDown Tag Team Champions or the WWE Women's Tag Team Champions and occasionally, a match for the WWE 24/7 Championship.

** Wrestling/TheBellaTwins. They ushered in the so-called "Reality Era" where supposedly "reality" dictated the direction of the WWE product, but in practice it was more like RealityTV did so. They couldn't act, they were green in the ring, weren't particularly atheltic, showed little to no legit amateur skill and showed little motivation for their actions. The nadir of this was when they feuded with each other following ''Wrestling/SummerSlam 2014'', which led to Nikki's infamous "I wish you died in the womb!" promo (which incidentally even Nikki admitted to having detested), which was was handed ''Website/WrestleCrap''[='s=] [[http://wrestlecrap.com/inductions/bella-vs-bella/ 2014 Gooker]] after she was EasilyForgiven for all the terrible things that she said or did to Brie, and it was arguably the reason why the whole "Divas Revolution/Women's Evolution" rehabilitation occurred. All the same, ''Total Divas'' got almost as many viewers as TNA in its heyday and All Elite Wrestling when it runs unopposed, so there was clearly a reality audience, even if it wasn't quite as big as WWE would have people believe. And when the Bella Twins got their own reality show it did well enough to remain on air, so it seems they were a major reason for ''Total Divas'' having a million viewers.

** This eventually came to bite WWE in the ass in 2018, as [[TheUsualAdversaries stagnant matchups]] and [[AntiClimax anti-climatic]] blowoffs to feuds took a toll on the viewship. Fans voted with their remotes, forcing the entire [=McMahon=] clan to come out on the December 17 edition of ''Raw'' and tacitly acknowledge the constant repetition, promising a change in direction.

** Since 2016, this has changed due in large part to the Women's Evolution which allowed more time and matches featuring WWE's female talents. Now the order of importance features the following basic match types: a main-event match which features either the WWE Champion or the WWE Universal Champion and even either the RAW Women's Champion or the SmackDown Women's Champion on some occasions; a mid-card match which features either the United States Champion or the Intercontinental Champion; a storyline non-title match featuring two popular wrestlers (male or female); a tag team match featuring either the RAW Tag Team Champions, the SmackDown Tag Team Champions or the WWE Women's Tag Team Champions and occasionally, a match for the WWE 24/7 Championship.

* HarsherInHindsight: A lot of things WWE mocked WCW for (not making any new stars and relying on past their prime RingOldies, doing things simply for shock value, taking up time with lengthy promos and segments) became true of late 2010's WWE. Added to that is WWE pulling WCW's old trick of signing wrestlers but doing nothing with them, just so that no other promotion could use them, something Wrestling/KennyOmega called them out for.[[note]]Although it has been argued that it's not WCW's old trick [[SmallReferencePools so much as the trick WWF/E has used since the 1980s]]. Yes, WCW used it to a greater extent than any other wrestling company in the 90s, but WWF still signed dozens of wrestlers it had no intention of using solely to hinder other territories, a practice Vince [=McMahon=] Sr. conciously avoided before Jr. took over.[[/note]] That a number of popular wrestlers (Wrestling/SamoaJoe, Wrestling/FinnBalor, Wrestling/SamiZayn, Wrestling/ShinsukeNakamura) have pretty much floundered in the company, combined with them not trying to make any new main eventers and sitting on the contracts of wrestlers who actively want out or literally stop being booked lends some credence to this.

* CharacterTiers: On both ''Monday Night Raw'' and ''Friday Night [=SmackDown=]'' themselves, this trope is in effect every week. You're guaranteed to see, on average, five or six matches each episode, and usually only two of them are true crowd-pleasers. In order of importance, the basic match types will be: main-event match (featuring the world champion or someone of his caliber going up against another prominent opponent); midcard match (often revolving around the Intercontinental or United States Championships, which are more likely to be contested away from the pay-per-view events than the two world championships); storyline match (in which two popular wrestlers, usually a face and a heel, act out a non-title feud in order to settle a fictional or non-fictional grudge); tag-team match (usually concerning the Tag Team Championships, although in theory any match can be held under tag-team rules); women's match (usually only a few minutes in length); and (if time allows it) "joke" match (which can feature anything from slapstick with comic-relief characters to a monster heel quickly defeating a "jobber").

** Doug Basham and Damaja were one of the most distinct and promising tag teams in professional wrestling. Damaja had cardio comparable to that of CM Punk and a better physique to boot. Doug Basham had a better physique still and was a great on the microphone. They beat people up and were fawned over by a parade of [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys would be valets]]. WWE's first order of business was turning them into TagTeamTwins, removing their distinct look. The second order of business was having them lick down and dance while getting whipped in the ass by a {{dominatrix}}. The third, of course, were scripted promos, which Danny(Damaga) especially struggled with. Between the {{twin switch}} and valet interference the Bashams couldn't beat any team with any credibility without an excessive amounts of cheating, and though they did make Los Guerreros look like a million bucks, that in of itself wasn't hard to do because Eddie and Chavo had been known as great talents for years. No one took the Basham Brothers as serious threats. Doug Basham tried going back to his old gimmick immediately after the team broke up but it no longer clicked with audiences who had seen his Smackdown tag team run.
** Wrestling/SheltonBenjamin was a rapid case that people didn't get over for decades. He came to ''Raw'', beat perennial World Heavyweight Champion Triple H clean, went on a winning streak that saw him beat Triple H twice more and then got a random ''Intercontinental'' title shot against Randy Orton and lost. That was the start. Then he got injured and returned as basically an enhancement talent who occasionally got a mid card push.
** [[Wrestling/NickDinsmore Eugene Dinsmore]] was getting bigger pops that the main-eventers using basic moves like airplane spins, sledges and ax handles. He made short work of former Ohio Valley Wrestling rival Wrestling/RobConway and dominated World Heavyweight Champion Wrestling/ChrisBenoit. Then he came out on the losing end of a feud with Wrestling/TripleH during which Trips used a move that separated Dinsmore's shoulder. From there Eugene slowly transitioned to jobber status.

** [[Wrestling/NickDinsmore Eugene Dinsmore]] was getting bigger pops that the main-eventers using basic moves like airplane spins, sledges and ax handles. He made short work of former Ohio Valley Wrestling rival Wrestling/RobConway and dominated World Heavyweight Champion Wrestling/ChrisBenoit. Then he came out on the losing end of a feud with Wrestling/Triple H during which Trips used a move that separated Dinsmore's shoulder. From there Eugene slowly transitioned to jobber status.

** The TagTeam division as a whole. CWC was a tag team company, and Wrestling/AntoninoRocca's tag team with Miguel Perez turned a popular face who happened to be disliked by many more legitmate wrestlers who wouldn't agree to make him look good one on one, and another wrestler who simply had bad heat with the fans, into the top draw of the United States. They tore it up not just in CWC but when in danger of getting stale got fresh pops in Championship Wrestling From Florida, Jim Crockett Promotions, Capitol Sports Promotions and more accross the country. But where Vince Sr's biggest mistake was thinking Rocca and Wrestling/BrunoSammartino would do more money just because Sammartino was a bigger star than Perez, Vince Jr came to believe breaking up tag teams for the sake of it was a good thing after only one wrestler (Wrestling/ShawnMichaels) became a star out of The Rockers breakup while the other faded into obscurity(Wrestling/MartyJannetty). Not one team or singles wrestler coming out of a team's breakup has come close to Rocca and Perez together since...except Wrestling/TheRoadWarriors, who were already approaching them before they entered the WWF and ended up in danger of stagnating once in WWF.

** Wrestling/TheBellaTwins. They ushered in the so-called "Reality Era" where RealityTV dictates the direction of the WWE product. They couldn't act, they were green in the ring, weren't particularly atheltic, showed little to no legit amateur skill and showed little motivation for their actions. Nikki's infamous "I wish you died in the womb!" promo (which incidentally even Nikki detested) was handed ''{{Website/WrestleCrap}}''[='s=] [[http://wrestlecrap.com/inductions/bella-vs-bella/ 2014 Gooker]] after she was EasilyForgiven for all the terrible things that she said or did to Brie, and it was arguably the reason why the whole "Woman's Revolution" rehabilitation occurred. All the same, ''Total Divas'' got almost as many viewers as TNA in it's heyday and All Elite Wrestling when it runs unopposed, so there was clearly a reality audience, even if it wasn't quite as big as WWE would have people believe. And when the Bella Twins got their own reality show it did well enough to remain on air, so it seems they were a major reason for ''Total Divas'' having a million viewers.

* ForcedMeme: Fans have gotten silly things over on their own, wrestlers have gotten silly things over on their own, managers, commentators but the minute Wrestling/MichaelCole says anything, it becomes passé. He's like the anti-[[Wrestling/JimRoss J.R.]] "HEY EVERYBODY IS [[{{Wrestling/Fandango}} FANDANGOING.]] DO THE FANDANGO!!" Just him saying "{{Wrestling/Cesaro}} Section" turned it into a meaningless buzzword. He made "SUPLEX CITY" sound uncool by repeating it multiple times in every segment Lesnar is in. That's classic WWE marketing. It's not exclusive to Cole: Stephanie's "Diva Revolution", Wrestling/TheRock shouting "WHAT A WRESTLEMANIA MOMENT!" every ten seconds at ''[='=]Mania''...

* SoOkayItsAverage: The main criticism towards WWE is not that it's really bad, it's just very... bland and samey. Most notably, the main event scene was virtually unchanged from 2006-2010, and the lack of building up new stars came back to bite them in the ass when all of sudden major players such as Wrestling/ShawnMichaels, Wrestling/{{Batista}}, and Wrestling/ChrisJericho (albeit temporarily in Jericho's case) left the company, and Wrestling/TheUndertaker and HHH have to work reduced schedules either due to wear and tear or increased work backstage. As a result, WWE has been scrambling in order to find other vets to place up at the top of the heap with John Cena, Wrestling/RandyOrton, and Wrestling/{{Edge}}, with Wrestling/{{Rey Mysterio|Jr}}, Wrestling/TheBigShow and Wrestling/{{Kane}} sitting on the fence between main event and upper midcard, and Wrestling/{{Sheamus}} being poised for a breakthrough; even then, Edge was forced to retire in 2011, Rey Mysterio is becoming increasingly injury prone, Big Show and Kane are nearing the end of their careers, and Sheamus is in limbo, leaving the only viable main eventers as John Cena and Randy Orton, with the only genuine main event talents established since 2011 being CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, the former who was already a multiple time world champion in WWE before then and the latter whose popularity exploded only after losing the World title, with various rising superstars such as Dolph Ziggler, The Miz, and Alberto Del Rio, and a few oldies like Christian and Mark Henry, being raised to the main event and dropped back down the card shortly afterwards. And then you have WWE's reliance on part-timers like The Rock, Brock Lesnar, and the aforementioned Triple H and Undertaker. All of this could be alleviated if WWE made room for the midcard talent. Essentially, it comes down to a combination of corporate unease (casual fans love familiar faces, so why fix it if it ain't broke?) and Vince [=McMahon's=] tendency to favor company men over newer acquisitions from rival promotions like ECW in the 90's and TNA and Ring of Honor in the modern times.

** In 2003, Chris Nowinski debated Wrestling/ScottSteiner over the [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror Iraq War]]. Nowinski was supposed to be the heel because he was opposed to the invasion. Problem was, a significant majority of the fans even then agreed with Nowinski, and that number would do nothing but grow and grow as the years went on. This wasn't helped by the fact that Scott Steiner is really not known for his promo abilities and Nowinski ran verbal circles around him.

### The night Charlotte, Sasha, and Becky debuted on ''Raw''. Stephanie not only went out of her way to interrupt Team Bella's promo with Paige and berate Nikki Bella in the process, she then introduced Charlotte, Becky, and (after Naomi and Tamina interrupted) Sasha... as well as whose teams the NXT call-ups would all be on. This made it seem as though Stephanie had picked out the teams herself, completely taking all agency away from the characters right as they walked through the door all to garner herself a PR victory to counter AJ Lee's Twitter accusations, with only Becky and Sasha's vignettes on the following ''[=SmackDown=]'' even suggesting otherwise.
### The night Charlotte faced Nikki Bella for the Divas title on ''Raw'' over two months later, literally a week before Nikki would break the record. Steph came out as a babyface authority figure, recognizing Charlotte's victory, upholding the integrity of the rules, and stripping away the heels' biggest advatage. Then 15 minutes later she is telling the Wrestling/BigShow to go out and injure Sting in her role in Wrestling/TheAuthority, which didn't make any sense. It was painfully obvious that she wanted to insert herself into the Divas Revolution, even though her role for all intents and purposes indicated that she should be giving the Divas something to revolt ''against''.

*** While in kayfabe terms, the point of this feud was that Team PCB and Team BAD wanted to end Nikki Bella's reign as Divas Champion,[[note]]Which technically PCB did: they won the triple threat tag team match between the three teams at ''[=SummerSlam=] 2015'' and then Charlotte ended Nikki's long reign at ''Night of Champions'', although based on a metric of which team lasted longest without breaking apart due to internal strife, Team Bella won, as Team PCB flew apart at the seams, while Team BAD also got a lot of infight, too.[[/note]] the real failure of this storyline was that WWE's apparent real motive was that it thought it would be a good vehicle for the Bellas. While Nikki's in-ring performance improved over time, the fan perception was that it wasn't quite enough to justify holding the Divas Championship for over 300 days while many talented female wrestlers were still slumming in ''NXT''. Notice that most of Nikki's appearances in wrestling matches during that time were all in tag team matches, in contrast with a lack of 1-1 matches. For months, WWE kept stalling with boring, six-woman tag team matches as it became clear that they were waiting for Nikki to break Wrestling/AJLee's title reign, the most believed assumption being that they didn't want to acknowledge AJ as the longest-reigning champion after she left due to her relationship with Wrestling/CMPunk, who had left the company in acrimonious terms.
*** The Bellas were portrayed as face and heel repeatedly: One week it would be clear that they were to be the heels to defeat in the storyline; the next one, Brie would be doing Daniel Bryan gestures in what appeared to be an attempt to get a face pop.
*** The other issue was that Stephanie [=McMahon=] appeared to [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor want to be a babyface when it suits her.]] This was a big problem with the Divas Revolution storyline: not just the heels going over, but the weird uncertainty as to who is a villain and who is a hero. Steph came out as a babyface authority figure, recognizing Charlotte's victory, upholding the integrity of the rules, and stripping away the heels' biggest advatage. Then 15 minutes later she is telling the Wrestling/BigShow to go out and injure Sting in her role in Wrestling/TheAuthority, which didn't make any sense. It was painfully obvious that she wanted to insert herself into the Divas Revolution, even though her role for all intents and purposes indicated that she should be giving the Divas something to revolt ''against.''

** The heel version of Wrestling/DoinkTheClown, portrayed by the late Matt Borne, is well remembered, but when Borne left the company, Doink turned face and was portrayed by Steve Lombardi. Lombardi wasn't as good of a wrestler as Borne, and fans didn't find Doink amusing. However, even though Doink wasn't pushed per se, he received a lot of focus and a number of awful angles. (Allegedly, Vince thought he was hilarious.) By the end of Doink's run, fans were cheering the heels he faced and chanting "KILL THE CLOWN". Here's a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9MgPCV4UKY Doink vs. Waylon Mercy]] match, with the chants starting at 4:40.

* IntendedAudienceReaction: The entire "Midcard of Evil" series of angles from 2018-2020 was designed to be hated and worked a little too well. Following the dissolution of the "Dogs of War" (Wrestling/BraunStrowman, Wrestling/DrewMcIntyre and Wrestling/DolphZiggler) at the tail end of their feud against Wrestling/TheShield, Raw's Acting General Manager Wrestling/BaronCorbin started courting a more open alliance with [=McIntyre=] as well as Wrestling/BobbyLashley. This alliance continued after the [=McMahon=] family removed the GM role from the program, as Corbin and his cohorts would continue antagonizing the Hounds of Justice, opposing The Shield in their final six-man tag in 2019 as well as having [=McIntyre=] target Roman Reigns heading into [=WrestleMania 35=]. The "Midcard of Evil" FanNickname is commonly used in reference to the Corbin/Lashley/[=McIntyre=] triad on ''Raw'', but the concept of a heel authority figure who can wrestle being shielded by random lackeys while taking an inordinate amount of screentime also extended to Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon after he turned heel on ''[=SmackDown=]''. [=McIntyre=], Wrestling/{{Elias}}, and Wrestling/TheRevival all became Shane's cohorts in his own feuds with both Reigns and Wrestling/TheMiz after they were traded to ''[=SmackDown=]'' in that year post-[=WrestleMania=] Superstar Shake-Up, whereas the failure of Ziggler's latest face turn saw him align with fellow "Wrestling/RicFlair Guy" [[Wrestling/BobbyRoode Robert Roode]] in a duo who would also come to the aid of both Corbin and [=McMahon=] in their ongoing feuds after also going to ''[=SmackDown=]''. After Shane was forced off TV in the end by losing to Wrestling/KevinOwens at ''Wrestling/SummerSlam'', the angle slowly petered out; [=McIntyre=], Lashley, and Elias all took time off and came back in very different directions; The Revival left the company and went to Wrestling/{{A|llEliteWrestling}}EW; Roode and Ziggler moved on to the tag team titles before Roode was forced to stay in Canada during the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic. In the end, all that came of it was Baron Corbin becoming Wrestling/{{King|OfTheRing}} Corbin and Shane [=McMahon=] wearing out the "Best in the World" moniker as they both became the two most hated characters in the entire company.

** The TagTeam division as a whole. CWC was a tag team company, and Wrestling/AntoninoRocca's tag team with Miguel Perez turned a popular face who happened to be disliked by many more legitmate wrestlers who wouldn't agree to make him look good one on one, and another wrestler who simply had bad heat with the fans, into the top draw of the United States. They tore it up not just in CWC but when in danger of getting stale got fresh pops in Championship Wrestling From Florida, Jim Crockett Promotions, Capitol Sports Promotions and more accross the country. But where Vince Sr's biggest mistake was thinking Rocca and Wrestling/BrunoSammartino would do more money just because Sammartino was a bigger star than Perez, Vince Jr came to believe breaking up tag teams for the sake of it was a good thing after only one wrestler (Wrestling/ShawnMichaels) became a star out of The Rockers breakup while the other faded into obscurity(Wrestling/MartyJanetty). Not one team or singles wrestler coming out of a team's breakup has come close to Rocca and Perez together since...except Wrestling/TheRoadWarriors, who were already approaching them before they entered the WWF and ended up in danger of stagnating once in WWF.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: My goodness, how many heels have ended up this way in 21st century WWE? Just to cite one example: Wrestling/CMPunk, as WWE Champion, despite engaging in lively multi-match rivalries against Wrestling/ChrisJericho and [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]], never main evented a pay-per-view in 2012. Cena, instead, has main evented '''every''' pay-per-view in 2012. At first this was justified, because Wrestling/{{Kane}} was preaching ThePowerOfHate and seriously testing Cena's character heading into the match against [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania'', then it was about said match with the Rock, then Wrestling/BrockLesnar had just come back. But the pattern still continued after that…despite Cena facing Wrestling/JohnLaurinaitis, an authority figure with a largely unremarkable wrestling career that ended in 2000, and Wrestling/BigShow, who Cena beat a hundred times since 2004. Even a Money in the Bank ladder match became the main event of a show on the grounds of Cena being involved for the first time and thus declaring it a "historic announcement" -- despite the fact that several other talents were competing in their first Money in the Bank match in the other such battle from that same night and no special attention was ever paid to this. Finally, on ''Raw 1000'', Punk's WWE Championship title defense is finally the main event. But not only is this solely because Cena cashed in MITB to become his first challenger, but that same night The Rock, a part-timer mostly working in Hollywood these days, came out in the middle of the ring and told him he had a WWE title shot booked months in advance at the Royal Rumble. Yet according to Wrestling/JerryLawler, portrayed as a representative of the pulse of the WWE Universe, Punk attacking The Rock and demanding what many fans felt is his due respect for his work as WWE Champion means he's turned on everyone.

** In 2003, Chris Nowinski debated Wrestling/ScottSteiner over the [[TheWarOnTerror Iraq War]]. Nowinski was supposed to be the heel because he was opposed to the invasion. Problem was, a significant majority of the fans even then agreed with Nowinski, and that number would do nothing but grow and grow as the years went on. This wasn't helped by the fact that Scott Steiner is really not known for his promo abilities and Nowinski ran verbal circles around him.

*** While in kayfabe terms, the point of this feud was that Team PCB and Team BAD wanted to end Nikki Bella's reign as Divas Champion,[[note]]Which technically PCB did: they won the triple threat tag team match between the three teams at ''[=SummerSlam=] 2015'' and then Charlotte ended Nikki's long reign at ''Night of Champions'', although based on a metric of which team lasted longest without breaking apart due to internal strife, Team Bella won, as Team PCB flew apart at the seams, while Team BAD got all infighty, too.[[/note]] the real failure of this storyline was that WWE's apparent real motive was that it thought it would be a good vehicle for the Bellas. While Nikki's in-ring performance improved over time, the fan perception was that it wasn't quite enough to justify holding the Divas Championship for over 300 days while many talented female wrestlers were still slumming in ''NXT''. Notice that most of Nikki's appearances in wrestling matches during that time were all in tag team matches, in contrast with a lack of 1-1 matches. For months, WWE kept stalling with boring, six-woman tag team matches as it became clear that they were waiting for Nikki to break Wrestling/AJLee's title reign, the most believed assumption being that they didn't want to acknowledge AJ as the longest-reigning champion after she left due to her relationship with Wrestling/CMPunk, who had left the company in acrimonious terms.
*** The Bellas were portrayed as face and heel repeatedly: Brie kept doing Daniel Bryan gestures and Nikki can't sell.

** The centerpiece feud of the so-called "Divas Revolution", the rivalry among three factions: "Team PCB" (Wrestling/{{Paige}}, Wrestling/{{Charlotte|Flair}}, Wrestling/BeckyLynch), "Team Bella" (Brie, Nikki, and Wrestling/AliciaFox), and "Team BAD" (Wrestling/{{Naomi}}, Wrestling/TaminaSnuka, Wrestling/SashaBanks), is considered to have been a dud of a storyline for several reasons:

** Wrestling/ZackRyder. He was big around 2010-ish, which coincided with ''Series/JerseyShore'' being around, but his gimmick predated the show and was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Long Island "broski" culture. He made a self-deprecating Website/YouTube show to connect with the fans which became popular thank to its bled of inside jokes (e.g. climbing a fence and shouting "I CAN'T GET OVER"), weekly episodes with storylines, and funny guest stars ranging from his dad and one of his friends to members of the roster. He got endorsed by all the big names for his effort: Wrestling/TheMiz, Wrestling/ChrisJericho, Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin, Wrestling/DolphZiggler, Wrestling/CMPunk, and Wrestling/JohnCena himself was a big fan. He was one of the most-followed WWE guys on social media, reaching more followers than Cena at one point. [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] even [[ColbertBump gave him a mention]] on TV. Initially it seemed that the company would capitalize on it, as he finally started making appearances on ''Raw'', and beating Ziggler for the U.S. title on pay-per-view. However, this soon took a turn to the bad with Zack losing [[Wrestling/EveTorres his girl]] as she dumped him to try to get with Cena (who wasn't interested), and then a wheelchair-bound Zack was thrown off a stage by Wrestling/{{Kane}}. Supposedly this negatively-affected morale backstage as the company constantly tell talent to "grab the brass ring", but seeing what happened to Ryder made the locker room think twice. At Ryder's peak, he had merchandise all over the WWE shop. Shirts, sunglasses, foam fingers. It was selling near the top, but when they killed his momentum the sales stopped and his items were dropped from the shop. It seems his social media gimmick was something WWE weren't used to yet, and their historical reluctance to accept unconventional ideas hurt him in the end.