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Ruined Forever / Professional Wrestling

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  • For many wrestling fans, the question isn't if Vince McMahon ruined wrestling but how many times he's done it. He's been declared the Antichrist ever since he bought the World Wrestling Federation from his father, when Bruno Sammartino and most of the old guard accused him of making a mockery of their sport with his theatrics. Everything McMahon did with the ECW revival beyond the original One Night Stand PPV was accused of ruining the memories of ECW forever.
  • Many fans declared the nWo WolfPac RUINED FOREVER following the Finger Poke of Doom.
  • FMW was ruined forever when Kodo Fuyuki became head booker and decided to force what he called "sports entertainment" onto the product. FMW did end up losing half its audience and going inactive for fourteen years, though.
  • All Japan Pro Wrestling reacting to the Mitsuharu Misawa lead locker room exodus to Pro Wrestling NOAH by replacing most of the wrestlers with those from Genichiro Tenryu's WAR had fans reacting this way. All Japan was ruined forever again when The Great Muta decided to take the promotion in a more advertiser friendly Lighter and Softer direction. When Muta was shamed out of All Japan by the locker room fight between TARU and Super Hate it was ruined forever once again when much of the locker room followed him to Wrestle 1. This depletion of star power lead to All Japan Pro Wrestling being ruined forever when Akebono won the Unified Triple Crown. Nobuo Shiraishi began ruining All Japan forever in response to this criticism by booking wrestlers from the independent circuit in a style that reminded too many people of Dragon Gate.
  • Hulk Hogan joining TNA caused many smarks to proclaim the company was RUINED FOREVER. The fact that he and Eric Bischoff were working for the same company has only made the doomsayers even more frantic, and add to that the announcement of a 2 hour special on Monday night, and removal (then quick reinstatement) of 4-sided rings instead of the TNA's usual 6, not only did you have fans of the company crying doom, you also have WWE fans saying this proves the end is near. Of course, the ratings freefall wasn't exactly making an argument against this. Hogan and Bischoff more or less bankrupted the company, with TNA so far in debt to Anthem Sports that Anthem ended up taking control of the company. Renamed Impact Wrestling, it now gets less than 10% of the viewers it got during the SpikeTV days on a cable network most people don't know exists.
  • Within seconds of the dirtsheets reporting an indy wrestler has signed with WWE the smarks scream in unison that he or she is "Ruined FOREVER!"
  • WSU was ruined forever when Sean McCaffrey gave the company to Drew Cordeiro and it became the partner to Beyond Wrestling. WSU was later ruined forever when it switch from "Uncensored" to the Lighter and Softer "United" branding.
  • Ruined FOREVER was the reaction of many fans to the decision by Ring of Honor to replace Gabe Sapolsky as the head Booker.
  • The PG era of the WWE is another example of McMahon's decisions continuing to get this reaction.
  • Ring Of Honor was ruined forever for the second time when it left HD Net and went to the Sinclair Broadcast Group.
  • Industry veterans are often quick to target Triple H as a source of ruin, believing nepotism, greasing the wheels, and other backstage politics have brought him to where he is while trying to keep the product's focus on him and away from rising talent. The fact he's now a WWE corporate executive has not helped things (though popular opinion on Triple H has gone the other way going into the 2020s because as it turns out he's actually a pretty good corporate executive, not to mention that until 2021 (when a heart problem forced him to briefly step away from the company and retire from in-ring competition) he was booking the very well received NXT program, and with Vince McMahon's retirement in 2022 he's now booking the main shows).
  • TNA wrestling was ruined forever again when AJ Styles left in response to a pay cut. TNA would further ruin itself forever when it was removed from Spike TV. Lawsuit and departure of Billy Corgan proved TNA could still be ruined forever, as did the dismantling of the Almighty Beatdown Clan due to Hernandez's contract with Lucha Underground. The name official retirement of the name TNA in favor of simply calling the company Impact Wrestling ruined Impact Wrestling forever, until Impact Wrestling was then renamed Global Force Wrestling, which forever ruined GFW until it was then named back to Impact Wrestling, returning Impact's forever ruin. Impact Wrestling then ruined itself forever by having Tessa Blanchard become number one contender to the World Championship by defeating Brian Cage and further ruined itself forever when Blanchard defeated reigning champion Sami Callihan on pay per view. Impact Wrestling forever ruin became even more forever when Blanchard was then stripped of the championship belt while quarantined in Mexico. This had the side affect of also ruining TNA forever, again, when Moose dug up the old TNA World Championship belt.
  • Roman Reigns retired The Undertaker? (which ultimately didn’t last) Oh, the cries of RUINED FOREVER went beyond nuclear, to the point that the next night on Raw the crowd showered Roman with chants such as "Delete", "Go Away", "Fuck You Roman" and "Fuck Off".
  • All Elite Wrestling was ruined forever when Cody Rhodes became the television champion, "proving" he is a diet Triple H\Jeff Jarrett using his authority to bury younger wrestlers. All Elite Wrestling was more forever ruined when Cody's action figure came with a sledge hammer.note 
    • Or AEW was RUINED FOREVER when they fired CM Punk in September 2023, and unlike most of these situations (where people complain but still watch) this actually has had a noticeable effect on attendance and TV ratings. Though this may be less about Punk himselfnote  and more disgust over AEW's unprofessionalism in handling the whole situation (which actually first got started at least as far back as Spring of the previous year), something that has become a pattern for them.
  • And of course, back at the turn of the century there were no doubt fans who cried ruined forever once Kayfabe was introduced and the matches were no longer unscripted.

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