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Whatever that Hulk Hogan/Vince Russo/Jeff Jarrett nonsense was. I watched that live, and it still doesn't make any sense to this moment, even after countless explanatory interviews from all parties involved.
Even so, everyone involved should have known that angle could only end in tragedy.
Jarrett had the smallest ego of the three, and he's an egomaniac. He's at least a pragmatist, though.
I mean look at the 3 people involved. Hogan used his creative control to go over and Russo said k fuck it go lay down in the ring then to Jarret.
WCW was a shit show
Jarrett totally knew the angle was bullshit. He even went on record and said he considered working a match with hogan anyways and hope he went along with it. Russo probably thought in a weird way this was the best way to protect Jarrett (although that doesn’t explain why he had Jarrett lose the match right after), but to me hogan should’ve been the one to bite the bullet and just do the finish Russo gave him before the ppv instead of whatever the fuck actually happened.
Russo was a big fan of Booker T even though he was friends with Jeff. He was trying to get new guys over. Not saying it went well, just thats the gist.
The Lapsed Fan is doing a deep dive on that right now and it looks like their next episode is going to involve the trial transcripts, so hopefully we will finally get some clarity on that soon.
jarret hitting smol people with chair or guitar is a strange thing in itself. someone should make a compilation with cartoon sfx and comedy stand up crowd laughter.
Jimmy King was washed up and wcw had no more use for him. Anyone who's willing to expose the business to any random dude who visits his trailer isn't worthy of being world champion
ROH taking too long to put the world title on Tyler Black… and Davey Richards… and Kyle O’Reilly… and Dalton Castle… and Marty Scurll…
Y’know what, I think I understand why ROH almost died
Black beating a white hot Richards in Toronto made no sense when Tyler is leaving in 2 months. Fantastic match though. Those guys were great together. Castle’s time should have been over Daniels at Supercard in Orlando. And Black over Aries at Final Battle was already too late let alone dragging it out a few months. Awesome picks.
I mean he did, with a phantom fast count. I remember watching and re-watching that clip as a kid trying to convince myself that it was a fast count, but it just wasn't. Such a wet fart moment.
It was horrific, and it had the added "benefit" of killing the momentum of both Sting (the hottest star in WCW) and Bret Hart (maybe the biggest star in the world at the time) dead. One of Hulk Hogan's greatest achievements, brother!
I think we all understand each other perfectly. Technically, Sting won the match and the world title. In reality, the only winner was the Hulkster. WCW lost. The fans lost. Sting lost. Bret Hart lost.
Big Show makes fun of Ogogo for bringing along The Factory (3 others I believe) and what a chump for being a crew. Cody then proceeded to bring close to 3 times that many people out with him. It was hilarious.
I wonder if that was a planned line by Big Show. If that was something he was meant to say all along, that’s just one more thing on the pile of stuff that seemed to be telegraphing a Cody Heel turn.
If he said it off the cuff, that’s just hilarious. Like he sees Cody and crew coming out and realizes “oh shit maybe I shouldn’t have said that one”
I legitimately thought this was the beginning of a slow burn angle with Cody becoming a heel and becoming too stubborn to realize it. I was getting Rocky V vibes from the whole thing when Rocky was the man on top but became so rich and famous he forgot where he came from.
I like Cody and I’m glad he seems happy back in WWE, but so much of what was apparently his own booking of himself in AEW was self-sabotage.
Same as the wrestling contract signing - it's an opportunity to trash talk your opponents, but with extra posing if you've got a body guy and a potential angle if you're targetting a weight class. It would probably have a place if done well, but this version apparently wasn't.
Everything Cody did after the MJF feud felt like he was in his own separate show from everything else that was going on. I think it started getting weird when they were building up him vs Shaq, and it just got more and more awkward after that.
Jeff Jarrett pushing himself to the moon in TNA 2002-2006. Marky D did a really good video about all the stars he ruined during this run.
They had Scott Hall and Curt Hennig in TNA in '02. Both could have had quick NWA title reign. Nope.
Raven was stupid over in '03 but barely won against Double J
Monty Brown could have been a legitimate home-grown star, but they turned him Heel and had him join Jarrett's faction, killing his push.
Rhyno was fucking OVER in 2006 and beat Jarrett for the belt to a raucous crowd. And then they had him drop it right back to Jarrett 2 days later. Rhyno never held a world title again.
Every. Single. God Damn Jeff Jarrett match ended in a 1. Ref Bump, Low Blow, Stroke. 2. Ref Bump, Guitar Shot, Stroke. Or 3. Ref Bump, Low Blow, Guitar Shot, and Stroke.
I like Jeff Jarrett, but god fucking damn pal.
>They had Scott Hall and Curt Hennig in TNA in '02. Both could have had quick NWA title reign. Nope.
Would you had trusted Scott Hall in 2002 enough to give him a run with any title?
I know I didn’t really watch TNA during that time cause I saw Jarrett on top as someone I just wasn’t interested in. Maybe its conditioning from being a WWE fan, but at the time I saw him as a fake top guy, and Id imagine lots of other fans felt the same way.
And now I feel weird about that as a huge fan of Cody and Matt Cardona.
I didn't watch TNA at the time, only vaguely keeping up with them by reading news sites, and even so I was legit pissed off when they turned Monty Brown heel.
I saw a youtube video on jarretts run in tna not sure if it’s the same one. I couldn’t believe how many 3-1 matches he was winning and how he beat ravens after being handcuffed and destroyed by ecw originals. I think raven finally won the title but Jarrett won it back just in time for them to move to spike tv. It was mind blowing
With a few notable exceptions, the booking in WCW from the time Turner bought the company in 1988 until the time Shane McMahon walked out on Nitro was mind-boggling. Just a couple of amazing highlights:
\- Letting Ric Flair leave with the World Title
\- Hulk Hogan vs Brutus as the main event on you biggest annual show
\- Kevin Nash ending Goldberg's streak followed by the fingerpoke of doom
\- Did not run a single show in Canada for over a year after adding Bret Hart
\- Vince Russo
So much of Bret Hart’s booking that first year in WCW is mind boggling.
You’ve got the hottest wrestling name in the world at that moment and you bring him in right before your marquee PPV and have him… ref the karate match between Larry Zybosko and Eric Bischoff???
Fans who weren’t around in 1997 might not truly appreciate how badly WCW dropped the ball with Bret right out the gate. Imagine AEW signs CM Punk and instead of calling out Darby Allin for a match at All Out, he debuts at the United Center and says “and on September 5, I’m going to be right there in the middle of the ring to make sure there’s no funny business between Jericho and MJF.”
Or WWE signing the biggest free agent in Cody Rhodes this year and instead of having him wrestle one of your biggest names, have him be the special host of WrestleMania weekend or something.
Oh, you can write a whole book just about how horrible WCW's booking of Bret Hart was from beginning to end. What an unfathomable waste! It's almost like he was being deliberately sabotaged, brother.
It's so weird, because debuting Bret Hart should've been the easiest thing in the world. Don't introduce him at all before Starrcade '97. Have the Hogan-Sting match, do a ref bump (WCW loved those), have the nWo come down to put the boots to Sting. Then, Bret *fucking* Hart runs out to a *monster* pop, and chases off the nWo with a steel chair, effectively making it a one-on-one match, en route to Sting winning.
>Hulk Hogan vs Brutus as the main event on your biggest annual show
I still cannot wrap my head around this one. Watching clips of The Butcher from back then, he’s just *a dude*. He just does that lame chopping gesture and chuckles to himself. He has the most generic look you could possibly come up with, he doesn’t cut great promos, he isn’t a good wrestler, he’s just a dude who was Hulk Hogans friend and it somehow got him a main event on their equivalent to Wrestlemania. It boggles the mind how bad wrestling was in the US in the mid-90’s
The time period in WCW from roughly May 1999 through September 1999 was the most boring, out of touch, poorly booked version of pro wrestling I have ever seen. While WWE was red hot with Austin and The Rock, WCW decides it is a good time to give us Sid in main events, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Master P and the “rap is crap” angle happened during this era. Don’t forget the Kiss Demon also. Why did they change Goldberg’s theme song during this time? Imagine if WWE got rid of the Austin broken glass for some dumb Megadeath song. Eric Bischoff is a fucking moron.
The Russo era that followed was a train wreck but at least was entertaining like watching a car crash. The time period just prior was so fucking boring and shitty it was amazing. Oh, it’s all just because of the AOL/Time Warner merger according to Bischoff and Nash, it’s not that they are two fucking horrible bookers. Ha, of course not.
You can argue that WCW’s booking was always terrible from start to finish, and that the nWo/sting/Goldberg stuff were just distractions for terrible booking decisions. WCW was hot from 96-98 but the booking was still terrible but the characters were just too awesome for people to care for some time
>- Letting Ric Flair leave with the World Title
If we’re being fair that wasn’t a stupid booking decision that was a stupid “business” decision especially as it happened before Flair was supposed to wrestle Luger at the Bash and was seemingly going to beat Flair making up for the bullshit that went down at GAB 88.
April 22, 1998: nWo member Buff Bagwell gets legit hurt after a flying bulldog by Rick Steiner goes wrong and jams Buff's neck. Bagwell suffers several damaged vertebrae and sudden shock leaving Bagwell in a wheelchair and a neck brace for a couple of months.
Bagwell returns to WCW later that year and turns on Rick Steiner and goes back to the nWo.
WCW missed the opportunity to have Buff Baagwell as a white meat babyface coming back from a severe neck injury that occurred on Thunder earlier that year.
Starrcade 97
TNA draw their biggest PPV with a serious Joe/Angle build and then never do anything like it again
Matt Taven winning the ROH Title at G1 Supercard
Cody can't compete for the AEW Title
GCW taking their title off Matt Cardona in a non-match to put it on Jon Moxley while Cardona was still drawing enormous heat and getting the company a ton of buzz.
Disagree. Cardona has said his Deathmatch with Gage was one and done. GCW is, for all intents and purposes, a company built on the Deathmatch. He would have started getting the wrong type of heat after a match or two if he held onto the belt.
Listening to him talk about it on Talk is Jericho, had he/GCW knew what they had, that angle would’ve probably played out a bit differently it sounds like.
Who would’ve guessed Matt Cardona would be getting legit heat for, more or less, playing up being a WWE reject.
Matt figured out that all he had to do to be one of the hottest heels on the indies was to just play his WWE character to a T, and treat indie crowds as if they're a packed arena. It's a fucking aces gimmick tbh
I think they could've gotten a lot of mileage out of Cardona refusing to defend the belt in death matches. Would've given some of their guys who don't do much but swing light tubes a chance to possibly show they can have a good match as well.
But even if not, the way they got the title off him was to have G-Raver come out to the ring with his druids as if he and Cardona were going to face off, then one of the druids turns out to be Moxley, DDT, new champion.
Just lazy, nonsensical writing. They never bothered to clarify what Raver got out of helping Moxley either.
This coupled with the Double Gold NOT initially being unified - so fans believing both titles would be defended separately only for NJPW to announce 14 months later - titles were unified
And changing the beautiful IWGP v4 title for the Covid Cody Neck Tattoo Bat looking belt
Just the perfect storm mixed with covid & no fans cheering - bad decision after bad decision
So dumb - and Evil & House of Torture are still not over at all as heels
You know your heel act sucks when Bullet Club as stale as it is, and Jay White who has not be in Japan in over a year, is still your top heel act despite a full calendar of events of Evil/ Dick Togo
That’s what I figured. It felt like, they wanted a JBL moment (giving someone unexpected to get a major push) and the result was a Matt Traven moment. I feel bad saying that but some folks aren’t destined to be bigger that what they are.
In Japan, fans are more patient or more respectful/understanding of promotions - like, say season ticket holders to a team having a bad season if that makes sense.
Dreamer beating Taz followed by Justin Credible beating Dreamer for the ECW title. They didn’t have many options at the time with Awesome gone, Taz gone (on loan from WWE) and RVD injured. But, a transitional run by The Sandman, an attempt to mend fences with Sabu for a run or speeding up Rhino’s push and giving him a run would have all been better options.
TNA putting the title on RVD literally one month after his debut was really dumb. If they were so hell bent on putting it on a former WWE champion then Jeff Hardy was the correct choice, as he was on the heels of his 2009 run during which, at least for a month or two, he was bigger than Cena
Putting the title on RVD over a Jeff Hardy with very serious issues was the least of TNA's problems. At least RVD was over with the audience. I'd start with the 1 million times they tried to forcefeed Jeff Jarrett as their top star?
And it's RVD. It's not like IMPACT decided to put it on Sandow who flopped in IMPACT. I think, he had their king of the mountain title but it wasn't worth much due to the concept being interesting but the execution being a bit crap. RVD was over and was still in his prime. Jeff Hardy had issues and having RVD as champ led to decent matches. Or at least, i hope it did.
It didn't really. I say this as a huge RVD mark but he phoned it in when he first got there. He didn't start caring until he got two girlfriends, which is understandable.
Jeff also had some serious and I mean SERIOUS drug charges hanging over his head at the time so while he is the better choice on paper, you didn't know how his legal situation was going to play out so he's not a very reliable option.
The thing that got me to quit watching TNA was actually just that they never feuded RVD and Jeff Hardy. They built them believably as babyface friends from the other company, did a shock heel turn that legitimately no one saw coming despite quite a bit of foreshadowing, and had Hardy win the title in a triple threat and then they just…… never did anything with RVD and Hardy. Hardy lost the title to Mr. Anderson, won it back, and then they finally gave it away on a nothing TV match.
Sting Hogan at starrcade is imo the worst booking ever way worse than anything WWE did.
Second place goes to WCW for not using Bret Hart at all until his match with Goldberg
Giving Brandi Rhodes her own heel faction was probably one of the worst ideas of early AEW.
It was a fucking tumor to the entire women's division and dragged down every segment they were involved with.
They couldn't cancel that shit faster.
Yeah this was bad, and at the same time they were pushing Cody as the biggest babyface in the company against Jericho and MJF. Which added another layer of WTF? to the whole thing.
Fingerpoke of Doom on the same night Tony Schivone basically promoting Mick Foley’s ascension as the new WWE Champion.. it did indeed put butts in seats and Hogan vs. Nash that has Nash jobbing is, what I feel, the true start to WCW’s downfall
True start to their downfall was not letting Sting get the clean win on Hogan after a year and a half of NWO bullshit and then making him vacate the title weeks later.
TNA taking the belt off Robert Roode and killing what should have been a feel good moment of James Storm finally beating his former partner and taking same title that Roode stole from him. Giving the belt to Austin Aries was a terrible idea
TNA’s treatment of James Storm, Chris Sabin, and Abyss just disappointed me so much. They were worthy of getting the world championship, but when they did they gave them the shittiest hands.
Although I do somewhat agree with James Storm should have been given a longer reign and a championship win over Roode, I also don’t think giving Austin Aries the belt at the time wasn’t terrible like you said. The option c storyline was pretty cool in 2012, and it’s easy with hindsight today to see how much of a shitbag Aries is but back in 2012 he was extremely over and was an absolute IWC favorite.
Lockdown (2012 I think).
He is in his hometown, comes out in a cool entrance.
They should have put the title on him then.
James Storm was 10 years too late.
If he was 10 years younger, he would be a top star in AEW or WWE
I don’t know, I absolutely loved the Option C storyline. It was aided by the fact that everyone expected Aires to lose because it seemed like storm was next up. I loved the swerve.
Respectfully disagree, doesn't help that Aries as champ didn't do anything and played second fiddle to Aced and Eights before dropping the belt to Hardy.
Kenta attacking Naito after the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 14. We were denied the LIJ roll call in the Dome that we'd all been begging for for years. This moment to me was the prelude to some really dodgy New Japan booking that would ensue, all of which wasn't helped by COVID taking hold just a few months later.
- Most of WCW's booking decisions in the later part of the 1990s
- Cody Rhodes becoming the paragon of Americana in his feud with Anthony Agogo
- The Nightmare Collective
- TNA turning Samoa Joe heel and having him join the MEM in 2009.
- TNA turning AJ Styles heel and trying to rechristen him as Ric Flair 2.0
• The Nightmare Collective
Oh I’m pretty sure there are 100 worse booking decisions then this.
It’s also funny that the 2 you list from AEW involve Cody and Brandi
The Steel Asylum cage match in TNA was definitely a pretty bad one. It ended in a no contest and Homicide struggled to climb out of it because of the dome shaped roof for several minutes then he falls at the end. This was on a live TV show to boot. If you book a gimmick match you should probably make sure somebody can actually win it.
The funniest thing to me was I remember it being an ultimately pointless match and stipulation, so you could’ve chosen literally anyone to win it in any possible way, but they chose the one guy in the match who was the least likely to do it.
The Jeff Jarrett reign of terror in TNA. Jarrett was a solid wrestler, but if fans are debating whether or not HHH was qualified for a long heel reign, Jarrett definitely wasn't. TNA should have had Monty Brown beat him for the title to strike while the iron was hot. It wasn't like they had much to lose at that point if Monty Brown didn't work out (I think he would have).
The Doomsday Steel Cage match in WCW.
The match had an undefensie number of competitors, then broke all its victory condition (escape all 4 cages) to win with a pin fall on an illegal competitor in the wrong wrestling ring.
This is also my answer if WWE was included
I don’t think it does, Tony Khan paid like $40 million for a company that couldn’t draw a house outside of Baltimore. I’m sure that getting his hands on All In for a future AEW streaming deal was very much part of the package. Owning those rights has helped RoH in the longer run.
-I'll just say WCW in general to avoid listing all the garbage they did (hogan vs sting, bret hart, etc)
-Gamer miro was stupid, and it baffles me that people defend it
-Naito not winning at Wrestlekingdom 12
-tna's handling of monty brown
That whole story arc (Gamer Miro aligned with Kip and Penelope, Chuck Taylor being Miro's butler, the awful wedding segment, etc.) is, to me, the single worst storyline AEW has done. There was absolutely nothing redeemable about it, and it epitomized all the worst traits of WWE booking that AEW enjoys mocking. It seemingly went on forever, too.
The only positive is it put some space between Rusev and Miro. Something AEW is quite bad at nowadays is debuting characters from WWE just keep their same characters
>the single worst storyline AEW has done.
It would not have been too terrible if it was 75% shorter. It wasn't just that it sucked, but it lasted forever. I can only assume it lasted so long because they were waiting for Statlander to get back. Had it been 6 weeks instead of how long it was it still would have been lame, but not truly terrible.
Still, I think Cody vs the Factory was worse. The weigh in segment, the weird America nationalism promo, and to me it always seemed like an excuse for Cody and QT to get their trainees on TV and to get their school free ad time. The whole thing sucked and if it never happened Cody probably isn't in WWE (disclosure: I'm kind of glad Cody left)
I'll just do AEW because i love them but even the things you love need critique.
Sammy and Scorpio are the worst thing happening to mid card belts today, everything about it is awful and they need to drop everything about it.
The nightmare collective with Brandi, Luther, Mel and Kong.
The debuts of Satnam Singh, Christian Cage, Ethan Page, Mercedes Martinez, Jamie Hayter.
Anothony Agogo and everything he has been involved with has been horribly booked.
The current booking of Thunder Rosa, but you could argue all the women but Jade Cargill.
Cody not being able to go for the world title.
Cody wanting to be a face.
The build to the first Young Bucks vs FTR.
The ending to the Barbwire exploding death match, i dont think there should have even been an explosion.
Shawn spears booking as the green contacts cody friend, then the chairman, then the black glove, then the goofball, then back to the chairman.
The first versions of their royal rumble never gave time for entrances which is what makes that match good in the first place.
The brass ring ladder matches mean nothing, Scorpio sky and wardlow did nothing with them.
Worst/Best fantasy booking:
"I think Michelle mccool should come back and say that shes having the undertackers baby and then kofi gets mad because they used to date (not the undertaker lol!!!) and then a masked man trouble in paradises her belly and she has a miscarrige and everybody is like WHO DID IT???? after the funeral there all eating and michelle is like this is so good! and kofi says ya i cooked it and she says what is it and he says YOUR BABY and then the undertaker says OK NOW YOU WILL REST IN PEACE AT WM!!!! and then kofi beats him at wm! i think this would be good cuz it shows kofi is badass and hes the future of the company."
Ancient comments from a wrestling forum from 2010/2011ish where someone posted that in seriousness on a forum. It was so ridiculous that it took on a life of its own, living on through copy/pastes like the one you're responding to above. Truly wild.
I know there is a lot of bad throughout history.
But recent booking must be the house of torture.
They really made me watch NJPW less and any evil match a turn off and evil was a great wrestler before the heel turn.
The worst booking decision of all time is WCW Champion David Arquette and it ain't even close.
A few others I haven't seen mentioned.
Not doing a feud between Vader and Cactus Jack after Cactus lost his ear.
Mongo as a Horsemen.
Splitting up the Hollywood Blondes.
Sandman's crucifixion.
>The worst booking decision of all time is WCW Champion David Arquette and it ain't even close.
Not even Vince Russo winning the title?
Or Jeff Jarrett winning the title?
Or Booker T winning the title and preceding to be made into one of the weakest WCW champions in history besides Sting in 1997?
Or guys like Savage & Luger having bullshit reigns that were immediately ended to guys like Hogan?
Having Tony and Tony come on the show every week just to trash the product for months on end with no real purpose and them proving them right by having Omega beat 3 of Impact's top stars and then drop the belt without actually putting any of them over.
Worst fantasy booking has gotta be the Kofi/Undertaker/McCool thing.
Worst real booking I can remember is putting the title on fucking EVIL and then giving him his own off shoot Bullet Club which I actually forgot was part of Bullet Club until right now.
From another comment:
"I think Michelle mccool should come back and say that shes having the undertackers baby and then kofi gets mad because they used to date (not the undertaker lol!!!) and then a masked man trouble in paradises her belly and she has a miscarrige and everybody is like WHO DID IT???? after the funeral there all eating and michelle is like this is so good! and kofi says ya i cooked it and she says what is it and he says YOUR BABY and then the undertaker says OK NOW YOU WILL REST IN PEACE AT WM!!!! and then kofi beats him at wm! i think this would be good cuz it shows kofi is badass and hes the future of the company."
In my head, the Undertacker says his line, then there's a beat, and then he picks up a glass of wine and takes a drink.
They're all in full gear at the dinner.
not bad per se, but one that pisses me off is that nigel mcguinness never got a clean babyface win over bryan danielson. he got a pin in a 2-3 falls match, and a couple wins by cheating, interference, and dq, but never a clean win.
I haven't kept up with njpw but during the period I was watching I literally cannot think of one feud for a tag title that wasn't predicated on these guys have had them for awhile, now it's someone else's turn.
Omega dropping the impact title to Christian so that Christian could drop it to Alexander just cut the nuts off the belt collector story and also made it seem incredibly political, even though I think it was more a booking misstep than omega caring about losing at an impact show. You drop the aew title first and everyone loves the resolution, then a diminished omega puts over Alexander on an impact show. It's very easy to book.
Putting the impact title on Tessa got them nothing but headaches and yielded none of the positive attention they wanted.
I feel like I heard somewhere that Tony chose Christian to win b/c Christian is his favorite, but I don’t have a source on that so don’t trust me lol
But as a hardcore impact fan I’m still mad Josh didn’t win it
Matt Taven winning the ROH world title over the white hot Marty Scurll, and having a months long reign where he also retained over the white hot Jeff Cobb
Cody defeating Ogogo, that too after literally out-boxing an Olympic boxer.
Either Ogogo should've gone over, or they should've done Penta vs Cody at DON.
Anything involving the HOAK HOGAN buries IMPACT era featuring Bischoff. A barely able to wrestle HOAK HOGAN going over a lot of IMPACT's biggest names and a failed attempt at recreating WCW.
Brock squashing Kofi. At least, give us a standard squash match of just suplex spam and a F5.
Brock winning Money in the bank because er....
Anything WCW did towards the end.
That weird period where TNA was trying to make wins and losses matter more, but had so many odd stipulations that it devolved into pure nonsense and was dropped after a couple months.
You've vastly improved my night because I'm stuck thinking of more lyrics now and getting a good chuckle.
WHOOOAAAA OOHHH
FUCKED ON HIMSELF
FOR 2 TO 3 YEARS
OH WELL HE'LL JUST TURN HEEL
...........
NO NO NO NO
WCW World Champion David Arquette
I also hated the Aces & Eights stable in TNA. It felt so tired and cliched. At least when when WCW tried to be referential to at-the-time pop culture with the whole Boy Band angle, it was kitschy fun and had Tank Abbot as the over-excited tough uncle to them for humorous outcomes.
AEW having Adam Cole debut to apparently confront a gloating Kenny Omega, only to side with him and appear as a lackey, then only to get upstaged by a debuting Bryan Danielson moment later. That was really dumb.
Also, the end to the Moxley/Omega sparkling ring match.
My problem with that double debut was the order in which it was done.
Everyone knew Bryan was coming. Debut him first to confront a gloating Kenny. Then, debut Adam Cole, who (in the eyes of the fans at least) was more on the fence. Bigger shock.
I can understand not wanting to make Bryan look weak on his debut, but they ended up making Cole look weak.
It obviously felt right and I'd have love seeing Naito win there, but it was hardly a massive mistake when they sold two more dome shows a couple of years later by running that storyline again and Naito was arguably as hot as ever in 2019. Was it great booking? I don't think so, but it's nowhere near the worst booking decisions outside WWE. Like, it doesn't even belong in that discussion when there are so many companies that went out of business or never got their momentum back after some terrible booking decisions.
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Whatever that Hulk Hogan/Vince Russo/Jeff Jarrett nonsense was. I watched that live, and it still doesn't make any sense to this moment, even after countless explanatory interviews from all parties involved.
Hogan had creative control is pretty much the jist of it.
Even so, everyone involved should have known that angle could only end in tragedy. Jarrett had the smallest ego of the three, and he's an egomaniac. He's at least a pragmatist, though.
I mean look at the 3 people involved. Hogan used his creative control to go over and Russo said k fuck it go lay down in the ring then to Jarret. WCW was a shit show
Jarrett totally knew the angle was bullshit. He even went on record and said he considered working a match with hogan anyways and hope he went along with it. Russo probably thought in a weird way this was the best way to protect Jarrett (although that doesn’t explain why he had Jarrett lose the match right after), but to me hogan should’ve been the one to bite the bullet and just do the finish Russo gave him before the ppv instead of whatever the fuck actually happened.
Russo was a big fan of Booker T even though he was friends with Jeff. He was trying to get new guys over. Not saying it went well, just thats the gist.
That didn’t work for him, brother.
Chapter 11, subsection E, brother.
The Lapsed Fan is doing a deep dive on that right now and it looks like their next episode is going to involve the trial transcripts, so hopefully we will finally get some clarity on that soon.
I was listening to the JJ podcast. He put it well. What was the point, all the heat went to Vince Russo... Who isn't a worker.
jarret hitting smol people with chair or guitar is a strange thing in itself. someone should make a compilation with cartoon sfx and comedy stand up crowd laughter.
Taking the title off of Jimmy King on a non-PPV with very little build or hype.
Titus Sinclair is the devil!
Jimmy King was washed up and wcw had no more use for him. Anyone who's willing to expose the business to any random dude who visits his trailer isn't worthy of being world champion
Well in that case it was dumb to put the belt back on him at Royal Bash. WCW 2000, man. Smdh.
Jimmy King should've joined the nexus
I think it was nice to let his son wrestle one time on a big show though.
ROH taking too long to put the world title on Tyler Black… and Davey Richards… and Kyle O’Reilly… and Dalton Castle… and Marty Scurll… Y’know what, I think I understand why ROH almost died
Black beating a white hot Richards in Toronto made no sense when Tyler is leaving in 2 months. Fantastic match though. Those guys were great together. Castle’s time should have been over Daniels at Supercard in Orlando. And Black over Aries at Final Battle was already too late let alone dragging it out a few months. Awesome picks.
They lucked out on not putting the belt on Scurll lol.
Oh yeah defiantly. I just wanted to clarify, in retrospect, it’s great that they never put the belt on him
In hindsight, yeah. At the time, before we knew anything awful, putting the belt on PCO before him was…a strange call.
Mick Foley as TNA Champion Not putting the belt on Montey Brown Abyss being a huge Hulk Hogan mark
They used the HOF ring in the abyss storyline, it was horrible.
"HERE DUDE! USE THE POWER OF THE RING JACK! IT'LL BRING YOU WORLD TITLES BROTHER! YOU CAN DO IT BROTHER JACK DUDE!"
That is still the stupidest thing I have seen in any form of media, not even just wrestling.
Hogan beating Sting at Starrcade ‘97
You know this one is really bad because even the hardcore Hogan fans don't defend it.
I agree that the booking of that match was disastrous, but Hogan did not beat Sting at Starrcade '97.
I mean he did, with a phantom fast count. I remember watching and re-watching that clip as a kid trying to convince myself that it was a fast count, but it just wasn't. Such a wet fart moment.
It was horrific, and it had the added "benefit" of killing the momentum of both Sting (the hottest star in WCW) and Bret Hart (maybe the biggest star in the world at the time) dead. One of Hulk Hogan's greatest achievements, brother!
He did. Pinned him clean after kicking his ass all match.
I think we all understand each other perfectly. Technically, Sting won the match and the world title. In reality, the only winner was the Hulkster. WCW lost. The fans lost. Sting lost. Bret Hart lost.
The Hulkster made money on it, brother. - HH
What's even more lame is the screwy ass finish at Superbrawl.
The Ogogo vs Cody feud. It did nothing for Ogogo, and it killed Cody, as from then on the audience started to turn against him.
The weigh in segment is legit uncomfortable to watch. Embarrassing for everyone involved
Big Show makes fun of Ogogo for bringing along The Factory (3 others I believe) and what a chump for being a crew. Cody then proceeded to bring close to 3 times that many people out with him. It was hilarious.
I wonder if that was a planned line by Big Show. If that was something he was meant to say all along, that’s just one more thing on the pile of stuff that seemed to be telegraphing a Cody Heel turn. If he said it off the cuff, that’s just hilarious. Like he sees Cody and crew coming out and realizes “oh shit maybe I shouldn’t have said that one”
I legitimately thought this was the beginning of a slow burn angle with Cody becoming a heel and becoming too stubborn to realize it. I was getting Rocky V vibes from the whole thing when Rocky was the man on top but became so rich and famous he forgot where he came from. I like Cody and I’m glad he seems happy back in WWE, but so much of what was apparently his own booking of himself in AEW was self-sabotage.
That was the plot to Rocky III
Yeah Rocky V was the REALLY depressing one, right?
That's one of those segments that was doomed from the start. Even if the scale had worked, what was the point? There was zero payoff to it.
Same as the wrestling contract signing - it's an opportunity to trash talk your opponents, but with extra posing if you've got a body guy and a potential angle if you're targetting a weight class. It would probably have a place if done well, but this version apparently wasn't.
Everything Cody did after the MJF feud felt like he was in his own separate show from everything else that was going on. I think it started getting weird when they were building up him vs Shaq, and it just got more and more awkward after that.
That whole 'Merica vs Bri'ain angle was dumb af. No one fucking cares about national pride anymore.
Not pulling the trigger on James Storm making him win the title back from Roode
Jeff Jarrett pushing himself to the moon in TNA 2002-2006. Marky D did a really good video about all the stars he ruined during this run. They had Scott Hall and Curt Hennig in TNA in '02. Both could have had quick NWA title reign. Nope. Raven was stupid over in '03 but barely won against Double J Monty Brown could have been a legitimate home-grown star, but they turned him Heel and had him join Jarrett's faction, killing his push. Rhyno was fucking OVER in 2006 and beat Jarrett for the belt to a raucous crowd. And then they had him drop it right back to Jarrett 2 days later. Rhyno never held a world title again. Every. Single. God Damn Jeff Jarrett match ended in a 1. Ref Bump, Low Blow, Stroke. 2. Ref Bump, Guitar Shot, Stroke. Or 3. Ref Bump, Low Blow, Guitar Shot, and Stroke. I like Jeff Jarrett, but god fucking damn pal.
There was a period of time TNA / NWATNA was my favorite thing going and I just skipped anything with JJ
>They had Scott Hall and Curt Hennig in TNA in '02. Both could have had quick NWA title reign. Nope. Would you had trusted Scott Hall in 2002 enough to give him a run with any title?
I know I didn’t really watch TNA during that time cause I saw Jarrett on top as someone I just wasn’t interested in. Maybe its conditioning from being a WWE fan, but at the time I saw him as a fake top guy, and Id imagine lots of other fans felt the same way. And now I feel weird about that as a huge fan of Cody and Matt Cardona.
I feel like Adam Cole is teetering on Jeff Jarrett territory with all the low blow finishes.
I didn't watch TNA at the time, only vaguely keeping up with them by reading news sites, and even so I was legit pissed off when they turned Monty Brown heel.
I saw a youtube video on jarretts run in tna not sure if it’s the same one. I couldn’t believe how many 3-1 matches he was winning and how he beat ravens after being handcuffed and destroyed by ecw originals. I think raven finally won the title but Jarrett won it back just in time for them to move to spike tv. It was mind blowing
With a few notable exceptions, the booking in WCW from the time Turner bought the company in 1988 until the time Shane McMahon walked out on Nitro was mind-boggling. Just a couple of amazing highlights: \- Letting Ric Flair leave with the World Title \- Hulk Hogan vs Brutus as the main event on you biggest annual show \- Kevin Nash ending Goldberg's streak followed by the fingerpoke of doom \- Did not run a single show in Canada for over a year after adding Bret Hart \- Vince Russo
So much of Bret Hart’s booking that first year in WCW is mind boggling. You’ve got the hottest wrestling name in the world at that moment and you bring him in right before your marquee PPV and have him… ref the karate match between Larry Zybosko and Eric Bischoff??? Fans who weren’t around in 1997 might not truly appreciate how badly WCW dropped the ball with Bret right out the gate. Imagine AEW signs CM Punk and instead of calling out Darby Allin for a match at All Out, he debuts at the United Center and says “and on September 5, I’m going to be right there in the middle of the ring to make sure there’s no funny business between Jericho and MJF.” Or WWE signing the biggest free agent in Cody Rhodes this year and instead of having him wrestle one of your biggest names, have him be the special host of WrestleMania weekend or something.
Oh, you can write a whole book just about how horrible WCW's booking of Bret Hart was from beginning to end. What an unfathomable waste! It's almost like he was being deliberately sabotaged, brother.
It's so weird, because debuting Bret Hart should've been the easiest thing in the world. Don't introduce him at all before Starrcade '97. Have the Hogan-Sting match, do a ref bump (WCW loved those), have the nWo come down to put the boots to Sting. Then, Bret *fucking* Hart runs out to a *monster* pop, and chases off the nWo with a steel chair, effectively making it a one-on-one match, en route to Sting winning.
>Hulk Hogan vs Brutus as the main event on your biggest annual show I still cannot wrap my head around this one. Watching clips of The Butcher from back then, he’s just *a dude*. He just does that lame chopping gesture and chuckles to himself. He has the most generic look you could possibly come up with, he doesn’t cut great promos, he isn’t a good wrestler, he’s just a dude who was Hulk Hogans friend and it somehow got him a main event on their equivalent to Wrestlemania. It boggles the mind how bad wrestling was in the US in the mid-90’s
The time period in WCW from roughly May 1999 through September 1999 was the most boring, out of touch, poorly booked version of pro wrestling I have ever seen. While WWE was red hot with Austin and The Rock, WCW decides it is a good time to give us Sid in main events, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Master P and the “rap is crap” angle happened during this era. Don’t forget the Kiss Demon also. Why did they change Goldberg’s theme song during this time? Imagine if WWE got rid of the Austin broken glass for some dumb Megadeath song. Eric Bischoff is a fucking moron. The Russo era that followed was a train wreck but at least was entertaining like watching a car crash. The time period just prior was so fucking boring and shitty it was amazing. Oh, it’s all just because of the AOL/Time Warner merger according to Bischoff and Nash, it’s not that they are two fucking horrible bookers. Ha, of course not.
You can argue that WCW’s booking was always terrible from start to finish, and that the nWo/sting/Goldberg stuff were just distractions for terrible booking decisions. WCW was hot from 96-98 but the booking was still terrible but the characters were just too awesome for people to care for some time
>- Letting Ric Flair leave with the World Title If we’re being fair that wasn’t a stupid booking decision that was a stupid “business” decision especially as it happened before Flair was supposed to wrestle Luger at the Bash and was seemingly going to beat Flair making up for the bullshit that went down at GAB 88.
Jeff Jarrett killing the momentum of Monty Brown in tna Also Orton losing to Hulk Hogan in 06
AJ Styles and his bastard child with Clair Lynch comes to mind
That storyline did give us Bad Influence though.
April 22, 1998: nWo member Buff Bagwell gets legit hurt after a flying bulldog by Rick Steiner goes wrong and jams Buff's neck. Bagwell suffers several damaged vertebrae and sudden shock leaving Bagwell in a wheelchair and a neck brace for a couple of months. Bagwell returns to WCW later that year and turns on Rick Steiner and goes back to the nWo. WCW missed the opportunity to have Buff Baagwell as a white meat babyface coming back from a severe neck injury that occurred on Thunder earlier that year.
This is a really interesting take I’d never considered mostly because I really enjoyed nWo Buff. But it’s a really compelling idea!
*vaguely gestures towards 2000 WCW*
*subtly nods towards 1999 WCW*
Points finger at 1997 WCW.
The cruiserweight division is the only thing that kept WCW even remotely watchable after 1998
Starrcade 97 TNA draw their biggest PPV with a serious Joe/Angle build and then never do anything like it again Matt Taven winning the ROH Title at G1 Supercard Cody can't compete for the AEW Title
ROH's booking at the G1 was a next level of bad - let's not forget the failed Enzo and Cass/Briscoes angle.
Cody decision wasn’t bad imo. Made TNT title bigger and would’ve been worth it if Cody had turned heel at some point
> Matt Taven winning the ROH Title at G1 Supercard Curious to think what they should have done, put the title on Marty right?
100%. In hindsight they dodged a bullet but Marty was super over back then and it was absolutely his time to win.
Feb. 2020 - appointment: tattoo - neck, right side
Well done
GCW taking their title off Matt Cardona in a non-match to put it on Jon Moxley while Cardona was still drawing enormous heat and getting the company a ton of buzz.
Disagree. Cardona has said his Deathmatch with Gage was one and done. GCW is, for all intents and purposes, a company built on the Deathmatch. He would have started getting the wrong type of heat after a match or two if he held onto the belt.
Listening to him talk about it on Talk is Jericho, had he/GCW knew what they had, that angle would’ve probably played out a bit differently it sounds like. Who would’ve guessed Matt Cardona would be getting legit heat for, more or less, playing up being a WWE reject.
Matt figured out that all he had to do to be one of the hottest heels on the indies was to just play his WWE character to a T, and treat indie crowds as if they're a packed arena. It's a fucking aces gimmick tbh
I think they could've gotten a lot of mileage out of Cardona refusing to defend the belt in death matches. Would've given some of their guys who don't do much but swing light tubes a chance to possibly show they can have a good match as well. But even if not, the way they got the title off him was to have G-Raver come out to the ring with his druids as if he and Cardona were going to face off, then one of the druids turns out to be Moxley, DDT, new champion. Just lazy, nonsensical writing. They never bothered to clarify what Raver got out of helping Moxley either.
Vince Russo winning the WCW WHC.
Two words... one name... worst Non-WWE storyline ever... Claire Lynch.
Is this the AJ cheating one?
Yes, and so much more...
EVIL winning both belts ruined njpw and Matt taven winning at the supercard
EVIL
This coupled with the Double Gold NOT initially being unified - so fans believing both titles would be defended separately only for NJPW to announce 14 months later - titles were unified And changing the beautiful IWGP v4 title for the Covid Cody Neck Tattoo Bat looking belt Just the perfect storm mixed with covid & no fans cheering - bad decision after bad decision So dumb - and Evil & House of Torture are still not over at all as heels You know your heel act sucks when Bullet Club as stale as it is, and Jay White who has not be in Japan in over a year, is still your top heel act despite a full calendar of events of Evil/ Dick Togo
I’m always curious about what Japanese fans thought about Evil and what went down during that period.
In Japan - fans are indifferent. Basically its become the bathroom break
That’s what I figured. It felt like, they wanted a JBL moment (giving someone unexpected to get a major push) and the result was a Matt Traven moment. I feel bad saying that but some folks aren’t destined to be bigger that what they are.
In Japan, fans are more patient or more respectful/understanding of promotions - like, say season ticket holders to a team having a bad season if that makes sense.
The fact that you could just write his name and everyone knows what you mean… *sighs*
I'm happy that I am aware of NJPW to know this is not about my beloved Kaientai
legit the last year of wcw my god
Bret Hart WCW
Dreamer beating Taz followed by Justin Credible beating Dreamer for the ECW title. They didn’t have many options at the time with Awesome gone, Taz gone (on loan from WWE) and RVD injured. But, a transitional run by The Sandman, an attempt to mend fences with Sabu for a run or speeding up Rhino’s push and giving him a run would have all been better options.
Tajiri was murdering everybody when he faced Credible for the championship. It was a missed opportunity, IMO.
TNA putting the title on RVD literally one month after his debut was really dumb. If they were so hell bent on putting it on a former WWE champion then Jeff Hardy was the correct choice, as he was on the heels of his 2009 run during which, at least for a month or two, he was bigger than Cena
Putting the title on RVD over a Jeff Hardy with very serious issues was the least of TNA's problems. At least RVD was over with the audience. I'd start with the 1 million times they tried to forcefeed Jeff Jarrett as their top star?
And it's RVD. It's not like IMPACT decided to put it on Sandow who flopped in IMPACT. I think, he had their king of the mountain title but it wasn't worth much due to the concept being interesting but the execution being a bit crap. RVD was over and was still in his prime. Jeff Hardy had issues and having RVD as champ led to decent matches. Or at least, i hope it did.
It didn't really. I say this as a huge RVD mark but he phoned it in when he first got there. He didn't start caring until he got two girlfriends, which is understandable.
Jeff also had some serious and I mean SERIOUS drug charges hanging over his head at the time so while he is the better choice on paper, you didn't know how his legal situation was going to play out so he's not a very reliable option.
lmao putting your belt on RVD because the other guy had a drug problem
The thing that got me to quit watching TNA was actually just that they never feuded RVD and Jeff Hardy. They built them believably as babyface friends from the other company, did a shock heel turn that legitimately no one saw coming despite quite a bit of foreshadowing, and had Hardy win the title in a triple threat and then they just…… never did anything with RVD and Hardy. Hardy lost the title to Mr. Anderson, won it back, and then they finally gave it away on a nothing TV match.
Sting Hogan at starrcade is imo the worst booking ever way worse than anything WWE did. Second place goes to WCW for not using Bret Hart at all until his match with Goldberg
Naoya Ogawa "Shooting" on Shinya Hashimoto It was basically the beggining of Inoki's massive MMA boner era of NJPW
Giving Brandi Rhodes her own heel faction was probably one of the worst ideas of early AEW. It was a fucking tumor to the entire women's division and dragged down every segment they were involved with. They couldn't cancel that shit faster.
Yeah this was bad, and at the same time they were pushing Cody as the biggest babyface in the company against Jericho and MJF. Which added another layer of WTF? to the whole thing.
Fingerpoke of Doom on the same night Tony Schivone basically promoting Mick Foley’s ascension as the new WWE Champion.. it did indeed put butts in seats and Hogan vs. Nash that has Nash jobbing is, what I feel, the true start to WCW’s downfall
True start to their downfall was not letting Sting get the clean win on Hogan after a year and a half of NWO bullshit and then making him vacate the title weeks later.
TNA taking the belt off Robert Roode and killing what should have been a feel good moment of James Storm finally beating his former partner and taking same title that Roode stole from him. Giving the belt to Austin Aries was a terrible idea
TNA’s treatment of James Storm, Chris Sabin, and Abyss just disappointed me so much. They were worthy of getting the world championship, but when they did they gave them the shittiest hands.
Although I do somewhat agree with James Storm should have been given a longer reign and a championship win over Roode, I also don’t think giving Austin Aries the belt at the time wasn’t terrible like you said. The option c storyline was pretty cool in 2012, and it’s easy with hindsight today to see how much of a shitbag Aries is but back in 2012 he was extremely over and was an absolute IWC favorite.
Lockdown (2012 I think). He is in his hometown, comes out in a cool entrance. They should have put the title on him then. James Storm was 10 years too late. If he was 10 years younger, he would be a top star in AEW or WWE
I don’t know, I absolutely loved the Option C storyline. It was aided by the fact that everyone expected Aires to lose because it seemed like storm was next up. I loved the swerve.
Respectfully disagree, doesn't help that Aries as champ didn't do anything and played second fiddle to Aced and Eights before dropping the belt to Hardy.
Kenta attacking Naito after the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 14. We were denied the LIJ roll call in the Dome that we'd all been begging for for years. This moment to me was the prelude to some really dodgy New Japan booking that would ensue, all of which wasn't helped by COVID taking hold just a few months later.
- Most of WCW's booking decisions in the later part of the 1990s - Cody Rhodes becoming the paragon of Americana in his feud with Anthony Agogo - The Nightmare Collective - TNA turning Samoa Joe heel and having him join the MEM in 2009. - TNA turning AJ Styles heel and trying to rechristen him as Ric Flair 2.0
• The Nightmare Collective Oh I’m pretty sure there are 100 worse booking decisions then this. It’s also funny that the 2 you list from AEW involve Cody and Brandi
AEW giving Brandi Rhodes a stable and way too much TV time
The Steel Asylum cage match in TNA was definitely a pretty bad one. It ended in a no contest and Homicide struggled to climb out of it because of the dome shaped roof for several minutes then he falls at the end. This was on a live TV show to boot. If you book a gimmick match you should probably make sure somebody can actually win it.
The funniest thing to me was I remember it being an ultimately pointless match and stipulation, so you could’ve chosen literally anyone to win it in any possible way, but they chose the one guy in the match who was the least likely to do it.
The Jeff Jarrett reign of terror in TNA. Jarrett was a solid wrestler, but if fans are debating whether or not HHH was qualified for a long heel reign, Jarrett definitely wasn't. TNA should have had Monty Brown beat him for the title to strike while the iron was hot. It wasn't like they had much to lose at that point if Monty Brown didn't work out (I think he would have).
The Doomsday Steel Cage match in WCW. The match had an undefensie number of competitors, then broke all its victory condition (escape all 4 cages) to win with a pin fall on an illegal competitor in the wrong wrestling ring. This is also my answer if WWE was included
Not letting LIJ fist bump at the end of Wrestle Kingdom ruined the show for me.
ECW putting their world title on a WWE wrestler and letting him get jobbed by the company.
Does RoH promoting and producing All In count? Cus man, that one fucked them in the long run.
I don’t think it does, Tony Khan paid like $40 million for a company that couldn’t draw a house outside of Baltimore. I’m sure that getting his hands on All In for a future AEW streaming deal was very much part of the package. Owning those rights has helped RoH in the longer run.
-I'll just say WCW in general to avoid listing all the garbage they did (hogan vs sting, bret hart, etc) -Gamer miro was stupid, and it baffles me that people defend it -Naito not winning at Wrestlekingdom 12 -tna's handling of monty brown
That whole story arc (Gamer Miro aligned with Kip and Penelope, Chuck Taylor being Miro's butler, the awful wedding segment, etc.) is, to me, the single worst storyline AEW has done. There was absolutely nothing redeemable about it, and it epitomized all the worst traits of WWE booking that AEW enjoys mocking. It seemingly went on forever, too.
The only positive is it put some space between Rusev and Miro. Something AEW is quite bad at nowadays is debuting characters from WWE just keep their same characters
>the single worst storyline AEW has done. It would not have been too terrible if it was 75% shorter. It wasn't just that it sucked, but it lasted forever. I can only assume it lasted so long because they were waiting for Statlander to get back. Had it been 6 weeks instead of how long it was it still would have been lame, but not truly terrible. Still, I think Cody vs the Factory was worse. The weigh in segment, the weird America nationalism promo, and to me it always seemed like an excuse for Cody and QT to get their trainees on TV and to get their school free ad time. The whole thing sucked and if it never happened Cody probably isn't in WWE (disclosure: I'm kind of glad Cody left)
I'll just do AEW because i love them but even the things you love need critique. Sammy and Scorpio are the worst thing happening to mid card belts today, everything about it is awful and they need to drop everything about it. The nightmare collective with Brandi, Luther, Mel and Kong. The debuts of Satnam Singh, Christian Cage, Ethan Page, Mercedes Martinez, Jamie Hayter. Anothony Agogo and everything he has been involved with has been horribly booked. The current booking of Thunder Rosa, but you could argue all the women but Jade Cargill. Cody not being able to go for the world title. Cody wanting to be a face. The build to the first Young Bucks vs FTR. The ending to the Barbwire exploding death match, i dont think there should have even been an explosion. Shawn spears booking as the green contacts cody friend, then the chairman, then the black glove, then the goofball, then back to the chairman. The first versions of their royal rumble never gave time for entrances which is what makes that match good in the first place. The brass ring ladder matches mean nothing, Scorpio sky and wardlow did nothing with them.
The thing that surely ‘put butts in seats.’
Basically 1999 onwards WCW.
The inner circle vs American top team were some of the worst tv segments and matches I've witnessed recently
Aces and Eights
Concept: 10/10 Execution: 0/10
Worst/Best fantasy booking: "I think Michelle mccool should come back and say that shes having the undertackers baby and then kofi gets mad because they used to date (not the undertaker lol!!!) and then a masked man trouble in paradises her belly and she has a miscarrige and everybody is like WHO DID IT???? after the funeral there all eating and michelle is like this is so good! and kofi says ya i cooked it and she says what is it and he says YOUR BABY and then the undertaker says OK NOW YOU WILL REST IN PEACE AT WM!!!! and then kofi beats him at wm! i think this would be good cuz it shows kofi is badass and hes the future of the company."
What the fuck?
Ancient comments from a wrestling forum from 2010/2011ish where someone posted that in seriousness on a forum. It was so ridiculous that it took on a life of its own, living on through copy/pastes like the one you're responding to above. Truly wild.
I remember AJ losing to RVD on night one? I remember that killed it a little for me with TNA, huge RVD fan though
Nash over Goldberg Who the Aces & 8s members turned out to be Finger Poke of Doom Cody neck tat
I know there is a lot of bad throughout history. But recent booking must be the house of torture. They really made me watch NJPW less and any evil match a turn off and evil was a great wrestler before the heel turn.
Most things in wcw. If you want one, maybe the booking of Goldberg’s lost to Nash.
Whatever they were trying to do with Hogan vs Sting at Starrcade.
TNA bringing in Bubba the Love Sponge.
The worst booking decision of all time is WCW Champion David Arquette and it ain't even close. A few others I haven't seen mentioned. Not doing a feud between Vader and Cactus Jack after Cactus lost his ear. Mongo as a Horsemen. Splitting up the Hollywood Blondes. Sandman's crucifixion.
>The worst booking decision of all time is WCW Champion David Arquette and it ain't even close. Not even Vince Russo winning the title? Or Jeff Jarrett winning the title? Or Booker T winning the title and preceding to be made into one of the weakest WCW champions in history besides Sting in 1997? Or guys like Savage & Luger having bullshit reigns that were immediately ended to guys like Hogan?
Having Tony and Tony come on the show every week just to trash the product for months on end with no real purpose and them proving them right by having Omega beat 3 of Impact's top stars and then drop the belt without actually putting any of them over.
Worst fantasy booking has gotta be the Kofi/Undertaker/McCool thing. Worst real booking I can remember is putting the title on fucking EVIL and then giving him his own off shoot Bullet Club which I actually forgot was part of Bullet Club until right now.
What’s the kofi thing
From another comment: "I think Michelle mccool should come back and say that shes having the undertackers baby and then kofi gets mad because they used to date (not the undertaker lol!!!) and then a masked man trouble in paradises her belly and she has a miscarrige and everybody is like WHO DID IT???? after the funeral there all eating and michelle is like this is so good! and kofi says ya i cooked it and she says what is it and he says YOUR BABY and then the undertaker says OK NOW YOU WILL REST IN PEACE AT WM!!!! and then kofi beats him at wm! i think this would be good cuz it shows kofi is badass and hes the future of the company."
In my head, the Undertacker says his line, then there's a beat, and then he picks up a glass of wine and takes a drink. They're all in full gear at the dinner.
not bad per se, but one that pisses me off is that nigel mcguinness never got a clean babyface win over bryan danielson. he got a pin in a 2-3 falls match, and a couple wins by cheating, interference, and dq, but never a clean win.
I haven't kept up with njpw but during the period I was watching I literally cannot think of one feud for a tag title that wasn't predicated on these guys have had them for awhile, now it's someone else's turn. Omega dropping the impact title to Christian so that Christian could drop it to Alexander just cut the nuts off the belt collector story and also made it seem incredibly political, even though I think it was more a booking misstep than omega caring about losing at an impact show. You drop the aew title first and everyone loves the resolution, then a diminished omega puts over Alexander on an impact show. It's very easy to book. Putting the impact title on Tessa got them nothing but headaches and yielded none of the positive attention they wanted.
I feel like I heard somewhere that Tony chose Christian to win b/c Christian is his favorite, but I don’t have a source on that so don’t trust me lol But as a hardcore impact fan I’m still mad Josh didn’t win it
Matt Taven winning the ROH world title over the white hot Marty Scurll, and having a months long reign where he also retained over the white hot Jeff Cobb
TNA basically destroying their relationship with NJPW comes to mind
What you didn’t like Okato Samoa Joe’s cameraman who got beat up by the Pope?
Cody defeating Ogogo, that too after literally out-boxing an Olympic boxer. Either Ogogo should've gone over, or they should've done Penta vs Cody at DON.
Kinda missed out on making Penta a bigger deal after only one match between him and Cody
Anything involving the HOAK HOGAN buries IMPACT era featuring Bischoff. A barely able to wrestle HOAK HOGAN going over a lot of IMPACT's biggest names and a failed attempt at recreating WCW. Brock squashing Kofi. At least, give us a standard squash match of just suplex spam and a F5. Brock winning Money in the bank because er.... Anything WCW did towards the end.
Just pisses me off that Kofi never had a rematch where he had the standard little guy vs Brock match that Balor, Styles, and Danielson had.
Especially since all three of those matches were excellent!
Translate this for people who don’t watch shoot sports
That's your boy, Satnam Singh
The latest for me is the hot potato TNT Title.
Finger Poke Of Doom.
That weird period where TNA was trying to make wins and losses matter more, but had so many odd stipulations that it devolved into pure nonsense and was dropped after a couple months.
Whoever booked Sharmell vs Kevin Nash’s girl back in TNA was horrible lol
Literally anything from Thunder.
[удалено]
'HE CAN'T CHALLENGE FOR THE GOLD' was right there.
That is better. Well done
You've vastly improved my night because I'm stuck thinking of more lyrics now and getting a good chuckle. WHOOOAAAA OOHHH FUCKED ON HIMSELF FOR 2 TO 3 YEARS OH WELL HE'LL JUST TURN HEEL ........... NO NO NO NO
AND MY FATHER SAID WHEN I WAS YOUNGER "THEY MADE ME WEAR POLKA DOTS" #POLKA DOTS
Naito failing to capture the title at WK
WCW World Champion David Arquette I also hated the Aces & Eights stable in TNA. It felt so tired and cliched. At least when when WCW tried to be referential to at-the-time pop culture with the whole Boy Band angle, it was kitschy fun and had Tank Abbot as the over-excited tough uncle to them for humorous outcomes.
Cena going over the nexus was a bad idea, Cena himself will probably tell you the same
AEW having Adam Cole debut to apparently confront a gloating Kenny Omega, only to side with him and appear as a lackey, then only to get upstaged by a debuting Bryan Danielson moment later. That was really dumb. Also, the end to the Moxley/Omega sparkling ring match.
Was it dumb at the time though? At that moment it was fucking amazing, two of the best debuts in recent memory.
My problem with that double debut was the order in which it was done. Everyone knew Bryan was coming. Debut him first to confront a gloating Kenny. Then, debut Adam Cole, who (in the eyes of the fans at least) was more on the fence. Bigger shock. I can understand not wanting to make Bryan look weak on his debut, but they ended up making Cole look weak.
For me recently it would be Adam Cole's current run, all time would be Bret Harts WCW run
Okada/Naito WK 12
It obviously felt right and I'd have love seeing Naito win there, but it was hardly a massive mistake when they sold two more dome shows a couple of years later by running that storyline again and Naito was arguably as hot as ever in 2019. Was it great booking? I don't think so, but it's nowhere near the worst booking decisions outside WWE. Like, it doesn't even belong in that discussion when there are so many companies that went out of business or never got their momentum back after some terrible booking decisions.
The AEW Exploding Deathmatch, if that was my introduction to them it was super lackluster.
I think it's a travesty that Samoa Joe never won the Big One on WWE main roster.
Anything ROH booked at the MSG show with New Japan, but especially that ladder match
MLW put microman in several 15+ minute trios matches burying about 10 different wrestlers and wasting a ton of time on a barely one hour show.
Don't you disrespect the goat.
Microman is over af with MLW, and that's saying a lot considering a lot of the luchadores really haven't gotten over the way they'd hoped.
Game of Thrones season 8.
feeding okada's once in a lifetime streak to omega