Worst Decisions?

[CanadianChick 0]

Smackdown got Booker T, Spike Dudley, Rene Dupree and RVD... yeah, not much of a difference while RAW Got... no one that good either. Shelton Benjamin and that's it.

They got Edge. That's pretty big, name wise.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

The big thing was losing Brock. The draft lottery was supposed to fix that situation, but it didn't. Smackdown had to get a star, and they didn't. HHH would have been a big edge on Smackdown, and probably would have improved RAW by subtraction.

[Scroby 0]

QUOTE (Scroby @ Jan 8 2005, 12:40 AM)

I think I saw the one of the worse things today while I was at FYE and thats the diva search on DVD for 20 bucks. Anyways the Invasion and the nWo. The draft also stands out in my mind, so many possibly's and they end up fucking Smackdown worse after Brock had left and the whole reason for the draft was to help Smackdown since Brock left. 

 

Bringing in Hogan was a good idea, it was just executed wrongly. He did get interest for the show for a short time. Had they kept him as a special attraction, it could have turned out well. Even as it was, they got some value from him, aside from the idiotic World Title run.

 

It was bringing in Hall & Nash that was monumentally stupid. They had no value left at that point in time with the Invasion dead and personal problems had made them unreliable. Hogan should have come in alone.

 

 

Actually I didn't mind Hogan not being involved in the Invasion unless himself, Hall and Nash were the nWo and not apart of WCW. But one of the issues I had with the Invasion was not bringing in Bischoff. If Bischoff came out at the very end of the Nitro instead of Shane and claimed that he bought WCW under Vince's nose and was bringing the war onto Vince's doorsteps, then the whole angle could have been hopefully done better.

 

My problem with the nWo angle was the fact Vince himself was bringing them in. It made for a nice surprise and all with the rotating of the chair and talking into the mirror but the fact that the owner of the company was bringing the nWo in to take out the WWE, just wasn't what the nWo was in WCW. The nWo was basically its own group that brainwashed people into joining the group, thats what happen with Bischoff if I remember correctly its been so long its fuzzy. Then the fact they were basically Vince's lacky and the same thing happen to them that happen to the WCW/ECW guys, they got their asses kicked by the WWE. Then the angle was really fucked up when Ric Flair took control of the group and threw Booker T into the group for the hell of it. Why of all people would Flair take control of the nWo, the main people he feuded with in the late 90's only were the nWo and Bischoff and thats it, why in all hell would Flair be apart of the group killed my brain honestly.

[SuperJerk 0]

Remember Hogan vs. Jericho bombing? Lots of people say "Boo! Hogans fault~!"

 

Let's not forget Jericho was completely made the bitch of Triple H, and was playing 2nd string to Stephanie and tied with LUCY THE FUCKING DOG. People seem to ignore how horrible Jericho was booked from January-April of 2002, then point out its Hogans fault.

Jericho/Hogan was a title feud?

It was just before the Jericho/HHH Hell in a Cell match, I believe.

[Chazz 0]

Not having Vince Russo, Ed Ferrera, and Chris Kreski under Contract, and even worse having Stephanie McMahon and her merry band of kiss ass failed sitcom writers replace them.

[Scroby 0]

Not having Vince Russo, Ed Ferrera, and Chris Kreski under Contract, and even worse having Stephanie McMahon and her merry band of kiss ass failed sitcom writers replace them.

 

I'm guessing you didn't see what Russo and Ferrera did to WCW did you? If either one of them came back and were given Stephanie's position, WWE would be dead by now.

[Taker666 0]

As for the Draft lottery, I actually think Raw got it worse than SmackDown!. SD! got Booker T, RVD, and the Dudley Boyz. those are pretty big names right there, you could also add Dupree in there. while Raw's only big name was Edge. also during this period the WWE turn JBL into a Main-Eventer he is now. So I think the WWE were trying to improve SD! a little there. SD! did gain something from the lottery with their new stars. Not much but some. While Raw just got Edge. Nidia, Rhyno and Chuck didn't do nonthing for Raw.

[Guest The Shadow Behind You]

Benjamin was a pretty big name, or turned out to be.

 

Smackdown got a a couple ho-hum mid-carders and stale tag team.

[Taker666 0]

Booker and RVD have more star power than Benjamin though.

 

SD!, to you, may have gotten Ho Hum Mid-carders. but besides Edge and Benjamin, All Raw got were just heat jobbers. SD! has gotten wrestlers whom all participated in actual storylines and feuds in 2004. As well as TRL whos actually doing a good job as GM. as for the dudleys, They were stale on Raw, but when they went to SD! and turned heel, I"ve enjoyed them alot more sence than.

[Chazz 0]

Not having Vince Russo, Ed Ferrera, and Chris Kreski under Contract, and even worse having Stephanie McMahon and her merry band of kiss ass failed sitcom writers replace them.

 

I'm guessing you didn't see what Russo and Ferrera did to WCW did you? If either one of them came back and were given Stephanie's position, WWE would be dead by now.

I would still take what Russo did In WCW compared to what Steph has done In The WWE the last 4 years. Besides, all Russo did while Head Of Creative for WWF/E was help The Co. soar to record buyrates,ratings, live attendence figures, and overall Interest. What positive things has Stephanie accomplished since she was handed that position?

[zyn081 0]

The Invasion. The Invasion. The Invasion.

 

 

It was FOOL-PROOF and IMPOSSIBLE to fuck up...but like we learned so many other times..... EVERYTHING was possible in the WWE, including the complete DISASTER that was WWF vs. "The Alliance".

 

He should have waited until 2002 to run it, he should have done little vignettes here and there with "owner" Shane McMahon speaking very closely and very guarded about his plans for the new year, maybe sabotaging WM18 or breaking apart the Royal Rumble.

 

Could WWE have gotten some of the bigger names ready for January of 02, the Rumble could have ended in a way nobody ever would have seen, with WCW attacking the ring as the last two men survived, beating them apart and then as the WWE came to rescue section by section they too would be decimated, leaving a broken WWE underneath WCW's foot.

 

This could have EASILY led into the former ECW employees under WWF contract to feel let down, pissed off, and etc, and then they (along with Heyman) could have secretly brought in Dreamer, RVD, and others to form the third section, forming a gigantic angle of WWF vs. WCW vs. ECW

 

WWF and WCW would have the numbers, while ECW would have had the geurilla fighting tactics and extreme ways of war-waging in the ring, out of the ring, and everywhere else.

 

It could have been a story STILL RUNNING TODAY, but it was destroyed in less than a year.

I can see why you were mentioned to be RRRs booking assistant.

 

XFL was a business decision. Losing the name.

 

Owen Hart is up there.

 

HHH being declared Emperor. Not going to SD!

 

The invasion.

 

Making Jericho HHHs bitch. Steph as head writer.

 

Montreal. Not making Benoit champion after he joined the company :S

 

 

 

Most of all though, I would say its forcing wrestlers to wrestle WWE Style.

[CanadianChick 0]

Booker and RVD have more star power than Benjamin though.

Well, maybe if they were used to be stars, I might agree with you. But Booker and RVD are just expendable midcarders in WWE's eyes. If they weren't, they would have been real main eventers. I guess Booker's role is the best he's going to get, but Rob could have been used as more than a tag team. Hell, same for his tag partner, but that's a different story.

 

In general, Shelton has made more of an impact than RVD and Booker T. Now he just needs a character. Edge and Benjamin > RVD and Booker.

[Kizzo 0]

I'm guessing you didn't see what Russo and Ferrera did to WCW did you? If either one of them came back and were given Stephanie's position, WWE would be dead by now.

 

You have to be kidding me....

 

Can you name one postive out of the Stepanie McMahon era since October of 2000.....???

 

Russo/Ferrera did a good job when they first came to wCw...of course not having a guy like McMahon behind them...hurt just a little bit...and of course you had the Standards and Practices that put you through hell as well.....even Bischoff hated the S&P..

[Guest LooneyTune]

Russo lost millions of dollars in a span of 8 months. WWE still makes a profit every year. Do the match at how succesful the company still is, even if you don't like whoever the head of creative is.

[Angle-plex 0]

Recent mistakes include putting the belt on Bradshaw, a guy with a decent MIDCARD character, during a time when the Smackdown brand needs a top draw to carry the show.

 

Kane feuding with Shane McMahon and losing to everyone since losing his mask. The guy could have been a monster had he been booked properly, and now's he's back to where he was in '99.

 

Orton's face turn.

 

Undertaker's "return of the Deadman".

[Kizzo 0]

Russo lost millions of dollars in a span of 8 months. WWE still makes a profit every year. Do the match at how succesful the company still is, even if you don't like whoever the head of creative is.

The ship was already sinking when he got there(60 million plus anyone).....and he was the creative director not the damn CEO or CFO of the company....

 

I'm not denying that the WWE is not making money....because they are...mostly due to cuts and among other things.....and they have expanded to more international shows....which almost always seem to sell out...plus DVD sales are doing very good....

 

Where WWE is suffering the most is in T.V. ratings and buyrates....

[The C Man 0]

Russo, IMO anyway, is a good writer but I agree with the common conception that he needs someone to filter out all his crap.

[The Amazing Rando 0]

I maintain that the Invasion angle was impossible to book...it was NOT a surefire idea. WCW was well past the point of being relevant. With the roster they had then how could they (even in kayfabe terms) challenge the WWF stars head on? And let's just say if they started jobbing out Austin to Bagwell the fanbase would NOT be happy.

A rational booker wouldn't have made the game "head on", they would have kept with the secret attacks...random attacks... etc etc etc. Don't let anyone know their true numbers, never show any more than two or three guys at a time, and keep a few regulars in there so that the new faces come few and far between. Write the WWE guys as confident but weary of being anywhere near the arena. Hell, they could have written a few guys as wanting to leave right when their match was over, only to get beaten in the parking lot. It could have turned the actual arena into a "safe haven" of sorts, at least for about two hours of a show, and then finish a broadcast out with wrestlers laid out, and nothing to show for it but the WCW logo on the wall behind them or something.

 

Throw in ECW as a third party doing the SAME THING, keep the WWE mainstays guessing as "could one of our guys be a traitor?" and always always always keep the fans guessing as to what could happen next.

 

They could have ran shit like that for a good 6 months, even keeping the secretive ECW stuff going long after the true nature of WCW was revealed full force, coming out of the shadows to take on WWE once and for all to end it. Only neither group is/was prepared for ECW, and so they would have that to contend with as well.

 

Don't let superstars switch brands, except for maybe one or two midcard heels who see the writing on the wall and jump to WCW. Bring in paranoia, bring in secrecy, bring in the aura that the war should have...

 

it would have been wonderful.

 

 

It could have gone so far as to run Raw and Thunder or Nitro and Smackdown or whatever, and constantly have them battling, keeping the ECW name in the background as a constant threat, finally bringing them out in full numbers as a "floating" stable, with guys on each side working with each other and with their partners on the other show, trying to bring both down from the inside. Heyman leading one side, Dreamer or Tazz leading the other.

 

In this scenario, I would have left the nWo out of it completely, but guys like Flair, Goldberg, and others would have been welcome with open arms as soon as contracts were free to help push the envelope.

 

 

In a creative sense, all that WWE style crap would have gone out the window, at least for the cruisers and the ECW-ites. It could be running until this very day, still no winner, not sure when it will ever end. Have Bischoff on one side, Vince on the other.... fuck "Monday Night Wars", make it 24/7.

 

It would have been a blast, and nobody can deny that.

[Guest AdamF]

Just about everything to do with the current decline can be traced back to the stupid decision to turn Steve Austin heel back at WrestleMania whateritwas in Houston, TX.

 

When it obviously didn't work, they still pushed it (too bad they don't stick to the plan for anything else). As a result, there were a slew of terrible, perhaps rash, decisions which dominoed horribly, including the handling of the InVasion which came not long after, the squashing of potential main eventers, and everything else already mentioned in this thread.

 

Sure there's other stuff, but IMO this one huge mistake which proved to be the beginning of a lot of other problems.

[Masked Man of Mystery 0]

The problem with the draft was that RAW was loaded with big names, and Smackdown had...Kurt Angle. Eddie and all them were on the rise, but Angle was their only established superstar. As much as I like Booker T's wrestling and I love his intro, I would MUCH rather have HHH competing for the WWE title than having Booker and the Dudley Boyz(that was the trade, right?)

[Guest LooneyTune]

I botched my previous post and meant to say "math", not "match". Boy am I on a role everywhere this week.

 

I think the argument about the Invasion fuck up has been proven enough by now. One of the EASIEST STORYLINES POSSIBLE, and the McMahons somehow (intentionally) made it the absolute worst possible scenario.

[Masked Man of Mystery 0]

And as for those who said Raw got Heat level talent, all of those people were playing major parts inn angles or just coming off them. Rhyno and Train had been constant thorns in Benoit's side and coulda made a good tag team to add to the pot we have now. Tajiri was doing his Yakuza gimmiick(I think), and of course, Shelton is mucho talented. It's just that they got stuck in the shuffle. Oh, and I forgot Chuck....eh, he was decent in the FBI(or was he fired, I don't remember)

[Taker666 0]

but Angle was their only established superstar.

Undertaker, Big Show, JBL?

 

Anyways, I think both brands have the same number of Main-Eventers, its just that Raw's ME have some slighty bigger names while some of SD!'s ME started out 2-3 years ago. I guess it just depends on taste. for me, I perfer the SD! roster more.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

JBL wasn't a star until afterwards. Big Show & Angle were injured, and Taker was a part-timer pretty much.

[iliketurtles 0]

.

[Some Guy 0]

Undertaker's "return of the Deadman".

I agree, they killed the "deadman" gimmick in 1999 when Taker started with all the wierd human sacrifice shit and had that "He's only an actor playing an evil dead guy" deal around WM 15. Plus the never-ending feud with Austin and Kane sucked.

 

One thing about the Invasion nobody has mentioned is DDP as the stalker and Taker beatign the ever livign shit out him every time he got near him. I don't think Page got a single punch in that Taker sold in any meaningful way. The whole thing made no sense. The stalker thing was totally out of character for DDP and the promo he cut about always wantign to be in "the show" (WWF) was sort of strange if he was supposed to be representing WCW. And as a result of this WCW wasn't seen a cohesive unit. Granted Page is nothing special in terms of drawing power or ring work but he was a three time WCW champ and had name regonition. They could easily have portrayed him as a equal to the WWF's top guys.

 

Another thing that coincides with the WCW purchase that was a horrible decision (which both Austin and Ross admit in Austin's book) was the heel turn at WM 17. If you're WWF and you know that Rock is leaving to make a movie and have no other credible ME faces, and you know that you just bought WCW and were planning an invasion angle where WCW would be the defacto heels why would you turn you're top face heel? And then leading up to the Invasion PPV make the return of "the old Stone Cold" the focal point rather than the threat ofr WCW, what that threat was exaclty was sort of unclear because there was no "if WCW wins they get Raw" stipulation or anything. And then after having him turn face and destroy every WCW guy all by himself basically burying them, have him turn heel again and join WCW because Vince hurt his feelings when he hugged Kurt Angle. That was the reason given, Austin didn't join WCW because he thought they were better or the future of wrestlign he did it because Vince hugged Kurt. Austin then went on to bury the Alliance guys (Tazz being most notable "Unless Booker T got real fat and real short, you ain't Booker T" and then he whipped the shit out of Tazz). The whole focal point went from WCW vs WWF to Austin vs Vince again.

 

Then you have Booker T job clean to Rock and then have Rock beat both Booker and Shane cleanly in a handicap match at the next PPV, but they never put Booker on any level that would indicate that he should have a chance in hell. Portraying him as a Rock wannabe was just stupid.

 

One really sits back and wonders how anybody could think that this shit was going to draw money. The whole thing makes no sense.

[iliketurtles 0]

They didn't get Hogan. They didn't get Flair. They didn't get Bret. They didn't get Goldberg. They didn't get Steiner. They didn't get Nash. They didn't get Hall. They didn't get Sting. They didn't get Savage. They didn't get Jarrett. They didn't get Luger. They didn't get Hennig. They didn't get Piper. They didn't get Funk. They didn't get Steamboat. They didn't get Sid. They didn't get Bischoff. And on and on and on...

 

Whether it was obvious reasons or financial reasons, they couldn't get WCW. As Bischoff said when he debuted in the WWE, "they got the waterdown version of it."

 

Could the WWF have saved face? Hell yeah. They could of made Page and Booker two huge stars, but instead they just figured that WCW was useless and to kill it off. They tried to save themselves by having WCW/ECW remerge and Austin/Angle join the Alliance, but everyone knew it wasn't the same.

 

The WWF gave up before the angle even started. The reason the InVasion angle didn't work is cause the WWF didn't care enough.