Worst Year Ever for Pro Wrestling

[TMC1982 0]

What would everyone say was the worst year for prestling and why? Out of the big promotions which year was just thumbs down all year and for what reasons? Which year has sucked most overall throughout history?

[Diamonddust 0]

What would everyone say was the worst year for prestling and why? Out of the big promotions which year was just thumbs down all year and for what reasons? Which year has sucked most overall throughout history?

 

1995 comes to mind as does 1993. There have been other bad years, but those stick out.

[Chazz 0]

2001;

 

-WCW and ECW fold.

 

 

-Vince buys WCW, proceeds to bury the majority of the talent he acquired in the purchase, blows a sure fire "Invasion" angle.

 

 

-Stephanie McMahon's first full year as Head Of Creative.

 

 

-The WWF's programming becomes stale; Without anymore competition, the company comes acoss as if they no longer care what their fans want.

[Just John 0]

2001 still had enough good ppvs and matches that I wouldn't call it the worst. Wrestlemania and Summer Slam were both top-notch that year. Although, the US indy scene was still in the dark ages and Japan wasn't having a very strong year either, so I would say it was a down year overall, just not the worst.

 

1993 and 95 were horrible years for American wrestling, but Japan was awesome then, so I couldn't say those were the worst either.

 

I think the worst since I've been watching would be 2002. Japan still wasn't that great, most of the early ROH stuff hasn't aged well, and the bad in WWE was far out-weighing the good.

[Papacita 0]

Is it just me, or is this thread starter a bit negative?

 

Anyway, I never got the 93 hate (for WWF at least, the early Raw era was great), and between the ECW and the start of the Monday Night Wars, I just enjoy the hell out of fall/winter 95. On the other hand, 2002--although Smackdown picked up tremendously late in the year--just had some unforgiveable crap as far as WWE goes. They produced some great matches and even a few classic moments with their "throw-stuff-at-the-wall" booking, but I don't see how that makes up for Lucy the Dog, Katie Vick, feuds over shampoo and t-shirts, and the botched brand split. I don't see how 02 isn't the first year mentioned on these lists.

[Perfxion 0]

2007, besides the product boring me to tears for most of the year. My favorite wrestler kills his family then himself.

[SamoaRowe 0]

2002-2005 was pretty rough to get through.

[cabbageboy 0]

It depends on what you had exposure to on TV. To me 1995 was the most bored I've ever been with wrestling, especially since I didn't get ECW yet. Didn't really know much about Japan stuff either. So it was mostly watching WWF and WCW, and for the most part both promotions were utterly horrible and boring for that entire year.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

1995 was fucking brutal if your only options were WWF and WCW. That first year or so of the WCW Hulkamania era was a real chore to deal with. And don't even get me started on the Diesel renaissance that swept nobody off their feet.

 

At least we got Nitro in the last quarter of the year and the rise of ECW, which really helped to up the ante.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

2007. The Chris Benoit incident. Numerous drug busts. Many top stars (Cena, HHH, Taker, Edge and probably more) missed significant time with injury. It just killed my interest in the product and I still haven't gotten back into it the same way I did before. There were worst years in terms of the in-ring product, but backstage it was just disasterous.

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

1995 was pretty brutal. Ironically enough, that's when I first became a wrestling fan and as an eight year old mark I didn't know any better that what I was watching was so bad. I purchased a 1995 season of Monday Night Raw last year and have been watching it recently and wow, that stuff definitely does not hold up well to me today. I mean for much of that year you had Bret Hart relegated to a feud with Jerry Lawler and you have Jeff Jarrett's IC title run of death from January-July where you just see DQ's every week. Not to mention that they take the star oriented KOTR fields, which included HBK, Undertaker, and Yokozuna and preceded to eliminate all of them in the first round. Of course, Razor Ramon was going to be in that field too and then he got injured.

 

They also really make Bam Bam Bigelow look like a chump that year. No wonder he never recovered from his loss to LT when they had him make a face turn and basically say "Diesel is my friend" every week. There's a great part when HBK returns to beat King Kong Bundy on RAW after he was put out of action by Sid and Bigelow is clearly the odd man out as the former tag champs celebrate between themselves.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah...it's too bad Vince had to mishandle Bigelow so much during both of his runs. He deserved better for as much talent as he had.

[King Kamala 0]

In-ring product...It has to be 1995. Has to be. The first eight months or so of the year were just downright brutal for WWF and WCW. I was obsessed with wrestling for virtually my entire childhood and adolescence (and to a lesser extent, now as an adult) and even I tuned out around the time of King of The Ring that year.

 

Overall...probably 2007. There's no way that the Benoit murder-suicide isn't the darkest event in wrestling history. The wrestling wasn't terrible but everything that happened out of the ring pretty much was.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah, when I mentioned 1995 I meant in terms of how ponderous I found it at the time. 2007 was of course worse due to the Benoit aspect, but the overall shows in 2007 were nowhere near as dreary and awful as 1995.

 

I'll put it this way. I went to a house show at Louisville Gardens in Nov. 1994 headlined by UT vs. Yokozuna in a casket match. The building was sold out for a house show. The next show I went to was a Raw taping in July 1995 and the building wasn't sold out at all.

[Youth N Asia 0]

Probably wasn't the worst year ever, but in 2004 I just got tired of pro wrestling and just stopped entirely.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

The difference between 1995 & 2007 to me is that at least in 1995 you could make fun of how bad the product was, kind of like how watching Batman & Robin or Street Fighter: The Movie can be enjoyable for the wrong reasons in the right circumstances. But in 2007 it was just so downright depressing because of what was happening. It was bigger than the product and it made it very difficult to watch and enjoy it.

[bob_barron 0]

Probably wasn't the worst year ever, but in 2004 I just got tired of pro wrestling and just stopped entirely.

 

RAW was really good in 2004, Smackdown!...not so much.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

1988 -

JCP goes out of business,

 

AWA was near bankruptcy and had horrid TV,

 

WWF put on a snooze worthy Wrestlemania - and Hulkamania started to wain a bit

 

Steroids and drugs catch up with alot of the 1st generation of the boom stars (Muraco, Billington, JYD etc)

 

Roddy Piper spends a year of his prime running around Hollywood

 

Andre forces his battered body back into the ring, despite missing most of 1987 with a crippling back injury

 

Dusty Rhodes fails to win a political battle with Flair and Luger misses out being the next big thing.

 

etc

 

 

 

 

[Diamonddust 0]

1988 -

JCP goes out of business,

 

AWA was near bankruptcy and had horrid TV,

 

WWF put on a snooze worthy Wrestlemania - and Hulkamania started to wain a bit

 

Steroids and drugs catch up with alot of the 1st generation of the boom stars (Muraco, Billington, JYD etc)

 

Roddy Piper spends a year of his prime running around Hollywood

 

Andre forces his battered body back into the ring, despite missing most of 1987 with a crippling back injury

 

Dusty Rhodes fails to win a political battle with Flair and Luger misses out being the next big thing.

 

etc

 

I disagree:

 

-JCP going out of business did allow Turner to come in and purchase the property, thus saving it from falling into nothing.

-AWA was a non-factor by 1988

-Wrestlemania IV might have been a snooze fest, but it was countered by the first Clash of Champions and the Sting/Flair main event that turned Sting into a mega-star

-Can't disagree with you on that one, although the names you listed were all on the decline

-Come on... Piper is a film legend.

-Won't disagree here

-Shouldn't we be happy Luger wasn't the next big thing?

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

I disagree:

 

-JCP going out of business did allow Turner to come in and purchase the property, thus saving it from falling into nothing.

-AWA was a non-factor by 1988

-Wrestlemania IV might have been a snooze fest, but it was countered by the first Clash of Champions and the Sting/Flair main event that turned Sting into a mega-star

-Can't disagree with you on that one, although the names you listed were all on the decline

-Come on... Piper is a film legend.

-Won't disagree here

-Shouldn't we be happy Luger wasn't the next big thing?

 

JCP at least was more old school, gritty, under Turner we got no blood and cartoon gimmicks to copy VInce

AWA didn't have to be a non factor, potential was there as late as 2 years earlier to put on great shows with non Vince guys

They never got Sting to the truly next level, as politics and whatnot held him back

Luger was over and had he had a run with the belt he may not have gotten complacent and lost his overness by 91

[Diamonddust 0]

I disagree:

 

-JCP going out of business did allow Turner to come in and purchase the property, thus saving it from falling into nothing.

-AWA was a non-factor by 1988

-Wrestlemania IV might have been a snooze fest, but it was countered by the first Clash of Champions and the Sting/Flair main event that turned Sting into a mega-star

-Can't disagree with you on that one, although the names you listed were all on the decline

-Come on... Piper is a film legend.

-Won't disagree here

-Shouldn't we be happy Luger wasn't the next big thing?

 

JCP at least was more old school, gritty, under Turner we got no blood and cartoon gimmicks to copy VInce

AWA didn't have to be a non factor, potential was there as late as 2 years earlier to put on great shows with non Vince guys

They never got Sting to the truly next level, as politics and whatnot held him back

Luger was over and had he had a run with the belt he may not have gotten complacent and lost his overness by 91

 

Sting's injury at the start of 1990 is what held him back the most. I still say it's one of the most devastating things to have happened to NWA/WCW as they were forced to go into a holding pattern with Luger as the challenger (That no one bought as a serious threat) because everyone knew Sting was getting the belt when he returned.

 

Had Sting beat Flair to start off 1990, you could have had a far different situation. Luger wouldn't have had a rushed face turn so once the business with Flair ended, Sting had a viable challenger in a heel Lex Luger waiting for him.

[Hadley 0]

JCP at least was more old school, gritty, under Turner we got no blood and cartoon gimmicks to copy VInce

 

That didnt happen really until 1991. Yeah, you had stuff like the ding dongs, but you also had stuff like flair/steamboat, muta/sting, terry funk, the steiners, the skyscrapers, pillman, sting/flair, etc.

[cabbageboy 0]

1988 was the first full year I actually watched wrestling so by no means is it the worst. The AWA was actually pretty fun if you were watching from a Memphis point of view, which in my area was the case. Got the full effect of Lawler's title win and so forth.

 

Besides in 1988 we had the first ever Royal Rumble, the first SummerSlam, first Clash of the Champions, and so on. The Main Event in Feb. 1988 drew the biggest TV ratings of any wrestling show ever.

 

Kahran, you do have a bit of a point. Some of that WCW stuff with the Dungeon of Doom was comically bad in 1995. It's hard to compare it to 2007 though, since 1995 was more the feeling that the industry was just in horrible shape and needed to do something to improve business. 2007 was more about one twisted individual losing it and souring fans on the product.

[DarKnight 0]

I didn't watch wrestling back in 1995, but the stuff I've seen from it over the years wasn't very good, but yeah, its like what Kahran said, some of that stuff was so bad it was funny. As for the worst full year that I actually saw all of, 2007 is a pretty good pick. There is a HUGE laundry list I could make of what was bad that year like:

 

-The McMahon nonsense that year like the Trump WM angle, the limo stuff, and bastard son Hornswoggle

-Benoit

-WM being a forgotten show within the next month due to many people getting injured or there was unspectacular storylines

-The Smackdown title curse-it seemed like whoever had the title just got injured right after it

-This is my personal opinion, but Orton winning the title again. I really hoped that WWE would never, ever, put it back on him

 

And the list goes on and on, and there's no telling what TNA did that year, since I can't remember it off the top of my head.

[Steviekick 0]

I would say 2007, but for the sheer awfulness of the WWE's booking and backstage stuff, I wound up getting into Chikara because it was everything that mainstream wrestling isn't.

[SamoaRowe 0]

To me it would have to be 2002 because it was the only time I almost stopped watching wrestling all together. Any crappy year prior to that was lost on me mainly because I was too young/uneducated to realize how shitty things actually were.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I think for me it's a three way tie between 1995, 2002, and 2007. All were just horribly boring or terrible in their own ways.

[Star Ocean 3 0]

2009

[Dobbs 3K 0]

2009

 

Wrong.

[SickPuppy 0]

2007 for me, just an all around depressing and tragic year, Mike Awesome, Bam Bam, Benoit list goes on.

 

Although I'd add 1995 too, it was just comically bad, although I did like the Goldust character seeing as it was cutting edge (lol) at the time.