Good storylines in WWE 2010-2020

[LaGoosh]

To me, the past 10 years of WWE has been probably the worst period for storylines. Almost everything has been dull, illogical or convoluted. Most that has been good has inevitably ended utter shite.

However there's a few highlights I can think of:

Rhodes Family vs The Shield

Rusev's initial run leading up to John Cena and a tank.

Heath Slater getting his job back.

Rhonda's debut against The Authority and her babyface title victory and run.

The Shield vs The Wyatt Family

Jericho and Owens

Anything else? Not just a few good angles but a story that was good from beginning all the way through to the end?

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by LaGoosh

[Grecian]

If NXT counts, Velveteen Dream vs Aleister Black. 

Daniel Bryan at Mania 30 is the obvious one. 

Taker vs Triple H at Mania 27 & 28.

KofiMania, in particular the gauntlet match Big E and Woods had to win. 

[Liam O'Rourke]

Edit - ignore.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Liam O'Rourke

[Supremo]

Endings are definitely WWE’s biggest weakness. They’re amazing at doing opening angles, I can think of hundreds of examples of that, but storylines that had a good beginning, middle and end is much tougher.

Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar. The perfect WWE storyline. Great moments, simple twists and turns, ultimately reaching a natural, logical conclusion. Still two of the best matches of the decade, too.

Taker vs. Shawn Running Up That Hill was 2010, wasn’t it?

Jericho and Owens is a good shout. No-one really mentions it but I thought Jericho vs. Punk was great, too. It’s no wonder Jericho has gone on to prove he’s got one of the best minds in the business.

Not to derail the thread too much, but the mention of the awesome Ronda vs. The Aurority reminded me of something I was thinking about last week, when everyone was complaining about Tyson and Jericho.

As a stand-alone segment, sure, it was campy and shit. But I think a lot of wrestling succeeds despite how badly it’s performed provided it can make for a good montage video. Same thing goes for Ronda’s first few months in the business. Those angles she did with Hunter, Steph and Kurt were really awkward and rough, but no-one remembers that now. Stick them in a good montage with music over it and all is forgiven by the time match comes along. Especially if said match features Triple H selling his arse off for Ronda.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Supremo

[HarmonicGenerator]

Beginning to end is tough. I can think of lots of good beginnings, like Gargano vs Ciampa, and lots of good endings, like Kofimania, but beginning to end is more difficult.

Undertaker and Triple H for WrestleMania XXVII was right up my alley but I can see the arguments for it not being as good as I thought it was.

Heel Batista in 2010 might just get in there.

The Rhodes boys vs the Shield was almost all good, I think Stephanie inserted herself into that story quite a bit though.

Becky’s rise to the top was so close until the final stretch when it was all pretend leg injuries and Insert Flair Heres. Similarly, Zayn vs Owens in NXT was really really close to being all great, but they moved Kevin up to Raw before everything had been fully wrapped up and I don’t think it got the ending it should have.

Black and Dream is a good shout. Maybe Andrade going from a party boy not putting the effort in, to Zelina finding him, giving him focus and taking him to the top of NXT?

The Cruiserweight Classic, if you take it as a self-contained thing, had some good stories that felt fully told within it - Cedric and Kendrick being two of them. Just ignore 205 Live (as most of us did).

edit: Goldberg and Lesnar is a good shout.

Edited June 5, 2020 by HarmonicGenerator

[The Maestro]

The Mizdow storyline was good fun despite the piss poor pay off for it. I'm a sucker for a good midcard storyline and this one was of the better ones of the last decade.

[Supremo]

I know a lot of people burned their DVDs or whatever when The Rock beat CM Punk for the Title at Royal Rumble, but I think Rock vs. Cena is a good example. A mostly simple, natural storyline that provided a couple of huge matches and some great interviews and angles.

In fact, by that same token - CM Punk’s heel run as champion is another one. That was excellent stuff with Heyman, helped introduce The Shield, and The Rock beating him fairly, overcoming all the shenanigans, was great. The guy Punk originally turned heel on comes back and finally takes the Title from him. It doesn’t get more logical or satisfying than that.

“You don’t take it from him! I am!”

Brilliant.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Supremo

[Carbomb]

30 minutes ago, Supremo said:

Taker vs. Shawn Running Up That Hill was 2010, wasn’t it?

Yes, and that vignette remains my favourite wrestling promo video ever. It's incredible. 

The storyline itself was brilliant in its sheer simplicity - one guy obsessed with getting a rematch at the very next WM, something that I don't think they'd done before, and that could've gone south if it hadn't been played so well. It was the perfect ending for HBK's career, especially for what it led to with HHH; it's a shame it didn't stay that way. 

[RedRooster]

It may not have connected with a general audience in the way you might have hoped, but I loved CM Punk’s run from the pipe bomb promo up until Money In The Bank 2012. That was a brilliant story.

The initial month or so of The Nexus was also brilliant, and is often overlooked because of how shit it became. At first the group was made to look incredibly dangerous and their run up to Summerslam was a load of fun.

He’s obviously been exposed as a rather unpleasant man, but I really enjoyed James Ellsworth’s feud with AJ Styles during the early days of the second brand split. It was loads of fun, and sometimes that’s all that wrestling needs to be.

‘Team Hell No’ was a phenomenal story. The Kane/Bryan dynamic was genuinely funny and it was very easy to get behind that team. Plus it helped Bryan get on the path to becoming the star he is now.

Two more suggestions before I wrap up - Mark Henry’s Hall of Pain run. He was a brilliant heel champion, and even after that his feud with Cena was one of the highlights of the decade for me.

Finally, and this one is a bit left field, the rise of Ryback. Initially the guy was handled incredibly well, and although it all fell apart after he lost to CM Punk, everything leading up to that moment made him feel like a megastar in waiting. 

[Lorne Malvo]

It gets overlooked because it happened at the same time as the Summer of Punk, but I loved the Christian/Orton storyline in 2011. Christian finally wins the big one in dedication to Edge, loses it pretty shortly to Orton, then fails to win it back. This leads to him snapping and a heel turn, then one of my favourite cheap wins ever when Orton loses the belt by DQ because Christian spits in his face causing Orton to snap and kick him in the bollocks. Christian larks around for a bit with a belt he didn't properly win before Orton wins it back in a feud-ending No-DQ match at Summerslam which mostly consisted of Christian taking the kicking he thorougly deserved.

Loved it. It lasted about 4 months overall I think but was always interesting and their matches were mostly great too.

[garynysmon]

13 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Yes, and that vignette remains my favourite wrestling promo video ever. It's incredible. 

The storyline itself was brilliant in its sheer simplicity - one guy obsessed with getting a rematch at the very next WM, something that I don't think they'd done before, and that could've gone south if it hadn't been played so well. It was the perfect ending for HBK's career, especially for what it led to with HHH; it's a shame it didn't stay that way. 

Echo that definitely.

I think that was the last WWE storyline that got me truly engaged in the product tbh. Scary to think that a whole decade has passed now.

[RedRooster]

7 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

It gets overlooked because it happened at the same time as the Summer of Punk, but I loved the Christian/Orton storyline in 2011. Christian finally wins the big one in dedication to Edge, loses it pretty shortly to Orton, then fails to win it back. This leads to him snapping and a heel turn, then one of my favourite cheap wins ever when Orton loses the belt by DQ because Christian spits in his face causing Orton to snap and kick him in the bollocks. Christian larks around for a bit with a belt he didn't properly win before Orton wins it back in a feud-ending No-DQ match at Summerslam which mostly consisted of Christian taking the kicking he thorougly deserved.

Loved it. It lasted about 4 months overall I think but was always interesting and their matches were mostly great too.

Yes!! I loved this too and I’d completely forgotten about it. The matches between the pair were also fantastic. This feud deserves to be remembered better than it actually is.

[King Pitcos]

I’ve got loads but I’ll start with a few. I’m trying to avoid ones that have been mentioned, though there might be overlap:

John Cena vs AJ Styles. AJ was coming off a really good first few months with Jericho and Reigns, but the Cena storyline was where he really found himself as a character, and got his catchphrases and swagger. Considering all the new high level guys (Wyatt, Rusev, Owens etc) had beaten Cena in the couple of years prior, it’s impressive how AJ really made the most of it. Great matches, great promos, great angles. 

Sami Zayn vs Kevin Owens. After all of Sami’s struggle to the NXT title, he finally gets there and immediately the moment is ruined by what a vicious, jealous fucker his best mate was. Their NXT matches didn’t have a payoff, which made it all the more exciting when Sami turned up in the Rumble after KO had become a fixture on the main roster. They did a really good job of explaining the backstory to new viewers as well when they resumed feuding. They were the focus of the WrestleMania ladder match in 2016, and had at least one or two genuine classics on the following PPVs. Laid the groundwork for them being a great pair of pricks a year or so later, too.

New Day vs Usos. For me, maybe the best tag team feud ever - certainly since the TLC boys. Long-time readers know I’ve long been a Kofi supporter, and New Day are one of my favourite acts ever in wrestling. I’d consider their entire rise in 2014-2016 as one of my most enjoyed character journeys of all time, but I want to focus just on this feud for now. Heel Usos were a revelation, and Ya Boyz were the perfect adversaries for them. Every meeting between them, verbal or physical, was on point. And then it built to that absolute war in Hell in a Cell, which resulted in a show of respect and the Usos turning babyface. A feud so good that they can still get mileage out of references to it, like in the KofiMania gauntlet, or when they end up in three-way feuds for the tag titles.

Tyler Bate vs Pete Dunne in the first half of 2017. I’d never heard of either of them before that first tournament, and those two nights made me a fan of both. One of the first times I can recall fervently googling and YouTubing to see previous stuff new wrestlers had done. Then the rematch at TakeOver was great, showing it wasn’t just the tournament setting. And as a non-WWE side note, I loved seeing their impersonation match at ATTACK! around the same time.

Drew McIntyre vs Brock Lesnar. The conclusion was dampened by the apocalypse scaling down the venue, but overall, hell of a job at making a new number one. Brock’s tear through the Rumble, Drew kicking him the fuck out the ring and winning, and then flipping the usual script for the rest of the build by not having Lesnar dominate. That Raw bit where Drew hit Brock with the claymore and then did it again on the stage was wonderful.

Edited June 5, 2020 by King Pitcos

[Statto]

Obviously it started in 2009 (well, long before really cos ultimately it's all about The Streak) but the Taker/Michaels/Triple H Wrestlemania arc is one of my favourite storylines of all time.

• Shawn & Taker have a cracker at Mania, Shawn wants to be the one who breaks The Streak. He fails.
• That brilliant moment at the Slammys when Shawn decides he can't live with not succeeding the previous year.
• Shawn's travails to get the rematch including the 2010 Rumble, then screwing Taker at Elimination Chamber (not only pissing him off but meaning he's not tied up in the title match at Mania)
• Shawn putting his career on the line to get the rematch.
• Shawn loses, and losing his career, with a call back to him finishing Ric Flair's career - I'm ready for you to put me down.
• A year later, Triple H decides he's gonna be the one to end The Streak, with the undertones of getting revenge for his mate Shawn and also it being a meeting of the last two bastions of the 90s/Attitude Era.
• Triple H loses, but in doing so beats Taker up so badly he gets carted out of HIS show, Wrestlemania. Triple H walks out under his own power.
• Taker disappears for a year. When he reappears, thus time he's the one who can't live without getting the rematch.
• They do the rematch in Hell in a Cell, Shawn is the special guest referee.
• During the rematch (which features tonnes of dialogue and set pieces ripped off from John Wayne/Clint Eastwood movies) Shawn takes us all on this incredible emotional ride - first he hints he's gonna screw Taker, then the respect he has for Taker leads to him to protect Taker from the beating he's getting by stopping the match, Taker KO's Shawn to stop that happening, when Shawn recovers he superkicks Taker in a fit of rage, but when Taker kicks out of the resultant Pedigree he's in utter emotional turmoil - can he live with screwing over this bloke he's developed so much respect for, and/or knowing his best mate (often bitter rival) managed to do something he never could?
• In the end, Shawn calls it it down the middle, Taker wins fair and square. Everyone loves each other.

Love it, love it, love it.

[HarmonicGenerator]

Some good shouts there @King Pitcos. The UKCT made me invested in Bate and Dunne in two nights in a way they’ve barely managed with anyone else in a year and a bit of NXT UK. You had that fantastic mini-angle with Regal and Dunne that linked the two nights together which was excellent.

Likewise, McIntyre and Lesnar - we’ll never know how it might have gone if the world hadn’t gone to hell but that setup of Lesnar obliterating the first half of the Rumble only for McIntyre to eliminate him was one of the greatest WWE Title feud setups they’ve done in an age. Instantly made me want to see the one on one match.