Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted October 6, 2025 Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 (edited) Not talking about the likes of Steve Austin getting cheques for 12p and living on raw potatoes for days at a time in Memphis. This isn’t about money, I’m talking payoffs to storylines. Angles that had real promise when they started but ended in crushing anti-climax. This thread is inspired by seeing this shite doing the rounds on Twitter… Dogshit image in every way. From the sexual deviant in the pic, to the slow talking mouth breathing prick tweeting it, to the actual content of the message he’s trying to get across. Acting like THAT of all angles was top tier “storytelling” might be the dumbest thing Russo’s ever said outside of whatever office (sorry hotel room playing Jerry Springer) he was in during those creative meetings in 1999. The ‘Higher Power’ bollocks must’ve been one of the biggest letdowns they ever aired. During such a hot period, even though there was also some right shite scattered throughout the cards as well, they were getting so much right in the angles featuring the top guys that I think fans just had faith that they’d come through with something big for the reveal. Turned out they just started the storyline without knowing who the ‘Higher Power’ was gonna end up being, so just went back to Vince. So he’d terrorised his own family, had his daughter kidnapped etc just to go ‘Ha! Didn’t expect that did you, Austin?’ I don’t even know what they could’ve done, to be honest. Whenever it comes up I always see people go ‘It should’ve been Jake The Snake!!’ But while the initial reveal would’ve been cool as a standalone moment, what then? By 99, nobody wanted to see Jake wrestle. He was awful in 96, for fuck’s sake. I would have preferred him as the mouthpiece and cult leader of the Ministry over retreading the same Vince stuff we’d been seeing for 18 months by that point, but even with Jake it still would’ve ultimately been the same thing we got. Jake would’ve still been leading the likes of Mideon, Viscera, Gangrel and the Acolytes while Taker still did his own thing. They’d booked themselves into a corner. Proper Black Scorpion in 1990 stuff. The talk of Christopher Daniels in the role is even weirder to me. Was there ever anything to that? Surely not right? Is that just people looking at the ‘Fallen Angel’ nickname and somehow thinking he’d fit? Because I never got that one. Where did that even come from? Why would they have The Undertaker taking orders from a tiny balding bloke who was doing jobs for Taka Michinoku on Shotgun a year earlier? Anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. My reference points for this will cut off after about 2006/07 when I stopped watching regularly, so I’m sure there’s been plenty of rotters since that I haven’t heard about yet. Over to you. Edited October 6, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted October 6, 2025 Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 (edited) The end of the Triple H/Stephanie/Kurt Anglelove triangle. This storyline was absolutely red hot and the fans were desperate for Steph to go with Kurt and also for a Triple H babyface turn. Instead at the height of the angle they blew it off with the least interesting payoff imaginable with Triple H beating Kurt, Steph kicking him in the bollocks afterwards and Triple H aggressively kissing her to prove his dominance. From a company which at that time was brilliant at giving the audience what they wantedIt was basically the moment that signalled the end of the 97-2000 creative boom, it was all downhill from that point onwards. Apparently the reason the angle was ended so early was because Triple H was worried it would make him look weak if Stephanie left him and because "what woman would ever want to leave Triple H!". Triple H...what a shitarse. Edited October 6, 2025 by LaGoosh Quote
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted October 6, 2025 Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 I genuinely had a note in my phone to bring this up this week because this Thursday, 9th October, is TWENTY-FIVE YEARS on from the end of wrestling's greatest ever Whodunnit. Who ran over Stone Cold Steve Austin? In truth, as shit as the pay-off was, the follow-up was even worse. Turning a super popular babyface is one thing but him being a lower card heel who isn't over and is tag-teaming with Haku within three months is crazy. It's also, if we're honest, maybe a fitting pay-off to an angle that kicked off with one of the most shameless bait and switch angles in wrestling history. Vince: "I did it... for your money" Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted October 6, 2025 Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 (edited) Crazy how the first half of 2000 was one of their best years ever and then the second half we got the triple whammy of absolute shite - Triple H/Kurt/Steph love triangle wet fart ending, Stone Cold returning and being a misery guts squashing the entire roster left, right and centre and then the awful Rikishi heel turn/Triple H being the mastermind all along stuff. Edited October 6, 2025 by LaGoosh Quote
Paid Members Lorne Malvo Posted October 6, 2025 Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 There could be so much Triple H in this thread... Kevin Nash costing CM Punk the title leading to Triple H vs Kevin Nash in a Ladder Match was really shit. Quote
westlondonmist Posted October 6, 2025 Posted October 6, 2025 WCW Sin (a ppv which actually had some decent matches, mainly Cruiserweight), the main event was Sid vs Steiner vs Jarrett vs a mystery opponent. Who's the mystery oppoenent? A big return for Sting or Booker T? No, it's Road Warrior Animal. As if the main event wasn't shit enough with Sid destroying his leg. I get people like the Road Warriors/ LOD, but they were finished in 1992 and nobody wanted to see one of them main eventing singles matches. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 6, 2025 Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 both the "Anonymous RAW General Manager" and the "Vince's Illegitimate Son" mystery angles being paid off with it being Hornswoggle as a comedy bit. I know their hand was forced away from their original plan for the second one, but the first was clearly booked with no idea what the pay-off would be and just winging it, and even with the second one they ret-conned it almost immediately and barely tried to make it make sense. All at a time when Hornswoggle was already massively over-exposed, and WWE comedy was at its absolute nadir. Quote
TheScarlettChad Posted October 6, 2025 Posted October 6, 2025 Sting vs Hogan at Starrcade. So shit it helped kill the company. Quote
Paid Members Supremo Posted October 6, 2025 Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 Didn’t Stephanie McMahon take over creative in September 2000? I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that absolutely everything turned to shit. Creative genius. Invented women. Hall of Famer. Recency bias perhaps, but it’s got to be up there. Career-long babyface John Cena turning heel, winning the WWE Title in the main event of Wrestlemania, starting a countdown clock to the day he leaves WWE with the belt and ruins wrestling. And then randomly dropping everything for practically no reason other than they decided it wasn’t working. Cena waking up and popping his head out the window like Ebenezer Scrooge. ”You there boy, what day is it?” ”Why today is a random Friday, a few days before Summerslam.” ”Ah good, I’ll become a goodie then for fuck all reason.” No catharsis whatsoever. A year’s storyline down the shitter. Bollocks. Quote
westlondonmist Posted October 6, 2025 Posted October 6, 2025 6 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said: Sting vs Hogan at Starrcade. So shit it helped kill the company. In all credit to Bischoff, it does take a very unique style of booking to fuck up the hottest feud wrestling had seen in years. Quote
Roy Posted October 6, 2025 Posted October 6, 2025 14 minutes ago, westlondonmist said: In all credit to Bischoff, it does take a very unique style of booking to fuck up the hottest feud wrestling had seen in years. To be fair to Bischoff, the booking up until that point was fine. The match itself and the ridiculousness that followed, less so. Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted October 6, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 The fact you’ve all rattled off this many in the hour since I started the thread is hilarious. I’ve mentioned it before, fairly recently I think, but the Hollywood Blonds split in WCW culminating with nothing more than one quick 7 minute match on a Clash Of The Champions where Austin pins Pillman and that’s it. Still annoys me that they split them up prematurely but then to not even bother doing more with them as rivals after the fact? WCW eh? Like Bret said, IDIOTS. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 6, 2025 Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 48 minutes ago, Supremo said: Didn’t Stephanie McMahon take over creative in September 2000? I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that absolutely everything turned to shit. Creative genius. Invented women. Hall of Famer. Recency bias perhaps, but it’s got to be up there. Career-long babyface John Cena turning heel, winning the WWE Title in the main event of Wrestlemania, starting a countdown clock to the day he leaves WWE with the belt and ruins wrestling. And then randomly dropping everything for practically no reason other than they decided it wasn’t working. Cena waking up and popping his head out the window like Ebenezer Scrooge. I think Cena's retirement run in general should, assuming they don't pull out some magic in the final innings, go down in history as one of the worst booked stories and biggest missed opportunities since the Invasion, and his heel run as an infinitely bigger fuck-up than Austin turning heel in 2001, but it won't because the nature of current wrestling tribalism is that their will be fans and podcasters singing its praises and calling it CINEMA purely because it was WWE doing it. I would say that Cena's heel run isn't the worst payoff, though, simply because there was no payoff at all. Quote
Paid Members Supremo Posted October 6, 2025 Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 Rock’s newest film bombed on opening weekend, didn’t it? Rock’s got two months to pile on the muscle just in time for Cena’s retirement match. Wrap the whole thing up nicely. Get Brian Gewirtz to Tweet some cryptic bollocks, pretending this was always the plan. Quote
Paid Members air_raid Posted October 6, 2025 Paid Members Posted October 6, 2025 1 hour ago, Lorne Malvo said: There could be so much Triple H in this thread... Kevin Nash costing CM Punk the title leading to Triple H vs Kevin Nash in a Ladder Match was really shit. The payoff to “who sent that text to Kevin Nash” (a risible concept in itself) being … “Kevin Nash.” Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.