Worst payoffs

[SuperBacon]

This Aces and Eights reveal was absolutely dreadful. TNA, and the angle, were fairly hot at the time, and this was such an anticlimax. 

Any excuse to post this as well. 

 

[Carbomb]

32 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

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 CENAMA purely because it was WWE doing it. 

 

 

 

 

Triple H has been involved with some right honkers, hasn't he? The Goldberg Elimination Chamber, Orton's first champ run (though that was more them desperate to crown Orton the youngest-ever champ in the wake of Lesnar leaving), the first DX return, getting validation as a racist at WM19, the list is pretty long.

 

This might not fit, but one of the shittest ones that comes to mind is Lesnar's undefeated streak and heel run - ended because Heyman sides with the fucking Big Show, claiming he's a better prospect for management just because he's a giant. 

[LaGoosh]

A recent one being the MJF/Adam Cole storyline. At one point this was a hot story, loads of fun and the fans were all over it. There was loads of really interesting ways they could have taken it...instead they went with masked devil's and mystery ninjas. 

I know it was derailed in part by Adam Cole's injury but it had already gone off the rails before that point. The payoff being a completely obvious whilst simultaneously illogical heel turn from Adam Cole and creation of a new stable that no one cares about. A booking miracle that eventually turned into a booking disaster that nearly tanked the company. 

[Arch Stanton]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

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.

Does this genuinely happen?! Are there honestly any prominent people out there singing praises of this angle, or using the 'cinema' comparison? I'm asking sincerely, because I barely engage with wrestling outside of this forum and my own TV set these days, but I just find it hard to imagine anybody being so over-the-top positive about it.

[air_raid]

17 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

This might not fit, but one of the shittest ones that comes to mind is Lesnar's undefeated streak and heel run - ended because Heyman sides with the fucking Big Show, claiming he's a better prospect for management just because he's a giant. 

Utter shambles for someone to think about leaving the reigning champion for someone with 2002 Show’s won/lost record. Or leaving the champion at all.

[Daddymagic]

2 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

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.

They switched head writers in this period. Chris Kreski had a history in TV drama and would storyboard ideas such as the love triangle. There was a noticeable uptick in good stories during his time.

Steph replaced him in mid 2000. Future Hall Of Famer indeed. 

Edited October 6, 2025 by Daddymagic

[tiger_rick]

20 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

Does this genuinely happen?! Are there honestly any prominent people out there singing praises of this angle, or using the 'cinema' comparison? I'm asking sincerely, because I barely engage with wrestling outside of this forum and my own TV set these days, but I just find it hard to imagine anybody being so over-the-top positive about it.

I went on reddit during one of many cloudflares last week and there was a post about this Cena run (the SNME "news" I think) that had plenty of people pushing back on it being bad and plenty who liked it. You'll always find a positive viewpoint but there were quite a lot. They were pretty measured, tbf.

On the recency bias, the MJF & Hurt Syndicate team not having a pay off is poor. It wasn't a great story by any means but, the crowd were into it enough that it deserved a conclusion and for the MJF/Lashley match to happen somewhere. It wasn't major and we've all moved on but, it's poor booking from a team that pride themselves on being better than that.

[Hannibal Scorch]

Another one for the Spotlight Hog, but HHH vs Booker T at Wrestlemania. Racism, making the opponent look weak and then the finish where he hits a pedigree and takes 23 seconds to crawl over, drape a single arm over him and retain the title. Utter dogshit

[TheScarlettChad]

The Brock turn in 2002 is so bad. He PROVED he was better than The Big Show. He F5'd him with broken ribs. But Heyman, betrays him like an absolute berk. And then the next month it's all forgotten because he starts to manage Kurt Angle. Who beats Show for the belt. 

Edited October 6, 2025 by TheScarlettChad

[The Reverend]

That whole Black Scorpion sh't in WCW - intimated to be the Ultimate Warrior, turned out to be Ric Flair after much buggering about with magic tricks, multiple Scorpions. An utter ridiculous outcome to months of build-up.  

The Giant in WCW. I remember watching the build to this on DSF at the time. I t genuinely seemed like a great angle with this huge monster being in the audience at Hogan's matches (it had been a while since wrestling had seen a properly menacing giant) and the hokey Andre the Giant's son bit even seemed ok-ish as it had a link to Hogan's past, and Paul Wight did at least have the same size. It was a good build, but the actual first meeting was a pay-off that was just awful with the awful falling off the roof of the arena crap, and then the weird contract situation that saw the Giant win the belt via a DQ.   

Edited October 6, 2025 by The Reverend

[BomberPat]

2 hours ago, Carbomb said:

This might not fit, but one of the shittest ones that comes to mind is Lesnar's undefeated streak and heel run - ended because Heyman sides with the fucking Big Show, claiming he's a better prospect for management just because he's a giant. 

Aside from Big Show being damaged goods already at that point - I just checked Cagematch, and his last PPV match before the Lesnar feud was a loss to Booker T in five minutes four months earlier, and before that he'd been a jobber at the arse end of the worst version of the nWo - the storyline didn't make any sense.

Heyman was doing these backstage segments with Lesnar where he was saying, "you can't suplex Big Show, you can't F5 Big Show, so you can't beat Big Show" - again, let's set aside that Big Show had already lost to plenty of people who could do neither thing - and I thought, "oh wow, this is where Brock Lesnar's going to debut his Shooting Star Press!", to show that he had more to his arsenal than we realised, and find other ways to win.

Instead, the match starts, and Brock Lesnar suplexes Big Show. He proceeds to lob him about for the entire match, and then F5 him. Heyman, though, despite just being proven wrong and learning that far from not being able to suplex or F5 the Big Show, his client is even better than he thought he was, he still turns on him and sides with Big Show anyway.

[Chico Torres]

Lex Express. The poor sod flew on to a ship via helicopter, slams Yoko, has to spend 2 months on a megabus being forced to engage with rednecks and shit on a bus toilet, and the payoff is him looking like a bellend celebrating not winning the title.

Similarly the following year he spent the whole summer being accused of taking the Million Dollar Man’s money by Tatanka and then Tatanka is revealed as the one taking the money. Scintillating payoff to a summer of incredibly boring promos. Meanwhile Tracksuit Teddy spent the whole summer teasing the fake Undertaker and then the real one shows up and beats him to complete silence and Fake Taker is never seen again. Come to think of it the Bret Owen cage match was shite as well so a Summerslam of crap payoffs.

[tiger_rick]

6 minutes ago, Chico Torres said:

Come to think of it the Bret Owen cage match was shite as well 

[Carbomb]

50 minutes ago, Chico Torres said:

Lex Express. The poor sod flew on to a ship via helicopter, slams Yoko, has to spend 2 months on a megabus being forced to engage with rednecks and shit on a bus toilet, and the payoff is him looking like a bellend celebrating not winning the title.

 

It's from Something To Wrestle, so take anything Pritchard says with a heap of salt, but he said that the reason why they didn't push Luger much after that was because he showed a complete lack of enthusiasm for the whole idea of the Lex Express, that he just wanted to be pushed like a regular main-eventer and not have to do a politics-style campaign.

[Just Some Guy]

It has to be The Gobbledygooker reveal at Survivor Series for me.

Me & a mate were convinced one of the main players from WCW had jumped ship.

I'd be 16 at the time and remember thinking as Mean Gene and a bloke in an awful costume rolled around, "Is watching this shit the reason I don't have a girlfriend?"

Just toe-curlingly bad.