Biggest downgrades ever

[Lorne Malvo]

London getting two belting All In shows in 2023-2024 to getting poxy Forbidden Door in 2025 was one hell of a downgrade. What did we do to deserve that?

[RedTwoster]

WWE Smackdown from 2003 to 2004 post-roster shuffle was one hell of a downgrade.

In 2003 they had Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, John Cena, The Undertaker, Hulk Hogan, Chris Benoit, Big Show and Team Angle/WGTT leading the cards.

In 2004, you had JBL (who I admittedly kind of liked), Rene Dupree, Heidenreich, Mordecai, Kenzo Suzuki, Luther Reigns, Mark Jindrak, Orlando Jordan and many more duds absolutely stinking up their programming. It was a bleak time to watch Sky One on a Saturday morning.

[SaitoRyo]

22 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

WWE Smackdown from 2003 to 2004 post-roster shuffle was one hell of a downgrade.

In 2003 they had Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, John Cena, The Undertaker, Hulk Hogan, Chris Benoit, Big Show and Team Angle/WGTT leading the cards.

In 2004, you had JBL (who I admittedly kind of liked), Rene Dupree, Heidenreich, Mordecai, Kenzo Suzuki, Luther Reigns, Mark Jindrak, Orlando Jordan and many more duds absolutely stinking up their programming. It was a bleak time to watch Sky One on a Saturday morning.

The situation coming out of WM XX really hurt SmackDown. Brock left and Big Show & Angle were injured, leaving Eddie with no credible challengers. JBL ended up being a huge success, given the circumstances, but there was a dearth of top talent on the blue brand.

WWE had an opportunity to balance things with the draft, but failed to do so. The whole 'HHH gets traded to SmackDown, only for Bischoff to trade the Dudleys & Booker T to get him immediately back' situation was a total farce, too. 

I really loved SmackDown at the time because I was thirteen and Rey, Eddie and RVD were my favourites, but fuck me did the show fall off a cliff looking back at it. It got steadily worse as the year dragged on, too. Come November they were giving us JBL & Orlando Jordan Vs. Booker T & Josh Mathews as a main event, the sick bastards.

[HarmonicGenerator]

39 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

JBL ended up being a huge success, given the circumstances

I don't think I'll ever believe this. I couldn't at the time, and the only circumstances now where I'd consider him a success as a WWE Champion is that we've now got Jinder Mahal in the list of WWE Champions as well so comparatively JBL's only the second worst. I know the circumstances didn't allow for a slower move up the card for him, but to go from losing to Scotty 2 Hotty in the APA to WWE Title contender within a few weeks was such a whiplash, I was never able to buy into him as a top guy, and still can't.

He'd actually had some momentum in the top half of the card on RAW in 2002 as well, then they fudged it and stuck him back with Ron Simmons. If they'd kept him around that level in '03 and maintained it, maybe I'd agree with you!

[SaitoRyo]

11 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

I don't think I'll ever believe this. I couldn't at the time, and the only circumstances now where I'd consider him a success as a WWE Champion is that we've now got Jinder Mahal in the list of WWE Champions as well so comparatively JBL's only the second worst. I know the circumstances didn't allow for a slower move up the card for him, but to go from losing to Scotty 2 Hotty in the APA to WWE Title contender within a few weeks was such a whiplash, I was never able to buy into him as a top guy, and still can't.

He'd actually had some momentum in the top half of the card on RAW in 2002 as well, then they fudged it and stuck him back with Ron Simmons. If they'd kept him around that level in '03 and maintained it, maybe I'd agree with you!

Oh no, it was a total rush job, don't get me wrong, but long-term I think the JBL character turned out well and was accepted as a legitimate main-eventer in the eyes of fans. It's not like he saved SmackDown in the short-term, but with Eddie cracking under the pressure of being champ and Angle's body breaking down, he was probably the best choice to hold onto the title until Cena was ready to take it.

Yeah, that spell in 2002 when he was teaming with Austin against the nWo and then went back to the rugged cowboy look with the boots and the bullrope was a bit odd. They shunted him down to the Hardcore division pretty quickly and then he got injured IIRC. 

[Lorne Malvo]

Those first few months of Raw during the initial 2002 brand split were rough as fuck. The NWO consisting of a knackered Scott Hall & X-Pac feuding with a randomly-pushed-for-one-month Bradshaw and a completely uninterested, past his best Austin, while Austin also feuded with a similarly uninterested Undertaker with GM Ric Flair somewhere in the middle. Absolute shite it was. 

[SaitoRyo]

2 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

Those first few months of Raw during the initial 2002 brand split were rough as fuck. The NWO consisting of a knackered Scott Hall & X-Pac feuding with a randomly-pushed-for-one-month Bradshaw and a completely uninterested, past his best Austin, while Austin also feuded with a similarly uninterested Undertaker with GM Ric Flair somewhere in the middle. Absolute shite it was. 

Are you trying to tell me you didn't like watching Stone Cold take a radioactive piss all over Arn Anderson?

Such good shit!

Yes, post-brand split Raw was the pits. They were so desparate that they fucking hired Russo back to head up the creative team (obviously didn't last) and really pressed on with the T&A and shock value stuff. Again, I have a certain fondness for it because I was eleven at the time and bang into WWE, but it hasn't aged well.

It's a shame Austin took his ball and went home before his programme with Eddie got going, mind. I would've liked to have seen those matches. 

[LaGoosh]

JBL's title reign is one of those things that is really fun and great in retrospect but at the time it came so out of nowhere it was pretty impossible to enjoy.

[Lorne Malvo]

4 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

 really pressed on with the T&A and shock value stuff. 

Including a feud where Trish mocked Molly Holly for being a virgin who didn't do bikini photoshoots, with Trish winning the blow-off match by pulling Mollys tights on a roll-up. And Trish was the face! 

[Arch Stanton]

40 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

I don't think I'll ever believe this. I couldn't at the time, and the only circumstances now where I'd consider him a success as a WWE Champion is that we've now got Jinder Mahal in the list of WWE Champions as well so comparatively JBL's only the second worst.

Not a chance he's the second worst champion on that list. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely hated JBL being shoved to the front of the queue at the time, but let's be honest, the character was pretty brilliant and was absolutely perfectly realised in his performances in and out of the ring. The heat just built and built and built on him and then he put Cena over in a big way at WrestleMania for the first of his world title reigns. In doing so, JBL absolutely helped to make the biggest act the business has seen in the past two decades.

Besides Jinder, the list of subsequent WWE Champions that made for far worse and more forgettable champions than JBL includes the likes of The Miz, Del Rio, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Kofi and Bobby Lashley, not to mention some of the absolute dross to have held the alternative world title during that same period.

[HarmonicGenerator]

1 minute ago, Lorne Malvo said:

Including a feud where Trish mocked Molly Holly for being a virgin who didn't do bikini photoshoots, with Trish winning the blow-off match by pulling Mollys tights on a roll-up. And Trish was the face! 

And don’t forget Tommy Dreamer and his “I’ll eat anything, me” gimmick. 

[Chili]

7 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

Including a feud where Trish mocked Molly Holly for being a virgin who didn't do bikini photoshoots, with Trish winning the blow-off match by pulling Mollys tights on a roll-up. And Trish was the face! 

Chris Nowinski scripted in a promo to say he was going to break Molly's hymen. Then three months later Triple H is shagging corpses.

Halcyon days. Fucking hell.

[DavidB6937]

7 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

not to mention some of the absolute dross to have held the alternative world title during that same period.

Jack Swagger.

[BomberPat]

post-brand split RAW also had a ton of post-9/11 jingoism with La Resistance, and Scott Steiner debating the Iraq War with Chris Nowinski. Then there's "HLA" on top of that. Just absolute dross from beginning to end. 

JBL found his level long-term, but was the absolute pits as champion when it happened. I don't know what the alternative was, though. Eddie Guerrero was breaking down, and would be dead less than eighteen months after dropping the belt, and Kurt Angle was breaking down and out of the picture having neck surgery after Wrestlemania 20 anyway.

If we accept that they had to get the title off of Eddie, and they probably did, what are their options? Big Show wouldn't have gone down much better than JBL. They could have probably heated up Booker T short-term. Maybe get the title on Undertaker, but part of the point of getting him back in the Deadman gimmick seemed to be intended to keep him self-contained and away from the title picture - he's also a babyface, so not the guy you want to get the heat of beating Eddie. Same goes for RVD, they could probably get him built up into the title hunt, but you'd want him as a babyface. Rey Mysterio wasn't at that level yet.

At a push, maybe turn Edge and draft him over from RAW? But again, he's just not there yet.

It's slim pickings when you're having to choose potential stars from a roster made up of the Kenzo Suzukis, Mordecais, and Luther Reigns of the world.

[HarmonicGenerator]

23 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

Not a chance he's the second worst champion on that list. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely hated JBL being shoved to the front of the queue at the time, but let's be honest, the character was pretty brilliant and was absolutely perfectly realised in his performances in and out of the ring. The heat just built and built and built on him and then he put Cena over in a big way at WrestleMania for the first of his world title reigns. In doing so, JBL absolutely helped to make the biggest act the business has seen in the past two decades.

Besides Jinder, the list of subsequent WWE Champions that made for far worse and more forgettable champions than JBL includes the likes of The Miz, Del Rio, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Kofi and Bobby Lashley, not to mention some of the absolute dross to have held the alternative world title during that same period.

I'll grant you The Miz, but I can put most of those others above 2004 Bradshaw. Del Rio, Rollins and Ambrose had all been part of the upper levels of the card before winning titles (whether winning Royal Rumbles or being in the Shield), Kofi's story was so feelgood him being a lifelong midcarder didn't matter for that one glorious night, and Lashley had been in and out of being a main eventer for over a decade. JBL's still way down there for me.

The alternative world title doesn't count, there's only one real WWE Championship!