Biggest downgrades ever

[westlondonmist]

I know Mayhem isn't held in high regard, although I had fun with it. I think it was the basis to make a good game (not played in donkey's though). It was followed with Backstage Assault which was fucking awful. 

[LaGoosh]

51 minutes ago, Chili said:

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.

The Attitude era has the reputation for all the sex & outrageous angles but the Attitude era stuff is all played for camp laughs and is ultimately pretty harmless for the most part. The Ruthless Aggression era though is just full of the grimiest, sleaziest and most mean spirited stuff they've ever done.

[Supremo]

51 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

LDon'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.

The work JBL did with Cena ages even better when you see what a rubbish job Triple H did with Cena the following year. There was no messing about with JBL - a proper dickhead heel, building heat and then showing arse and eating shit. The way it should be.

Contrast that with Triple H’s tweener bullshit, telling Cena he, “couldn’t wrestle,” in the build up, acting above it all, hitting fucking DX crotch chops during the match, making sure he gets his shit in. The polarising reactions Cena was receiving at the time weren’t purely down to Hunter, but he sure as fuck didn’t help.

[TheScarlettChad]

He tried that same shit with Roman a decade later, too. And unlike Cena, who somehow managed to survive it, Killed Roman's face run dead for close to a decade.

[Chico Torres]

Another huge downgrade for me was super energetic and colourful Surfer Sting becoming mopey shit goth Sting.

[TheScarlettChad]

39 minutes ago, Chico Torres said:

Another huge downgrade for me was super energetic and colourful Surfer Sting becoming mopey shit goth Sting.

Hard disagree. Surfer Sting ran it's course. It's have been fucking lame in 1998, if he ran around with a blonde flat top. 

[westlondonmist]

8 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said:

Hard disagree. Surfer Sting ran it's course. It's have been fucking lame in 1998, if he ran around with a blonde flat top. 

Prior to Crow Sting he'd kind of dropped Surfer Sting. I think they knew it had run it's course. 

[WrestlingForFun]

9 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said:

Hard disagree. Surfer Sting ran it's course. It's have been fucking lame in 1998, if he ran around with a blonde flat top. 

Yep. The down turn from crow sting to fucking Wolfpack sting was the worst. The ultimate anti nwo guy fucking joins them like nothing happened 

[RedTwoster]

Bit of a low-hanging fruit, but being a gamer it’s one I need to mention - WWE 2K19 to WWE 2K20 - an instalment so bad that it led to the cancellation of WWE 2K21. The series is a cash cow in which quality doesn’t have to matter, but even with that the game was so bad a hiatus was required in order to repair the damage done to the brand. 

[Carbomb]

Got a bit of a love-hate relationship with the JBL title run. On the one hand, I love it because, despite Bradshaw being shite, it was WWE booking at its best, pulling out all the tricks and smoke and mirrors to put him across as a classic, chickenshit rich-man heel (it seems odd that they'd never done a limo-with-horns, Texas millionaire gimmick before, given how established a trope that is), and make it a massive moment when Cena finally took the belt off him. And, to be fair to JBL, with that kind of creative help, he didn't need to be amazing, just competent enough on the mike and in the ring to make it work, which he was.

On the other hand, I hated it because, at the time, it seemed like WWE were failing to build better main-eventers by overlooking or poorly booking loads of potential prospects - seemingly because of VKM either having stubbornly-held, entrenched views of what a main-eventer was, or just being determined to tell the fans "you'll like whom I'll tell you to like". It seemed like JBL was getting the creative effort someone better could have had. 

I freely admit that a lot of that is from the arrogance of youth, thinking I knew better when I demonstrably didn't, but, even now, I don't think it's completely without foundation. It was at a time when McMahon was like a pig wallowing in a load of newly-delivered shit, having finally established and entrenched his monopoly of the wrestling industry, with no-one able to tell him his ideas could cost him.

[LaGoosh]

I think Bradshaw was a pretty perfect fit for that character - he was a lot of fun. The main issues as has been said is that he went from way past his sell by date APA Bradshaw (I think he also had a generic cowboy babyface run on Raw at some point around the same time too) and was immediately thrust into the World title role. It happened almost over night before the fans even had a moment to breath and consider the possibility that Bradshaw could be a believable World Champion.

I can see why they did it though. The roster was completely bereft of top stars and I can't think of anyone else they could have slotted into a heel Champion role. Sometimes out of necessity you just have to go all in on someone and drag the fans kicking and screaming along with you until they accept it. To their credit, I'd say it worked just fine.

Edited May 21 by LaGoosh

[Carbomb]

3 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I think Bradshaw was a pretty perfect fit for that character - he was a lot of fun. The main issues as has been said is that he went from way past his sell by date APA Bradshaw (I think he also had a generic cowboy babyface run on Raw at some point around the same time too) and was immediately thrust into the World title role. It happened almost over night before the fans even had a moment to breath and consider the possibility that Bradshaw could be a believable World Champion.

I can see why they did it though. The roster was completely bereft of top stars and I can't think of anyone else they could have slotted into a heel Champion role. Sometimes out of necessity you just have to go all in on someone and drag the fans kicking and screaming along with you until they accept it. To their credit, I'd say it worked just fine.

I will say that, in terms of character and style, Bradshaw wasn't an awful choice of midcarder to heat up - he looked strong and tough, and had been given moments in the past where he'd go toe-to-toe with main-eventers for a brief period before being beaten. And the millionaire gimmick is perfect for "covering ground", i.e. if you haven't got legitimacy or skills to be at the top, you can buy your way there, which is very hateable indeed.

[wordsfromlee]

I'm sure I heard at one point that it was actually Eddie's idea to push JBL to the main event and have him beat him for the belt.

[TheScarlettChad]

Eddie wanted the belt off of him because he was scared of relapsing. WWE chose JBL. 

[SaitoRyo]

Eddie was feeling the pressure because of declining ratings and attendances (not exactly his fault) and was also really banged up physically. They took the title off him for his own good, because there had been a couple of incidents that were cause for concern at live events and backstage. He was happy to drop it to Bradshaw and did everything he could to get him and their feud over because they were friends and realised the success or failure of the JBL character relied on their programme working (which it did).