Previous Columns:
- 3 Interesting Backstage Stories You May Not Know
- Hilarious Unplanned Moments: 2005 Royal Rumble
- Top 10 Underdog Stories
In honor of the WWE creating the most convoluted storyline for the Becky Lynch/Charlotte/Ronda Rousey feud and ruining what should have been their easiest-to-sell feud of the year, here’s a list of other storylines they’ve screwed up.
4. Radicalz Invade (ish)
The angle started when Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, Eddie Guerrero, and Dean Malenko walked out of WCW because of backstage problems which is like saying ducks left the pond because the water was wet. WWE jumped at the chance to sign these three normal looking dudes and Perry Saturn to a deal. Everything started out great. They were being groomed for a high-profile angle that saw them siding with Mick Foley and feuding with DX. On the first night, they attacked the New Age Outlaws during a match with Al Snow and Steve Blackman. Things were looking good.
However, later in the week, the angle took a turn for the worse aka “taking a turn for the WWE” when Triple H offered the Radicalz a chance to earn WWE contracts if they could manage to defeat members of DX in separate matches. Seeing as Chris Benoit had quit WCW as the World Champion, you obviously wouldn’t be surprised that he lost. Wait, what?
All four members of the Radicalz lost their matches to the cheating heels. A week later, the Radicalz turned heel because Triple H offered them contracts if they agreed to attack Mick Foley. That’s it. That’s the angle. What, you thought the WWE would treat WCW wrestlers as anything other than WCW wrestlers? That’s as stupid as thinking the WWE would treat WCW wrestlers as anything other than WCW wrestlers.
3. “Who Did It” Stories
There were too many of these to include so I’m lumping them together. The WWE is known for a lot of things and among them is the Be*A*Star campaign, the Hall of Fame ceremonies, and Mae Young’s bare breasts but the one thing it isn’t known for are the murder mystery stories. Who drove the car that ran over Stone Cold Steve Austin? Who raised the briefcase during his ladder match with the McMahons? Who was the Anonymous GM? And don’t give me that crap that it turned out to be Hornswoggle, because he’s way to freaking short to drive a car.
Let’s not forget the Higher Power storyline. The story had someone screwing over Stone Cold Steve Austin for months. The culprit? Vince McMahon – the man who had been screwing Stone Cold for years. An idea so out of the box that it circled the world and landed right back in the box for a nice nap.
WCW isn’t exactly innocent in this. Who drove the hummer that ran over Kevin Nash, especially when he could have just called Nash to the ring and watched him suffer 7 injuries just by walking down the ramp? The storyline saw the color of the hummer change three times and every single wrestler on the card was decidedly innocent including Buff Bagwell’s mother (presumably). The conclusion wasn’t decided until years later when it was revealed to be Billy Kidman. I should note that they revealed it was Billy Kidman by having him drive a hummer while feuding with Hulk Hogan and have nothing to do with Kevin Nash. Woah slow down there WCW, warn us before you do something so WWE!
Let’s talk about Samoa Joe and the men who kidnapped him in TNA. Actually… let’s not.
2. GTV
Another “who done it?” story that is rumored to have multiple different versions. At one point, it was supposed to be Goldust. When Goldust was no longer with the company, Vince Russo suggested to Vince McMahon that it should be Tom Green. Vince, who didn’t know who Tom Green was, also didn’t know what a burrito was. That last part has nothing to do with the point I’m trying to make, but its absolutely true and not just some where joke I thought up. A few former employees have mentioned that during a staff meeting Vince McMahon had to be explained what a burrito was. Look it up. Wow. Sorry, what was I talking about? Oh, right, burritos. Well, Goldust ended up having nothing to do with burritos and the whole angle was dropped.
1. Triple H Pretends to Have Sex with a Mannequin
I want to be clear here. This angle was so poor and tasteless that immediately after the segment aired the entire feud was dropped. Again, and I want to really stress this, the company that had Val Venis lose his penis on television was so embarrassed by a segment that they aborted it like Kane and Lita’s dead baby.
The angle was as follows: Triple H would tell everyone that he knew something dark and twisted about Kane’s history. Kane, who was known for murdering his parents, disfiguring himself, and electrocuting Shane McMahon’s balls had something dark and twisted in his past. Someone stop the presses. Eventually Triple H would tell everyone about a time when Kane was in a car wreck and raped his dead girlfriend. This, as you know, is a sentence a grown adult had to say out loud in a meeting full of other adults and then scream “we’re going to be billionaires
,” while everyone else nods excitedly in agreement.The following week the WWE aired a segment of Triple H wearing a Kane mask and pretending to rape a dead person, however, it had been revealed that Triple H made the entire story up.
So, to be clear, Triple H is dry humping a pretend dead person to mock Kane for something he knows he didn’t really do. This like accusing one of your coworkers of having sex with sheep then showing everyone in the company who already know you’re lying a video of you pretending to have sex with a toy sheep for 10 minutes. That’ll… Uh… that’ll teach him?