Professional wrestling is more than just two men wrestling; it’s also the art of storytelling. As a WWE writer and booker, you have to create storylines that will keep your audience entertained. Storylines are usually a mixture of realism and sometimes fantasy, depending on the writer’s angle. Professional wrestling is more than just wrestling moves and finding a winner to each match. The match endings, promos, and storylines have to make sense to the viewers. When the booking and storylines start to become questionable, the audience will let you know. A wrong booking on any wrestler can stop whatever momentum they have, and can also get fans to lose interest or even turn on a wrestler.
Here are the “Top 5 Most Questionable Booking Decisions Made By WWE In 2020 So Far:”
#5 Burying Ricochet
Super Showdown: February 27, 2020
Ricochet has always been a unique performer who had support from many WWE fans. As this support continued to grow, Ricochet received a significant push from the WWE with him starting to win more matches. Unfortunately, when Ricochet was booked to face “The Beast Incarnate” Brock Lesnar for his first WWE Championship match, most people knew that Ricochet wasn’t going to win the title. Ricochet lost all momentum losing to Brock Lesnar in a match that only lasted a couple of minutes. Ricochet’s inability to get any offense in the match and being the victim of what many would call a “Squash” match was sad and humiliating. Unfortunately, Ricochet’s career has never seemed to recover from the loss of that match. This booking decision raised many questions on why he was booked against Brock Lesnar in the first place.
#4 Making Shayna Baszler Wait So Long In The Elimination Chamber
Elimination Chamber: March 8, 2020
Many were looking forward to the Women’s Elimination Chamber match. This match consisted of six superstars fighting in a chamber for the right to challenge Becky Lynch for the Raw Women’s Championship. Shayna Baszler was already seen as a favorite to win the match, but it wasn’t expected that she would just run through the competition in the manner that she did. Baszler eliminated every single opponent in sight. While this was an excellent build for her, the match wasn’t booked quite well, which resulted in Shayna awkwardly waiting for a long time until another pod opened. The awkward waiting slowed down the pace of the match. WWE could have made her take her time to destroy her opponents, maintaining her dominance and the match’s pace.
#3 Ending Rhea Ripley’s Momentum
WrestleMania 36: April 5, 2020
Rhea Ripley was one of the fastest rising stars in WWE who had a lot of momentum. This momentum had been stopped short when she lost the NXT Women’s Championship to Charlotte Flair. Some fans blamed NXT booking for slowing down this momentum of Rhea Ripley. Some fans also believed that Flair could’ve used that opportunity to help make Ripley look good by losing to her. With so many opinions about how the match between Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley should have been booked, there’s no debate that Ripley needed to recover from it.
#2 Continuing Becky Lynch’s Championship Reign
Wrestlemania 36: April 4, 2020
“The Man” Becky lynch had an incredible reign as the Raw Women’s Champion. However, many believed that it was time for Lynch’s reign to end. With Shayna Baszler beating the entire Raw women’s division, it was only right in many of the WWE fan’s eyes for Becky Lynch to lose to her. It very underwhelming for Lynch to defeat Baszler, retaining her Raw Women’s Championship. As expected, WWE received a massive backlash from WWE fans, which made some fans slowly turn on Lynch.
#1 Making “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt Drop The WWE Universal Championship To Goldberg
Super Showdown: February 27, 2020
When the match between “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt and Goldberg was first booked, the WWE had already put themselves in a tough situation. Goldberg was a 53-year-old part-timer, but making the “hero” lose at Super Showdown may not have gone well with the “feel good” narrative the WWE was trying to paint. On the other end, “The fiend” Bray Wyatt was red hot and gave much relevance to the WWE Universal Championship. Wyatt losing the Universal Championship to Goldberg in a less than two-minute squash match was seen as a significant mistake on the WWE writers from the WWE fans. Even though Goldberg is incredibly athletic for his age, many WWE fans believed that he shouldn’t have won that match. Goldberg is a part-timer, so the momentum was needed more for Wyatt than Goldberg.
Article content by @wrestleposts/Edited by Deshaun Ferguson @theprowrestlingreporter
All photos accessed August 17, 2020,https://www.wwe.com/Featured photo accessed and modified August 17,2020/No copyright infringement is intended
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