It seemed like a good idea at the time...

[Father:_Polley]

Throughout the annals of wrestling, there have been incidents like this. Ideas which started out good, well meaning ideas but ended up sinking more spectacularly than a lead balloon.

By this I'm talking ideas like Lita and Kane having a baby - decent story, but then one Snitsky induced abortion later, we have a horrible idea.

For me... it's got to be the Brawl for All Tournament. The idea was good. Wrestlers competing in a legit tough guy sport of boxing and have it culminated in a match against a real boxer.

What follows is Dr Death's tough guy push imploding after a legit knock out by BART GUNN(!!!), no-one understanding the rules, Steve Blackman and Hawk out injured, Savio Vega retiring, and to top it all off... Bart Gunn's big WM appearance, well... 30 seconds and tasting the mat twice against the legendary Butterbean isn't a great legacy.

 

[IrishCanadian25]

The "Who Is Vince's Son" angle comes to mind.

I brought this one up earlier, and I will being it up again now. Turning Randy Orton face after defeating Chris Benoit for the WHC and having him go on to feud with Triple H was, in hindsight, a POOR idea. Orton isn't a shred as effective a face as he is a heel. Not yet at least. I am certain it was great back then to say "let's make him the first to defect from Evolution, make him the youngest WHC champ ever, and have him feud with his former mentor." Whoops, wrong guy!

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

I will have to go with the Vinces' son storyline. I was hyped up to see who would turn out to be his son and the obvious choice was Kennedy. But he got suspended and they decided to let Hornswoggle be the son which totally killed it. If things held serve I would bet that Kennedy would be or have been a World Champion by now.

 

[klunderbunker]

The Who Ran Over Austin storyline. When he came back, the manhunt was on. Every week you knock out another suspect. Eventually you have to start wondering, who in the hell is left? Finally we hear Austin going after the Rock, and we have out man. Rock ran over Austin. But....no he didn't. So it wasn't Rock, it wasn't Vince, it wasn't HHH, it was...........RIKISHI??? Seriously, did they think this was actually going to work? The Austin car incident could have ignited an amazing feud with any young up and comer that would get a huge rub. Instead they give Austin a fat Samoan in a thong that can't do anything in the ring. It bombed so bad they switched it so it was HHH's plan all along, which saved the angle to an extent. Just leaves me to ask, What Were They Thinking???

 

[Father:_Polley]

To be honest the only thing preventing me choosing that storyline was the great line of 'I did it for the Rock' and the comedy value of that moment. It was up there in my eyes though. It was more of a slow steady decline than the capitulation of my idea.

My other theory would be that Austin would never truely give anyone the rub, since he always ALWAYS came out on top as far as I could see

and before anyone suggests it, I don't want plain bad ideas. For example, Katie Vick... always a bad idea.

 

[Sparky]

Yeah it has to be Vinces son angle. I know it wasnt the WWE's fault theyu have to stick to the Rules but the choice they made once Mr Kennedy got fired was Ridiculas. Nothing came out of it at all. its like it never happend. At least if it had of worked out it would still be going to an extent. But with this and most of these Ideas are storylines that cant be dropped. Fueds if one person is disqualified can be dropped and forgotten about but a story line as big as this one would of been cant be. They just took the worst possible ending instead of alot of good choices. Imagine The Brian Kendrick as his son....

 

[Father:_Polley]

On a purely sensible, logical and pandering to the smark audience, yes, it was an atrocious move. But for business having a guy who's popular with the younger element of the audience didn't hurt too much. The big factor on that was the whole 'he's not actually my son, he's Finlay's son'. To me, they should have gone back to the initial plan there and said 'THIS is MY son'


KENNEDY!

 

[klunderbunker]

I think the problem was that in WWE there is always a massive winter angle, and that ended the winter angle. The thing was, there were probably a hundred ways to get out of this. Kennedy was suspended for what, 60 days? You could stretch it out until Kennedy's return. Instead they threw it out and turned it into a bad comedy angle. We've had that. Wrestling fans enjoy serious stories. Not only was it bad comedy, but it was the same joke every week. Finlay and Vince made a deal. What deal? There's nothing at all that came out of the angle that was positive. Easily fixable, but it bombed so bad.

 

[jmt225]

Surprised no one brought up the "Higher Power" angle. That shit was awesome before Vince's dumb ass ruined it. I remember EVERYONE speculating who it was, and for it to turn out to be Vince McMahon… it was just a huge disappointment. That angle could've done so much for a wrestler's career, but Vince let his ego get in the way.

Another is when Raven returned to ECW. That was sooooo fucking awesome, and him and Dreamer as tag champs had so much potential for something great to happen week in and week out, but Paul E. dropped the ball on that one big time. Raven says that by the time he returned to ECW in 1999, Heyman was brunt out and wasn't as passionate creatively as he was years before, which led to Raven’s second stay in ECW to be terribly disappointing.

 

[Gelgarin]

For the sake of getting it out of the way, I might as well bring up the invasion.
The Monday night wars had come to an end, WCW had fallen and WWE should have consolidated the entire wrestling audience with a product absorbing angle that, on paper, should have fucking rocked.

In reality, every WCW fan who came across to the E got to see their favorite stars get buried weekly and made to look like a bunch of idiots. Most of the top guys weren't brought across in time. Those main event level competitors who did get brought in were swiftly jobbed out and then shoved into the mid card.

Had they managed to kick the angle off with the top WCW guys showing up, and had they not treated the alliance stable like a running joke for no other reason than ego, then the angle could have been remembered as one of the greatest of all time. Instead we have a period of wrestling that most of the world would rather forget, and a setback that the WWE has never truly recovered from.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Let's not forget the angle where they decided to turn Steve Austin from the best "anti-hero" in wrestling history into a sniveling coward. I still cringe when I think of Kurt Angle threatening to throw Austin off a bridge while Stone Cold stands in fear, blubbering like a baby.

It was a terrible idea and WWE abandoned it quickly enough once they came to their senses. How the concept ever made it out of Creative is beyond me. Consider what Austin was: a gunslinger who walked alone through WWE, carving a path of destruction. Then, suddenly, he's a loser who attacks only with a group of ex-WCW stars behind him.

Bad, bad, bad.

 

[klunderbunker]

Have to disagree on the Higher Power. Think about it.

For weeks and even months we're guessing as to who it is. Vince is being terrorized, his family is being terrorized, and he even makes his own stable in the Union to help him fight. He shows up on the Titantron to look this guy in the eyes, and it's him??? I freaked out so much on that. No one I knew ever saw it coming. All these months of VInce being dragged through hell and back by this man, and in the end it was all because of his absolute hatred for Stone Cold. If nothing else, that solidified him as the craziest and most evil character in WWF at the time.

 

[Spunky]

I was expecting "whats in the bag" angle with Kane to be mentioned.

It started off with Kane going mental after being pinned by Batista, While rampaging around ringside, He was shouting "Is he dead, Or alive?" Leading to much spechulation about who "HE" was, Name's like The Undertaker, The imposter Kane was flying around, Hell even Vinnie Mac's name was thrown in, As he had just had an "accident".

After a few week's of is he dead, Or alive, He started carrying the bag, Guarding it with his life, Letting no one touch it, Or get near it, Until Adamle "Demanned" Kane show us all what was in the bag, Everyone was expecting his old mask to be in the bag, Along with a major heel turn (the latter was in the bag), But then pulled out the Mysterio mask (angle killed), He then told everyone Rey was, "Burned, Scarred, And torured, Beyond human recogition", Until they put Rey in the scramble match, And then had him come out with NO psyical injuries, And have Rey dominate for a while.

I mean WTF, It could've legitamitly put Kane back in the main event picture, IF they would have had Kane pull his mask out of the bag, And turned him psychotic, Just as he was when he took the mask off back in 03'.

 

[2012isbs]

I think CM Punk winning MITB was a great Idea until he got the title it was ok but it got boring epecially with Cm Punk vs batista 3 ppvs in a row. They needed to give someone other then batista who is already a former world champ a title shot some one who is fresh who could make Punk look stronger and less colin Delaney. But we all know how that turned out.

 

[klunderbunker]

Punk's reign could have been good although never great. Yes he wasn't ready for the belt, but the win at least was absolutely perfect for what it was supposed to do: it shocked up. When Batista beat up Edge and Punk's music hit, we all freaked. However, his reign was badly handled. He never won a big match cleanly. That just ruined it for me. What were they thinking putting the World Title on someone and then having his biggest win be over Snitsky? That makes little sense. I get the whole underdog thing, but let him beat someone other than JBL clean. Batista wouldn't have been crushed by a loss to Punk, even by a roll up.

 

[Father:_Polley]

I'm afraid I'm disagreeing on the Higher Power Angle as well. The whole build up to the Higher power was outstanding and I really wondered as a kid who the HP would actually be. For a man to be so demented to hatch a plan to terrorise his family just to gain revenge on Stone Cold was inspired.

The prelude to it was gorgeously dark and the fallout with the transition into the McMahon-Helmsley era was done well to me.

 

[NSL]

I'm going to stretch this a little, and say that getting rid of the Cruiserweight Belt was a bad idea. At the time, with Hornswoggle holding the belt, it needed to be taken from him...

But, there have been some decent talent released by WWE recently, that were there because of the belt, and there's still some guys that could put on a few good matches for it. Jamie Noble, Jericho (pre-HBK feud), Kofi, JTG (?), Hurricane Helms, Jimmy Wang Yang, Kung Fu Naki, Evan Bourne, THE Brian Kendrick (pre-push), and Chavo are all still there, and Paul London was recently wished his best...

Maybe it'll still come back, but I doubt it with all the titles WWE already has and all the people involved in those storylines...