WWE 2014: Top 5 Disappointments

[HBKistheHOF]

Just got to thinking after seeing the same topic about movies in 2014...

1.) Injuries - Getting hurt always sucks but injuries really hurt WWE this year. Several guys got hurt this year, from Rob Van Dam getting hurt during his short 2014 stint & Bad News Barrett getting taken out YET AGAIN, all the way to Daniel Bryan having a career threatening injury after only one title defense & Reigns being out for several months after only one singles match on PPV (which obviously hurt his overall progress & impacted the fans opinion of him), injuries were definitely a huge problem for the WWE this year.
2.) Brock breaking The Streak & Losing all his heat - After almost a full year, I'm still not all that fond of the fact that Brock Lesnar ended The Undertaker's undefeated streak at WM. Not only was the match not very good but since beating The Undertaker Brock has only appeared a few times & they were exclusively against John Cena, a guy who get's halfway booed or more most of the time anyways. & now Lesnar was basically turned into a full blown babyface after his match at the rumble & with Reigns being his next opponent in line. Lesnar was already a special attraction & he hardly did anything with the momentum he got from beating The Undertaker, he could have beat John Cena for the title & have been exactly where he is now without ending the streak. In fact, before his feud with The Undertaker started, Brock Lesnar was walking around claiming he was the #1 contender for the title anyways for no apparent reason. So if anything, his feud with Taker actually just got in the way.
3.) Chris Jericho's run - Y2J's 2014 run has been his worst to date IMO. Since taking time off from the WWE in mid 2005, Jericho has had several comebacks. Some lasting a few years & others lasting only a few months (or even weeks if you count his current return for a few live event shows). Out of all his returns, I think most would agree that his initial 2007 - 2010 return was his best hands down. & I think most would also agree his next return in 2012 was his 2nd best, coming back in a unique way with his complete silence after the cryptic vignettes featuring the little girl. As well as lasting until the very end in the rumble & having killer feuds with CM Punk & Dolph Ziggler before finally leaving. So that only leaves his 2013 & 2014 returns. Some criticized his 2013 return for losing a lot of matches, well not only did he actually win more matches than he lost that year according to Jericho himself on his podcast but many of those matches were great matches like the 2013 Elimination Chamber match for example, as well as some really big appearances at Wrestlemania & showing up as a surprise rumble entrant. While Jericho's 2014 run consisted of a rather underwhelming feud with Bray Wyatt, a thrown together PPV match with Randy Orton & a few end of the year Guest General Manager appearances. Not to mention his weakest actual comeback to date, interrupting The Miz's fake comeback that's really the best they could come up with? Sure his cage match with Wyatt was good & the match with Orton was pretty good too for having virtually no backstory but I think 2014 has to easily be his weakest run in the WWE to date.
4.) The Wyatt's Booking - 2014 started out with a lot of promise for The Wyatt Family but didn't really play out all too well. First off Wyatt's big feud with John Cena ended with Cena ultimately getting the upper hand... of course. Sure The Wyatt's cost Cena the title at the rumble & beat him down again inside the elimination chamber but when the already super established guy who couldn't possibly be any more established, beats the up & comer in 2 out of 3 of their big PPV matches & his wins are the two more important wins with them being at Mania & the big ending to their feud (not to mention Wyatt's only win came thanks to a child singing), it doesn't really come off looking that good for the up & comer. & in the midst of all that insanity, Harper & Rowan were having some of their best matches yet & some of the better tag team matches of the modern era & yet never once won the tag titles, not even for a day. After all of that Wyatt floated around for a bit, went on to feud with Jericho (which as stated above was somewhat lackluster & underwhelming considering their talents) & would eventually just disappear for a month or so with no explanation until finally returning to feud with Dean Ambrose, which I thought turned out to be a fantastic feud but most seemed to not care for. & when Wyatt just showed back up, Harper & Rowan would eventually just show back up in very casual ways to be booked well at first but ultimately just be tossed in the pile with all the other midcarders (more so Rowan who just lost to Big Show on his first singles match on PPV & has come out to mild response at best since then). Sure Bray is looking good again now because there is talks of a feud with The Undertaker but looking back, WWE has been extremely careless with The Wyatt Family.
5.) CM Punk Walking Out - I'm personally not that disappointed with Punk leaving. You could tell he was getting unhappier day by day just from his ring work & who knows if things would have played out the same for Daniel Bryan if Punk was still there during WM XXX. But either way you slice it, losing a main event talent is always a big blow in one way or another.

Honorable Mention:
- Still no Cody/Goldust match or feud
- The Divas getting a longer match than The Shield at WM XXX
- WWE failing to do anything with Cesaro (the 3rd straight Paul Heyman to not work out)
- Kane switching back & forth between Corporate Kane & Demon Kane
- The Big Show having a "big surprise heel turn" for what feels like the 1 millionth time
- Most NXT guys to debut like Xavier Woods, Adam Rose, Bo Dallas, etc. being failed experiments
- The Miz & Damien Mizdow's rather short Tag Team Title reign

 

[BuriedByCena]

1. CM Punk leaving hurt RAW the most. WWE felt empty for awhile until Seth, Bryan and Ambrose stepped up.

2. D-Bryan getting injured. That really sucked.

3. People being held down. Mainly Cesaro. He was getting over huge as a babyface with the swing. So what does vince do? Limits his moveset, tells him to stop doing the swing, turns him heel and give him the worst entrance music since Right To Censor. This is such an obvious and disgusting buriel. And Vince has the nerve to say Cesaro does not connect with fans? WTF? People were going NUTS for this guy around Mania time.

4. Commentary. Jerry Lawler needs to retire. I don't know why WWE lets this guy stay. Cole is horrible as always and JBL is hit or miss. JBL is sometimes hilarious and a real treat, other times he seems lifeless and does not care. All 3 guys seem so fake when they try to pretend to be excited for something or they do their fake laughs. Don't even get me started on Booker T and his shucky ducky quack quack.

5. Smackdown. It was still a RAW Re-cap show the entire year. At this point, they might as well cancel it. I quit watching years ago because nothing good happens on smackdown anymore.

6. Roman Reigns. He was solid the first half of the year. Sheild broke up. Seth/Ambrose excelled right away. Roman... didn't really do much of anything. I honestly can't remember what he did after they split. He fought Randy, but we all know Randy carried him that match. Then he got injured, lost his momentum and came back to luke warm pops. Since then it was bad/lol worthy promo's and boring matches.

 

[BigBombB]

05. No Follow Up For Brock Lesnar

After Lesnar definitively beat Cena, he ended up being put in a 'more competitive' bout with Cena so Cena could save face, then Lesnar disappeared. Not even showing up for PPVs. For months. Lesnar destroying a bunch of big, older veterans would have made for great television and had people tuning in again. Instead, we received nothing. You can't blame Lesnar for ratings not improving when he isn't even there.

04. Meaningless Midcard

The Mizdow gimmick is getting over but getting no respect. Barrett and Rusev are just holding titles with no feuds (though Rusev is looking great these days despite not being involved in a meaningful angle). The women's division is as bad as ever despite having more talented women than they have had in years. They use midcarders as filler and that is half the reason they have trouble keeping people glued to the show.

03. The Authority Angle

HHH and Stephanie are great but no one cares about their power trip. It is so forced and boring, the entire show is dragged down. Rollins is getting over as a heel moreso when they AREN'T involved. They are placeholder bad guys making no effort to be anything else.

02. What Happened To The Main Eventers?

Alberto Del Rio, CM Punk...gone. Sheamus, Randy Orton, Mark Henry, Daniel Bryan...what exactly are they doing these days? Dolph Ziggler, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt...they continue to be kept just a step below main event, which would be fine if they were trying to build them to that point, but the sporadic booking isn't helping any of them either.

01. Nothing Good For The Future

Brock Lesnar will be leaving soon, Roman Reigns kind of exists and became a 'top guy' for no apparent reason, John Cena is still trucking along the same path, Daniel Bryan is treated like dirt, fans are burned out from the one off 'top stars from the past' appearances. There is nothing to look forward to in 2015. Everything is winding down rather than winding up. WWE is too stuck in the 'here and now' which is going to bite them eventually.

 

[MC_Live]

1) Everything in 2014
2) Everything in 2014
3) Everything in 2014
4) Everything in 2014
5) Everything in 2014

Ok, maybe that's a bit drastic. There were a lot of cool high points this year. Warrior going in to the HOF, Daniel Bryan winning the Championship, anything on NXT, and Damien Mizdow. But this has to be one of the worst years in WWE history. There was just so much done wrong I don't even know where to begin. But I will try. In reality-

1) Bad booking for should be stars such as the Wyatts, Cesaro, post Hell in a Cell Ambrose, and others. Outside of Seth Rollins and Rusev, who has really been built up this year?
2) The failure of the Tag Team Division. The tag division had a quick resurgence, and we even had a good 4 way Tag match at Mania. Since then, it has dropped down to the only real credible team being the Usos. Sad.
3) Failure to advance the Divas division. With talent like AJ, Paige, and Natalya, the Divas division can have a silver age, and be almost as good as the golden days of Trish, Lita, Victoria, and Mickie. But alas, we get Total Divas...
4) The Mid Card titles are still useless. Why, oh why, did the US and IC champions lose every single non title match? The titles used to elevate people to the main event. Now they drag people down from just below main event to just above jobber (excluding Rusev, but that's a whole other story. What has he really done for the US title?).
5) Formulaic booking. Every single RAW started with a 30 minute promo by The Authority and ended with an Authority member in the main event, and everyone else interfering causing a DQ. The quality of RAW is terrible and this is part of the reason. Change it up damn!

 

[Hakushi]

IC Title COLD again: WWE HAS the formula to make this title meaningful and HOT. They had it started several times over the last couple years with Rhodes, Ziggler and Barrett, only to give up with the first hiccup. Insulting!

Storylines Absolutely non-existent (or given time to heat up) unless you are paired with the authority.

Lack of Progression: Almost every WWE Wrestler is in the exact same spot on the card as last year. Exceptions being Rollins (whose build has been surprisingly good) and Reigns, who feels forced and can not help elevate his own storylines.

$9.99 I spend it every month for the library and NXT, which is quite possibly the best talent pool around right now. Problem is, WWE will ruin them all when they are called up. I'll spend my $9.99, but guarantee the RAW rating continue to drop. Problem is, WWE is equating subscriptions with success, making them ever more rigid and arrogant. In my mind, the Network and TV Ratings are two different entities.

Rusev: I know it has not happened YET, but with back to back PPVs being fed to Cena, his year long push amounts to nothing. Not a knock on Cena either....he doesn't need this to get over. If you spend a year building something up and trying to get fans invested, why feed it to someone it can do nothing for?!?

 

[Dagger Dias]

Brock Lesnar ends The Streak
Seriously, Lesnar was one of the worst possible candidates to end Undertaker's undefeated streak at Wrestlemania. They had the potential to create an unimaginable amount of heel heat for a struggling heel that needed it, but Lesnar? Come on. He was a former WWE Champion and former UFC Champion. He would have been a heel monster no matter what he did. The fact that the match sucked made it even worse. I never wanted to see Lesnar VS Undertaker to begin with.

Nikki Bella wins the Divas Championship
Horrible, AWFUL decision. The divas division had such significant improvement during the last couple of years with Kaitlyn, AJ, and Paige's reigns.... Then WWE go and completely ruin the division's momentum by putting the belt on someone who can't wrestle and can hardly provide a decent promo. She never deserved a title shot to begin with, let alone the win or any retentions. The sooner she loses the belt, the better.

Three PPV events with no World Championship match
This is infuriating. One was bad enough and inexcusable by itself, but THREE!? The whole point of being a wrestler is (kayfabe) to become a World Champion. If the guy holding the belt never shows up, he should be forced to vacate the title. Hell In A Cell was one of the worst PPV's I have ever seen, while Survivor Series and TLC felt very incomplete despite being good shows. A World Championship match would have helped all three events a lot.

Summerslam 2014 main event
This might be the very worst of all. I wasn't all that interested going into the match, and what we got was not a match at all. Whoever made the decision to book this match the way it took place, needs to be fired from WWE Creative. Why would you have Lesnar squash the face of the federation like an insect? Going back to my point on The Streak, Lesnar did not NEED this! Secondly, this wasn't Heath Slater or Santino in the match. With how Cena was booked, it might as well have been. You don't book the face of the federation and the biggest star since The Attitude Era like that. It made no sense whatsoever and completely destroyed what would otherwise have been a decent show.

Lack of attention given to the Intercontinental Championship
Why does this belt still feel like it's not a big deal to win anymore? There are two extremely valid reasons for why the Intercontinental Championship should be getting amazing amounts of respect and attention at the moment. With there only being one World Championship as a result of the unification, you'd think that the current #2 belt would receive the same amount of respect that the previous #2 belt did. Sadly, it does not. They should be treating the Intercontinental Championship similar to how they treated the big gold World Heavyweight Championship in the last couple of years before the unification, a prize for upper midcarders and former World Champions needing something to do. Also, with the issue of having a World Champion who never shows up for three entire PPV cycles, why did the Intercontinental Champion not get to step up and be the (kayfabe) top guy onscreen? Instead the top prize gets to be held by a guy who never shows up while the secondary prize still gets treated like it's not a big deal whatsoever. Unbelievable.

 

[Navi]

Well in no particular order these are my disappointments for the year.

1. The breakup of the Shield - I realize why they broke them up, the Punk walkout, and injuries, but these three were arguably one of the best faction's ever created. Each brought their own strengths and weaknesses into play. In other words reason the Shield worked and was so good was because of the sum of it's parts.

2. Under-utilizing the roster - For most of the year every show was focused around the same players and it just seemed like creative forgot about half the roster. The only real stars that emerged were Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose, who got there on his own. Some like Cesaro, Wyatt and Ziggler were given moments in the spotlight, then quickly pulled back to the chagrin of the fans.

3. Misuse of Brock Lesnar - Here you have the former UFC World Heavyweight Champion. He comes back and ends Taker's streak, throws John Cena around like a rag doll and wins the title, and then disappears. When we do see him defend the title again, it's against Cena, and then he's supposed to fight Cena again. Thank God for the inclusion of Seth Rollins into that triple threat match. Which was amazing by the way. Lesnar's entire title run has been a total waste of time, and no he did not elevate the belt, he just didn't care and apparently neither did Vince McMahon.

4. Injuries - To say that the WWE hasn't had the worst luck this year would be a lie. You had Daniel Bryan go out, then Barrett, Reigns with a hernia operation, Orton and Sheamus. When 5 of your top guys go down and you don't have a gameplan in effect for it, that is a huge disappointment right there. There is more than enough wrestler's on the roster that can fill in until the others come back, and Ambrose did a wonderful job filling in for Reigns. Unfortunately it didn't get him anywhere with the company, but it did get him over with the fans, which some say might be more important in the long run.

5. The end of the Ambrose/Rollins feud - God was I pissed off the night that happened. I don't think I hated anyone more than I did Bray Wyatt at that moment. I've since calmed down. There was real history there between the two former Shield members, and they played off it perfectly. You could almost see the fear coming off Rollins as he walked down the halls. Every little noise made him jump, cause you never knew what shadow Ambrose was lurking in. When they finally met up in the steel cage I was really hoping to see Rollins get smacked so far Google search wouldn't have been able to find him. But alas it wasn't to be, Wyatt just had to get involved, for no other reason than.....well I've never been given a good reason really.

 

[MartialHorror]

I actually kind of agree with the Shield breaking up because there was nowhere else they could go with it. They trashed the Authority pretty badly. However, I do think they should've had a more elaborate feud with the Wyatt family. Or maybe sort of return to it as Triple H's backup plan. Maybe even have Bray corrupt Seth or something.

Another disappointment though: Forcing Reigns onto the title scene without enough solo matches. I'm not even talking about the Rumble situation, but after the Shield broke up, he had the most compelling storyline going into Money in the Bank. So it felt anti-climactic that he didn't win, but at the same time, it was the correct thing to do. It made him seem like a loser for his failed attempts going for the belt, and yet he had no business being there in the first place.

 

[Aquaman6686]

My Top 5 biggest disappointments in 2014:

5 - The misuse of Dolph Ziggler. In 2013 Ziggler was white-hot for the entire year, despite being continually made to look like a jobber after losing the World Heavyweight Championship. During Daniel Bryan's run at the top, Ziggler was only a hair below him in popularity, and should have clinched the top spot when Bryan was injured. Instead, Ziggler was glued to the midcard, trading the Intercontinental Championship back and forth with The Miz in very good but ultimately meaningless matches. At Survivor Series, Ziggler finally seemed to become THE guy when he single-handedly wiped out 4/5 of Team Authority and vanquished the evil authority figures from the company, only to be trapped in a meaningless feud with Luke Harper at the bottom of the food chain, and since has been booked as a complete nobody. He lasted barely two minutes in the Royal Rumble and is rumored to be "penciled in" to wrestle Daniel Bryan in the opening bout of WrestleMania 31. Dolph Ziggler is a guy who should be routinely headlining PPV events, and instead he's seen by the powers that be as a nobody who serves no purpose.

4 - The midcard titles. Both the Intercontinental and United States Championships have been almost completely meaningless for the past year. This is what the unification of the WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship was "supposed" to fix, and instead the titles are worse off than they were before. The first third of 2014, the US title was still held hostage by Dean Ambrose, who held it for almost a year and defended it about 5 times on television, then it was held by Sheamus who had some awesome matches with Cesaro and The Miz but really did nothing with the belt storyline-wise, and now it's on Rusev, who is booked as an unbeatable god but never defends the title, so it's still meaningless. The Intercontinental Championship was on Big E at the beginning of the year, so it was less than worthless. There was a bright spot when Bad News Barrett won it, only for him to immediately be injured. The Miz and Dolph Ziggler had some excellent matches for the title, but the constant switching of the belt did nothing for it. Then Ziggler traded it back and forth with Luke Harper, further damaging the belt. Bad News Barrett is now champion again, but is booked as a jobber and loses every match he's in.

3 - Chris Jericho. Y2J is one of the best in-ring talents WWE has and is better (and more over) than 99% of the full-time roster. So what does WWE do with him when he returns? They stick him in a meaningless feud with Bray Wyatt, which results in not one, but three terrible matches, and then he ends his run with a random loss to Randy Orton in an equally random PPV bout that took place for no reason. Why did Jericho even come back? His brief return this year accomplished NOTHING.

2 - The Authority. This storyline has gone on WAY TOO LONG. Has it really only been a year and a half? It feels like a decade. The Authority should have been destroyed by WrestleMania LAST year, and instead it's still going strong, and not a thing has changed. It's the same old boring storyline, and the same never-ending Triple H promos to take up 20-30 minutes of RAW every week. The storyline could have been ended permanently at Survivor Series, but they were brought back only a few weeks later to take up more TV time. Nobody cares about The Authority anymore. Just end it.

1 - The Streak. There was NO reason for Brock Lesnar to be the guy to end The Streak. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Undertaker should have either retired with The Streak intact, or used the end of it to create a new MEGASTAR that WWE could bank on for years to come. Instead, it was ended by a part-time guy that's never around to benefit from it, making the entire thing pointless. 21 years of victories at WrestleMania were flushed down the toilet for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON. It didn't add anything to Brock Lesnar, it only subtracted from The Undertaker. Any future matches The Undertaker has, including his rumored retirement match at WrestleMania 32, are now meaningless.

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

• the CM Punk walk-out - Punk was looking quite jaded in his last couple of months before he quit, so it's a shame a compromise wasn't reached where he had a short amount of time off and then came back refreshed and reinvigorated. He still had (has?) so much to give, and with the Shield coming into their own in 2014, there's 3 potential money matches right there. A crying shame it ended the way it did.

• The Cena v Brock title rematch not taking place at Hell in a Cell - whilst last year's was an enjoyable card with two very very good Cell matches, it would have made WAY more storyline sense for Cena to take some time away, reassess, and come back to get retribution against Lesnar, but with the great equaliser of the Cell. Of course this means no title match at Night of Champions, but I think that ppv needs to be scrapped anyway.

• injuries - impossible to judge, but two men in particular were most unfortunate in 2014. Daniel Bryan was finally given a proper run with the title, only to need neck and shoulder surgery keeping him out of action for 9 months. Roman Reigns went down with a hernia. The thing is, for Reigns in particular, so many criticise his lack of big matches. Give him those 3 months back and he's in a much stronger position. Not his fault he was on the shelf at the worst possible point in his career so far

• shoddy/lazy/non-existent booking - from Cesaro's vetoed push to the complete lack of follow up to Dolph Ziggler's winning at Survivor Series, and basically every week on a Raw, the best year for ppv in over a decade was also the worst year for tv. Illogical or ill-explained things too, like Dean Ambrose' tame lunatic, or the inexplicable reunion of the Bella Twins just two months after they split.

• the complete lack of interest in the tag team division - briefly it looked in 2012/13 as though it was being brought back to prominence, with glimpses in 2014 (Usos v Wyatts for one); likewise the US title (can't even remember who the Champ is) and IC belt. At least the divas have had some (mild) development and storylines recently, but it does seem that WWE only allows one undercard division to be pushed at a time. Surely a more common-sense approach, given they have so many writers, is to assign a team of writers for each division and allow each to develop?

 

[Hem]

2014 hasn't been a horrid year of wrestling, there have been worse. Never the less it was still not very good. My personal worst 5 moments of 2014 for WWE are:

5) The depush of Cesaro - I am an avid fan of Cesaro, as many others are. I think he is the legit superman of wrestling and deserves to be placed much higher on the card. In the time between WM 30 where he won the Andre The Giant Battle Royal and sided with Paul Heyman he completely got derailed. His feud with Swagger should have been awesome but it sucked. He was fodder for no apparent reason. Then to completely kill him off Vince said he can't connect.

4) Inconsistent Feuds - This year we have seen countless amounts of feuds get dropped without having any payoff or making even one person look strong. The only person who seemed to matter were Reigns, Rollins, Cena and Brock. Besides that feuds have either been meaningless or inconsistent and randomly dropped.

3) Breaking Wyatt Family Up - The Wyatt family was a whole act worth seeing. They added to the character of Bray Wyatt in a major way. After the break up of the Family, Luke Harper and Eric Rowan have been roaming around with pointless feuds and done matches with one another which should have been made to look important but weren't.

2) Bad Booking - I know WWE had to do some things due to injuries and departures but they took Batista, Daniel Bryan, The NXT Call Ups, CM Punk, ADR, Sheamus, Christian, Rey Mysterio, Cesaro, Sin Cara and so on and booked them horribly. This group of people minus the NXT guys had some sort of an important role during the past year or two and the ball was dropped was dropped on them.

1) Repetition - I will say I feel the storyline with the Authority has just been recycled too many times over just the past two years in the WWE. To sherely think that HHH has been one of the top heels in 2015 is just another thing. We have had the same storyline of Authority Vs. Outlaw play on for two non-stop years. It started with Punk, then Bryan, then Cena, then Ziggler, then Ambrose, then Reigns and so on. If it doesn't FINALLY end at this WM then I have no idea what to say.

 

[UltimoPhatty]

5. Breaking up the Shield and the Wyatts. Plenty of juice left in those tanks. IMO they could've gotten at least another year and a half out of those groups, with a major feud between the two lasting months.

4. Lesnar looks like a goof at & after Night of Champions. The interesting thing about Lesnar matches is that they seem more brutal. More "real." The NoC match was your typical John Cena match and it hurt Lesnar's mystique in the same way losing to Cena at Extreme Rules did in '12. Luckily, it looks like the Royal Rumble brought some back (thanks, Seth!).

3. The Authority is fired...for two months. Seriously. I was at Survivor Series, and there was a noticeable buzz after the show. Sting, Ziggler, Big Show's turn (ok....not so much there)...it felt like we finally had an "ending" to a story. There were plenty of ways to bring HHH back for his match with Sting without rehashing the same, tired Authority angle. If they're heels, play the heel! Don't open Smackdown trying to get everyone pumped up, Paul.

2. Batista's return. The man has become a bonafide movie star thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy. He's going to be in the next James Bond movie, and likely many more major roles to come. Arguably in the top five most over guys from WM21 to WM26, and they bring him back to fail.

1. The mistreatment of CM Punk. IF what Punk said on Colt's podcast is all true, then there are some real problems with WWE management. A staph infection is nothing to joke around about. If they would've simply given him proper time off to heal, I believe we would still be watching the Best in the World on WWE tv.

 

[kadroan]

1. Bryan's booking as WWE WHC.
After all the adversity he went through, being beat up constantly by The Authority and The Wyatt Family, beating Batista/Orton/HHH in the same night, when he faced Kane, the way they booked him I'd think it's Attitude Era Kane not Corporate Kane.

2. They dropped the ball on Cesaro.
After his performance from WrestleMania, you would think he would have been the next big star, unfortunately, they kept him heel by pairing him with Heyman and that turned out for the worse.

3. The Battleground PPV.
Ambrose is healthy yet you have Ambrose forfeit against Rollins because he was arrested and Rusev vs. Swagger finish via count out.

4. Sheamus's US title reign.
It was too long and drawn out. Mid card is the best place for him, however, they literally didn't do anything with him besides let him beat Cesaro twice in good matches. You think he was turning heel, by how he won the title in the first place.

5. Not elevating the IC Championship/champion during Brock's absence.
Brock didn't defend the title at HIAC, Survivor Series and TLC. Meanwhile, you got Ziggler coming out of Survivor Series as a bigger star yet during these months, you have a random Orton/Cena match at HIAC, no Rollins vs. Ziggler at TLC.