WWE's non-stop schedule lends itself to peaks and troughs as
it pertains to booking certain Superstars. Unfortunately, 2018 was a year that
saw a handful of capable talent silenced, squandered and sabotaged through
questionable booking decisions.
BAYLEY
Sasha Banks should be right up here with Bayley, but Bayley
barely edged out her BFF following a never-ending feud-turned-friendship
that served as a low-light of an otherwise strong year for women's
wrestling in 2018.
The egregious error with Bayley came when the
can't-miss babyface turned heel on the June 25 broadcast of Raw. The turn was
done so poorly, not to mention by a sympathetic figure, fans cheered wildly and
WWE immediately abandoned a follow-up to Heel Bayley the following week.
AOP
AOP was yet another casualty in the growing list of popular
NXT callups who fall by the wayside on the main roster. Once an intimidating
tandem of super heavyweights under the tutelage of legendary manager Paul
Ellering, AOP's no-nonsense act was given an unnecessary makeover. The pair
dismissed Ellering on its first night on Raw only to flounder in between stints
of start-and-stop booking.
To make matters worse, AOP was awkwardly paired with
babyface GM Drake Maverick, who not only confusingly portrayed a heel on Raw
but was also made to wet his pants at WWE Survivor Series. The stunt was the
catalyst for WWE to spend weeks building its entire tag team division around
urine, prompting short-lived chants of "A-O-pee-pee" from the Staples
Center.
BECKY LYNCH
Yes, Becky Lynch has had a breakout year but she has done so
in spite of truly abysmal booking. In fact, Lynch's organic rise was a direct
result of fans vehemently rejecting the story WWE was attempting to tell as The
Man portrayed a heel.
Despite valiantly working her way up the ranks as the punchy
underdog Becky Balboa, Lynch's chance at becoming SmackDown Women's champion
was stolen from her at the last moment by an opportunistic Charlotte Flair.
Somehow, WWE opted to have Lynch turn heel in an attach which fans fully
supported. Lynch's turn led to a familiar push-and-pull between WWE and
its stubborn fanbase throughout the summer.
Despite the incongruence between Lynch's persona and how
fans perceived her, or maybe even because of it, Lynch grew in popularity and
is currently the hottest commodity in WWE.
Becky Lynch's 2018 was a story of perseverance, breaking
through the glass ceiling and highly marketable trash-talk. But it was also a
story of failing upwards.
KURT ANGLE
Since taking the post as WWE Raw General Manager in 2017,
Kurt Angle was routinely booked to look like a buffoon. After standing up to
Triple H and Stephanie McMahon in defense of Ronda Rousey at WWE Elimination
Chamber 2018, the entertaining tension between the two sides took an abrupt
turn the following night when Angle simply admitted he made the whole
thing up.
Angle spent the second half of 2018 being babysat and
overruled by a revolving door of heel authority figures including Stephanie
McMahon, Triple H and Baron Corbin. Throughout his entire stint, there was
never a palpable sense that Angle was in charge of anything as Raw General
Manager. His signature intensity replaced by ubiquitously clueless stare, Angle
was reduced to a laughingstock on Raw despite rallying in December.
SHANE MCMAHON
Shane McMahon didn't truly enter the top-5 conversation of
bad booking until November, but from there he took the ball and ran with it.
After being bizarrely booked to win the Best in the World tournament
at Crown Jewel, WWE's follow-up wasn't a heel turn, but rather a comedy
storyline where The Miz—, who was bumped from the tournament finals and, in
theory, should be furious with Shane's glory-hogging ways—courted McMahon to
become his tag team partner.
Weak follow-up quickly became a theme with Shane McMahon,
who all but laughed off SmackDown's unprecedented 0-6 record at Survivor Series
2018. Mind you, this is a man who had previously, and unreasonably, threatened
to fire whichever SmackDown star came up short in the finals of the
aforementioned Crown Jewel tournament.
Shane McMahon has served as a personification of WWE's
failure to commit to meaningful storyline developments, one of many flaws that
has contributed to WWE's much-publicized ratings downturn.
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