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(Note: The opinions expressed in the piece are author's own and do not necessarily reflect Sportskeeda's stand on the same.)
In the latest WWE NEWS, currently, is facing the fiercest competition that it has seen in many years. The rise of All Elite Wrestling has proven to be quiet significant and is threatening to the future of the world's biggest wrestling promotion.
While it has to do a lot with the talent, passion, and hard work of the people involved with AEW, a big part of AEW's massive start has to be WWE and Vince's habit of not learning from their past mistakes and repeating them again.
The fact of the matter is that many fans want to enjoy the wrestling product of both the companies and want to see them compete to enhance the overall wrestling standards, but WWE somehow doesn't seem to get that.
With Cody and the Elites announcing AEW in January of this year, it has been 5 months since WWE was aware that a major competitor is emerging. Instead of being cautious and improving their programming standards, the higher officials of WWE have continued to commit many mistakes that might prove to be very costly in the future.
In this article, let's take a look at the 5 Biggest Mistakes that WWE made in the first five months of 2019.
#5 Poor showcasing of RAW Tag Team Champions
While AEW is known for its exceptional Tag Team wrestling showcase, same can't be said about WWE. And no, the reason is not because of the talent involved, as WWE has lots of tag-teams on its roster that are as good as, if not better, than the ones in AEW.
WWE has been highly underutilizing its tag team roster as many of the wrestlers are poorly showcased, and not given proper screen time. But the biggest issue is with the RAW Tag Team Championship.
The showcasing of the tag team champions on the red brand has been so poor that I genuinely don't remember the last time we saw the RAW Tag Champs, Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder on TV. How can your champions not get screen time in a show that is 3 hours long!
The other teams on the roster like The Revival and The Usos are being booked in a comedic feud together instead of letting them do what they do best - wrestle fantastic matches.
#4 Not building a new star at Money in the Bank
Money in the Bank is a concept that is a great way to establish or launch a new star in the main roster. We saw how big of an impact it had on the career of Seth Rollins when he cashed it in the main event of WrestleMania 31 to become the WWE Champion and become a major star.
This year, the MITB match had stars like Drew McIntyre, Andrade, Mustafa Ali, and Finn Balor who would have highly benefitted from a MITB victory and could have entered the big leagues with a victory and a massive push afterwards.
Instead, WWE decided to give us a huge surprise at MITB when The Beast, Brock Lesnar entered the match out of nowhere to win it and become Mr. Money in the Bank. While I credit WWE for pulling off a surprise that no one saw coming, the fact is that no one wanted to see this either.
This was a huge mistake as the last thing fans wanted after the WrestleMania season was Lesnar back in the title picture. WWE missed a huge opportunity to build a new star at the show as someone like McIntyre or Andrade could have been highly benefitted from a run with the briefcase.
#3 Bad booking of Women's Tag Team Championships
Firstly, I would like to acknowledge that WWE has had a huge hand in changing the way women's wrestling has been and bringing what we know as - the women's revolution. Earlier this year, we saw the company add another layer to it by introducing the new Women's Tag Team Championships.
With such an amazing concept, fans were excited to see women's competing for this title. WWE started with a bang by crowning Sasha Banks and Bayley as the inaugural champions inside the Elimination Chamber in February.
But ever since the two lost the titles to The IIconics at WrestleMania 35, the booking of the titles and the champions has been disappointing. While the Boss n Hug connection was booked as tough champions, The IIconics are harming the prestige of the title.
It is not so rare to see Peyton or Billie take a pin or lose random matches against random opponents on RAW and SmackDown. In an era when AEW is focusing on the fact that wins and losses do matter, WWE has been making a huge mistake by booking their Women Tag Team champions in such a poor manner.
#2 Wasting the NXT call-ups on the main roster
Would you call moving from NXT to the main roster a promotion? I certainly would not. While the amount of exposure certainly goes up, the amount of opportunities and sensible booking goes down with a much higher rate.
Vince has often been accused of calling up NXT talents on the main roster only to bury them within a few months to an extent that they hardly get any TV time. It is a shame to see talents like EC3, Sanity, The Revival and many more having no sense of direction to their characters on the main roster.
With such a stacked main-roster, I don't really get why does WWE call-up so many NXT superstars together so frequently. Superstars like EC3 would have been better-off in NXT competing for the NXT Championship instead of sitting in a dumb Uso block party backstage on RAW.
WWE seriously needs to stop this mistake as this would only result in more and more unsatisfied superstars asking for their release from the company.
#1 The Wild-Card rule
The announcement of the Wild-Card rule was a Vince McMahon panic mode special that we all got to witness. If you are unaware of what that is, each week 3-4 superstars from RAW and SmackDown will be allowed to appear on the other brand.
While many are of thoughts that this was introduced to let top stars like Roman Reigns, Kofi Kingston, Becky Lynch, etc appear on both shows and improve the ratings, this rule is slowly and steadily killing the purpose of a brand split. If you are a new viewer, you might not even realize that the two brands have separate rosters.
With many top superstars appearing on RAW and SmackDown each week, it takes away the opportunity to showcase a talent that is in need of some TV time to stay relevant. While it's fine for these superstars to appear on the other brand occasionally to take care of some important issues, but we are even witnessing superstars like Apollo appear on RAW as a jobber.
With each passing week, this rule is taking over the programming more and more, so much so that last week we saw as many as 6 superstars appear on RAW from SmackDown, which is a clear violation of the rules that Vince himself laid out.
What are the other biggest mistakes that WWE has made in 2019 so far? Do let me know your opinions in the comments section below.
