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The year 2019 is about to come to a close - which also marks the end of this decade. We have seen a lot of changes in WWE landscape throughout the last 10 years - from the emergence of a new face of the company in Roman Reigns to the revolution in Women's wrestling. WWE has done a tremendous job in the past 10 years and is still on the top of the world when it comes to professional wrestling. The company is still the undisputed king in this business and it likely always will be.
However, everyone is prone to making mistakes. Even the largest professional wrestling company is not an exception. During this decade, WWE has made some mistakes when it comes to booking its talents. In this article, we will take a look at five things WWE got wrong in this decade. This article is not intended to bash WWE, just to look critically at some plans that missed the mark.
#5 Roman Reigns winning the 2015 Royal Rumble
When Brock Lesnar squashed John Cena at SummerSlam 2014 to become the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, WWE began setting the wheels in motion to push Reigns as the next big babyface of the company. However, the WWE fans were not too keen on that. Based on months of reactions, the WWE Universe wanted Daniel Bryan to win the 2015 Royal Rumble and reclaim the title he never lost after he was injured and had to relinquish the title in 2014.
However, WWE went all-in with Reigns. When the Big Dog won the 2015 Royal Rumble match after eliminating Rusev, the whole arena showered him with boos. Even The Rockl, who came out to celebrate with his cousin, could not save Reigns from the overwhelmingly negative reaction from the Philly faithful.
The fans did not support Reigns throughout his road to WrestleMania and in the end, WWE may have had to change its plans to give the fans a reason to go home happy at WrestleMania. Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank contract in the main event of WrestleMania 31 to complete the "Heist of the Century".
#4 Wildcard rule
The wildcard rule started as a neat idea to use some of the top guys on both RAW and SmackDown Live after the 2019 Superstar Shakeup. However, it soon went out of control and ended up with too many of the same people showing up on both shows every week. For more than five months, WWE offered little to no variety in its segments, and many wrestlers lost out on TV time that the brand split had previously offered them.
Roman Reigns, Shane McMahon, Drew McIntyre, and Elias were some of the Superstars who appeared regularly on both brands, and the storyline including those four men took up a significant portion of time each week on both shows.
After the 2016 brand split, both RAW and SmackDown Live had something different to offer from each other. They had different flavours. The Blue brand focused on in-ring action whereas the Red brand focused more on storytelling. However, the wildcard rule, which continued until the WWE Draft in October, unwound that concept entirely.
You know something is not right when even the top stars of the company speak against it. Kevin Owens called out Wildcard rule for being "loosely defined" and "loosely enforced" whereas Seth Rollins blamed the rule for "muddling" things up.
#3 Unifying WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship
As mentioned earlier, RAW and SmackDown should offer something different from each other. In the early half of this decade, WWE did nothing like that. There were no restrictions for Superstars to drift between brands whenever they wanted. Similar to how the wildcard rule stifled the sense of uniqueness RAW and SmackDown had to offer, these appearances from the same Superstars on both shows in the early 2010s was difficult to follow and could become tedious.
This was even more aggravated by the unification of the WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship. At TLC 2013, WWE Champion Randy Orton and World Heavyweight Champion John Cena clashed in a TLC match to unify the titles. Orton ultimately won the duel and unified the title.
From this moment, SmackDown mostly became a shorter version of RAW. The same Superstars cut the same promo on both RAW and SmackDown, and it became almost like a recap show, with rematches, and video packages of things that happened earlier that week on RAW. You would generally not miss anything even if you were to skip a few episodes of SmackDown during this period. If we remove our rose-tinted glasses and take a look back at this period, we would understand how dull SmackDown was until the return of the proper brand split and the move to Tuesday nights.
#2 Brock Lesnar breaking the streak
The Undertaker's WrestleMania winning streak was probably the best example of WWE's long-term storytelling. When we stepped into the 2010s, the Deadman had won all 17 of his WrestleMania bouts.
In 2010, Shawn Michaels challenged The Undertaker for the second year in a row, this time in a streak vs. career match, in arguably the best match of the year. In the successive two years, it was Triple H's turn to give us two brutal and brilliant WrestleMania duels with the Undertaker. In 2013, CM Punk lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania, marking the 21st and last win in the Deadman's famous streak.
In 2014, at WrestleMania XXX, Brock Lesnar hit the F5 The Undertaker for the third time in the night to get a pinfall victory - hence ending Undertaker's legendary streak.
The match was a disappointing affair - owing to the Deadman suffering an unfortunate concussion early on in the match. However, the matter that agitates the fans even to this day is the fact that WWE, in the opinion of many, wasted such a legendary moment on someone like Brock Lesnar, who does not seem to care about the business, and didn't gain anything from the accolade. WWE could have used that win to bolster someone else but instead gave it to Lesnar - someone who was already well established in the company.
#1 Bringing Shawn Michaels back from retirement
Shawn Michaels is a legend in WWE in every sense of the word. He was an amazing professional wrestler, his promos were top-notch, and he currently plays a huge role in developing the next generation talents in WWE Performance Centre. Michaels always has been loyal to the company.
So, in 2010, WWE gave a fitting farewell. The Heartbreak Kid got an opportunity to challenge Undertaker at WrestleMania 26 in an attempt to avenge his loss from the year prior. What followed then was an epitome of brilliant storytelling in WWE. Everything about this rivalry was perfect.
The match was amazing, to say the least. The fans were always on the edge of their seats and both these legends gave us a performance that's well worth the money. A lot was at stake for both men. Undertaker was fighting to keep The Streak alive, while HBK was fighting for his career. Ultimately, Michaels could not answer the referee's count of three and had to retire - in a perfect way.
Fast forward to November 2018, when Michaels came out of retirement to perform a tag team match in Saudi Arabia. Even though some fans were excited to see the Showstopper back in action, they soon understood it was a mistake to bring him back.
The main event could not deliver anywhere near the standards the fans would expect from Triple H, HBK, Kane, and The Undertaker. An unplanned unmasking and a number of embarrassing moments and missteps plagued the match. Even Shawn Michaels "disowned" his return match and said it was not a "real" in-ring return. Hopefully he will get a chance to redeem himself, much like Undertaker and Goldberg did earlier this year, and go out on a high note one more time.
