You would be hard-pressed to call 2016 a terrible year for WWE considering all it has had to offer, including the arrival of AJ Styles, the rebranding of the women's division, and the return of the Brand Split.
On top of all that, we have been treated to a handful of amazing matches and moments from John Cena vs. AJ Styles to Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens. These two feuds were nothing short of sensational and gave fans a handful of awesome outings throughout the spring and summer.
Although it has been a great year for in-ring action on the whole in WWE, that isn't to say 2016 hasn't had its various low points as well. And perhaps the biggest blemish on this year has been the rivalries that were undoubtedly awful.
Whether the matches disappointed, the segments sucked, or there was a general sense that nothing was accomplished, these programs were more or less a waste of time. While they weren't completely forgettable, they will instead live on in infamy as being the bottom of the barrel in 2016.
All right, so nothing we have seen this year has been quite as bad as Dolph Ziggler vs. Rusev from 2015, but there were a few feuds that came close to measuring up. Here, we'll look at five feuds that could be considered the worst of the year once 2016 is officially over and done with.
#5 Charlotte vs. Natalya
It can be argued that the real women's revolution was born not out of pointless six-Diva tag team matches but rather out of the amazing outing Charlotte and Natalya produced at NXT TakeOver in May 2014. The two women contested a classic that saw Charlotte walk away with her premiere NXT Women's Championship.
Also read: 5 Most boring feuds in recent WWE history
Of course, fans anxiously awaited the moment when they could feud on WWE's main roster and have a similar series of great matches. That feud finally came to fruition this past spring immediately after WrestleMania 32, but it was far from what it could and should have been.
Their back-to-back bouts at Payback and Extreme Rules were decent at best but were saddled with terrible finishes. It also didn't help that Natalya was not a compelling challenger for Charlotte, later leading to her turning heel at the start of the summer.
#4 Dolph Ziggler vs. Baron Corbin
Baron Corbin was primed for huge success on WWE's main roster when he was called up at WrestleMania 32 and wasted no time in making an immediate impact by winning the third annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
The very next night on Raw, Corbin asserted his dominance over Dolph Ziggler by laying him out with an End of Days on the outside of the ring. One would think their subsequent storyline would have been exhilarating from that point forward, but all they ever did was trade wins in mediocre matches.
Corbin could have really benefited from beating a former two-time world champion in his first singles match on a WWE pay-per-view at Payback, but he lost to Ziggler in decisive fashion and it was all downhill from there. Their seemingly never-ending rivalry mercifully concluded at Money in the Bank with Corbin toppling Ziggler.
#3 Stephanie McMahon vs. Shane McMahon
Coming in at the No. 3 slot is a feud that doesn't even feature two active wrestlers, one that started over a decade and a half ago and never really ended. When Shane McMahon made his long-awaited return to WWE earlier this year, the crowd went nuts, but it became apparent pretty quickly what he was back for, to feud with his sister Stephanie, again.
Sure, the resurrection of their rivalry gave us the Brand Split back, but Raw and SmackDown Live have largely been centred around them in recent months. Shane is at least bearable in his role on Tuesday nights, but Stephanie takes up way too much television time on Raw and never gets what's coming to her.
The program has been done to death, and worst of all, you know it won't end in a one-on-one matchup between the two at any point. Thus, we will likely be forced to suffer through it until one of them ultimately leaves again.
#2 The New Day vs. The Club
Personally, I was looking forward to what this feud would bring when it started on the first episode of Raw in the “New Era.” But it wasn't long after that the rivalry took a turn for the worse with The Club resorting to terrible comedy by playing doctors.
The unfunny segments would have been worth it had they delivered a good match at SummerSlam, but they didn't. Granted, it wasn't atrocious by any means, but the disqualification finish was flat and Jon Stewart attempting to endorse New Day was cringe-worthy.
However, the feud didn't end there. They resumed the rivalry heading into Clash of Champions, where New Day won again, as well as the rematch the next night on Raw. In so many words, the feud did damage to both acts and neither have been able to recover.
#1 Darren Young vs. Titus O'Neil
It's great that the Brand Split has given certain Superstars more opportunities to receive television time, but it backfired horribly in the case of Darren Young vs. Titus O'Neil. The two tag team partners mutually parted ways late last year, and when they ended up on the same show in the 2016 WWE Draft, they began having matches against one another.
Why WWE waited so long to do a feud between them is beyond me, but above all else, no one cared! Young and O'Neil were way better allies than adversaries, and that was evident when their first feud flopped miserably in early 2014.
At the onset of this program, it wasn't clear who was supposed to be the heel and who was the babyface, so fans sat on their hands for each of their outings. After their brutal segment on the post-SummerSlam edition of Raw where O'Neil botched almost all of his lines, the feud was scrapped and never resolved.
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