Best Of 2010s: Worst Angle Of The Decade

IMG Credit: WWE

This might be the one that is remembered above anything else. Anyone can have a bad match but you can make up for it the next time out. When you have a bad angle though, it can just keep going and going no matter what you do. That can make things all the more frustrating every time you have to see these people and that’s a pretty terrible feeling. There were some bad ones to pick through, but which is the worst? Or is it best here? Eh I don’t think anything is the best out of these messes.

Honorable Mention

Lana/Bobby Lashley/Rusev – I’m not putting this one on the regular list because A, it’s still going and B, I still don’t find it to be as bad as some. It’s not good by any means, but there are far worse choices.

Shane McMahon’s Lockbox – This was a red herring if you’ve ever seen one, as Shane threatened to reveal the contents of a lockbox that would reveal everything about Vince McMahon. The unveiling hinged on Shane vs. Undertaker at Wrestlemania, where Shane lost. Don’t worry though because the next night Shane got to run Raw anyway, making the whole thing one big waste of time.

Big Show Is Broke – Yeah remember this one? Apparently Big Show had fallen on hard financial times and had to work for the Authority, often crying over what he had to do. It was way too similar to Shawn Michaels working for JBL, which wasn’t exactly good either. This isn’t as terrible as some, but it’s pretty stupid and that warrants a mention.

The Authority

Again, it wasn’t all bad, but when it was bad, it was REALLY bad. The problem here was like so many McMahon stories: it went on for so long that it lost any meaning that it might have had in the first place. The Authority were the latest big bads who were telling everyone how to live their lives. That took a long time out of any given show and it kept feeling like little more than a way to get HHH and Stephanie on TV.

Survivor Series 2014 seemed to be the big saving grace of everything with Sting arriving to FINALLY vanquish the Authority….but they were back three weeks later because we just couldn’t live without them. It felt like that for a long time until they were finally gone, only to be replaced by Shane McMahon….with Stephanie joining him a few weeks later. Are you noticing a pattern here?

Anonymous Raw GM

Back in the 1990s, it was decided that wrestling fans were too stupid to get how things were put together and an authority figure was needed. For some reason this has continued for more than twenty years with one boss after another showing up to run things at any given time. That was the case again here, but this time we couldn’t see the boss’ face. Instead, we had Michael Cole reading emails from someone we never saw.

Of course we did wind up seeing him and it was…Hornswoggle, who was apparently a joke as the identity was never supposed to be revealed. It would have been better had no one ever been named, but why would you expect WWE to not follow up on a joke no one was asking for in the first place? This was stupid and got annoying fast, and then the payoff wasn’t something anyone was asking for. Oh and it just led to more HHH as boss because of course.

AJ Styles/Claire Lynch

Remember this one? Apparently AJ, the ultimate family man, had an affair with some woman named Claire Lynch, who cried about him over and over. It was stupid, it wasn’t interesting, it felt out of place, and then the actress playing Lynch quit because fans were yelling at her, mainly because was doing her job of being a heel. Allegedly she didn’t want to be associated with wrestling and if that’s true, I’m glad she’s gone. Heaven forbid an actress get to appear on national television every week. I’m sure any actress would turn down that job in a heartbeat.

It was a bad end to a horrible story. AJ Styles can play a heel just fine and having some bad soap opera story wasn’t the way to go. Let us see what he can do on his own by being the best in the world. Don’t do something stupid that no one is asking to see because you want to have some creative writing deal. There’s nothing good about this story, other than some actress who thinks she’s too good for wrestling being off television.

Kevin Nash Texted Himself

I’m still not sure if this makes sense. So back in 2011, Kevin Nash appeared in the Royal Rumble and got a huge reaction. Then for some reason he interfered in a World Title match at Summerslam 2011 to cost CM Punk the title, claiming that someone had texted him and told him to. It became a whodunit for weeks to see who sent the text, with HHH being a major possibility. It was an interesting twist, even though it wasn’t exactly something that needed to happen as CM Punk was derailed in a hurry.

And then it turned out that Nash sent himself the text so that he could get the spotlight one more time. Uh, ok then. Now of course this set up Nash vs. Punk….or at least it should in a sane world. But no, instead we got HHH vs. Nash as Punk was left out of the entire story. Punk wound up being fine and got the title back at Survivor Series, but sweet goodness what a mess this was to get there, and it really had no purpose other than getting the Kliq together one more time.

What could be worse than that? Oh there’s something in there.

Michael Cole vs. Jerry Lawler

This was bad for a pair of reasons. First and foremost: THEY’RE ANNOUNCERS! This was one of the featured stories of Raw and the whole thing was a battle between announcers who couldn’t get along because Cole was a super heel who didn’t do anything other than make himself look like a jerk. This went on for months, to the point where Cole even cost Lawler a WWE Championship match.

So the big solution was to have them fight at Wrestlemania (yes announcers fighting at Wrestlemania) where Lawler could destroy Cole once and for all, likely even writing Cole off of TV for a bit. But then there’s the second problem: COLE WON! WHEN THE ANONYMOUS GM REVERSED A DECISION! AT WRESTLEMANIA! This might be the dumbest result I’ve ever seen at Wrestlemania and it was in a match between two announcers who wouldn’t stop fighting because commentators need personalities. It was stupid, didn’t need to happen, and was the death blow to a Wrestlemania. That’s the worst of the decade and one of the worst ever.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

https://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

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