10 Worst WWE Moments Of 2008

When we bring up 2008 in the WWE, I would imagine that most fans think of the Ric Flair-Shawn Michaels retirement match

You remember how Atari I love you. It was a great moment. And then Ric, of course, ignored the stipulation and he kept on wrestling

Of course he did. Hanging up the boots in sports entertainment has at best, I would say, a 34% success rate

You also get CM Punk becoming the World Heavyweight Champion, and we are going to talk about that later

and that amazing John Cena return of the Royal Rumble. So there were plenty of good moments, and you had The Undertaker edge view too

Yeah, it was really fun. It was also the year where WWE started to go PG, however, and that brought about some issues

Vince McMahon especially went PR stunt crazy and that was not the best idea

So I am Simon Miller. I don't have any hair. Let's go through 2008 and see where it all fell down

Number 10, Brandon Walker. Let us not get this wrong. Chris Harris in TNA was quite the dynamic performer

Fans really warmed to the guy because he knew what he was doing. And as one half of America's Most Wanted, him and James Storm were a reason to tune into the show

They kept that up for most of 2007, so early in 2008, boom, we learned that Harris had signed with WWE

It hit shaky ground instantly because Chris didn't wrestle until March. That was a house show, and it wouldn't be until July when he turned up in ECW

At six months of nothing, I can do maths. The flub is happening. He reappeared as Brandon Walker when he confronted Armando Estrada, so it was time to find out what his gimmick was

And yep, he told bad not-not jokes. Not kidding, that's what he did

you could hear the collective sigh in the room. Estrada, to his credit, played along

and Walker's punchline was, I'm going to knock your brains out. Alright, this is a strange way to go about things

And we all know if you are going to tell bad jokes, you go with, there's two fish in a tank, and one says to the other, can you drive this

He did win the match and defeated James Curtis too in August, when, if you can believe it, he got let go

So that was his entire run. It just made no sense because no thought had been put into this at all

Felt that the left hand wasn't talking to the right, and Brander's highlight reel could fit on a YouTube short

In fact, that would be too long. So it was just the ultimate use of bad talent and it helped nobody

And it also told TNA wrestlers, maybe you should Celine Dion this and think twice about jumping

You may get buried. Number nine, the Royal Rumble fiasco. The 2008 Royal Rumble is fun because John Cena had that return

but it does mean it overshadows other talking points. Hornswoggle, for example, entered at number nine

And realizing he was going to get murked, he hid under the ring. He did that a lot

He saw a dangling arm at one point and pulled Demis to the floor in a ha-ha, that was funny moment

but also kind of exposed him to Mark Henry and Big Daddy V, so they went and got him

They were big, he was small. That prompted Father Fit Finley to walk out before his plan number 27 entry

and sure, I get this, he wanted to save his son, but then they'd just left

The announcers were baffled when somebody sent word that Finley had been disqualified for using his shillelagh

as well as ignoring his official entrance time. Now, disqualifications in the Rumble can do one straight away

but come on, man, don't enforce these other rules either. The best thing about this match is how ridiculous it can be

This genuinely felt disappointing. The best statistic is that Swogs was out there for almost 30 minutes, whereas Shelton Benjamin got 18 seconds

2008 was so crazy there were some interesting ideas but loads that were jettisoned as soon as they didn become the most popular concept ever We most of the time we gave it three weeks Number eight Hornswoggle gets whipped

So let us stick with the horn as well, because 2008 in many years was his year

It was after being outed as Vince McMahon's illegitimate son in 2007

so I suppose there was a need to follow up on that. The story here was McMahon was embarrassed that a small person was his offspring

which is just such low-hanging fruit. On the 18th of February Raw, however, he was going to teach him a lesson in a steel cage

The long term here was actually Fit Finley vs JBL at WrestleMania, but before then, yeah, it was Vince and Hornswoggle

I wouldn't say it was that good. Vince also destroyed Swoggle during this too, including some horrific belt shots

and Fit was handcuffed to the ropes during all of this, so it was especially brutal. When JBL joins in, I think they were trying to kill him as Finley vowed revenge

It would have been sort of fine if this didn't go on for weeks, but my god, it just went on and on

and nobody seemingly acknowledged it as a proper match. There's no rating on cage match or anything like that

there's barely any reviews, there's essentially one big mad angle. But still, watching McMahon murder this guy on TV

wasn't all that enjoyable, even more so because you knew proper revenge was never on the cards

It felt unbalanced. It also wasn't very good. That Mania match though

fair play to fit in JBL, you should go watch that instead. Number seven, the Divas title

Was this a bad thing? Not in principle. If you do want to have a women's championship with a specific name

that doesn't have to be the death nail. I mean, the name Diva isn't great given the connotations of such a word

but if it's just branding, fine. But now when we look back, not so much

It got introduced to the Great American Bash when Michelle McCall defeated Natalya, and guess how long that match went

Less than five minutes. It did mean Michelle was the first ever Divas champ when Vince McMahon forgot about it

Because this pay-per-view was in July, and it wasn't defended again until October and September

Instantly the fans knew where the pecking order was, and the rest of the year isn't that great either

It sort of feels like an afterthought. It somehow lasted until 2016 when finally the women's division got the serious upgrade it needed

And just go and read the stories now. The female division had to fight tooth and nail to get anything greenlit

and it just wasn't all that good. By 2008, women's wrestling should have been taken way more seriously

It wasn't Japan, and even TNA had established a solid foundation. So for the main promotion to be going backwards, well, it weren't great

Number 6, McMahon's Million Dollar Mania. Alright, we talked about this briefly

Vince McMahon decided to get fans back. He should do a real-life competition and give away $1 million

Talk about transparency. Please, will you watch my show? We did this live on Raw 2 with McMahon ringing people up

And good grief, it was painful. Sometimes there was no answer. We got voicemails picking up instead

And it took up so much TV time. Surprise, surprise. We've already talked about it

It lasted a grand total of three weeks. It was always flipping three weeks

I think Vince realized it had to be switched around so of course he went back to what he tried to do in 2007, kill himself

Because during the 23rd of June Raw, he was crushed in the set as it all fell down as

he cried out to Triple H and called him Paul. Therefore, it must be real. Of course, McMahon also said he couldn't feel his legs, which kind of feels a little

bit overboard. But nobody bought this It was so obviously rigged and much like the competition it didn get anybody to come back to Monday night If anything it underlined the issues with WWE What were we doing especially with the Night of Champions pay on the way

Maybe we should have used this time to promote that instead. It just wasn't the right thing to do, hence why it was over so fast

And all of this was such an odd time to be a fan. We were all over the place

What were we meant to do? Number five, Vladimir Kozlov. So I don't necessarily blame Vladimir Kozlov for this

We talk about not being given time to try and make things work. Also, wrong place, wrong time

A foreign menace heel in 2008? Come on. It also started with squash matches that felt like they were from the 80s

and from nowhere, Kozlov was on top. He worked Triple H to Jeff Hardy at the Survivor Series

and everybody said the same thing. Why is he here? Just do the game versus Jeff, that's fine

Turned out it was all part of an angle where Hardy actually got attacked beforehand, and that was terrible as well

WWE.com ran the story like Jeff had actually been hurt for real, I have some news

Don't do that. Vicky Guerrero also walked out after 10 minutes and went, ha ha, Edge is now being thrown in here instead

And it was such a mess. And look, when we did have Kozlov and Triple H, let's all just be kind here

It wasn't great. Vladimir was even allowed to be the Undertaker on SmackDown, and for better or worse, that never happened

It was frustrating because everybody could see this wasn't clicking, but we carried on regardless

It was an early taste of McMahon doing whatever he wanted to inspire the fans. I mean, if I was going to sum it up today, I could give you six simple words

Do not watch it in 2025. That was about 42 words, but no, no you shouldn't

There were just so many other people ready to go, and even now you'll kind of get annoyed

Number four, JBL is poopy. So earlier we talked about the switch to PG programming, and yes

John Cena was going to be the poster boy for this in good grief. For some reason, my man took the idea of what family TV was and turned it into toilet humor

We didn't need to do that. In the mid-2008s, though, Cena and Crime Time were teaming together before WWE basically forgot about it

That was a shame. It sort of proved that Shad, Gaspar and JTD had something, but we just didn't bother

Alright, the whole audience was turned off by it, although it wasn't due to that

It was because on the July 7th Raw, Cena bized JBL's limo

and he did indeed write JBL is poopy on the side. He didn't even go for poop, which would be grammatically more correct

Just JBL is poopy. I don't even think a five-year-old would have done this

It's a big reason why John started to get booed as well, because a lot of fans still going to the shows were adults

They were already worried about PG, and now they were getting this? The dream was dead

It didn't help that the announcer had sold like Cena had kidnapped a child, but even JBL sucks would have been fine

That's a standard phrase. We only did poopy because McMahon has a very strange

and let's face it, in a tall sense of humor. Number three, Mike Adamley on commentary. So I've mostly included this for one reason

because yes, Mike Adamley on commentary did not work. It was even worse as he replaced Joey Styles

and fans loved that guy. It was just so WWE. Get rid of the popular figure to bring in someone that was more of a sports guy

It never works, and it's not what the audience wanted, especially because this was on the revived ECW brand

With Styles on the call, at least that spirit could never die. It really was my man just trying to pick apart what Paul Heyman liked about his promotion

and I think Mike would be the first to tell you this didn click but look at what we learned later Adam Lee a former football player was suffering with major CTE issues and of course that would have affected him here I not saying it would have been ideal even without all that but you do have to give him some leeway when you learn that news

That's terrible. I don't think Adam Lee was that up on his wrestling knowledge either, and surely that should be on your CV. Doesn't matter what you look like. As a lead announcer

you have to gain the trust of the crowd. So if you're getting facts wrong, you're not good

It didn't work. Yet WWE kept on with this model for years anyway. Number two

Then he became the general manager. And they literally carried it on here as well, because yes, on the 20th of July Raw

Mike Adamley became the general manager of Monday nights. The sheer fallout from this went on for the entire three-month run too

Any time a mistake was made, kablammo, here we go. What made it even more curious is that Shane McMahon announced Adamley as the new GM

and that was a role Shane could have done. Because trust me, this was like watching a fish out of water

I'm sure Mike wasn't over the moon about it either. He would have known where he was with his wrestling knowledge

and nobody wants to be put in a difficult situation. Nothing else, he just made fans question who was this for

because it damn sure wasn't for them. Before all of this as well, Adam Lee had been a perfectly fine backstage interviewer

so why couldn't we have left him there? Instead, we pulled the rug out from underneath him and he went all over the place

I mean, you could have given him some training and then seen, but nope, this all happened basically overnight and shock horror didn't click

WWE knew this as well and changed direction pretty quickly and I just don't get what the plan was

unless the plan was actually to annoy the fans. Sounds ridiculous, but a lot of people from this time have said Vince McMahon did have periods where that was his only focus

Let's just get a rise out of the crowd. This worked. Social media lost it

Number one, CM Punk loses the world title without losing it. To this day, this one is mad

2008 should have been a banner year for CM Punk because it finally looked like WWE was going to see where he could go

He won the WrestleMania Money in the Bank match and cashed in on Edge on the 30th of June Raw to become the World Heavyweight Champion

If you were a ring or honor fan, this felt seismic. seismic, Punk had gone all the way. Gilly WWE never saw him as a proper main eventer though, as from here, he had to jump through

so many hoops to worse coming at the end, because he's another guy we just pulled the

plug on as fast as we could. It came before the scheduled scramble match at Unforgiven, and WWE had built this up like

oh my gosh, how will CM Punk survive six other people vying for his belt

The truth was he wasn't going to be okay with one, because backstage, before we even

got to the bout, Randy Orton kicked his ass, and Punk was barred from competing

Chris Jericho was then moved into his slot, and why 2J actually won the title

Imagine we did this to any other champion. Well, we can't because it wouldn't have happened

No, Punk did get a TV revenge match against Jericho down the line, but he lost that, of course

Then he got thrown into a random tag team with Kofi Kingston, who was such a 180 and surely annoyed Punk a little bit

It was needless, and you would never get away with this in 2025, especially with a hardcore fan favorite

If you don't want Punk to be... Also, if you want to take the belt of Punk, put him in the scramble anyway and have somebody else win. This made no sense. It's 2 plus 2 equals

potato. No other elements of 2008 that need to be discussed, I suppose in negative terms. Let me

know in the comments below. Before you like the video, share the video, damn it, subscribe. You

can then click the video on the screen to get even more years when we do talk about the worst parts of WWE, but otherwise, my friends, have a terrific day. I will talk to you again soon