Ranking The Worst Era Of Every Major Wrestling Show

So people keep asking me this question and of course as a positive piece, I think it's crazy

All wrestling eras are awesome. Even I think that's baloney. That would be really, really stupid

This is obviously a huge lie because the thing with wrestling is that it never stops

It does go 365 days a year and you get show after show after show

Nobody has that perfect of a batting average. Sometimes you're going to knock it into the floor

What is the absolute rock bottom though for each company? Let's find out

Now there are seven main ones that we are going to go through, so your favorite may not be here

And let's start with the trend that is never going to die, which pleases me, TNA

Now we all know that all total non-stop action needed to do was be a good number two to WWE

Yet over the years, until really the most recent era, they didn't know what they wanted to be

That was really confusing. Now you can't say the promotion totally screwed it up because again, they are still alive in 2024

But yeah, when we do go back to January 2010, it all kind of fell into the mud for a bit

And this is mostly because TNA did bring in Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff. And the first thing they did was send Hulk to the ring

who was like, we're going to get rid of the six-sided ring because the four-sided one is better

But the way he said this, it was so disparaging. To what TNA had been doing before

it was almost like he was going, well, you all screwed up and now I've got to sort it out. Hogan was also soon bringing in his friends too

and at one point Val Venus was even there, which didn't make any sense. And the real overwhelming problem seemed to be that Hogan and Eric

hadn't really been keeping an eye on the modern day of professional wrestling, so they were just doing what they did before

That was never going to work. Years and years had passed. The following six months too, in terms of stories

saw Abyss get power from Hulk Hogan's magical Hall of Fame ring

And I'm not kidding. AJ Styles became Ric Flair's lackey, and people like Orlando Jordan were beating Samoa Joe

You tell me. Nigel McGuinness' Desmond Wolfe also was just involved in sometimes being there

and sometimes vanishing completely. And the Nasty Boys got a win over Team 3D

I don't get it. We also went away from the more longer TNA banger matches to really short ones

And, of course, the core fan base didn't like that at all. The last people you want to annoy is those individuals that would turn up every week

So it was just too much of what we'd seen before because a lot of this was a bit like the dying days of WCW

Well, it didn't work then. to make sure as hell didn't work here. We shall move on to NXT after this

My word, it's been through so many changes. Now, depending on where you start as well

it actually goes from the strangest program you've ever seen in your life to one of the best ever

I mean, it's had so many different facelifts. Where do you even begin? Now, you're probably thinking

I'm going to be talking about when it was an odd reality TV show, but the deal is

it was meant to be an odd reality TV show, so it did exactly what it says on the tin

That's the same with NXT 2.0. It always pretended that it was going to be a bit campy and a bit over the top

and it was, and many a time, it was quite entertaining. Therefore we do have to go for the Capital Wrestling Centre era although this really isn anybody fault But because of the pandemic and because we were stuck in the Performance Center my word just trying watching it now it just feels so damn depressing

This was, of course, because it did have a dark, gritty aesthetic, and the matches were really good

I just think at that time we needed some color, which probably explains why NXT 2.0 had the craziest palette ever

I think it's best summed up with Tommaso Ciampa versus Johnny Gargano's cinematic match

Like, that was a treat to watch. After about 45 minutes, well, you just wanted it to finish

because again, we weren't allowed to go outside. What else is there to do

So it really was a mission in trying to fill content. And actually, I think you can get something from every single era of NXT

But if you asked me to skip one, well, I'd probably pick this

And it's the one you've been waiting for next. WCW Thunder. My gosh, you want to come in here right now and say

Simon, there was no good era when it came to WCW Thunder. I totally agree

But it's definitely one of the reasons World Championship Wrestling went down the pan, and the fact it came so soon

after the Sarcade 97 debacle with Hulk Hogan and Sting, was like a double slap in the face

Even Eric Bischoff knew this was a good idea, and was saying, I don't think we should do this

because we already had three hours of Nitro, where the hell were we going to get the extra resources

If you do want to go to the bottom of the barrel though, find the May 2020 New York episode

because it will blow your brain. It was classic Vince Russo 2, because the rules here was that we were going to continue the millionaire versus new blood feud

but it was going to be so damn aggressive and over the top, we didn't even need referees

It meant that it was the wrestlers that had to do their own counts, and have a guess how many people did a fast count or tried to screw over their opponent

None of them. They called it down the middle. I mean, what are we doing

Fights then magically became table matches for no reason, and I'm going to have to read this

because it's so complicated, but the best part, this is all true, is when Ric Flair defeated Billy Kidman

when Kevin Nash hit a powerbomb on Michael Orson. I don't know what to do

It's two plus two equals potato. And the absolute worst extra is that WCW

did all this non-cytical stuff all the time. So don't pretend that WCW just died

No, he didn't. They were responsible for a lot of it. And as we are talking about World Championship Wrestling

let's get to the good stuff. Nitro, and then you know the name of this video

and sincerely go back to the bad stuff. Now it is a proper game changer when you do go through the whole thing today

I mean, they were doing things that just made you go, wow. And of course, if you want to talk about negative Nancy elements, a lot of people go to the year 2000

I actually believe it all fell apart, though, in the first quarter of 1999. And that's the reason one year later we were scrambling, because we'd done the damage back here

I mean, the January 4th episode was the dreaded finger poke of doom, and we all know what happened there

And actually, if you jump forward four weeks, you can believe it, it got even worse

Because during a terrible show storyline Eric Bischoff and the NWO had turned on Ric Flair and driven him to the desert because they wanted to bury him in the sand And oh yeah let not pretend Bischoff was pretending to be Ric Flair driver during all of this So the whole time he was doing faces like this

because you were meant to know he was going to double cross him, was shit. Somehow Flair returned at the end, so who the hell saved him

We were never told. And what happened when he got to the ring? The New World Order kicked his ass again

What a crappy baby face. Now one of the reasons WCW did this is because they were watching Raw

going, well, they have show-long storylines, so we'd better do the same thing

And we've already talked about this, we'll talk about it again. That's not what the core fan base wanted, so it's a thumbs down

It also meant that one of WCW's major calling cards was totally marginalised

because we were doing this, meaning the undercard matches, which were always great, they just got thrown out the window too

Perry Sam was also told to wear a dress so he could lose to Jerry Flynn. Bret Hart was facing Will Sasso in comedy matches

and Tory Wilson was involved in a horrible angle regarding a hotel

The less said about that, the better. It's offensive. We could go on, but just remember within two years, WCW was gone

I've said it once, I'll say it twice. This didn't just happen. A lot of people were responsible for it

Let's jump forward to the future now, though. AEW Dynamite. Now, the fact it's only been going five years means we don't have that much to choose from

But actually, if you do do a quick straw poll of the fans, most people point to 2023

Now, this would be the latter half of the year when AEW was trying new things. And of course, one of the big ones

I mean, it kind of ties in, I suppose, is they want to do a big old storyline

featuring the big question, who was behind the devil's masks? No need to do that with my hands

Now, instantly a lot of individuals saw this as a portrayal because this is not what AEW was born out of

Why are we trying to do these things? Now, I actually give them a little bit of a pass

because, again, they are a brand new company. if you don't throw anything at the wall, you don't know what's going to stick

We also had a lot of matches that just kind of came from nowhere. There is another asterisk here

All Elite Wrestling did lose loads of major players when it came to the MJF Adam Cole thing

So then they had to keep retroactively trying to fix it. And after a while, well, it didn't make much sense

MJF took a lot of flack for that as well, and people weren't massively into everything that Kenny Omega and Don Callis were doing

But even Tony Khan heard this one. And what did he do at the latter end of this

He went, oh, hey, ho. Let's do the Continental Classic, and everybody was happy again

You do have to admit that a lot of the audience was a bit slapdash when it came to The Devil's Henchmen 2

mostly because somehow they kept shapeshifting every single week. I suppose they were proved right as well, because again, as we already touched upon

Tony Khan did go back to the old way, or the 2021 way, I suppose

and that has to set them up for a very good 2024, but again, just go on message boards and read

People weren't massively fond of 2023. We then go back in time again next though, to Smackdown 2011

Now this happened a few times over the years, this was the first one so it is the worst

because around this time WWE just went well we don really want to do two shows and we love Raw so SmackDown is just gonna become like a highlight show for what we did on Monday nights

And you'd watch it and be like, there's nothing to take away from this. And there was some diamonds in the rough in the sense that Mark Henry was doing his Hall of Pain run and the Christian versus Randy Orton feud was very good

But otherwise, it was so dedicated to telling you what happened on Raw, why would we even bother watching

All the matches are bizarre too, because look at this. Now fair enough, on a September show, the big show did defeat Randy Orton

But you also had Ryback vs. Tensai, Chris Masters vs. Vladimir Kozlov, and MVP vs. Festus

Now those last two matches didn't even happen, but did you know that? Did it click into your brain? It probably didn't, because once again, 2011 Smackdown, well, it's basically pointless

So that still makes me sad, because it was such a waste. I mean, look how well we're doing now, given that we have talked about Raw

Let's get into that too. Now it's been going so long, there are definitely a bunch of years that you can call out

such as 2002, when we did the Katie Vick storyline. Now, this was so long ago, some people don't know about this

and trust Uncle Miller, you do not want to look it up. 2020 will always be bad, because again, we've already talked about the pandemic that ruined everything

but I actually think when you get into the nitty gritty, 2019 was pretty damn rubbish

I mean, don't forget there was a reason that this was the period when AEW was able to find an audience

because you watch Raw and it did that awful thing. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad

It was just so drab and in the middle. There was also a time where we would humiliate people

as best as we possibly could, especially if they were in the hometowns. Vince McMahon got obsessed with two out of three Fools matches

And do you know why he booked this? Because he thought it worked well with the ad breaks

Now, look, what do I know? Nothing. I'm an idiot. But I'm pretty sure if you have a creative show

don't shape it based on your commercials. Seth Rollins also had to totally change his character

because we nerfed him at the Hell in a Cell. Otherwise, nothing happens

Like, some stories do begin, but then you tune in the next week, we're just not talking about him anymore

We also had the fallout of not making our mind up what we wanted to do with Roman Reigns over the previous years

so it's just... It's a bit of a directionless mess. I mean, you could honestly tune in any given Monday

watch that episode, forget about it for six months, and tune in to another one

and it's like they existed in separate worlds. there was no connective tissue at all. Crowds around this period also felt

fatigue and also numbers were dwindling too so you wouldn't even get the mad

adrenaline rush of thousands of people going oh I can't believe it. Seriously I

sat down to try and watch a few of these just to put my mindset back in it and it

ain't great because nothing really happens. So now you know what not to watch

although with the WW stuff you probably should because it will make you laugh out loud but again I'm a massive moron I don't have the answers there's a comment

box down there, tell me what you think about all of this. Also click the video on the screen

which is 10 exact moments WWE stories lost us. And again, there is a reason for that. Otherwise

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