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4 years 11 months ago
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I'm going year by year, starting with '99. After a lot of thought and some research, here are my picks; I'm interested to see yours.
1999: When Big Bossman did...anything
Lord, I feel sorry for the late Ray Traylor...I was never that impressed with his skills in or out of the ring, but he deserved better than the series of bad feuds they gave him in '99. First we had that meaningless feud with Taker, culminating in a truly lousy HIAC match. Then we had a feud with Al Snow, when he revealed that he was a gourmet dog cook. Then he took Big Show boogie boarding through a cemetery on his father's coffin, which somehow earned him a title shot. How I am supposed to choose? IMO, his name alone wins the prize for 1999...and this was the Attitude Era, when WWE was scouring the gutter for angles.
2000: Mark & Mae
I heartily applaud Mark Henry for not giving up on wrestling after this angle, and hiding in some dark corner for the rest of his life. Granted, everything Mae Young did in her later (much, MUCH later) career in WWE was pretty gross, but even by those standards the Henry/Young thing stood out. Short synopsis, for those who have blocked it out of their memories: Henry and Young started dating in an icky storyline. Then Young announced she was pregnant and it got even ickier. Finally Young gave birth to nothing but a bloody hand, reaching unexplored depths of ickiness. This one pretty much clinched the year 2000.
2001: DDP the Stalker
Could they have possibly come up with a worse way to use DDP? A lot of people don't remember how good he was. That guy was a man's man. Got into wrestling in his late 30s, which is practically impossible given how tough the training is, worked his ass off...then they made him a crazy stalker who was videotaping Undertaker's wife? Even worse, he was never made to look like a big threat to Taker in the ring. Instead, he got the crap beat out of him for most of the angle. Then they buried him. (And no, I do not believe the Invasion storyline was the worst angle of '01. Even if it was toothless and poorly executed, it still generated interest and brought some new, badly needed talent to the roster. In the long run, the good far outweighed the bad.)
2002: The tragic story of Katie Vick
Hopefully this is not a surprise to anyone. Bad idea, horrible execution. Ace attorney Triple H began arguing the case that Kane had murdered a former girlfriend ten years prior (which might have worked earlier in Kane's career, but he was now rather warm and fuzzy by comparison). Triple H surmised that the girl was dead because Kane had been driving drunk with her in the passenger's seat and crashed his car--and that Kane had also had sex with her corpse.
The evidence he gathered to support this was rather questionable; the main piece was some video footage of "Kane" (clearly Triple H in disguise) walking into a funeral parlor, stripping, climbing into a casket, and humping a female mannequin lying inside. Then Triple H brought the mannequin live to RAW and performed a ventriloquist act with it about Kane's "burnt little wiener" (as if anyone still believed Kane was burned by this point). Then Kane threw Triple H in the back of his car and drove off into the night, allegedly to "screw him." Kane's buddy The Hurricane also responded with some footage of people getting enemas while wearing Triple H masks. Finally, Triple H and Kane settled this epic rivalry with a casket match (Katie Vick mannequin and all).
So that was murder, drunk driving, "semen," necrophilia, burnt little wieners, mannequins, possible homosexuality, enemas, and 2002-2004 Triple H, all combined. None of these elements belong in professional wrestling storylines even by themselves (with the possible exception of a serious gay angle, which WWE will never ever do). All of them put together, plus Triple H's own comments on the ordeal, easily make Katie Vick the most awful storyline of 2002--even worse then Torrie/Al/Dawn, which went on for quite a bit longer.
2003: Test, Stacy, & Steiner
I believe that "abused/exploited woman" storylines are never a good idea, and so far their execution in pro wrestling has not proven me wrong. This one was, to put it nicely, a steaming pile of crap. Let me hypothesize on how WWE came up with it.
BOOKER: "Hey, Vince! Have I got an idea for you! Let's take two large, limited, unover midcard wrestlers and make them a tag team! That'll solve everything! And then let's generate conflict between them by having Test mistreat his manager Stacy Kiebler! And then let's have Steiner save her from Test! And then let's have Test take her back! Then let's give her to Steiner again and have HIM start mistreating her! It'll be epic, I promise. Now where's my paycheck?"
Such was the saga of these three performers in 2003. And it didn't even make sense. If Stacy was Test's manager, doesn't that mean she can drop him whenever she pleases? They made her look like a prisoner or something. Bottom line, this thing was a great example of how stale and creatively bankrupt WWE was getting by that time.
2004: Kane and Lita: the marriage made in hell
One of the most unconvincing storylines ever. And it was way too goddamn long. Spring 2004: Kane falls in love with Lita, but not vice versa. Kane takes it out on Matt Hardy. Lita has sex with Kane so he won't kill her boyfriend. Kane beats him at SummerSlam with a stipulation that the winner marries Lita. (Honestly, WTF?) The marriage happens, with Lita portraying the exploited pregnant woman. Terrific. Then along comes Gene Snitsky, who "kills" Lita's baby. Both Kane and Lita turn face and the angle loses all credibility. Kane is out for a while, then comes back and takes revenge on Snitsky. Then he and Lita remain happily married for some reason until summer '05, when she betrays him and marries Edge instead. That was one year that RAW would never get back.
2005: "Beastly hottie sex"
I can't think of a more distasteful angle WWE did in 2005. I've said my piece on this thing many times before, but as a quick summary: Angle and Booker cost each other title shots in a 4-way and started a rivalry. For some insane reason, WWE decided it would be a good idea for Angle to develop a sudden fetish for "gutter sluts" and begin sexually harassing and stalking Booker T's wife Sharmell (this was when they were both faces). It was unquestionably the darkest hour of Kurt Angle's WWE career, especially with the promos they had him do about wanting to have "beastly hottie" (beastiality mispronounced?) sex with Sharmell, and how she allegedly "fondled his privates." Then there was the heartwarming scene of him assaulting Booker while his wife looked on screaming and crying. Apparently there is absolutely no security in WWE arenas. I could easily rant and rave about this thing for an hour, but I'll sum up how awful it was in one sentence: it almost made DDP's stalker angle look GOOD. (Almost.)
2006: May 19th
Cheesy, bizarre, and ultimately pointless, this angle still has a cloud of derision hanging over it. I can see why. Allegedly done to promote the release of Kane's horror movie ("See No Evil," helmed by a porn director), in kayfabe terms "May 19th" was supposed to refer to the night Kane lost his parents in a fire. Like Katie Vick, this was another Kane storyline that would have come off a lot better five years ago. Basically it went like this: Kane started losing his mind on RAW, broke up with tag team partner Big Show, and had a horrible match with him at Backlash '06. He started going nuts and beating people up whenever a mysterious voice (or another wrestler) would say "May 19th." Then an imposter Kane (i.e. Festus) appeared wearing his old mask. They fought for a few weeks, Kane got beat at Vengeance, then threw out the poser the night after and took back his mask. And...that was it. No real explanation; they forgot any of it ever happened. A blessing in disguise, perhaps, but still a poor ending to a poor storyline. I think Cena_mark2.0's sarcasm said it best:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cena_mark2.0 on 5/20
It matters not anymore what happened or what was meant to happen on May 19th. I spent the 19th in a bomb shelter and As I left to see the sun rise I am filled with joy that I shall see many more. I'll have to make many phone calls today to make sure my family and friends have survived the night. I pray they've been spared as well.
2007: Ding dong, Vince is dead
You guys may already know my thoughts on this one. And before you shrug and say "aww, Vince's illegitimate son storyline was worse," consider the following. I judge bad storylines not just by their silliness or their poor taste; I also judge how bad a storyline is by how much B.S. WWE has to shovel on the fans just to keep it going. (Remember Kane/Lita?) And in those terms, I think Vince's "death" tipped the scales for 2007. (Though his illegitimate son was a close second.)
The limo explosion was a surprise, sure. Nobody saw it coming. But after the initial shock value, there was really nowhere for the story to go--except to a future revelation that Vince was alive after all. And pretty much every WWE fan over 12 knew it was already fake (with a few exceptions early on...including Donald Trump, according to Triple H). So why should they care about the silly "press conferences" and "federal investigations?" I call this a crisis of believability, which will always cripple a storyline. The premise was so ridiculous that WWE was just kidding itself the entire time. Worst of all were the testimonials to Vince's memory by various superstars, very similar to the ones given for Eddie Guerrero. Except that, you know...Eddie actually died.
I stopped watching after a few weeks of this; I found it that insulting. They brought it to an abrupt end after the Benoit tragedy and pretended it had never happened. (And had they kept it going after that, I would have quit watching for MUCH longer.)
2008: Vince's illegitimate son
Okay, now that storyline can take first place. I think we all knew something like it was coming, deep in the back of our minds; it was the one Jerry Springer archetype Vince hadn't resorted to yet (besides incest). Originally they made Ken Kennedy the illegitimate son. Then, like a number of other wrestlers, he failed a drug test and was suspended under the new Wellness Policy. So they made Hornswoggle the son instead.
Even giving Hornswoggle a real name and an individual identity was a mistake. He was supposed to be an extension of Finlay--nothing else. And he annoyed me even then. But for some reason WWE didn't think we were seeing enough of him, and had him bury The Boogeyman (I'll admit that was a good thing), win the Cruiserweight Title (very, very bad), and finally be kin to Vince McMahon. No, WWE. Just no. By 2008, it was getting really painful, with Hornswoggle running around in ripoffs of Roadrunner-style cartoons, and...just thinking about it depresses me. Then Finlay was revealed as Hornswoggle's father, and (in a particularly poor booking choice) JBL defeated him in the blowoff match at Mania 24. But I will say two things: the year's only half over, and this angle could have been far worse.
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