Mistakes WWE Wants You To Forget

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WWE has long been the juggernaut of professional wrestling, with the track record of huge events, like recording-breaking gates at WrestleManias and SummerSlams, excellent, five star matches, Hall of Fame talents, and unforgettable moments to prove it. The company has made huge moves on the business side of things, most recently moving its flagship show "WWE Raw" to Netflix in a historic effort and before that, merging with UFC to create TKO Group Holdings. Sometimes it seems like WWE has never been off its game, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

It hasn't always been just major business deals and giant WrestleMania stages for WWE. From scandals, to lawsuits, to talent even jumping to the competition that the company won't even admit exists, there have been quite a few misses in WWE, especially in recent memory. WWE has almost fumbled the bag when it comes to various aspects of its storylines, like attempting to change up the WrestleMania 40 main event to the outrage of fans, to the booking of the legendary John Cena. 

There are plenty of mistakes that WWE would like fans to forget ever happened. Things like airing specials during tragedies before they had details, to ending the most historic streak in wrestling history, to a more simple fact of not pushing fan-favorites, WWE has had plenty of swings and misses in its history.

WWE

WWE has seen some excellent eras of wrestling throughout its history, from the beloved Attitude Era, to the beginnings of Rock 'N' Wrestling, to the Ruthless Aggression Era, to what is known now as the Netflix Era under the leadership of Paul "Triple H" Levesque. It's the seemingly never-ending callbacks to those previous eras, especially that of the Attitude Era, that are mistakes WWE continues to make over and over. It's often like WWE, and its fans, are addicted to nostalgia, and there are examples of that running rampant throughout the company in its recent history. 

One of the biggest examples of the "nostalgia addiction" is WWE's shows in Saudi Arabia. WWE brings in old-school, veteran talents, many of whom allegedly receive big paydays for the events. This brought about one of WWE's biggest mistakes when it comes to matches in recent memory, Shawn Michaels and Triple H versus The Undertaker and Kane, a bout that even Michaels and Undertaker regret having, as both men were well past their prime and delivered a sub-par match. Michaels said he regretted coming out of retirement for the match.

An even more recent example is Goldberg teasing one final match. Back in November 2024, Goldberg announced he would be having a retirement match a month after going face-to-face with GUNTHER at the Bad Blood premium live event from his home state of Georgia. As of this writing, there are no concrete plans yet for the Hall of Famer's final match, but it's yet another example of WWE making the mistake of dipping into the nostalgia well. 

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One of WWE's biggest mistakes in recent memory was attempting to switch up the main event of WrestleMania 40 after fan-favorite Cody Rhodes had won the Royal Rumble for the second year in a row. Following a segment where Rhodes, seemingly uncomfortable, but fighting through it, gave up on challenging Roman Reigns on "The Grandest Stage of Them All" and instead brought out Reigns' cousin, Dwayne "The Rock Johnson," fans revolted both online and in the crowd of live WWE shows. Even other wrestlers, both babyfaces and heels, within the company took to social media to get behind Rhodes. Very quickly "We Want Cody" was a worldwide trend and WWE had to do their best to walk back what they had mistakenly started.

At a media event in Las Vegas ahead of WrestleMania, The Rock and Rhodes got into an angle of their own that would culminate in a WrestleMania night one main event tag team match involving Reigns and Seth Rollins. The Rock would get the pin on Rhodes to set up the night two angle of a Bloodline Rules match, but Rhodes finished his story and won the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship from Reigns to end WrestleMania weekend.

Instead of letting news around the mistake quiet down after the "WWE Raw" after WrestleMania where The Rock told Rhodes their story was just beginning, WWE ended their potential story on the "Raw" Netflix debut. Rock politely acknowledged Rhodes in the crowd during the episode, and they shared a drink backstage while The Rock was live on his Instagram page. Fans were once again confused, and the glaring mistakes at WrestleMania 40 was highlighted once again.

WWE

One of the biggest mistakes that WWE has ever made, in the eyes of the fans, at least, is the change to the "PG Era" of television following the company's beloved Attitude Era. WWE had been slowly transitioning to more family-friendly content, but the move was accelerated following the Benoit murder-suicide in 2007. WWE needed to appeal to sponsors, so the company began to transition away from TV-14 content. WWE announced the move to a PG rating on July 22, 2008, though it took a few years for fans to really become outraged over the lack of Attitude Era-esque storylines. Despite WWE's business revenue increasing, nearly tripling due to various corporate partnerships, it also occurred during a time of decreased ratings.

WWE considers the PG Era to have lasted through 2014 into what the company calls "The Reality Era," but the content of its programming remains rated PG-TV. The discourse surrounding a potential change back to TV-14 has been around for years now, beginning in 2022 when it was rumored "WWE Raw" would become more edgy at the behest of the USA Network. Rumors over the red brand's rating began to swirl again before its January 2025 move to Netflix, when a TV-14 rating for the show was used as a placeholder, but "Raw" continues to be branded as PG on the streaming service. Rumors of "WWE NXT" changing to TV-14 for its debut on The CW were also circulated back in October 2024, but also proved to be false.

WWE

The Invasion was one of WWE's most egregious mistakes, as it was supposed to be a huge overarching angle after the fall of WCW to WWE in the ratings, but it was nothing like anyone within the company, or any fan watching, had envisioned. The Invasion might be the single biggest missed opportunity for WWE ever, as no new stars were made and WWE waited too long to start the angle after Shane McMahon "bought" WCW. The final "Nitro" and Shane's "purchase" occurred on March 26, 2001, and the Invasion didn't happen until that summer. It was a rather slow rollout, with lesser-tier WCW guys attacking smaller level WWE stars.

WCW's main stars, like Hulk Hogan, Sting, and Goldberg didn't participate in the angle, like fans wanted to see, and came into the company much later. The WCW stars who did make the immediate jump were turned heel to make the fans turn against them. The entire Invasion focused around Vince McMahon's ego and the storyline rivalry within the family.

WWE also made the mistake of having the wrong guys deflect to "The Alliance," or Team WCW/ECW, like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Austin's deflection made no sense, as he was best known for being a WWE guy. Austin hated Vince in the company's most popular storyline, but he had been fired from WCW years prior, so the decision was quite illogical. There were so aspects that were mishandled within what had the potential to be the biggest story in wrestling history that it will go down as one of WWE's biggest mistakes.

WWE

All WWE fans want their favorite star pushed to the moon, and of course, it's impossible for the company to put everyone in a favorable spot, but sometimes, the massive fan support behind one star is too much to ignore. But, oftentimes, WWE does just that, and it's a huge mistake. The biggest example of that is Daniel Bryan and the "Yes!" movement. Fans of Bryan's began the movement in 2014 when they became frustrated that their favorite star wasn't getting the opportunities they felt he deserved. The movement caught steam after the Royal Rumble, which was won by a returning Batista and Bryan wasn't even in the match. Fans would get on their feet and pump their fingers in the air, screaming "Yes!" in support whenever Bryan took to the ring. He would go on to get various opportunities in WWE, but some fans felt like it was never enough for "The American Dragon."

Another named fan movement was "Kofi Mania," where the WWE audience were clamoring for New Day member Kofi Kingston to get his shot at gold. Kingston received many opportunities, including one in the Elimination Chamber, to get his shot at WrestleMania, but he kept coming up short. His last opportunity granted to him from Vince McMahon didn't involve Kingston in the ring, but rather his teammates Xavier Woods and Big E winning a gauntlet match to secure Kingston a title shot at WrestleMania 35. There, Kingston got his big victory over Bryan. He held the title for 180 days, but lost the title to Brock Lesnar in just eight seconds during "WWE SmackDown's" debut on Fox, leaving fans seething.

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Those within WWE hate to even acknowledge that All Elite Wrestling exists as competition, so when stars choose to go to the new company rather than continue in WWE, it could be viewed internally, as well as to tribalist WWE fans, as a big mistake. There are talents WWE haven't utilized who are now doing big things in AEW and Ring of Honor, including Ricochet, the Hurt Syndicate, and Athena. When MVP, Shelton Benjamin, and Bobby Lashley went to AEW, they certainly brought some new eyes to AEW with the fans who follow them. It's common when fans feel like WWE isn't using their favorites, they hope they are able to get out of their contracts and deflect to AEW.

One of the biggest misses WWE had when it came to released stars was Cody Rhodes, who literally went out and helped build the competition from the ground up. While Rhodes of course famously ended up back in WWE, if there was no Stardust, AEW may not exist, or at least, not be as successful without the help of Rhodes.

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For every Tiffany Stratton and Roxanne Perez called up from "WWE NXT" to the main roster, there's someone like Carmelo Hayes who isn't being utilized to his full potential. It's a mistake that WWE is known to make after fans fall in love with and constantly root for these stars in "NXT," many of whom, like Hayes, have held the brand's top gold, only to flounder on "Raw"  or "SmackDown."

It could be worse, however, as there are stars who get called up only to rarely be used on the main roster before their release. Blair Davenport is a recent example. Davenport was big name in "NXT," only to have had a handful of matches after moving up before her release in February. While others, like Karrion Kross and Scarlett, can attempt to work their way into more interesting stories, there are others who WWE doesn't seem to know what to do with, who end up sitting in catering rather than wowing fans at the Performance Center.

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One of WWE's biggest issues throughout the years that it's tried to rectify multiple times across different regimes is seemingly constant rematches, all while the rosters on both brands are huge with plenty of opportunities for new matchups. The company attempted to fix this back in 2018 when they were adamant that the fans were now "The Authority" and would help the company make decisions after years of Stephanie McMahon and Triple H leading things in storyline. They said that the automatic rematch clause would no longer be used when a champion lost the title, but, as we've seen over the years since, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Constant rematches, or matches only slightly different with a different member of a faction facing a babyface, are still extremely common in modern day WWE. It feels as though Shinsuke Nakamura and LA Knight have been feuding over the United States Champion on "WWE SmackDown" for months – because they have. Also on the blue brand, Carmelo Hayes and Andrade had a series of matches, a best of seven, to get to the same championship after both had already challenge for it. Damian Priest versus Finn Balor, or a combination of Balor, JD McDonagh, Carlito, and Dominik Mysterio, dominated "WWE Raw" for months, as well before Priest finally switched brands. Constant rematches, even if both competitors make for great dance partners, are redundant and a mistake that WWE is known to make often.

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John Cena was the top star and main character in WWE for a long time, and because of that (also due in part to his marketability to children, the audience WWE was going after during the turn of the PG Era,) he was booked strong. So strong, in fact, the joke amongst fans was that he was like Super-Man, thus leading to his online nickname of "Super Cena." The "Super Cena" era began around 2005, after Cena had dropped his edgier "Dr. of Thuganomics" gimmick, and lasted until around 2014. During this time period, Cena would rarely lose a match, especially big matches, and if he did, he'd get his win back sooner rather than later.

One of the most egregious examples of Cena's "super power" of being unable to a lose a match was when he defeated the entire Nexus stable at SummerSlam in 2010. Cena led a team of stars, including Chris Jericho, Edge, and Daniel Bryan, in a match against the Nexus. Cena led his team to victory, after every other star on Team WWE had been eliminated, by pinning the remaining Nexus members all on his own after being spiked with a DDT by Wade Barrett on the floor. Shortly after, Cena faced the team in a six-on-one handicapped match, and defeated them handily once again.

Despite many fans hating the "Super Cena" gimmick so much following the demise of the Nexus, especially, many are calling for Cena to stack up victories during his retirement tour in 2025. The "Leader of the Cenation" lost his first match back, the Royal Rumble, and fans are hoping he'll be able to battle back and secure his record-breaking 17th world championship.

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In the Vince McMahon years of WWE, the company very much acted on a mindset of "The Show Must Go On," but that has led to mistakes over the years that have gotten the company into trouble. The most glaring example of this mistake is the fact WWE aired a tribute show in memory of Chris Benoit on June 25, 2007, in place of "WWE Raw" that night, without knowing the details behind the deaths of Benoit, his wife, and his young son. The episode featured stars and friends of Benoit sharing their stories about the man, only for the details of the murder-suicide to emerge in the following days. WWE would very quickly distance themself from Benoit, removing all references of him from their website, and going as far as to remove mentions of him from archival footage.

Fans would think WWE would have learned its lesson, as just two years prior, the company came under fire for airing a controversial angle on the day of the London bombings. WWE taped an angle in July 2005 that saw Muhammad Hassan, an Arab-American character upset about his treatment in the country following 9/11, send his masked minions to attack The Undertaker in the ring and choke him with piano wire in a perceived terrorist angle. The show aired on July 7, the same day as the bombings, and WWE's mistake caught the attention of major news outlets. The bombings happened that morning, but WWE made the decision to air the taped episode in its entirety. The angle eventually led to Hassan's firing, despite the mistake, and his character overall, not being his fault.

WWE

One of the most shocking decisions by WWE was the choice to end The Undertaker's legendary win streak at WrestleMania in 2014. Brock Lesnar defeated "The Dead Man" at WrestleMania 30, snapping Undertaker's win streak at 21 to the shock and horror of fans in attendance. The decision now is questionable due to Lesnar being named in the civil lawsuit accusing Vince McMahon of sex trafficking and abuse, but before even that, Undertaker himself questioned the decision of Lesnar being the one to end The Streak.

In 2023, Undertaker said in an interview he wished Roman Reigns would have been the one to break the streak, as he thought Lesnar "didn't need the rub." Reigns defeated "The Dead Man" at WrestleMania 33 in a No Holds Barred Match. Reigns, in his pre-Tribal Chief era, was the only other man besides Lesnar to defeat Undertaker on "The Grandest Stage of Them All." The following year, Undertaker said that the late Bray Wyatt should have broken his WrestleMania streak if it wasn't Reigns.

The Undertaker has admitted he doesn't remember Lesnar defeating him at WrestleMania 30, making the mistake on WWE's part even more glaring. He explained on an episode of his podcast that his last memory from the day is talking to his wife earlier in the afternoon and things pick back up when he was taken to the hospital following the match. He was diagnosed with a concussion, but would return to the ring a year later after recovering.