Was 2001 The Worst of Booking Ever In WWF/WWE?

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Let’s be honest, modern WWE doesn’t even count imo, they stopped caring about booking an actual wrestling product years ago. It’s all about squeezing money in different areas other than live events. Now with these new TV deals it’s gonna be worse lol

Pretty sure the last time they legit were trying to build for the future and cared about the quality of the show was the mid 2000’s.

 

[Reality Check]

2001 will go down as a dark year for not only WWE but the wrestling world. They started April 2001 out with the prestige of WreslteMania 17 along with millions of fans from both WWF and WCW, by the time the year was over they had shedded not only the WCW fans but also WWF fans too.

I think they were really unprepared on what the hell to do with WCW and ECW (which was bought a month later). If the sale was something several months in the making, maybe it would have been less chaotic, but given the sale came together in a matter of a few days right before the go-home Raw to Wrestlemania 17, it created a lot of uncertainty. They chose the lazy route and introduced them pretty much as a heel faction instead of trying to find the best pieces of where they could fit. Also, the belts should have been absorbed a lot quicker than they were.

I think they’d lost about 30% of the raw audience by the end of the invasion. That’s insane. That being said, there was entertainment value in the company in 2001 and there were at least a few things they were trying with people and you remember things. Modern day is worse since they just waste everyone and manage to make nobody feel like they matter. It’s hard to properly judge 2001 since so much of it was swallowed up by the invasion angle and that angle was ruined from the start just by the big wcw stars not being there, not to mention all the other problems.

Bolded is the truth. One thing to have 30 new contracts thrown into the company at once, but another to actually have the talent and the time to make them bigger stars, but instead give them dogshyt to work with.

 

[JerseyBoy23]

Worst booking ever was 2007-2018

Since Benoit, they've definitely checked out. They even admit that they coast from May to the Rumble (with small booms before SummerSlam and sometimes Survivor Series if they care enough).

Before that, they still at least cared about non-Mania season PPVs.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Since Benoit, they've definitely checked out. They even admit that they coast from May to the Rumble (with small booms before SummerSlam and sometimes Survivor Series if they care enough).

Before that, they still at least cared about non-Mania season PPVs.

Personally I feel like wrestlemania 25’s buildup is when they stopped trying for good. When did they admit that they coast from may through December?

 

[Wacky D]

I wouldn't say its the booking.

moreso that they were hell-bent on doing a WCW/ECW invasion but didn't want to pay most of the top WCW guys and outside of RVD, they already stole all the ECW talent they wanted before ECW finally tanked.

for what its worth, they would've screwed the invasion up anyway, because of vince's ego. then we could REALLY talk about bad booking.

The initial turn yea, but the turn to be the Alliance leader was even more . Clear, fans still wanted to clear Austin, I think heel champion Jericho or even Booker with Austin chasing might have been better that what got even if it was still overall.

Austin's legacy was on the line.

he didn't want to stay face & be out-popped by the rock.​

 

[JerseyBoy23]

Personally I feel like wrestlemania 25’s buildup is when they stopped trying for good. When did they admit that they coast from may through December?

Last year when Road Dogg kept excusing for Fall attendance being bad.

 

[FS4LFE]

Let some of y’all tell it WWE hasn’t been enjoyable in 25+ years.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Last year when Road Dogg kept excusing for Fall attendance being bad.

Got a link so I can see this :laughingphil:

 

[JerseyBoy23]

Got a link so I can see this :laughingphil:

Road Dogg Reacts To Low SmackDown Attendance Reports, Braun Strowman On His Injury & Recovery | PWMania

 

[El Cocodrilo]

Let’s be honest, modern WWE doesn’t even count imo, they stopped caring about booking an actual wrestling product years ago. It’s all about squeezing money in different areas other than live events. Now with these new TV deals it’s gonna be worse lol

I’ll never give em a pass just cause NXT has actual booking with character progression and story arcs and they are under the same umbrella so its something wrong with the raw and sd teams...

 

[Cladyclad]

The heel turn would've worked if he had kept the same sadistic attitude he had when he was trying to cripple Taker, Kane, The Hardy Boyz & Lita.

That Hardy beat down was hard to watch. Steve was fukking Lita up.

Top 5 beatdown ever

 

[Toe Jay Simpson]

They had the Bionic Redneck coming out to Nu Metal

Even though it went hard, it just wasn’t him

“STEP OFF you’ll be the next one I might have to kill...”

 

[AquaCityBoy]

Let some of y’all tell it WWE hasn’t been enjoyable in 25+ years.

 

[Dreamzeedream]

IMO this is what really sent everything to hell. WWF kinda stalled out on developing main event stars in 2000, so by the time Rock was doing Scorpion King and Austin was a heel, there was no big babyface to hold the casual fan interest. April-June 2001 was actually awesome television with great matches and angles, but it was basically a heel territory. Undertaker and Kane were never franchise players and Jericho and Benoit weren't credible enough.