The 411 Wrestling Top 5 3.10.10: Week 65 – Worst Angles and Storylines

Posted by Michael Bauer on 03.10.2010

From Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero fighting over the custody of Dominick and the Katie Vick angle to The Undertaker being attack by Terrorists and Mae Young being pregnant, the 411 staff looks at some of the worst angles and storylines ever! Check out the full article to see the worst of the worst!


Hello everyone and welcome to 411 Wrestling's Top 5 List. What we are going to is take a topic each week and all the writers here on 411 wrestling will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, plus up to three honorable mentions. Most of our topics will be based on recent events in the Wrestling World, looking at those events that make us think of times past.

So, on to this week's topic…

WORST ANGLES AND STORYLINES

Wrestling in 2010 is all about telling the story and making us believe in what the wrestlers are selling, not always the in ring action anymore. But for every great feud and great story behind it, there are those that we wish we could forget. This week, we look at those types of moments that made us cringe, shutter, and puke I our mouths just a little bit.

So what did our group of writers select? Let's find out…



Aaron Hubbard
*NOTE: There is so much crap in wrestling, and so many storylines and angles that made no sense, or were botched, or lead nowhere, or hurt the credibility of the wrestlers involved. What I am going to do is stick to stuff that I REMEMBER, and that offended me. So, this is going to be a highly modernized list. I'm sure the rest of my fellow staffers can fill you in on the WCW crap and anything before it.*

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

Al Wilson Hooks Up With Dawn Marie and Dies - So yeah, a woman hates another woman and hooks up with her ancient father and then he dies while having sex with her; so we have the trauma of Torrie losing her father, and the worse Trauma of seeing Al in underwear, for the sake of a wrestling feud?

Eddie's in Hell - Randy Orton used this line to get under Rey's skin; the whole angle where Rey was doing it for Eddie bugged me, and only recently have people starting realizing that Rey Mysterio ISN'T Eddie Guerrero, but at least they dropped this angle.

Joe's Gonna Kill Steiner - Samoa Joe became a caricature of the Samoan Savage gimmick; while unnecessary considering Joe already had an established character, that wasn't too bad. However, turns out that Joe is a "Nation of Violence" - and by violence TNA means cutting people's throats with a tribal knife.

5.Angle Wants Bestiality Sex - There have been plenty of storylines where a wrestler will steal another wrestler's girlfriend or wife for the sake of a love triangle, and those are fine and compelling stories. But in 2005, Kurt Angle got in a feud with Booker T. The premise? Angle wants to beat Booker so he can have "bestiality sex" with Booker's wife, Sharmell. Because Sharmell is a, ahem, "gutterslut" and "guttersluts" happen to be Angle's kink. O-kay. So we have implied kidnapping and canola, and Angle apparantly considers her an animal because he wants to have bestiality sex with her. So there's a healthy dose of racism as well. This is what Angle gets saddled with after making Shawn Michaels tap at Wrestlemania? Pathetic.

4.Vince McMahon DIES - I would have loved to have been at the creative meeting when this idea was thought up. "So, we're going to have Mr. McMahon go into his limo and blow it up, and pretend he's dead. We're going to have memorial services and tributes and all that. Then we're going to have criminal investigators look into it to find the cause of death. Turns out, it will all be a conspiracy as McMahon faked his death and we're going to make Ken Kennedy a HUGE star out of this." RIGHT. See, here's a little secret WWE; you are profesional wrestling, not CSI. Fans want to watch CSI, and then wrestling. The two don't mix. It was stupid, and crossed the "Our stories will not portray murder" line. Yeah, it was a faked murder in the long run, but they were treating it AS IF IT WAS REAL!!! I'd rejoice that this got nipped in the bud, but well, THAT was infinately worse.

3.Dominic is Eddie's Son - Not much to say here, except that you do not involve young children in wrestling storylines. I don't care how personal feuds get, children need to be left out of it. Also, this whole angle deals with the concept of having neglectful parents, which is an awful thing, and adoption, which is a beautiful thing. Sorry, but isn't wrestling supposed to be an ESCAPE from the real world? This is just dark, heavy stuff and has no place in wrestling. And somehow a social worker is just supposed to put a child's future, his life as a prize for a ladder match? Ridiculous. The fact that Dominic is the spitting image of Rey also made the story even more stupid. Not even Eddie's amazing acting could save this. In the words of Randy Orton: STUPID STUPID STUPID!

2.Katie Vick/Lita Miscarries (TIE) - I can't pick one over the other, so I'm just grouping them together. First, we have this whole Kane is a murderer schtick, which ends up as him just being a guy with a friend at college and he can't drive stick-shift, so she dies. Then, supposedly, he had sex with her dead body. Then we get the JOY of watching Triple H in a Kane mask pretending to screw a blow-up doll in a cheerleader outfit. So, not only is it disturbing and distasteful, it also messes up all of the standard continuity of the Kane character. Wasn't this guy a burn victim raised in secret by Paul Bearer for years? Thank goodness we have Mat Sforcina to sort all of that out.

Second, we have Kane bribing Lita to have sex with him, or he'll beat up Matt Hardy. Oh, irony, how sweet thy are. Then she gets pregnant. Pregnancy doesn't work in wrestling. It just doesn't. Oh, and then we have this accident which leads to a miscarriage. I could play the whole "one of my siblings was miscarried and this offends me" card, but I don't have to. Having your child killed is a horrible traumatic experience, especially when you want to have the child. In this story, Lita wanted to have the kid, and the kid was killed. All for the sake of getting Kane to feud with Snitsky. Oh, and then they all of the sudden love each other and are a happy couple because Kane is getting revenge by beating him in wrestling matches. Right, whatever. Stupid, offensive, and I'd like to pretend it never happened.

1.Terrorists Attack Undertaker - Yes, this became a million times worse due to circumstances outside of the WWE's control. However, this shouldn't have even been BROUGHT UP at the creative meetings, much less been allowed to make air. I know it's a tradition for us to have evil foreigners and exploit people from the Middle East because we want their oil and "We don't speak Muslim," but that does not mean I have to accept it and just move on. Muhammad Hassan had the potential to be an interesting and tasteful character, a babyface that happens to be "from the Middle East" and practice Islam. Instead, he became a whiner and another racial stereotype. Then here's the kicker; he hires TERRORISTS to attack the Undertaker. Because everyone knows those damn Arabs are terrorists. AMERICAN JEEZ-US, screw that crap.





Stephen Randle

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

Booker T, Voodoo Priest - Thank God somebody sort of came to their senses before they actually turned him into Papa Shango V.2, which was the original plan.

Samoa Joe, Knife Wielding Maniac - I covered this the best I could at the time, suffice to say any angle that brings a "real" weapon like a knife into play and suggests that Joe is slicing and dicing his opponents crosses a line that shouldn't be.

Stephanie McMahon is the head of ECW - The angle still had life at this point, but any chance the whole Invasion had of working went out the window the moment Paul Heyman ceded control of his baby to Steph.

5.Dude. Too Soon. - Eddie Guerrero's death was a tragic, tragic event, that ripped the hearts out of many wrestling fans. So we should be thankful that at least WWE waited a whole two months before using his death as part of a storyline, capped by Randy Orton telling Rey Mysterio, one of Eddie's best friends, that Eddie was "down there…in Hell!" in the middle of the ring in front of millions of said fans who'd had their hearts ripped out back in November. And that would not be the first time WWE would go back to the "Eddie's dead" well, as it was even used as recently as Bragging Rights. You stay classy, WWE.

4.Multiple Vehicular Homicides - Let's just cover all the bases here in one spot: Hulk Hogan runs the Rock over with a semi, Undertaker drags Hogan behind his motorcycle, Austin drops Triple H's car off a forklift, Shane McMahon sends a limo into a semi with Kane inside, any segment in which somebody has used a car to attempt to destroy another wrestler, only for them to return within a couple weeks sporting a little rib tape and a bad attitude, and sometimes not even the taped ribs. Seriously, wrestlers have to be made of unobtanium or something. Although I don't think that stuff was all that strong. They don't really get into it while ripping off the stories from Fern Gully and Pocahantas. Yeah, I said it.

3.Dawn Marie/Torrie Wilson/Al Wilson - In 2002, Smackdown had a lot of good things going for it. The Smackdown Six, Brock Lesnar, Matt Hardy V.1, the list was pretty impressive. And then there was this insane love triangle that ate up ten to fifteen minutes a week, involved three of the worst actors in the known universe. Even the announcers couldn't pretend to enjoy it and spent entire segments ripping it unmercifully (which, if you want to see Michael Cole actually being tolerable, this is the time), which at least made it enjoyable in an ironic fashion, if not in any real way. Oh, and then we got the "logical" finish, where Dawn forces Torrie to spend the night with her to prevent her from marrying Al, Dawn and Al get married anyway, Al dies after a night of sex, and then Torrie and Dawn fight for his honour. Let's also not forget that the matches were awful, and we PAID to watch most of them.

2.HLA - So it should be pretty clear that anyone who is still a wrestling fan after 2002 deserves to called a true fan, because frankly, I can see (although for some reason WWE could not) why ratings were plummeting at this point and absolutely nobody wanted to admit they were watching Raw. And here's one reason, from the mind of Eric Bischoff: Hot Lesbian Action. Never mind that even in its raunchiest days, WWE was never going to do hardcore (or even softcore) pornography in the middle of the ring, we were subjected to one of the stupidest and lamest teases ever, as two random chicks came out, starting kissing, and then…were interrupted by Three Minute Warning and squashed into oblivion. Because WWE knows what you want to see!

1.Katie Vick - Again from the dark times of 2002, this is possibly the most ashamed I've ever been as a wrestling fan, and I have absolutely no shame when it comes to wrestling. To this day I'm not entirely sure what the point of the storyline was supposed to be. Okay, Triple H accuses Kane of killing and/or raping Katie Vick, and at least the first one might be partially true, if accidental. Isn't Kane supposed to be a monster who, according to his origin story, killed his parents and spent most of his first year attempting to kill his half-brother? And then there was the whole fake video which…well, it killed five minutes, in addition to my appetite and interest in the entire story, and got WWE in a whole lot of trouble with television networks. TSN in Canada actually edited most of the segment. And then Kane, the wronged party, full of vengeful thoughts and righteous anger…lost the big match?

Katie Vick segment featuring Triple-HUploaded by Stinger1981. - Basketball, baseball, pro wrestling and more sports videos.



Larry Csonka

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

1996-???: WCW - Who is Driving The Hummer(s) - Fucking really?

1993: Cactus Jack – Lost in Cleveland - Fucking really?

1992: Erik Watts Gets Pushed - Fucking really?

5. 2006: Exploiting The Death Of Eddie Guerrero - I loved Eddie Guerrero as a performer, but WWE's hard on for using his memory to try and push a lame Orton vs. Rey program and VIVA LA FUCKING SAVINGS was disgusting.

4. 1987: Fritz Von Erich Fakes A Heart Attack - World Class business was going downhill and when business got bad, wrestling promoters scraped the bottom of the barrel. So what did Fritz do in 1987> Well, after an in-ring beatdown by Terry Gordy, Buddy Roberts, Iceman Parsons and the Angel of Death, Fritz collapsed, and basically sold that he had a heart attack. The promotion went so far as to claim that Fritz had been transported to an actual hospital in Dallas and also to have announcer Marc Lowrance go on TV to announce cancelled appearances.

3. 1985: Fritz Von Erich and World Class Use Mike Von Erich's Near Death As An Angle - Mike's shoulder was operated on due to an injury suffered during a wrestling tour of Israel in 1985 and all thought he was fine. But days later his fever shot to nearly 107 degrees as he had toxic shock syndrome. He likely should have died, but somehow survived. Fritz used this as a way to get attention, asking for prayers for Mike and then eventually pushing his wrestling return, playing off of the fact that he cheated death. When he returned, Mike was never the same, as he suffered some brain damage, and never should have returned to the ring.

2. 2005: Terrorists Attack The Undertaker On The Day Of The London Bombings - Smackdown was taped on July 4th, and featured a match between the Undertaker and Daivari, since Taker was feuding with Muhammad Hassan. Taker killed killed Daivari, and then, Hassan and five masked men, dressed in black shirts, ski-masks, and camo pants, armed with clubs and piano wire to choke out Taker attacked. The show aired on July 7th, which unfortunately was the day that a series of coordinated suicide attacks on London's public transport system. WWE could do nothing to stop the airing of the tapes they sent out for the show, but it became a reminder of what to do and what not to do when playing off of real life events.

1. Stephanie McMahon Compares 9/11 To Vince's Steroid Indictment - Days after the attacks on 9/11, WWE Smackdown took the air in am effort to get back to normal. The idea of the show was right, but unfortunately most only remember the show for Stephanie McMahon trying to compare the attacks to he father battling the US Government during the steroid trial. Yeah, fucking really?


Go to 6:34 in this video to see Stephanie's coments.



Jeremy Thomas

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

Ric Flair is Insane - The short of this story was actually pretty simple: Ric Flair was deemed to be unfit to be the WCW President, thanks to some evil finagling. So he was trying to run the company from the asylum he was fit into. Wait, what? Yep. And he ran into Scott Hall there for whatever reason. Is there any wonder why WCW is no longer around, with crap like this?

The Legion of (Un)Super Heroes - God, I hated this. TNA takes some of its more talented X-Division guys in Shark Boy, Eric Young and Christopher Daniels, and turns them into the "Prince Justice Brotherhood." Yes, because when you're trying to get your most popular division over, the way to do that is to turn some of the top names in the division into jokes. Retards.

Lita's Miscarriage - Poor Kane has the worst angles ever. He falls in love with Lita, knocks her up and wipes out Matt Hardy, then Gene Snitsky becomes the "not my fault" guy after he nailed Kane with a chair and made him fall on Lita to miscarry the baby. And what's worse is, we weren't done there. This would take too much explanation that I care to describe, so let's call it stupid and move on.

5.Lost in Cleveland - In the worst angle ever told involving Mick Foley—and as awesome as he is, he's been in a lot of bad ones—WCW managed to screw up a red-hot feud between Cactus Jack and Vader. Foley had been supposedly (and legitimately) injured due a power bomb from Vader to the concrete floor. While Foley was recovering from an unrelated surgery to repair his knee, WCW ran with a Dusty Rhodes-inspired set of vignettes about how Jack was now a homeless amnesiac mental patient who believed he was a sailor and rounded up a group of homeless people to his cause…whatever it was. The whole thing was painfully bad and absolute, 100% destroyed what could have been a big-time money angle. This, folks, is why Dusty Rhodes, much like Vince Russo, needs someone to reign him in from time to time as a booker. Creative? Undoubtedly. Infallible? Not on your life.

4.The Dawn/Torrie/Al Love Triangle - One of the things I love about the WWE is the simplicity of their angles. I mean, let's take this feud. So the company wants to put two hot ladies in a feud against each other. Sure, Torrie Wilson can't wrestle a lick but it should still bring in some audience interest because it's a couple of lovely women cat fighting, right? So let's do something simple here. Let's see….we'll say that Dawn is actually hot for Torrie and wants to get her into bed. And to do that, she'll start dating Torrie's elderly father Al Wilson (who, incidentally, really was Torrie's father). Wait, what? Um…okay, I guess we can go with that. Jealousy or whatever, and teasing lesbianism without any chance of a payoff will draw in some people I suppose. So let's see…what else? Dawn will get Al to propose to her, and the only way to call it off will be for Torrie to do the deed. But then, Dawn will marry Al anyway…on SmackDown. With both of them in their underwear. And that will be paid off with Dawn riding Al to death, thus resulting in the first-ever (and, hopefully, last-ever) Stepmother/Stepdaughter wrestling match. And don't forget, Torrie can't wrestle worth a scrap. Yeah, I bet this one is talked about every Christmas at the Wilson household with fond memories. And the kicker? This waste of time lasted for NINE MONTHS. I hope someone on the Creative Team got fired over this one.

3.Cheatum the Evil Midget Blows Up a Boat - This is, bar none, one of the goofiest segments in wrestling. Keep in mind that it tops out a segment in which a midget masturbated while in a garbage can in goofiness. At Beach Blast '93, Davey Boy Smith and Sting were set to take on Vader and Sid Vicious in the main event. The big problem was that WCW's attendance and fan interest was at one of its lowest points—at least, until its dying days—and so it was felt that some extra promotion was needed. Therefore, Eric Bischoff authorized a million dollars—wait, let me say that again. Eric Bischoff authorized the use of one million dollars to film a mini-movie for the Pay-Per-View. That mini movie involved Vader and Vicious, along with their managers Col. Robert Parker and Harley Race, try to trick Sting and Davey Boy onto a boat on a beach somewhere. Col. Parker then had Cheatum, an evil eye patch-wearing midget, swim to the boat with a shark fin on and deliver a bomb that blew the boat up. This would have been terrible, but inoffensively so if they hadn't tried to play this seriously and question for just a moment whether Sting and Davey Boy were all right. More maybe if they hadn't spent A MILLION DOLLARS on it. As it was, it was the silliest, full-on dumbest thing ever done in a wrestling context. It truly must be seen to be believed.



2.Eddie Guerrero Burns in Hell - Offensive. Tasteless. Cruel. Heartless. Few storylines have exemplified these words better than the series of moments that occurred in the year following the tragic death of Eddie Guerrero. Frankly, I don't really want to talk a lot about this whole angle because it makes me angry to this day. But yes, from the "Eddie's In Hell" line to Randy Orton driving the Eddie Memorial Low Rider into the TitanTron support structure with the Undertaker on it, causing sparks and flames to shoot out while he yells "I JUST KILLED THE UNDERTAKER!" this was an exercise in seeing how far they could ride a dead man to the bank. It didn't get Orton over any and it just turned a lot of fans off to the idea that there was anything worth watching in wrestling during the mid-2000's. With crap like this in play, I can't find it in myself to disagree all that much. Wrestling has used bad real situations to storyline effect before, and it's never good (cross reference: Hall, Scott and alcoholism), but this to me was the worst.

1.Kane Loves Dead Chicks - Yeah, this was the worst, without a doubt. At least, for me it was. Around 2002, my interest in wrestling had been waning just a little bit. The InVasion angle had bombed of course, and the whole WCW folding just left me with a bad taste in my mouth. How I stayed a wrestling fan after this, I still don't know. It was bad enough that they ran with the whole "did the face in the feud canola and/or kill his girlfriend" bit. That made no freaking sense whatsoever. But that segment with Triple H was not only tasteless and purposely offensive, it was poorly done at that. The whole thing went on forever, and the Game droned on and on in his sleep-inducing Kane voice about the whole thing. Did we really need to hear him describe a corpse's panties? Or see him feel up a mannequin? And then cut to flowers while the necrophilia was supposedly going on? Yeah, this was a tough moment to be a wrestling fan, no doubt about it.



Julian Bond

Like ... above, I've seen so many horrible HORRIBLE storylines in my brief wrestling watching life that they are way too many to slim down to a "Top 5" here. So I'll also cover the main ones that I remember from the last decade or so....cause I'm guarantee that most of the ones just in WCW ALONE could fill up like 10 Top 5 lists!

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

May 19th!!!! - Kane (WWE) - Beware May 19th!! May 19th!! For anyone who remotely remembers this ULTRA lame storyline, it was essentially a eleborate plug for Kane's horror movie flop "See No Evil", in which Kane randomly turned on his tag team partner Big Show by temporary turning heel and continously yelling out "May 19th"....the date that the movie came out....for shame WWE....not just for the storyline, but for giving Kane SO MANY crappy angles as you'll see in a nice pattern below.



The Al Wilson saga/Heidenreich "touching" Michael Cole (WWE) - It's a damn shame that while Smackdown was personally the best show to me....these two horrible angles...one with a weird love triangle involving an old man and two hot WWE divas and the another involving a scary looking wrestler attempting to "get closer" to announcer Michael Cole...has made me realize the brand sure as hell isn't perfect.

The Kane/Hardy/Lita/Snitzy Soap Opera (WWE) - "It's Not My Fault" so said the WWE jobber who accidently knocked down wrestler Lita, who was the supposed baby mama of Kane and former flame of Matt Hardy, during the match and started a feud due to Lita's fake baby being lost in the fall. Do I need anymore explaination?

5."Jackass 2" Movie Promos during TNA X-Division Matches - I swear I've said this on many occasions here in the Top 5 and in my own columns, but this f'n storyline here helped to permanently damage the X-Division forever to the point where they're still trying to recover today. For TNA to be so stupid to risk the greatly-built creditablity of a trademark part of your company only to get some quick bucks off of the promoting of a random-ass reality show based movie sequel with Jackass 2 made this one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in a wrestling ring.

4.David Arquette in WCW...anything else - Going off of what I just say just above except substitute "X-Division" for "WCW World Title" and "Jackass 2" for "Ready To Rumble" and that automatically makes this a much MUCH dumber thing I've ever seen.

3.The Birth of the "One Warrior Nation" (WCW) - Did you know that the One Warrior Nation, the group in WCW where the Ultimate Warrior (as his older, less "Ultimate" self) came back to face his old rival (and by old, I mean old person) Hollywood Hulk Hogan and did so by kidnapping Hogan's henchman "The Disciple" and transforming him into a member of the said group, with its initials OWN is spelled NWO backwards?!? I apologize for wasting anyone's time reading all of this and WCW should apologize for ever putting this crap on TV.

2.Mae Young, Mark Henry....and the HAND (WWE) - Just YouTube this and see what it's all about. If you're already seen it...just do it and remind yourself of how F'D it was when you first saw it. NO ONE has still provided myself an answer to why the f*ck this ever happened storyline-wise...I'm still very scared and confused.

1.Katie Vick...nuff said (WWE) - See number #2 for your YouTube reminder and remember the image of Triple H in Kane mask dry humping a fake dead corpse representing Kane's fake dead girlfriend. Just saying this still gives me the chills. You know what....hate to do this....just painfully watch it below...



Ryan Byers

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe (TNA) - The build to the first match and the MMA-style build to their Lockdown battle were fairly awesome, but everything in between was so horrible and did such a great job of turning Joe from a killer into a chump that I still have to give it an honorable mention.

nWo: The WWE Years - This gets a pass out of the Top 5 proper because it did technically generate the historical Hulk Hogan vs. Rock match, but, if you remove that, there's not a single redeemable thing about Hall and Nash coming back to the E in 2002, much less their later being joined by X-Pac, a non-wrestling Shawn Michaels, and . . . Goldust?

ROH Faction Warfare - This fell on its face in an epic, epic manner that has been well-documented in many other places, in part due to poor booking and in part due to key members of the stables involved being injured and/or booked elsewhere for long stretches of time. I enjoy giving a nod to the indies when the do well, but we should also give them a nod alongside the big leagues when they do poorly.

5.Triple H vs. Booker T. (WWE) - Yes, I'm talking about the storyline headed in to Wrestlemania XIX, which was bad on many levels . . . perhaps even worse than the feud over a shampoo commercial the Booker had engaged in a year before. The Trips/Booker program gets my vote for two reasons: 1) A major part of the angle was Triple H's pals in Evolution "electrocuting" Goldust in one of the hokiest segments ever to serve as a pre-Wrestlemania angle, thereby giving him "Tourette's syndmore." When a key moment in your build is Dustin Runnels getting a new comedy gimmick, you're in trouble. 2) The race bating. The horrific, horrific race bating that had no place whatsoever in the twenty-first century. Yes, some people still believe that Triple H's comments about "people like Booker T. not being fit to carry his bags" were remarks about midcarders and not African Americans, but, if you believe that, you're either fairly dense or a massive WWE apologist. Go watch some old Ole Anderson promos from the 1980's in which he clearly was meant to be demeaning black babyfaces with similar comments and tell me that Trips was talking about "midcarders." The worst part of it all was that, even after being told that his entire race was inferior, Booker STILL LOST. Blatant racism in the modern age is unacceptable, even if it is a poor attempt to get heel heat. What's even worse is blatant racism from a character who winds up getting the victory in the end, implicitly providing justification for his viewpoints. I'm amazed that WWE gets as much slack for this one as they do in columns like this.

4.DDP vs. The Undertaker (WWF) - I don't feel that I can, in good faith, include the entire WWF vs. WCW/ECW Invasion on my list, because, even though it was nowhere near as big or as well booked as it should have been, the fact of the matter is that the eight months during which it took place were probably the best eight months in the WWF's history for straight-up, consistent in-ring action and there were several individual moments during the extended program which were memorable and entertaining. However, if you take a look at Diamond Dallas Page's program with the Undertaker, it is essentially a microcosim of everything that was wrong with the Invasion as a whole. DDP was one of the few guys who WCW built as a major, main event level star from the ground up during the Monday Night War, and he could have been just as big of a deal in the WWF if the company would actually treat him as a star and let him get victories over the Fed's top guys. It appeared that might be happening, as he was allowed to feud with the Undertaker immediately on his debut. Then, for no apparently reason, UT went over the King of Badda Big in every single match that they ever had, and, worse yet, the bouts were barely ever competitive. When the Undertaker's WIFE went over Page, it became clear that he was never recovering, instead being forced to spend the rest of his days on a major stage in a comedic motivational speaker gimmick.

3.The Black Scorpion Saga (WCW) - Here's one that newer fans may not remember, but, trust me, it was just as bad as anything involving Katie Vick, David Arquette, and Horswonggle, if not WORSE. Sting was WCW's top babyface at the time, and he needed a new opponent. What was the company's solution? They put a man under a mask and had him repeatedly taunt the Stinger under the name "The Black Scorpion." So far, that's not too horrible. There's nothing wrong with a good mystery opponent, right? Well, guess again. The Scorpion's assault against Sting consisted almost entirely of speaking in to a Kane-esque voicebox and doing lame magic tricks like turning a fan in to a tiger. All lame, but lamer still was the fact that nobody knew who the Black Scorpion was . . . and I'm not just talking about the fans. The people booking the promotion had absolutely no clue who was supposed to be under the mask. There were plenty of stand-ins until, finally, they had nobody left and had to go with the Stinger's old standby opponent: Ric Flair. Another Flair vs. Sting program would've been boring at this point, but, if they were going to do it, at least they could have done it without turning the Nature Boy in to a villain that He-Man would've been embarassed to do battle with.

2.Hulk Hogan vs. The Ultimate Warrior (WCW) - So, Hulk Hogan decided that he wanted to get the Ultimate Warrior in to WCW so that he could get him to return an outstanding job from Wrestlemania VI. The company had already done pretty damn impressive business by rekindling the Hulkster's feud with Roddy Piper, so, at least on paper, Hogan-Warrior II wasn't that bad of an idea. However, when it became clear that the promotion was giving the always out there Warrior a fair amount of control over what was occurring in his own segments, things went south quickly. We suddenly had the Warrior appearing and disappearing in puffs of smoke, the entire nWo being laid out by the man from parts unknown, and, in the height of the idiocy, Hogan "hallucinating" and seeing Warrior in a mirror while Eric Bischoff could not . . . even though all of the home viewers saw UW as well. That's to say nothing of the matches, the awfulness of which have been recapped in painstaking detail by many, many men.

1.The Undertaker vs. The Undertaker (WWF) - It's the Royal Rumble 1994. The Undertaker is facing Yokozuna in a casket match, and essentially the entire heel roster of WWE (including guest stars Genichiro Tenryu and the Great Kabuki) attacked the dead man and allowed Yoko to get the victory. The result wasn't just a rare 'Taker PPV loss. The result was the Undertaker "dying" and floating in a smokey shillouette to the top of the arena. (In reality, the "levitating" Undertaker was played by Marty Jannetty.) Inane? You betcha. Things got worse, though, as Ted DiBiase claimed to have found the missing Undertaker weeks later, only for "the Undertaker" to apparently have lost about four inches in height and most of his tattoos. This schlockfest built up to DiBiase's Undertaker fielding a challenge from a returning Paul Bearer's Undertaker at Summerslam 1994, and the resulting battle was so underwhelming that Brian Lee, who played the Undertaker and was supposed to become a huge star off of the angle, was immediately shown the door and would never rise to a level higher than the second in command of the Disciples of Apocalypse. The original Undertaker was surprisingly unscathed, though, and he would on to add fifteen more years to his Hall of Fame career.