10 Biggest Wasted Opportunities In WWE

Confronted with two choices, it’s not always easy to get find the right way through. So many factors can affect a decision, and not all of those factors are positive influences.

When it comes to the WWE, ego is one of those influences. Ego is ambition’s best friend and worst enemy: you can’t have that overweening drive to succeed without it, but it can screw with your head and make you do some seriously stupid things, and it’s got an alarming habit of burning bridges that it’s standing on.

One of the biggest criticisms of the WWE’s decisions and practices over the past few decades has been how it allows opportunity to pass it by - how clearly brilliant ideas, angles and storylines have been allowed to go to waste, how talent has been misused and allowed to deteriorate or even leave without being used to its fullest potential.

Sometimes - as with Daniel Bryan’s tragic early retirement due to chronic ongoing medical issues - those decisions are taken out of the company’s hands. 

And then again, sometimes the company has all the information to hand to make the right decision, and instead takes the other path, wasting the opportunity that’s staring them right in the face.

These are ten of the most glaring examples of when the WWE missed the boat (often by setting it on fire).

In 1996 and 1997, the hottest angle in WWE was between rising star ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart.

Both men were heavily committed to the feud, which had developed into a vicious grudge match due to Austin’s phenomenal heelwork: Austin knew this was his ticket to the big time, and Hart was delighted to work with someone so talented and to be distracted from the irritation of dealing with Shawn Michaels and his cronies.

It’s no exaggeration to say that, if winning the King Of The Ring tournament set out Austin’s stall as the next big thing, working with Hart was what put him on the map for keeps. Their chemistry was fantastic, their in-ring work together as natural as performers who’d been working together for years.

Hart pushed Austin’s limits as a wrestler, bringing out the absolute best in him and making him look like a contender for the main event - but equally, Austin’s peerless promos and character work, so far ahead of his time in 1996 that he made everyone else look old-fashioned and stuffy, forced the normally stiff and tongue-tied Hart to step up just to keep up.

Sadly, the events of the Montreal Screwjob meant that the Hitman wouldn’t return to the WWF/E until long after he’d retired from in-ring competition.

‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin didn’t win any of his matches against Hart during this series, almost certainly because the two were planning to return to their feud before backstage politics and Hart’s WCW deal got in the way.

Had Vince McMahon not reneged on his deal with Hart and taken a chance on booking his best performer and the next big thing together, Austin could have gotten his win back and Hart could have helped the WWF maintain their ratings against the southern menace.

In some glorious alternate universe, that’s exactly what happened. Bret Hart never left the WWF, Vince McMahon never became Mr. McMahon, and the company had to find themselves a different kind of Attitude to take them into the 21st century.

Who knows… maybe it turned out just as well.

But, however you want to look at it, the lack of a proper conclusion to the Bret Hart/Steve Austin feud of 1996/1997 is a sadly wasted opportunity for the pair of them, and for the company they worked for.