10 Times WWE Attempted To Use A Real Life Situation To Their Advantage (And Failed)
Kayfabe and reality, combining to make... a mess.
Wrestling is a heady mix of real life and fiction - real people playing fake characters taking real risks. WWE has indulged in some crazy storylines that bear no resemblance to anything that has, will, or even could really happen in the world as we know it.
Sometimes, though, the bookers blend in a bit of reality to spice things up, and the results can be amazing. Take CM Punk’s pipe bomb, for example - a planned angle which allowed a performer to get a lot of genuine anger off his chest, that injection of verisimilitude resulting in one of the best promos ever.
It doesn’t always work out that way, though. WWE can bite off more than they can chew, wading into serious political stories they have no business tackling. Often they’ll take sensitive personal matters and blow them up into storylines with nary a thought for the feelings of real people. Or they can let real life grudges get in the way of business sense.
If there’s a pitfall, basically, they’ll most likely stumble down it. Wrestling and real life can go hand in hand, or they can blend into disaster like this.
10. Matt Hardy, Edge, and Lita
Given the shamelessness of WWE, it’s amazing they almost didn’t use this angle at all. When Matt Hardy and Lita’s real life relationship ended in the aftermath of the latter’s affair with Edge, WWE officials took the natural step of firing… Matt Hardy. Fan outrage caused them to bring him back, and from there, a feud with Edge was on the cards.
It started out red hot, but quickly petered out due to some baffling booking decisions. The first clash lasted under five minutes, culminating with Edge knocking Matt Hardy out. Hardy won the next two bouts, including a pretty decent cage match at Unforgiven. Then, they met in a Loser Leaves Raw fight, which Edge won - and that was the end of that.
It was clear that Edge was on the way up, and they had no intention of messing with the programme, but the organic babyface pop Matt Hardy got as the wronged party seemed too good to pass it up. And yet, pass it up they did. This wasn’t a taste and decency issue, because frankly those things don’t exist in WWE. They simply dropped the ball.