10 Dumbest Decisions By WWE Champions
It takes smarts to stay on top. Here's when Edge, Bray Wyatt and other famed icons forgot that...
It is to Drew McIntyre's immense credit that he managed not just to get over in 2020 but stay there too.
History will reflect his first tenure as WWE Champion as unlike any that came before, working as he did to maintain the belt's prestige in front of zero fans in the arena, record lows watching at home and a world with countless other things to worry about beyond the chaotic goings on of any given Monday Night.
His success in the role speaks to a very specific sort of versatility that made him such a solid choice for it in the first place. Though he's benefitted from no evident backlash from the audience (a contemporary problem the pandemic has actually helped him out with) just about everything else he's done since WrestleMania 36 has been of gradual gain. He's believable, funny, and - my god this is crucial - not thick as f*ck.
Never was this clearer than on the post-Royal Rumble edition of Monday Night Raw when he was deployed to recap the event in that game show host manner WWE thrusts upon its top babyfaces. He came across as an affable and agreeable to such an extent that the whole thing primed Sheamus' turn on him brilliantly. He was, beyond reasonable doubt, made.
We can now trust that he won't do something stupid, unlike a laundry list of moronic moves made by Champions before him...
10. Bray Wyatt - Letting Randy Orton Destroy His Entire Life And Thinking Projections Would Fix It
Because he did though, didn't he?
It's quite something that Bray Wyatt went on Bray Wyatting for well over another year before restarting things as The Fiend. This WrestleMania 33 catastrophe felt, even as it was happening, as the point of no return for the once-feared 'Eater Of Worlds'.
Randy Orton had infiltrated The Wyatt Family in an actually-pretty-tremendous turn of events that got too cute for its own good by the end. Having ran off Wyatt's genuine follower Luke Harper, Orton revealed his long con to take literally everything from Bray when he set fire to his house with Sister Abigail (at this point not Bray in a wedding dress speaking in a Carry On voice) inside. Next on the list was the WWE Championship, but the 'Eater Of Worlds' still had his magic powers didn't he? 'The Apex Predator' didn't stand a chance against...nature footage.
And not even nature footage he could see. The projections were to get a gasp from the audience due to an aerial shot - something Orton himself wouldn't possibly be able to catch.
The first one (maggots) got polite applause, but neither the Challenger nor the crowds were a*sed about selling them by the end. Wyatt was drilled with an RKO just 13 seconds after some scuttling insects were beamed onto the mat. That the match only went 10:30 perhaps highlights how little faith the company had in the idea from the beginning.