10 Major Mistakes WWE Has Made In 2016 (So Far)

7. Back To Montreal (Again)

At Payback this year, WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte faced Natalya for the title with ‘The Nature Boy’ Ric Flair in his daughter’s corner, and Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart in his niece’s corner.

The match came to a conclusion when Charlotte tied Natalya up in her own finish, the Sharpshooter - only for referee Charles Robinson to call for the bell, naming Charlotte the winner, when Natalya hadn’t actually tapped out to the hold. Robinson then scooted over, threw the title belt into the ring and legged it out through the crowd.

It was, of course, yet another callback to the infamous Montreal Screwjob at Survivor Series 1997, where Shawn Michaels and referee Earl Hebner had done exactly the same thing to the Hitman, only for real. Since November 1997, that shoot screwjob finish has been replayed as a worked finish so many time that the law of diminishing returns doesn’t even apply anymore.

Wrestling fans stopped rolling their eyes and groaning at being forced to witness yet another version of the Montreal Screwjob ages ago. These days - as it did at Payback - it’s far more likely to result in a genuine flaring of anger that such lazy bullsh*t is still considered a swerve finish in 2016.

Natalya versus Charlotte was never going to be a game-changing classic: it always seemed a little like the feud was part of a holding pattern. But there was no good reason for the screwjob finish. It wasn’t an anniversary, it wasn’t in Montreal and the Flairs weren’t involved in any way with the WWF back in 1997.

The only possible reason for the decision to end the match in that way was purely and simply because Bret Hart was in attendance… and that’s no good reason at all. What a waste of everyone’s time.