10 Times WWE Immediately Broke Its Own Rules
"New Generation"? More like "Old Destruction"!
WWE's unfocused "Let's just do something with this guy" approach often backfires, hilariously, and excavates so many plot holes in the creative process.
As Aleister Black sulked in his room, asking his peers to pick-uh a fight-uh with him-uh, Samo-uh Joe, having just lost his lesser United States Championship, attacked Kofi Kingston to stake a claim to his WWE Heavyweight Championship. This was dreadful booking in itself that was not tethered to logic, much less a rule, and all the while, Black looked like a complete d*ckhead having failed to grasp that most WWE matches happen via assault and or interruption/distraction.
Becky Lynch had to beg and plead with "the powers that be" to secure a match with Asuka at the Royal Rumble. A commentary on WWE's institutional racism, or a plot hole? It was a plot hole, because again, it was superfluous reasoning to build a match that undermined WWE's scattergun approach, and if WWE was indeed concerned with "protecting" its talent, they probably wouldn't have allowed a visibly concussed Kairi Sane to continue on at TLC.
WWE is in desperate need of assembling some sort of framework with which to make its storytelling coherent and believable.
Then again, they'd probably f*ck that up, too, looking at the precedent yielded from history...
10. The 2019 Superstar Shake-Up
The WWE of 2019, post-WrestleMania 35, was almost inconceivably sh*t. Hilariously sh*t.
As is tradition, WWE "shook up" the RAW and SmackDown rosters, under the tacit acknowledgement that they are incapable of not going a full calendar year without making everybody stale. In something of a problem, WWE was both reflexively callous, as well as indecisive and directionless. Andrade was shaken over to RAW, separating him from his IRL partner Charlotte Flair, because it's something WWE does with no compunction, just to be ar*eholes. This displeased the couple, who were swiftly reunited, thus breaking the rule.
WWE endured another, more drastic problem around the same time: ratings were tumbling, as the events of WrestleMania failed to retain the attention of the already crumbling base. Vince McMahon took swift action to correct the perception that WWE was creatively volatile and unable to create new stars by...
...going back on a creative decision immediately and over-exposing the same old faces across both shows.
The 'Wild Card Rule' allowed three stars to appear on both RAW and SmackDown, and McMahon implemented his "genius" plan after initially expressing concern that "anarchy" would follow the "floodgates" being opened. And sure as sh*t, on cue, Daniel Bryan teleported from SmackDown's house show loop to do just that.
Or four, or six...