10 Worst Years To Be A WWE Fan
2020 Vision.
There is no criteria beyond fundamental subjectivity for a list like this. "Worst" can apply to so, so much in pro wrestling. Think of the questions posed against every 12 month period in the past.
How good were the television shows and pay-per-views? What about the top stars? Was Vince McMahon in trouble with the law? How many wrestlers survived the 12 months to tell the stories? Should buyrates and ratings make a difference? Were WWE swimming in money or removing the water coolers to save it? How much did that even matter from a fan experience point of view? What did the shows look like? What did the logos look like? Was the f*cking SmackDown fist still hanging there or...?
And on it goes.
Everybody has a favourite year (some of us have 10 for a list coming soon as a complementary piece to this one), but there have been plenty of extended periods to forget in the history of a company that is currently as creatively bankrupt as it is financially flush.
And, worst of all, where else to start but right here and now?
10. 2020
What are you finding easier at the moment? Looking in the mirror, looking outside your window, or looking at the television when Monday Night Raw is on? All of them result in deep introspection, but at least you have control over one of them. Don't you?
Raw's numbers have dipped lately - in line with drops across the board for all mainstream wrestling - but the loyalists are sticking around for whatever reason, suggesting that the existing figures will forever be WWE's rock bottom whenever the shareholders come knocking. Physical health of talent be damned. Mental health of released and furloughed talent be damned to hell.
With rule proving exceptions such as the Firefly Fun House and the upcoming Money In The Bank matches, necessity hasn't proven the mother of invention, unless "invention" can be defined by how to effectively spotlight and promote a ceiling fan.
The company making their own new normal from this extremely challenging real one is exactly the sort of thing everybody woefully predicted right as global circumstances confined folk to their own homes en masse. Opportunities for the first ever (welcome) season finale were lost, and the Performance Center became wrestling's elephant graveyard until otherwise instructed.