10 Wrestling Storylines That Started Hot But Ended Terribly
Pouring cold water on white-hot angles and feuds.
Professional wrestling is a unique storytelling medium. Its oddball mix of soap opera theatrics and simulated combat creates the kind of narratives that just can't exist anywhere else, even in "real" sports. They provide the glue that holds the athletic spectacle together, and from Hogan vs. Andre to Austin vs. McMahon, wrestling has delivered countless era-defining storylines over the past few decades.
Unfortunately, it has also served up an ungodly amount of dross.
Ideas like David Arquette's WCW Championship run and Road Warrior Hawk's alcohol addiction angle should've never made it onto television. They were doomed from the start, and it was clear they weren't going to succeed from the moment they hit our screens, but failure isn't always immediately apparent, and wrestling's creative teams have a longstanding habit of turning gold into dirt.
WWE are particularly culpable when it comes to ruining promising storylines, but they're far from alone. Unfortunately, sports entertainment history is full of angles that started with the momentum of a runaway freight train, but flew off the rails before the journey was even complete. Here are some of the more notable examples of this maddening tendency.
10. Goldberg's First WWE Run
Wrestling fans waited years to see Goldberg in a WWE ring. Like so many of his peers, Bill's Time Warner contract wasn't picked up by WWE when they bought WCW in 2001, so he wasn't involved with the Invasion angle. Instead, Goldberg stayed bound to his old deal until May 2002, when he finally agreed a contract buyout, then eventually showed up in WWE 10 months later.
Goldberg's debut was electric. Appearing on the Raw after WrestleMania XIX, he drew an incredible pop by interrupting The Rock, then crushing him with a massive Spear. It all led to Goldberg going over the Hollywood superstar at Backlash, and his dominant run continued thereafter, with the former WCW Champion going undefeated in his first six months.
And then he ran into Triple H.
In fairness, Goldberg's crowd reactions had already started turning sour by the time he ran into 'The Game,' but losing to Hunter was his deathknell. His USP has always been "the streak," and once Triple H took that away from him, Bill had nothing left. Yes, he became World Heavyweight Champion after this, but the wheels had long since fallen off the wagon, and his first WWE run concluded with a dismal match against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania XX.