One Moment WWE Wants You To Forget From Every Year (1985 to 2026)

6. 2021 - Swap Slop

Creative rock bottom. 

Without caveats such as the pandemic, without excuses such as wrestlers throwing their political weight around, and without justification such as a storyline twist around the corner that pays off something that doesn't stand up on the night, this wasn't the bottom of the barrel as much as the dregs on the bottom's underside that aren't even visible until the barrel completely erodes. That was the belt swap segment on the October 22nd edition of SmackDown - a Sports Entertainment nightmare emerging from the dreams of a fossilised creative force effectively holding his own product hostage.

You're not supposed to think about how title belts are actually quite weird prizes; gaudy pieces of leather and tin rather than proof that somebody's the best in their field, or something every other wrestler would die to hold. The thought spiral goes a long way to undermining everything, like a wrestler not springing back off of the ropes. Vince McMahon had an unhealthy dislike of the world "belt", but "Championship" was at least a logical counter - it's the symbol of excellence. 

It’s not a prop that needs to be traded like a football sticker because the centre-plate needs to match the ropes. Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair weren't the first to have to go through this ordeal, following The Street Profits and The New Day doing the same a year prior, but the teams' friendships allowed them to knowingly mock the absurdity. Lynch and Flair's real life connection had collapsed (less than ideal a month out from a forced Survivor Series match between the two Champions, to the extent that an awful idea was made exponentially worse without trust to see it through. Becky, the heel, was supposed to briefly hold both for a self-aggrandising reimagining of her "Becky Two Belts" bit, but Flair, the babyface, decided in the moment that it could undermine her own status as 'The Queen' and refused to let it happen.

One of the belts hit the deck, Lynch hit the roof when she got backstage, Sonya Deville's authority character hit the skids having looked completely useless as the powerless facilitator of this mess, and WWE hit yet another new creative low.

Until...