10 Biggest WWE Creative Mistakes Of 2020
Ruining a Sasha Banks Vs. Asuka feud is more of a mistake than any nonsense with eyeballs. Why...?
Dishonourable mentions are vast. This, after all, is WWE.
The much-touted Keith Lee feels like just another body on the roster, which is inaccurate only in that you can't really see it. He covered it up. He made a big, immediate impact, by going over Randy Orton so quickly and so handily at Payback. But he worked the same opponents over and over, a thread in which he seemed angered by Drew McIntyre for his interferences was soon dropped altogether, and at time of writing, more of his RAW singles matches have ended in f*ckery than via clean finishes. He is trapped, as so many are, in a loop of inconsequential developments. It's all so muddled and difficult to piece together that it feels like he's been there years. That he's always been there.
He's been on RAW since August.
SmackDown is supposedly the far superior show, and yet it yielded an iconically awful karaoke segment straight out of 2010 NXT in which Lacey Evans sing a 1995 in-house number. On another edition, the very few number of wrestlers that weren't very conspicuous by their absence were made to salute the Undertaker in one of two Thank You ceremonies like a bunch of marks.
2020 was the year in which WWE struggled to adapt to a pandemic in closed-set horror shows. It was bad - so bad that this list doesn't even account for Eye For An Eye...
10. The Continued Main Event Push Of Bray Wyatt
Bray Wyatt is either a genius or charlatan. Well, he's a charlatan.
He didn't know where the hard camera was at SummerSlam, much less where he's going with Sister Abigail, who is either himself in a veil or the pareidolia formed by Braun Strowman's ejaculate.
But that's not the point: he is perceived as a genius or a charlatan, and is received so subjectively and passionately that pushing him in such a featured role - to the point that you must abide the character to abide the show itself - indicts WWE's creative strategy irrespective of your take on it.
Some people love this character. They think he is a captivating presence and creative force. Even those who can't sanction his pretension might wryly laugh at the absurdity and comedic timing of his Firefly Fun House skits.
But people also really, really hate it.
It's hokey.
It renders suspension of disbelief impossible. When nobody is really scared of the character, it verges on disastrous when the babyfaces are. He's also a babyface, now, which is so warped, since he has infantilised and seduced (!) Alexa Bliss. There's an inherent, inescapable plot hole to the act - his supernatural powers should render him invincible - that his formless, incoherent matches hardly explain away.
It is cringe fare that divides the audience and will never, ever grow it.