10 Biggest WWE Disappointments Of 2019 (So Far)

Travel agents and tour operators are ripe to unleash the old cliché, "book now to avoid disappointment." It's an utterly futile entreaty: alongside the proverbial death and taxes, 'disappointment' is the only thing in life that occurs with soul-crushing inevitability.

Any given year, WWE usually do their best to uphold this maxim. Recent tradition has seen a terribly uninspired Royal Rumble winner - or a plain objectionable one - go on to a WrestleMania that, though starting excellently, usually descends into complete, underwhelming tedium.

That, peculiarly enough, has not necessarily been the case in 2019. The Rumble made it two surprisingly satisfying outcomes in a row, as fan picks Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch both walked out of Arizona wth WrestleMania opportunities in their back pockets, each going onto bank them come the Show of Shows. Add to that was the glorious apex of Kofi Kingston's arc, and it seemed that WWE fans could have absolutely nothing to complain about.

Ha. Right. Even the very show that had it all managed to underwhelm. And that wasn't all. Arguably the whole company, in a wider context, has been a massive disappointment. You can't avoid it.

It's not Dolph Ziggler's fault that the decade has entirely passed him by.

When Kevin Owens made the principled albeit employment destabilising decision not to travel to Saudi Arabia this April, WWE suddenly had to scramble for a replacement.

The big surprise they sprung was to drag Dolph Ziggler away from his ongoing comedy tour. For WWE fans, it was no laughing matter, as for no apparent reason The Showoff was back and once more complaining about being owed his due - in spite of the fact he'd voluntarily sodded off over WrestleMania season. Exactly what was he owed?

Come summer, perpetual disappointment had become Dolph's gimmick. His old trick of teasing the entrances of legitimate legends, only to suck the air out of arenas when it was only him, became his go-to once again. Come summer, he was specifically calibrated for an inevitable and satisfying flattening at the fists of a rampaging Goldberg. Until the penny dropped, Ziggler had once again been employed on the basis that his grievances continued to resonate, the perfect example of Vince's propensity to remain five years behind the curve.