10 Major Mistakes WWE Has Made In 2016 (So Far)

Whatever else it might be, WWE is the biggest and most ubiquitous wrestling promotion in the world, with the most impressive production values the business has ever seen, a phenomenally talented roster of performers and fingers in every pie the entertainment industry has to offer, from the blueberry tart of movies to the apple crumble of music and more besides.

So, once again it’s a terrible shame that it’s the dodgy writing, the glaring errors, and just plain bloody awful decisions that keeps us in material for articles like this. Despite all the brilliant, inspirational, joyful things about pro wrestling - the aspects of the sport that made us fall in love with it in the first place - there’s a reason why every year we end up publishing gently mocking diatribes of disapproval instead.

These days, we’re so used to the WWE spoiling sure things, botching booking, fouling feuds, and generally wasting the best years of the in-ring careers of some of the greatest wrestlers in the industry… well, that we don’t even get angry about it any more. The missed opportunities, the blown angles - it’s all par for the course, sadly.

That being the case: halfway through 2016, let’s look at a few examples of what WWE has dropped the ball on so far this year.

Let’s see if we can get it down to a manageable top ten...

My number one pick exactly one year ago for the potential next big thing in the WWE, Apollo Crews has it all: he’s a big guy with a great look, who could easily pull off the charismatic powerhouse main event babyface character that WWE love so much (see Hogan, Diesel, Sid, Cena, Batista, Lashley, Reigns, etc etc).

More than that, though, the former Uhaa Nation isn’t just a quality all-round athlete, he is athletic. He’s got a jaw-dropping vertical leap - his finishing combo used to be a gorilla press drop followed by a standing moonsault followed by a standing shooting star, for God’s sake.

Alongside all his other unteachable upsides, he can talk, he has an effortless, natural charisma and, best of all, he comes across as genuinely likeable, which means that once he gets over, he could make it to that elite upper echelon of babyface stars.

Everything was set to prove me right… except it wasn’t. Creed’s eight-month tenure on NXT television was weirdly unexceptional. Cast as a blue chipper babyface, supremely talented to the point of overconfidence, he was never positioned in a storyline or angle that advanced that one-note characterisation.

On this year's post-WrestleMania RAW, Apollo Crews found himself promoted to the main roster. However, just as in NXT, nothing’s really changed in the ten weeks since then. Crews briefly feuded with the Social Outcasts stable, and then coasted along with meaningless wins against job guys like Stardust and the Ascension.

In May, his only real showing on RAW was in a loss to Chris Jericho in a Money In The Bank qualifying match. Since then, he’s been entered into a feud with Sheamus, one of the few talents on the roster in more of a holding pattern than Crews himself.

Apollo Crews is the kind of one-man opportunity that doesn’t come around very often, and he ticks all of WWE’s boxes for the kind of performer they’re normally desperate to find and push hard.

However, the more Crews is booked in meaningless action on nothing shows, the more the crowd will believe he belongs in that placeholder role.