10 Mistakes WWE Are Still Paying For

WWE takes a lot of flak for its creative mistakes, but many of them are probably unavoidable. Running a wrestling show, after all, entails having to predict how fans are going to react to something, which is no small task given how quickly their minds can change about a particular performer or storyline.

That said, sometimes it seems like they are almost deliberately shooting themselves in the foot. Once you've established who the fans do and don't like, it makes sense to book your product accordingly, presenting the popular guys as likeable good guys and the not-so-popular ones as detestable heels. That's pretty simple, right?

It's generally also a good idea to keep the young up-and-comers on whom you're banking to become the headline acts of tomorrow looking relatively strong while they wait their turn in the main event. Otherwise, you could find yourself a little bereft of star power a couple of years down the line when all of your major box office draws have deserted you.

Sadly, the WWE creative team doesn't always remember these cardinal rules, leading to one or two mistakes whose long-term effects are still being felt today.

It might be argued that Punk is so capricious and thin-skinned that the explosive way he bowed out of WWE four years ago was completely inevitable - regardless of how many steps Vince McMahon and Triple H took to diffuse the situation.

But one thing kept coming up during that famous appearance on Colt Cabana's The Art of Wrestling: he was absolutely furious about the timing of his dismissal, which just so happened to fall on his wedding day.

WWE have always denied that they intentionally fired him on the morning of his nuptials, claiming that it was merely an unfortunate coincidence - but either way, the whole ugly situation was easily prevented had they properly thought it through.

Instead, Punk now appears to be consumed by bitterness, potentially killing any hope we might have of seeing him return at some point in the future. Unless he has a dramatic change of heart, they could wind up paying for this mistake for the next decade or more.