10 Ridiculous Wrestling Booking Decisions Nobody Can Explain
1. The World's Strangest Match Result
Even if WWE had failed to line up a challenger to John Cena and his newly-won WWE Heavyweight Title, the decision to put Mark Henry over Ryback at WrestleMania 29 was a strange one; the man's late-career renaissance peaked in 2011, his physical condition, never great in the first place, was in inexorable decline, and Ryback had firmly connected with the fanbase. He needed a win to either maintain that connection, or strengthen him ahead of his imminent heel turn.
There's no way WWE hadn't lined up a challenger, obviously, 24 hours after the biggest event of the year; a heel Ryback was selected as Cena's next antagonist because there were few, if any, viable options available - yet another indictment of the part-timer era. What's strange about the whole thing, more so than the result itself, is the way in which the post-match angle was framed; armed with the knowledge that Ryback was set to turn, the Big Guy's big Shell Shocked spot looked more petty than it did heroic or nasty, failing to really resonate one way or the other.
Ryback doesn't half talk some absolute b*llocks on his podcast - but this genuinely did kill his headliner prospects.