10 Things WWE Want You To Forget About 2015

7. Exploiting Reid Flair's Death

It's tempting to just put the entirety of the Divas Revolution as this entry and just call it a day, but WWE seems ever-determined to drive that particular piece of branding into the ground, not letting us forget it, even if we wanted to. The same cannot be said for the contract signing between Paige and Charlotte, however. During the segment, which aired in the main event slot on the November 16th Raw, Charlotte tearfully mentioned her brother Reid Flair, who died of an overdose in March 2013. It was an oddly jarring moment, as the feud between the two ladies hadn't escalated anywhere near the point where such raw subject matter would be appropriate - if it ever would be. Paige even said, "your little baby brother... he didn't have much fight in him, did he?". That's utterly horrible. And before you say it, yes I'm aware Paige was 'supposed to be a heel'. Doesn't make it any less exploitative and awful, though. To make matters even worse, WWE didn't contact either of Reid's parents before they aired the segment, prompting furious, now-deleted, tweets from Elizabeth Fliehr, Reid's mother, calling the whole thing "disgusting", "disrespectful" and "cruel". Even Dave Meltzer, who's in tight with the company, was outraged, stating that "a company with the slightest bit of class would have never even considered this idea for a second". The company want you to forget that they ever aired those comments, so much so that, less than a week later at Survivor Series, the lines were nowhere to be found in the pre-match video package, and the announcers gave them nary a mention.
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Adam is a sports writer, comedian and actor, currently living in London.