10 Times WWE Tried To Force Historic Moments
6. The New Day's Record-Breaking Tag Title Reign
While The New Day deserve a degree of credit for helping put tag team wrestling back on the map, their lengthy run as champions wasn’t without its problems. Capturing the gold in August 2015, the trio became one of WWE’s most popular acts throughout their second reign, but ran out of steam long before losing the belts, and eventually limped over the finish line.
But the time autumn 2016 rolled around, it became blatantly obvious that The New Day were going to break Demolition’s record as the longest reigning champs of all time. WWE telegraphed this ceaselessly. The defences were increasingly predictable as a result, and the last few months of their run became a joyless slog towards the history books, with Sheamus & Cesaro’s eventual victory feeling more like a fresh start than anything else.
WWE prolonged this run purely for the sake of snatching a record away from Ax and Smash, who were both suing the company at the time. They had no idea what to do with The New Day in the aftermath, and the group spent several months bouncing around the lower card before eventually moving to SmackDown.
Had WWE not artificially inflated the reign, and had it concluded as part of a logical storyline development instead, this could’ve all been avoided.