10 Times WWE Went Too Far
8. Piggy James
Fat-shaming is objectively gross behaviour regardless of the victim, but the mere idea that Mickie James was obese back in 2009 should have been preposterous to anyone with a working set of eyes. Nonetheless, this was the direction creative took with Mickie's late-year feud against Michelle McCool and Layla, resulting in weeks of grim, unwatchable angles.
Rechristened "Piggy James," Mickie was driven to tears as LayCool relentlessly bullied her with unending streams of fat jokes, "hilarious" graphics in which her head was Photoshopped onto a pig's body, and a particularly dumb fat suit angle. It was horrific, and it went on for months, with their first pay-per-view encounter coming in a traditional Survivor Series elimination match, a singles follow-up at TLC, a Royal Rumble rematch (where Mickie won Michelle's Divas Title), before the feud was finally blown off in February 2010.
The storyline was supposedly concocted because WWE officials were upset at James' (non-existent) weight gain, and wanted to punish her for it. Similarly, PWInsider's Mike Johnson reported that the company were uneasy with her non-wrestling endeavours, specifically her budding country music career.
These issues could probably have been resolved behind the scenes, but WWE gonna WWE.