10 Worst Anticlimaxes In WWE History

In 1999, Vince McMahon was a babyface, protecting his company and his family against the monstrous evil of the Undertaker’s Ministry Of Darkness. The Undertaker, positioning himself as a satanic cult leader, had taken to performing weird rituals and sacrifices on WWF television, attacking (amongst others) Stephanie McMahon and ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin.

For months, the Undertaker would refer to someone else calling the shots: the Higher Power, aso known as the Greater Power – ie, greater than the Undertaker. When the Ministry merged with Vince McMahon’s Corporation stable, NWO-style, Vince found himself ousted by his tyrannical son Shane, and feuding with most of the company’s top heels all at once.

Teasing the identity of the Higher Power was also a typically WCW gambit, and audiences had their own pet theories as to who it would end up being. Of course, the swerve was that the Higher Power was none other than Vince McMahon himself, who’d orchestrated attacks on his family and his company – including himself – for months with the sole stated purpose of messing with ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin.

It was never made entirely clear how all of the Ministry’s horrendous actions were driven by this single goal, or how assaulting Stephanie came into it. True, Austin had come out to save her from the Undertaker, but it’s not as though Vince could have relied upon that happening, given that Austin was an irascible loner with a questionable moral compass.

It’s believed that the original plan had been for the heel manager the Jackyl to be revealed as the man in charge – after all, he was a cult leader with occult leanings. Sadly, Don Callis had left the company just after the angle began, leaving the WWF to find a new pay-off for the storyline. The clumsy revelation was met with an overpowering roar of complete apathy, as the WWF’s audience realised (not for the first time) that the company would cheerfully insult their intelligence any chance it got.