10 WWE Angles That Backfired Spectacularly

If you thought selling Raw to Donald Trump was a bad idea, then consider this: two years earlier, the chairman of the board faked his own death in the aid of a wrestling angle.

In the company's defence, part of the reason this went so wrong owed to factors outside his (or anyone else's) control. It was just unfortunate that, a couple of weeks later, Chris Benoit killed himself and his family for real, making any storyline to that effect inherently distasteful.

But it still seems a little ridiculous. This wasn't actually supposed to be the end of the Mr McMahon character. Rather, he was supposed to have faked his demise in order to find out whether anyone truly loved him (at least that's the climax they settled on a the last minute).

Even without the unfortunate real-life parallels, it's hard to see how this one could have wrapped itself up satisfactorily. The absolute best case scenario was that the fans ended up feeling cheated.