10 WWE Booking Gimmicks And Characters Other Companies Are Doing Better

Although it's a cruel ask, try to cast your mind back to August 2020, when an episode of RAW took a sudden shift to Shane McMahon hanging out in a basement, with a bunch of randoms wearing vests, for the worked-shoot enterprise, RAW Underground.

The premise was simple, Fight Club, but its Mexican non-union equivalent, and commentary was done by Shane whose eloquent vernacular for the ensuing violence started and stopped at "OH!" and "watch out!" It could've been a serious launchpad for Riddick Moss and Dabba-Kato, two men that featured prominently on the show that were instead fed to Dolph Ziggler and Braun Strowman, before WWE cut the segment less than two months later.

GCW's Bloodsport events have been running with increased regularity since the inaugural event in April 2018. Originally hosted by Matt Riddle but have since become synonymous with former UFC and Pancrase Champion Josh Barnett, Bloodsport is a no-rope, worked-shoot event pitting athletes, many of whom with a combat sport background (or just have a reputation for being hard as balls), in knockout/submission-only "fights". The shows have become immensely popular and it's not hard to see why, with cards over the years featuring Barnett vs. Minoru Suzuki, Barnett vs. Jon Moxley, Allysin Kay vs. Masha Slamovich, Chris Dickinson vs. Jeff Cobb, and Hideki Suzuki vs. Timothy Thatcher.