10 WWE Feuds That Overstayed Their Welcome

Storytelling in wrestling is akin to cooking. With the right ingredients and left to simmer over the right period of time, magic can be created. However, with a clumsy hand and outside forces, that very same dish can easily be over-cooked.

Not the perfect metaphor, but the point still stands that there is a fine line between letting a feud breathe and leaving a feud high and dry. When done right a rivalry can go a full year while still captivating an audience, à la Sting vs. Hollywood Hogan in WCW or Taz vs. Sabu in ECW. More often than not, however, long-form storytelling becomes a bit too long-form, never wrapping up the plot when the curtain should have been called a long time ago.

Take the following ten feuds for example. Through any combination of overexposure, clumsy payoffs, or blatant holding patterns, these WWE Superstars found themselves stuck in a moment they couldn't get out of. That's not to say that these matches were bad or that the feud in question didn't have teeth, more that for a number of reasons, audiences were ready to pull the plug much sooner than WWE seemed to be.

Sheamus was the World Heavyweight Champion, having defeated Daniel Bryan in just 18 seconds at Wrestlemania 28 in a match that did little to endure the Irishman to the fans. As if that wasn’t enough of a barrier for the babyface champ, 'The Celtic Warrior’s' next opponent after Bryan was Alberto Del Rio, who earned the opportunity after winning a non-title match against Sheamus on Smackdown.

That win was the last victory Del Rio had against the champ for the next five months. Alberto would lose a Fatal 4-Way match when Sheamus pinned Chris Jericho at Over the Limit, be taken out of action and replaced with Dolph Ziggler at No Way Out, and lose to the Champion at the next three PPVs.

In fact, Alberto Del Rio was pretty much the only opponent Sheamus had until The Big Show won the Championship at the very next PPV, making Del Rio look even more like a chump for not getting the job done.

The matches themselves weren’t setting the world on fire, and the storyline between the two was non-existent save for wanting the title. The definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over and expecting a different result. This feud was just plain nuts.