15 Worst Moments Of The WWE Pandemic Era

Barring a horrible turnaround or resurgence of COVID-19, professional wrestling looks to be putting a cap on its Pandemic Era and ending the empty arena shows.

From a fan’s perspective, this is hugely welcome news. Crowds add so much energy to wrestling shows. They can turn a mediocre product into something watchable simply by their reaction. And they can elevate a good match or angle into a truly memorable moment.

These past 16 months have been dismal for fans (and your dedicated wrestling critics and reviewers) – especially those who follow WWE. The grandpa of professional wrestling never really fully adjusted to life during the Pandemic Era, presenting confusing, mind-numbing, creatively bankrupt programming for the bulk of the past 70 weeks. The proof is in the ratings, which sank to record lows, despite much of the United States being stuck at home for much of that time.

It feels like a lifetime since we saw real fans in attendance at Raw and SmackDown, and it might be easy to just give WWE a pass, but that just wouldn’t be on-brand here. There are plenty of truly dismal moments during the past year-plus to cringe at and then move to the dustbin of history.

Let’s immediately discount the creative bankruptcy that permeated all of WWE, and the mass releases. Those could fill their own list. We’ll focus on specific moments or feuds that WWE would love for you to forget, but we won’t let them.

Let’s get to it…

It might seem harsh to bash a moment from the very first episode of the Pandemic Era, but considering that “Stone Cold” Steve Austin himself has said he hated this promo, it’s fair game.

Raw emanated from the empty WWE Performance Center on March 16, 2020, which was declared 3:16 Day in honor of Austin. The Rattlesnake was called upon to cut a promo about what 3:16 Day meant. Originally, the entire deal would have taken place in front of thousands of fans, but instead, it played literally to a bunch of empty chairs, with Byron Saxton the Man-Child acting as the audience.

The result was a painful segment that saw Stone Cold read off a series of cue cards before eventually hitting the requisite Stunner on Saxton. It was bad enough that Austin later acknowledged that he tried multiple times to get Vince McMahon to change it, to no avail.

This cringy moment showed that WWE was going to be slow to adjust to the changing times.