25 Worst Wrestling Moments Of 2020

The 3 August 2020 Raw saw a group of masked vandals wreck shop and effectively take WWE hostage. On the following SmackDown, members of this renegade pack severed the ring ropes with a chainsaw and continued their assault on the company. Back home, fans were intrigued as to where all of this was going.

It was about to veer into 'Worst Of The Year' territory.

Various NXT stars like Dominik Dijakovic, Dio Maddin, Shane Thorne and Mia Yim announced themselves as Retribution. Rather than sticking to the casual outfits, they began wearing various masks that made them resemble street thugs from Streets Of Rage or Final Fight mixed with Mad Max. Worse, their names were cartoonish as hell.

T-BAR, Mace, Slapjack and Reckoning (arguably the best of a bad bunch) then revealed their intentions: They wanted to be taken seriously, and they were demanding WWE contracts. Hmm. Retribution already had deals with the promotion on NXT, and no-one was stopping them from hitting the main roster anyway, so none of this made a lick of sense.

It was hard to swallow what WWE were trying to sell here. So, this bunch of seemingly overlooked developmental workers believed the best course of action was to tamper with the production truck, cut ring ropes, then don goofy masks and beg for contract talks?

Things got even worse for the gimmick once Mustafa Ali came onboard as their new leader. At times, it was like Ali was in charge of a crèche rather than a violent gang capable of changing the company landscape forever.