50 Ups & 50 Downs For WWE's Decade: The 2010s
A decade of decadence or destruction? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
Where to begin with this?
"2010, f*cking clown" you flippantly reply, but WWE's decade has been both shallow and seismic to such wild degrees that a chronological trek through the last ten years wouldn't really service this particular Ups and Downs meander.
At the start of the decade, the company tried and spectacularly failed to push seven wrestlers all at once, when just one of them getting over would have been enough. When that exploded into flames, they flatly refused to anoint a man destined to become the biggest star in the company, only to welcome his return from retirement with desperate glow several years later. In 2018, the company reached a new financial height whilst simultaneously sinking to an all-time ethical low. In 2019 they rectified it with three history-making WrestleMania title changes. Two of those reigns were almost entirely nullified by the way they concluded. And so it went.
All of the above will feature as well as a host of others - the 2010s was the decade WWE crystalised a move towards a cleaner cut product they'd been working towards years earlier, the decade their own Network completely reimagined a tried and tested business model, and the decade in which they alienated enough wrestlers and fans that an actual competitor could find a footing by its end.
It all happened, even when it felt like nothing was. The following list isn't entirely in order of least-to-most significant either, so please save that line of rage when you fire into the comments over what didn't make the cut. There were matches, moments and other miscellany to celebrate and commiserate - for the massive pops, there were just as many emotional and physical drops...