50 Worst Wrestling Moments Of The 2020s (So Far)

13. Belt Swap

The very idea of a “belt swap” is lamentable.

Before Paul Levesque wisely renamed the various midcard titles, preventing this sort of thing from ever happening again, you’d often see, around draft season, wrestlers swapping their belts with the equivalent champs because the colour of the strap didn’t match the branding of their new home. It doesn’t matter how long the respective wrestlers had held the belts, nor how hard the wrestler had worked to get the title over. The belts were the wrong colour, and a draft was necessary because Vince McMahon couldn’t book his characters on the same show for a year without boring the audience and himself.

On the October 21, 2021 SmackDown, Becky Lynch received the SmackDown Women’s title, while gifting Charlotte Flair the Raw Women’s title in exchange.

The idea was abysmal, destroying the idea of sport and achievement, and the execution here was beyond awkward. Neither woman was happy - they knew this sucked, and they didn’t like one another - and true to form, Charlotte was in the mood to be a child.

Parents endure a stage in which their toddler, pushing boundaries, will try to assert their independence. It’s normal - infuriating, but normal. This often involves picking up what they are instructed to eat and throwing it to the floor. Toddlers will do this before they reach the age of two.

Charlotte Flair threw down her belt and teasingly asked Becky to pick it up when she was in her mid-thirties.

A hyper-awkward mess, the segment was such a paradox that it was both a terrible build to a match and so antagonistic that it nearly resulted in a shoot backstage brawl.