Throughout the history of wrestling we have seen multiple situations where something incredible could have taken place(WCW/ECW invasion angle, Crockett buying UWF, Austin turning heel at WM 17, Goldberg's streak, Goldberg in WWE, Starrcade 1987 held outside of Greensboro and Atlanta, etc...) but the angle or story line was so badly botched it ruined not only the angle but affected business negatively. I would love to hear what which angle/story line you thought was butchered so badly and how you would have booked it differently to make it work.

invasionnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

this is the obvious answer.

How sick is the InVasion if they paid the money for nWo, and never turned Austin heel for it? Having like a 12-man elimination match for control of WWF with nWo/Goldberg/Booker T/RVD vs. Austin/Rock/Undertaker/Big Show/Kane would've been wild.

angle and jericho instead of big show and kane obv

The Invasion is the most obvious and likely popular answer but I think there are plenty to choose from. Just in the last 6 months Punk, Miz and Truth could have had more interesting and unpredictable storylines if they had stayed off of TV longer after leaving/ being 'fired'. The hot-shotting of angles is a huge problem in WWE compared to the way that stories used to be able to develop over time, one of my favourite feuds as a kid was Bret vs Owen and that pretty much ran from Survivor Series '93 til Survivor Series '94 rather than for 4 weeks leading up to a PPV.

If I could rewrite one storyline it would be the Nexus one. I stopped watching wrestling for a few months and a mate told me I had to watch Raw this week cos it was the best episode in years and the 'kids' from Nexus had taken over. That angle really got me back into watching wrestling, I enjoyed the gang style mentally and it reminded me a lot of Fight Club in a way.

The Raw before Summerslam where the Nexus squared up to the 7 WWE superstars was amazing, as they all stood off the crowd was ELECTRIC waiting for the first punch to be thrown. Their talk of taking over the WWE and having a higher purpose suggested that the story could have run for a lot longer than it did if they did not lose to Super Cena in the elimination match. Such a waste imo and none of the members have even come close to scaling those heights again and I really doubt that they will, Barrett included.

invasion really could have been so amazing, and should never have ended with everyone from the outside being buried. if i could rewrite it:

after a 6-8 month interpromotional angle you have your brand extension, but instead of raw and smackdown it's wwe and wcw. nitro and thunder still air, raw and smackdown still air. maybe raw monday, nitro tuesday, smackdown thursday, thunder friday. eliminates the need for house shows, wrestlers don't have to work as hard as they do now, angles have time to develop before ppvs

now when wrestlers jump ship it's actually interesting. oh hey wow brock lesnar undisputed champion is going to wrestle only on smackdown hey cool story bro

however if you have brock lesnar undisputed wwe champion jumping ship to wcw instead? shows up on nitro and throws the belt in the trash or spray paints wcw on it? now it's interesting.

goldberg would still be undefeated

Vince not abandoning the "limo blowing up angle."

This kind of was the plan to begin with, but financial issues prevented it. From 411:

The silver lining in this cloud is that the nWo is coming back soon. I have it on good authority from someone who's always right.

interesting

this guy sounds pretty ****ing awesome

Thoughts of Slaughter/Warrior angle? At the time it was considered very tacky and turned people away? How would you have taken the title off of Warrior? Hogan? Savage?

Are you sure you're not referencing Slaughter/Hogan as the tacky angle?

I guess I can't remember what led into Slaughter's RR match with Warrior.

Was it 2002 or 2003 when HHH held the belt for almost the entire year? Him squashing Booker's, Kane's, HBK's and RVD's push all in one year has to be up there. I remember I just stopped watching Raw at that time because it was so bad, luckily SD was the best it had ever been with Lesnar's push and Heyman booking.

Oh god, the evolution days were terrible. How about when Randy wins the WHC from Benoit in 2004, gets thrown out of Evolution cause HHH is jelly (which at this point makes the storyline pretty damn intriguing imo), and then HHH just squashes him at the next ppv gg.

I would say the whole Slaughter angle. Using the Gulf War as an angle was really tacky and the whole purpose of Hogan losing to Warrior was to get his win back at WM 7.

goldberg should never have lost

From a $ and total number of people entertained perspective, I'd guess the Slaughter angle did quite well. Hogan and Warrior were largely children's entertainers -under 18 is the only audience that WWF consistently did better in ratings then Crockett/WCW, and WWF always was better at selling various merchandise particularly to kids. The patriotism at events ran wild at the time: witness the infallibility of the USA chants by Duggan.

Meanwhile, the best they could really hope for with Warrior or Hogan from the serious smarky types in most feuds was something like "Rude carried Warrior again".

Basically, they sacrificed one target audience for two bigger target audiences.

Ricky Steamboat and Macho Man should've been working in a main event angle. If it wasn't for politics Steamboat would've been a main eventer shortly after WM 3 as they had big plans for him but his wife got pregnant and he wanted to be a family man.

Savage got a top spot and I would really like to see what would've happen if Steamboat got it as well.


Another one I was really dissapointed in was the Kurt Angle, Stephanie, and HHH angle that was dropped after Angle kissed Stephanie and HHH got into a hissy fit. That's a program I would love to see where it would've went but HHH got too much creative control.

Weren't they booked for the coliseum in Los Angeles that year and do to the poor advance they booked the Sports Arena instead? I remember Meltzer said they had several 1000's of free tickets that year because of the poor response. I do remember Hogan/Slaughter drew poorly while Taker/Warrior drew very well for a B show.

I'd distrust Meltzer to some extent on this one as WON gave the Slaughter Iraqi sympathizer gimmick the most disgusting promotional tactic of the year and would be trying trying to bury it and support his view as he personally hated it, and in previous years he was often ragged on for complaining about WWF stuff that actually did well intersubjectively. Hogan at the time was generally in decline as a draw in total, having gone from someone who the WWF was afraid to take the title off of a few years earlier because they didn't want to upset so many fans to somebody frequently getting x-pac heat. That said it's just a guess that it did well based on those reasons.

I'd agree Hogan was losing his drawing power at the time until Flair came in(which is another botch job by McMahon on Flair's first run in WWF).

Maybe a botch job by Mcmahon but maybe a Hogan power play; Flair said he was originally booked to face Hogan at Wrestlemania 8 then it got changed around, and Hogan took a sabbatical after Wrestlemania 8.

It would have made so much sense to wait on Flair/Hogan until WM. Hogan was drawing pretty well against The Warlord in the few house shows they did(10,000-11,000) and Taker/Hogan was a natural feud through Survivor Series. Keep Flair as the outsider for the whole time and keep the sane finish at SS as well as RR. The mistake was teaming Flair with other WWF wrestlers at the time which diminshed his image. Flair/Hogan at WM would have had bug numbers and the subsequent rematches afterwards including a steel cage match at SS as a blow off match.