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2020 has been unlike any year for WWE, as well as the world. So much has happened, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company has had to adapt to the new conditions and has remained a weekly constant throughout the year. That being said, WWE has had a roller-coaster of a year on a creative level.
There have been several moments and angles this year, that were not good at all. Some of them seemed promising, while others were doomed on the spot. Some new concepts flopped hard, with RAW Underground coming to mind. A couple of Superstars were also badly booked, as we will see.
Despite a consistent string of great pay-per-views, 2020 has been far from a perfect year for WWE. It could have been a lot better, if not for a few things that WWE got badly wrong this year. Some were solitary moments, while the effect of others is still being felt today.
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Here are the five biggest mistakes WWE made in 2020.
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#5 WWE's booking of Charlotte Flair as NXT Women's Champion
When Charlotte Flair won the 2020 Women's Royal Rumble Match and challenged Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women's Championship, it felt like an elevation for the entire brand. NXT was being represented at WrestleMania. A win for Ripley on WWE's grandest stage would have made her into an even bigger star.
She lost to The Queen at WrestleMania, but the match was still very good and it seemed like there was a clear long-term plan for Flair's reign as NXT Women's Champion. Unfortunately, there wasn't. Instead, the creative teams of RAW and NXT repeatedly clashed over the booking of the multi-time Women's Champion.
Every plan that NXT had for Charlotte Flair was overruled by the RAW creative team, which explains how weird her reign was. She was on RAW more often than she was on NXT. Charlotte did not even get pinned when she lost the NXT Women's title, with Io Shirai pinning Ripley to become the Champion.
If there was no stonewall direction for Charlotte Flair as NXT Women's Champion, WWE should not have booked her to win it as her reign did more harm than good. The one way this issue could be rectified is for The Queen to put over Rhea Ripley, who hasn't been the same since WrestleMania.
#4 Seth Rollins vs. Rey Mysterio: Eye for an Eye
Some things in WWE are so ridiculous that it is impossible to suspend our disbelief. The first leg of Seth Rollins and Rey Mysterio's feud was just that. The Architect sent Mysterio eye first into the edge of the steel steps, which led to the Eye for an Eye Match between the two of them at Extreme Rules.
While well wrestled, the match remains infamous for its ending as the masked legend's 'eye' was out of its socket. The entire basis of this feud was terrible and while it did pick up thanks to Dominik Mysterio's in-ring debut, WWE should not have built it around eye-related offense.
Rollins ended up tangled with the Mysterio family for six whole months, with a large portion of that being unnecessary filler. The inclusion of Aalyah Mysterio was not that much more inspiring. But well, at least it ended with a bang as both, Rey Mysterio and Murphy picked up big victories over Seth Rollins.
That being said, the vast majority of that rivalry was a real chore to get through. The Eye for an Eye concept was ridiculous right from its birth. WWE could have booked the Rollins vs. Mysterio saga so much better than it did, especially since it took up a large chunk of both Superstars' years.
#3 Otis winning Money in the Bank
One of the Superstars who suffered the most from the lack of live fans has been Otis, who thrived off the reactions he was getting. That put a dampener on his WrestleMania moment with Mandy Rose. However, WWE was high on Otis and he ended up winning the Money in the Bank contract, probably because Vince McMahon thought it would be funny.
But once the dust settled and the former Heavy Machinery star was in line to become a world champion in WWE, the company made next to no efforts in molding his character to become more serious. Instead, the briefcase was used as a comedic prop and had ham sandwiches stored in it.
Since his shocking victory at Money in the Bank, Otis lost everything he had in WWE. Mandy Rose and Tucker were traded to RAW, with the latter turning heel on him and costing him the Money in the Bank contract at Hell in a Cell. The Miz defeated him for it, restoring some hope for a successful cash-in this time.
WWE should have simply focused on the love story between Otis and Mandy Rose, as well as Heavy Machinery as a tag team. The Money in the Bank briefcase was nearly wasted for another year just for a single gag, with other more exciting options who could have benefitted from the instant push more than Otis.
#2 Goldberg winning the WWE Universal Championship from The Fiend
WWE fans may not be happy with the likely return of Goldberg, as he looks set to take on Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship in the near future. The main reason for that is the sour taste left in their mouths after the 53-year-old WWE Hall of Famer steamrolled the hottest act in the company to win the Universal title a month before WrestleMania.
This was a terrible idea on so many levels, with Goldberg becoming less and less effective in the ring. His match with The Undertaker was a disaster at best and a near-double career-ender at worst. Despite that, he was booked to go over 'The Fiend' Bray Wyatt at Super ShowDown in Saudi Arabia.
This was Wyatt's first pinfall loss since donning the creepy mask, a slap in the face for every fan who was invested in The Fiend. He may have had an emphatic resurgence by crushing John Cena in the creatively unique Firefly Fun House Match, but Wyatt has not had the best spell since WrestleMania.
This calamitous booking decision nearly killed The Fiend as a top star, while rewarding Goldberg despite his inability to do anything more than a few spears and a weak Jackhammer. The WCW icon was great throughout his career, even as recently as 2017. However, putting the Universal title on him was a bad move.
This was a move that proved why WWE isn't the star-making machine it once was. The company is lucky that Bray Wyatt is talented enough to recover from this mess.
#1 RETRIBUTION
A promising angle if done with thought and care, RETRIBUTION might just be one of the worst-booked factions in WWE. They started off by throwing things around backstage and messing with the lights, with no clear motivations brought to the surface. They had promised to take WWE down, but have been booked like absolute geeks over the past few months.
RETRIBUTION ideally is supposed to be a serious group of individuals who were wronged by WWE, but their names suggest otherwise. It is hard to take the likes of Slapjack and T-Bar seriously, even without taking their sloppy booking into account. However, RETRIBUTION did have hope when Mustafa Ali was unveiled as their leader.
He cut some great promos, most of them on social media, giving explanations for why each member of RETRIBUTION wanted to take down the corrupt WWE system. Ali did well, but the creative team couldn't follow it up on RAW. His words feel more and more repetitive, without any value to them.
RETRIBUTION remains a lower-card annoyance on RAW, far removed from their purpose of destroying WWE. The company approached this entire idea in the wrong way, coming back to the point of being unable to suspend our disbelief. Why would such a group be picked in the WWE Draft? Why would WWE's Twitter account retweet everything they say against the company?
The company is actively not trying with RETRIBUTION, a group that needs more trying than any other. There are ways for WWE to still salvage them, but the chances of that happening are getting slimmer and slimmer. They lose almost every week and have no clear long-term direction.
Hopefully, Mustafa Ali and the rest of the talents find something much better to do after WWE inevitably pulls the plug on RETRIBUTION. Well, at least we found out that Dominik Dijakovic is really good at Twitter.
