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WWE puts out a lot of content every week, and while plenty of the company's booking decisions are liked by the fans, some decisions leave the viewers scratching their heads.
As always, the week started with several bizarre booking decisions on Monday Night RAW.
The entire women's division continues to be booked into confusing and frustrating situations, while WWE's annoying 50/50 booking ran throughout the show once again. Moreover, the main event had one of the strangest endings in WWE history.
WWE NXT put on a strong and solid show. Friday Night SmackDown started off well, but the ending seemed like a bizarre and puzzling decision before WWE heads into the first major event of the year.
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Here's a look at five bizarre booking decisions WWE made this week.
#5 WWE booked Sheamus to win and lose in back-to-back matches
On this week's Monday Night RAW, Sheamus met John Morrison one-on-one in a very entertaining match. They had really good chemistry from their years of beating each other up and continued to so on RAW. Sheamus won the match and it seemed as if his night was over.
However, following his victory, the Miz got on the mic and challenged The Celtic Warrior to a two-on-one battle, to which Sheamus confusingly agreed.
The Miz and Morrison defeated Sheamus when Miz hit the Skull Crushing Finale on The Celtic Warrior.
The win and loss for Sheamus in such quick succession is WWE's typical 50/50 booking that has plagued the promotion for years. This style of booking doesn't allow anyone to get over in the process.
The Miz's victory was to make him look strong and a threat heading into the Royal Rumble as the MITB holder, but beating someone in a handicap match accomplishes none of that.
Sheamus looked good in victory over Morrison but accepting the challenge of a two-on-one handicap match immediately after just made the character look dumb rather than tough.
Therefore, no one came out of the matches looking better than when they went in, which, as mentioned earlier is a problematic booking style WWE has implemented for years.
#4 WWE booked Baron Corbin vs. Dominik Mysterio on SmackDown again
Last week, Baron Corbin and Dominik Mysterio had a match, which Corbin won. Then for some reason, WWE booked the very same match on the latest edition of SmackDown.
Mysterio and Corbin are both great competitors, but this rivalry was over weeks ago. However, WWE seems determined to run it back, which is exactly what they are doing. WWE has pushed the reset button with Mysterios' feud against Corbin in 2021.
To make the rematch even more bizarre, the action wasn't particularly good, and the result was the same as the previous match. Therefore, Dominik is now 0-2 against Corbin and has been portrayed as a hapless rookie living in the shadow of his father.
The repetitive nature of this feud has killed any momentum that Dominik built up throughout last year, including the rivalry and brilliant match with Seth Rollins at SummerSlam. Unfortunately for Dominik, another loss to Baron Corbin isn't going to do anything to repair the damage.
#3 WWE booked three consecutive bizarre and confusing women's matches
The WWE RAW Women's Division has been booked poorly for several months with somewhat illogical, meaningless, and repetitive matches. But what happened this week took the biscuit.
The night started with Charlotte vs. Shayna Baszler, which ended quickly via disqualification when Nia Jax interfered. This led to Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke and Lacey Evans joining the fight and an impromptu six-woman tag team match.
The confusion escalated when Charlotte and Baszler fought outside the ring as the referee began to count. As he reached the end, Baszler rolled Charlotte in but failed to get in on time herself, which led to the "Queen of Spades" getting counted out in the most clumsy and anti-climactic manner. The end not only baffled the WWE Universe but the Superstars in the ring. With their hands were raised in victory and an air of confusion, the show cut to commercial.
When RAW returned from the break, all six women were back in the ring and fighting once again. A clip showed Adam Pearce announcing the match to be restarted during the commercial break.
The restart did little to improve proceedings and just further muddied the waters of the entire women's division on Monday Night RAW. To make matters worse, the matches accomplished nothing, and no one involved emerged from the catastrophe looking good.
Hopefully, a lot more focus and planning will go into the women's division after the WWE Royal Rumble.
#2 WWE booked Sheamus to win a match he initially wasn't a part of on a rival brand
The ending of SmackDown involved WWE Superstars from both brands in a nine-man handicap tag team match to hype the craziness of the Royal Rumble. Well, that is what it was supposed to do. But in fact, it capped off what has to be one of the confusing and most bizarre endings to a SmackDown show in months.
The main event sequence started-off with a mouthwatering contest between two of the best wrestlers in WWE, AJ Styles, and Daniel Bryan.
Bryan and Styles had a fantastic match with some great spots and sequences until Sami Zayn, who was protesting at ringside and fighting with Big E interfered and caused a disqualification finish. This resulted in an all-out brawl taking place involving Daniel Bryan, Big E and Shinsuke Nakamura, AJ Styles, Sami Zayn, and Cesaro.
A tag match was booked between the six men, which featured some great action but it quickly descended into chaos with interference from The Miz, John Morrison, and Otis. This caused another disqualification finish, which resulted in Sonya Deville restarting the match as a five-on-four handicap match. The heels seemingly had the match under control, but Sheamus ran out to turn the tables and take out Zayn with a Brogue Kick for the victory.
After the match, Braun Strowman made his return, plowing through everyone before planting Cesaro with a power slam to close the chaotic and bizarre ending to the show.
WWE often leads into the Royal Rumble with a huge in-ring brawl with the people getting chucked over the ropes left, right, and center. But this time around it was a confusing and convoluted mess that took up the entire second half of the show. Plus, the WWE RAW Superstars got involved thanks to the random resurgence of the brand-to-brand invitational rule, which only added more to the bizarre ending of SmackDown.
#1 WWE booked Asuka as a prop in Alexa Bliss, The Fiend, and Randy Orton's feud
Asuka and Alexa Bliss wrestled on WWE Monday Night RAW for the second time in two consecutive weeks, but this time it was for the RAW Women's Championship.
This match was bizarre for all of the right reasons. The moments in which Alexa Bliss transformed into her previous WWE incarnations were fantastic and intriguing in terms of storytelling, but the result of the match was the frustrating part.
The match marked Asuka's first serious title defense in months, and it was used to further a storyline that does not involve her. Randy Orton appeared to deliver an RKO to Bliss in a surprising end to the match. This resulted in a no-contest and further highlighted WWE's underwhelming booking of Asuka and the RAW Women's title.
Asuka is the RAW Women's Champion and WWE Women's Tag Team Champion, yet she is underutilized in both scenarios. WWE has constantly put Asuka in situations where she plays second fiddle to the main plot thread, and this week's title match was a prime example of the same.
Asuka is a legitimate and credible champion, and she deserves so much more than the way WWE has booked her over the past several months.
