Comparing Crown Jewel To Backlash 2018

Worse: Atrocious booking

Brock Lesnar is Universal Champion again. Shane McMahon gets to enter the World Cup final, and, despite not even participating in the tournament beforehand, walks out with the trophy and is the "best in the world."

This felt like one of the worst times WWE has trolled its own fanbase. The reaction was overwhelmingly negative.

Raw is now in limbo again, just when it appeared the red brand was finally ready to emerge from its 2018 dark age. That quickly proved a false dawn at Crown Jewel.

SmackDown, which was a decent show, is also now threatened. Lest we forget, it was Shane McMahon's omnipresence on the show that was a key reason for the blue brand's woes last year and in the leadup to WrestleMania 34. There were alarm bells when he returned and now those alarms proved to be well-founded.

Bad booking can ruin even a good event, but with this kind of booking, a vulnerable pay per view like Crown Jewel might well have tipped over into the abyss as the worst of the year.