5 Booking Mistakes That Haunt The Vince McMahon Era

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During his time as Chairman and CEO of WWE, Vince McMahon created storylines, characters, and moments that not only revolutionized professional wrestling but made the performative art far more mainstream. He was responsible for the meteoric rise of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, making "Hulkamania" a pop-culture phenomenon, and creating a real-life superhero in John Cena, while telling stories that made wrestling the perfect blend of sport and entertainment.

That being said, McMahon's success didn't come without some big failures, with fans heavily criticizing his booking decisions and treatment of WWE's most talented stars, especially during the latter half of his run with the company. Earlier this year, we highlighted some of the largest mistakes that McMahon's son-in-law, Triple H, has made during his time as WWE Chief Content Officer, leading us to reflect on five creative missteps from the long-time promoter's career.

Yokozuna losing the WWE Championship in an impromptu match to Hulk Hogan after just defeating Bret Hart in the main event of WrestleMania 9 is still one of the worst booking decisions that McMahon made on the "Grandest Stage Of Them All." Yokozuna would lose the title in just 21 seconds to Hogan, who scored the victory after Mr. Fuji attempted to throw salt in the eyes of "The Hulkster" but missed and hit the Samoan legend instead. 

There's no doubt that McMahon always loved to rely on Hogan as the company's flag bearer back then, but he already had captured four WWE Championships and main evented WrestleMania eight times before taking down Yokozuna for the belt.  Therefore, instead of keeping the title on Hart, who was shaping up to be the next face of the company, or creating a new star in Yokozuna, McMahon opted to conclude WrestleMania 9 with Hogan standing tall – a reoccurring theme throughout the first eight instalments of the event.

Hart would later explain in his book, "Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling," that the WWE locker room was upset once they discovered that Hogan would be winning the title, with names like Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker said to be furious with the decision. "The Hitman" also claimed that Hogan said he would "return the favor" and eventually drop the belt back to him, but those plans never came to fruition despite McMahon's best efforts to convince Hogan otherwise.

Although the Montreal Screwjob gave the WWE Universe a real glimpse behind the curtain and even intrigued non-wrestling fans about the industry, it's still one of McMahon's most controversial decisions of the 1990s.

Heading into Survivor Series 1997, it was well known that WWE Champion Bret Hart was preparing to sign with the company's main competitor, WCW. With the event taking place in Montreal and Hart being a proud Canadian, he wanted to retain the title in his home country and requested to drop the championship the next day on "WWE Raw." Hart would also be defending the title against Shawn Michaels, whom he had a real-life feud with at the time, and was not a fan of being defeated by "HBK" before jumping to WCW. 

However, with Hart having reasonable creative control over his matches, McMahon feared that "The Excellence of Execution" would walk into WCW with the WWE Championship, ultimately damaging the promotion's credibility. Therefore, McMahon opted to inform Hart he would emerge victorious at Survivor Series. However, during the match, McMahon ordered referee Earl Hebner to signal that the Canadian star had tapped out while being held in the Sharpshooter, resulting in Michaels winning the title. 

To this day, many fans and wrestlers have never forgiven the former WWE CEO for his actions that night, while others believe that the company ultimately benefited from the Screwjob, with the incident leading to the creation of Vince's "Mr. McMahon" persona, which is considered one of the best heel characters in wrestling history.

Coming into the 2010s, The Nexus was arguably the hottest faction in WWE, consisting of some of the company's brightest new stars, such as Wade Barrett, David Otunga, and Justin Gabriel. In just three months, The Nexus changed professional wrestling after bringing forth one of the best debuts in history with their attack on John Cena, which quickly cemented them as one of the most dominant groups on "WWE Raw." However, all of their momentum would be completely diminished at SummerSlam 2010, when McMahon made one of his worst booking decisions of the decade.

The main event of the "Biggest Part Of The Summer" that year was a seven-on-seven elimination match between Team WWE and The Nexus, and many believed the latter team needed to win in order to further establish themselves as main event stars. Fans had envisioned Barrett leading the group into triumph, but instead, like many matches throughout the 2010s, Cena would ultimately survive against the two remaining Nexus members and pickup the win for Team WWE. The match is often viewed as the pivotal turning point of The Nexus' trajectory in the promotion, and they were never again taken as seriously as they had been in the lead-up. 

Over the years, the decision to have Team WWE win has remained controversial, with Cena often being accused of asking McMahon to be the last man standing, while Chris Jericho and Edge tried to ensure that The Nexus would emerge victorious.

Over a decade removed from the event, the choice to have Brock Lesnar break The Undertaker's undefeated WrestleMania streak remains one of the most controversial booking decisions that McMahon ever made during his time as booker. 

In 2014, it was expected that The Undertaker's streak could be in peril as he was nearing the end of his in-ring career, but Lesnar wasn't the competitor most fans envisioned beating the streak. Ideally, a younger star would defeat "The Deadman" to cement them as one of WWE's biggest stars in the years to come. Lesnar, on the other hand, was more than established, especially after returning to WWE in 2012 where he defeated the likes of Triple H and CM Punk and would've remained dominant with or without defeating The Undertaker at WrestleMania 30.

To make matters worse, the shocking conclusion to the match came after a lackluster effort from both men, mostly due to The Undertaker being concussed early on in the contest, which kept him on the sidelines for an entire year. Since then, wrestling fans and pundits have voiced that WWE should've never opted to have the streak broken, or questioned if somebody like Batista or Edge would've been better suited to defeat "The Phenom" years prior. Ultimately, The Undertaker himself admitted that he disagreed with being defeated by Lesnar at WrestleMania, and would've preferred to lose to Roman Reigns or Bray Wyatt years later.

2019 might go down as the single worst year of WWE programming. Sure, there were some bright spots, such as Becky Lynch winning the Royal Rumble and main-eventing WrestleMania 35, or the inclusion of "WWE NXT" stars at Survivor Series. Still, much of McMahon's booking that year resulted in some of the most embarrassing moments in company history.

The year went downhill following WrestleMania 35, with the promotion's main roster brands struggling to offer anything of interest. "WWE Raw" suffered from the endless feud between Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch against Lacey Evans and Baron Corbin, while Kofi Kingston tried to carry "WWE SmackDown" despite given very little to work with as world champion. Additionally, almost every premium live event underdelivered, with Stomping Grounds, Crown Jewel, and Super ShowDown all long shows with boring matches and questionable results. However, perhaps the most disappointing PLE was Hell In A Cell, which actually had been a decent show until the heavily-criticized main event, which saw Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt's match inside the cage end in no contest.

Above all, McMahon's decision making had completely diminished by 2019, with most of WWE's high profile matches ending in disaster. Many fans will point to Brock Lesnar defeating Kingston for the WWE Championship in just 9 seconds or having Goldberg and The Undertaker wrestle against each other in their 50s resulting in "The Deadman" coming close to suffering a severe injury. Although the COVID-19 pandemic would transpire just a few months into 2020, the lockdown strangely saved WWE after an abysmal ending to the 2010s.