Best/Worst examples of booking

[supremebve]

So after listening to a couple of podcasts about Tuesday and Texas and King of the Ring 1995, and I don't know if there are two bigger examples of great booking and bad booking in the history of wrestling. 

 

Randy Savage's 91/92 runs are about as flawless as wrestling gets.  From reuniting with Elizabeth at Wrestlemania VII to beating Ric Flair for the title at Wrestlemania VIII is  the best booked run in the history of wrestling for my money.  Randy Savage went through hell that year.  He essentially gets fired from his job by losing to Warrior.  He settles down with his long time girlfriend and decides to get married.  A crazy person crashes his wedding with a king fucking cobra.  He gets bit by a cobra on national television.  When he gets a chance for revenge he gets his ass kicked and the dude who kicks his ass decides to slap his new wife.  The crazy person then cuts a promo about how slapping his wife was a feeling so good he should have to pay for it.  Then Macho Man cuts a great guilt ridden promo about how everything that has happened was all his fault.  The only flaw in this whole angle is that Savage never gets revenge, but that is OK because this next thing is arguably just as good if not better.

 

Ric Flair the new world champion starts spreading rumors about how he had Miss Elizabeth first and at Wrestlemania is going to put nudie pics of the Macho Man's wife on display.  Macho Man is obviously pissed and they put on one of the best matches in Wrestlemania history.  Savage is probably best remembered as a heel, but he very well may be a better face.  Flair is just masterfully destroying Savage's knee and until Flair decides to flirt with Liz and gets rolled up by Savage.  Flair then kisses Elizabeth right in front of the Macho Man and Randy Savage goes after him like a man possessed.  After the match the promo work of Flair, Heenan, and Perfect is as good as it gets. 

 

All this happened when I was 10 and 11 years old, right around when people started telling me that wrestling wasn't real.  Randy Savage himself could have come to my house and told me that snake didn't have any venom and I wouldn't have believed him.  I really thought Jake "The Snake" Roberts was trying to kill him, and I was legit scared that I'd never see my favorite wrestler again.  Just when Randy Savage gets over almost dying, that asshole Ric Flair decides to push up on his woman.  Maybe it's nostalgia, but this is my absolute favorite time in wrestling.

[Playa Shunna Ver 3.0]

The ECW Wrestlepalooza 97.  Tommy beats Raven, bleeding into Taz winning the TV belt.  All one long segment.  Just an amazingly booked segment.  

[supremebve]

The worst booking ever seems like it should be something from WCW, but King of the Ring 1995 is the single most ridiculous booked event ever in my memory.  1995 may have been the worst year in WWF history, but that still doesn't explain what happened on this show.  The biggest stars in the company at the time are Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Diesel, Razor Ramon, Undertaker, Sid, Owen Hart, 1-2-3 Kid, Lex Luger, Jeff Jarrett, Davey Boy Smith, Bam Bam Bigelow and Yokozuna in some order.  So for some reason they decide to have a tournament where multiple people will have to wrestle multiple times on the same night, except instead of having any of the above carry the show they decide on Savio Vega and Mabel. 

 

The best match on the show was between Bob "Spark Plug" Holly and The Roadie...yet Vince still gets to be a genius.

[The Great ML]

The worst booking ever seems like it should be something from WCW, but King of the Ring 1995 is the single most ridiculous booked event ever in my memory.  1995 may have been the worst year in WWF history, but that still doesn't explain what happened on this show.  The biggest stars in the company at the time are Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Diesel, Razor Ramon, Undertaker, Sid, Owen Hart, 1-2-3 Kid, Lex Luger, Jeff Jarrett, Davey Boy Smith, Bam Bam Bigelow and Yokozuna in some order.  So for some reason they decide to have a tournament where multiple people will have to wrestle multiple times on the same night, except instead of having any of the above carry the show they decide on Savio Vega and Mabel. 

 

The best match on the show was between Bob "Spark Plug" Holly and The Roadie...yet Vince still gets to be a genius.

 

That Philly crowd hated it too, I don't blame them. They made it seem like either Shawn or Undertaker was primed to take the crown. Instead, they both lose in the first round...

[Web Conn]

I remember thinking Reys first title reign was booked pretty bad while watching it. I think they went the absolute wrong way with the underdog gimmick. Too many non finishes to his matches. The no contest with Sabu at One Night Stand 2006 was especially bullshit. Your champion is supposed to look strong and I think that Rey looked weak and not only with the finish of that match, but also with Khali.

 

Now the best booked thing I ever seen is a little harder. You always remeber the bad better then the good I guess. If it was intentional or not the booking of D-Bry from SummerSlam to Wrestlemania for all intents and purposes was alot of fun to watch. I remember being really disappointed after Royal Rumble but it did start to pick up and made Bryan's victory made that match more sweet. He was up against the machine and no obstacle they put in his way could stop him and they card got more and more behind him they more he was screwed over because they wanted it for him just as badly if not more then Bryan did. It made for some really fun television.

[Newb82]

The actual wrestling sucked, but the Deadly Games tournament was amazingly booked. Probably the best thing Russo was ever involved with.

[ivpvideos]

Copied from the network thread:

Month before Wrestlemania 3, 20 man battle royale with Hogan and Andre. Andre is billed as being undefeated forever. Andre tosses Hogan out with ease. Announcers go crazy about it

THEN ANDRE GETS TOSSED OUT AND HERCULES WINS

Why would they do this??? It doesn't make any sense. It was nearly thirty years ago and I am still angry about it today. Then they do promos where they still hype Andre as undefeated.

[Playa Shunna Ver 3.0]

Yeah,  That was retarded booking.  Worst long term booking for me was the Black Scorpion.  Trrrrble.  

[supremebve]

I've never watched the Black Scorpion stuff, but from what I hear it is the pupu platter of terrible idea, terrible planning, terrible execution, all wrapped up in a nonsensical conclusion.  Part of me wants to dive into it on the Network, but there is so much good there why watch so much bad. 

[Playa Shunna Ver 3.0]

I've never watched the Black Scorpion stuff, but from what I hear it is the pupu platter of terrible idea, terrible planning, terrible execution, all wrapped up in a nonsensical conclusion.  Part of me wants to dive into it on the Network, but there is so much good there why watch so much bad. 

It is probably worth a watch.  There was some good stuff there.  The story just sucked balls.  

[Patrick B.]

Savage did beat him again in the rematch on Saturday Night's Main Event, so he got revenge for that.

Then Jake hid in the entranceway and tried to ambush him with a chair, but Taker stopped him and that led to their feud.

[twiztor]

having recently watched '96-'97 WCW, i've got ideas from both ends. Now neither of these would make it far in a "of all time" idea, but just great examples that balance each other.

 

best:

Eddie Guerrero's heel turn.

Eddie is a face, he's well liked, he's successful, and he wins a lot. then, while defending Dean Malenko from nWo belt-thief Syxx, Eddie accidentally nails Deano with the belt.

Malenko tells everyone that will listen that Eddie has turned nWo. the announcers constantly accuse him of it, the crowd boos him, and yet Eddie still is 100% face. HE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING WRONG. just fantastic.

of course, then Eddie gets injured and comes back a heel and it still works really, really well.

 

 

worst:

Madusa.

the women's division in WCW is in shambles. the only wrestler who gets ANY reaction is Madusa.

they set up a title tournament and Madusa loses in the finals (to Sonny Onoo's shenanigans). Akira Hokuto wins the belt.

then both women disappear from tv for a few months.  they rematch. Hokuto wins again. another disappearing act.

Madusa gets a match scheduled against Luna and the announcers say it is for the Women's Title, which apparently Madusa won in Japan. except that she didn't.

Hokuto and Madusa face off in a career vs title match, and Madusa loses. again. and i'm pretty sure Hokuto and the Women's Title are never seen in WCW again.

who thought this one through?

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

KOTR 95....don't mind the end result of it, see the point, but ultimately, could have been done so much better. Shawn needed to get squashed by Mabel in the final, not Savio Vega. Him going to a 15 minute draw with Kama did nothing for anyone.

 

As Russo-ish a swerve it would have been, I could have dealt with Bigelow winning the tournament and then turning on Diesel the next night instead also.

 

 

Best booking of a feud for mine is Malenko/Jericho. Great build up, even better satisfying payoff.

[Petey]

The ECW Wrestlepalooza 97.  Tommy beats Raven, bleeding into Taz winning the TV belt.  All one long segment.  Just an amazingly booked segment.  

Agreed. I never saw that segment or knew anything about it until I bought the DVD back in 2003 and watched it with a buddy. I was floored at the whole thing. Really incredible stuff and I think the fact that I watched it six years after it happened with no emotional attachment to it and STILL loved it is a real testament to it's greatness.

 

I would throw in the nWo's booking from Hall's debut through like August of 1996. Specifically, my favorite angle was when Hall and Nash bought tickets on the go-home Nitro for Bash at the Beach and as soon as they step out from the crowd, they're mobbed by security and the locker room empties and it just felt so real, especially in the context of 1996 WWF/WCW wrestling.

[cubbymark]

One of the worst booking examples was the finish to the Summerslam 2010 7 on 7 tag match with Nexus vs WWE. Cena overcoming the odds vs Justin Gabriel and Wade Barrett was fucking ridiculous, especially after taking the DDT on the concrete. That killed the Nexus dead.

 

[Brian Fowler]

Didn't Savage get revenge on Jake on the same SNME that Sid turned on Hogan?  Pinned him clean, then Jake was going to ambush him and Elizabeth with the chair, only for Taker to intervene and spin Jake off into a new feud.

 

I mean, it was the climatic destruction of Roberts the angle arguably called for, but he did come out on top.

[Parties]

People talk about history's worst booking to a somewhat exhausted degree. The truly bad ones have been discussed at length, whereas the best stuff probably doesn't get enough credit. Some bright spots that immediately came to mind:

• “They put the flag on the Cowboy.”

• Freebirds blinding JYD to build to the Superdome.

• The episode of Mid-South built around who would get the Flair title match that led to the Dibiase-Murdoch double turn.

• The bizarre but totally logical series of events leading to Duggan-Dibiase in a No DQ, Loser Leaves Town, Coal Miner's Glove on a Poll, Tuxedo, Cage Match.

• That one RAW that Watts booked where at the end of the show, Michaels, Undertaker, and Diesel all got completely massacred out of nowhere by Davey Boy, Mabel, Yokozuna and Dean Douglas, and the crowd was stunned by this moment that was totally shocking and was supposed to serve as a catalyst for like 3-4 new storylines. Really this entire thread could just be Watts stuff.

• The episode of Memphis TV where Flair loses to Lawler in a short match, completely loses his shit in a promo, demands a rematch later in the show, they go out and have a longer, even better match in which Flair works a really stiff, cheating style.

• The Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl.

• One that I've been thinking a lot about lately when watching Dean Ambrose is the Fargo Brothers gimmick where Roughhouse Fargo was only released from his mental institution on holidays, so that fans would have to buy tickets to the big holiday shows to see him. Just a fun, genius idea that should have been copied a million times over by now. Book Jimmy Jacobs twice a year as Dean's cousin Cujo Ambrose or some such.

• Lawler gets a title shot at Nick Bockwinkel, but has to pay $500 for every punch he throws in the match.

• The Hijo del Santo heel turn, even though it probably didn't work that well as an actual turn that got fans to dislike the guy. Such was the era.

• As crash soap opera TV goes, the Stephanie-HHH-Angle love triangle in the summer of 2000 was a good Chris Kreski idea that got over well.

• The then widely-dismissed and forgotten alumni of NXT, largely an afterthought to that point, surround the ring to mug Cena and choke out Justin Roberts.

• The eliminations in the two big New Japan five-on-five tags against the UWF in '86 and Choshu's Army in '88. Truly smart booking in which you come away thinking that the workers aren't just great athletes, but also genuinely clever tacticians utilizing the rules of the game. From the perspective of great matches alone, UWF vs. NJ is the greatest feud of all time.

[The Nature Boy]

Worst booking:

 

Jeff Jarrett retaining the NWA World Title over Raven in 2003 after fighting off a hoard of ECW alumni.

 

Killed Raven dead and was an early example of TNA cutting off its nose to spite its face.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Looking back, it's pretty shocking that Rey basically lost to Sabu, non-finish sure.. but come on and Cena lost to RVD all on the same show (ton of interference but whatever). Vince must have been all in on ECW.. for like two weeks anyway..  I think the WWECW in its entirety is questionable booking from beginning to end. How was that ever supposed to be successful? They had some nice matches on there from time to time, Christian and Matt Hardy, Punk.. Morrison..  but none of it meant anything. The world title was European title status. If you're going to do a third brand you'd think differentiating it from the other two would be the idea..

[The Nature Boy]

Sometimes I wonder how much it would've cost to just run WWECW kind of like how they run NXT now. They should've run it as a local group in the Northeast with regular stops in Philly, NYC, Baltimore and sometimes north to Boston or south to Richmond. They could've taped two weeks of TV at a time to cut costs. 

[ebbie]

I wish that gif came with sound. That sound byte is the perfect response to a lot of wrestling booking.

One thing that bugged me and I wasn't a fan of any of the women involved was how the ended Mickie James' WWE run. Michelle and Layla spent months calling a fat ass and never got any payback for anything until the Rumble '10 when Mickie squashed them both. Then like a week later, Mickie jobs clean as fresh bleached and pressed sheets to Michelle and gets fired shortly after.

Nevermind Michelle and her skinny ass has a history of eating disorders or the fact that heels never got ANY heat because of the angle or Mickie looking like how most men want women to look. So many bullshit factors.

[SirSmUgly]

The actual wrestling sucked, but the Deadly Games tournament was amazingly booked. Probably the best thing Russo was ever involved with.

 

YES! This is one of my favorite PPVs because, full of swerves as it was, they all were logical. Watching that show for the first time and then only realizing at the end that all those heroic victories by The Rock were set-ups is great! It's like when you watch a murder mystery and then, as you find out who the murderer is, they flash back to all the earlier clues that should have told you what was going on, and you realize that you should have known all along. 

 

The Sting-Luger-Flair-Hogan-Savage pentagon of hate was expertly booked in 1995 WCW, totally compelling stuff in every way. I always trumpet these shows, and I cannot wait for everyone else to get to see them again when the Network puts them up. Hogan loses the gold to the Giant due to Jimmy Hart turning on the former, and Savage ends up with the held up belt on a screwjob on Hogan that Savage is in position to take advantage of, causing friction between them. At the same time, Flair is just dicking with Savage at every turn as Liz turns on him and then helps Flair steal his gold.

 

Meanwhile Flair is trying to sucker Sting in to turn on him. Sting knows better, but gets turned on anyway. Luger shows up and no one except Sting trusts him, especially after Luger takes Jimmy Hart as his manager. Sting and Luger win the tag gold, and Luger always sort of cheats to win it, but Sting never sees it/doesn't want to turn his back on Lex Luger.

 

And though the nWo storyline de-railed it so there was no ending, when Luger became convinced that Sting was nWo even after Sting tried to show he wasn't and asked for a little bit of trust, that was it. Sting was pushed over the edge into becoming Crow Sting, a dude that is just sick of idiots and will take care of things his own damn self. This was the culmination of an amazing storyline character change for Sting, and it also gave us an awesome Flair/Savage/Liz feud and led to Hogan getting sick of playing around with the Dungeon of Doom and the Horsemen and turning to the nWo to run those groups out of wrestling. Plus, there were great mini-storylines that were sort of tributaries to the main storyline like Arn Anderson's winning streak over Hogan and The Giant trying to break Lex Luger like Bane broke Batman. 

[SirSmUgly]

 

People talk about history's worst booking to a somewhat exhausted degree. The truly bad ones have been discussed at length, whereas the best stuff probably doesn't get enough credit. Some bright spots that immediately came to mind:

 

• That one RAW that Watts booked where at the end of the show, Michaels, Undertaker, and Diesel all got completely massacred out of nowhere by Davey Boy, Mabel, Yokozuna and Dean Douglas, and the crowd was stunned by this moment that was totally shocking and was supposed to serve as a catalyst for like 3-4 new storylines. Really this entire thread could just be Watts stuff.

 

 

Sorry, I had to post again. Yeah, this was amazing at the time. I think Waylon Mercy got in on it, too. I remember seeing this with my brothers and sister and we were pretty stunned. I assumed it would be like these three guys as the Superfriends trying to find a way to hold off the Legion of Doom (not that Legion of Doom). 

 

Wasn't this the night where Mabel cracked 'Taker's orbital bone with a legdrop?

[sydneybrown]

One of the great booking moments was when ECW joined the 'invasion' storyline.

 

When Bubba, D-von, Rhyno etc were in the ring I didn't even click that they were all former ECW guys. Then when Heyman cut that absolute MONEY promo to let everyone know we were going to be taken to the extreme... jaw droppingly good.

 

Then they ruined it all with the Alliance and Steph McMahon owning ECW... ugh.

 

I always loved how no one bothered to warn one of the security guards who was starting to go after Dreamer and Van Dam.

 

The RAW with the Bret Hart/Steve Austin streetfight was possibly the greatest WWF booked RAW angle they ever did.  Bret had gotten injured at the PPV the night before and was out at least a month as a result, and the show looked kinda doomed going in.  Austin comes out early, challenges Hart to a streetfight, Hart gets the advantage early but Austin beats the shit out of him with a chair, Bret gets stretchered out, Austin steals the ambulance, Austin comes back out to gloat, Owen and Bulldog attack, Shawn Michaels makes the save all for BRIAN PILLMAN to make his return and annihilate Austin with a chair.

 

That or the OKC RAW where JR making his RAW farewell would lead to CM Punk winning the World title.  Ross gives a goodbye speech, Edge comes out, heckles him, taunts the crowd, Batista comes out and kills him, Punk cashes in the briefcase.  All in a thirty minute segment that made perfect sense and NOBODY saw coming.

[Go2Sleep]

Fall Brawl 96 and Sting going crazy was amazing stuff, and hits so many subtle notes for human psychology. The first beatdown on Luger in the rain was damn near cinematic, and actually provided some cover for Luger not being able to tell the NWO Sting was obviously a fake. Then Luger gets it in his head that Sting turned and poisons his reputation in the locker room and nothing Sting says can convince anyone otherwise. Then he shows up in Wargames and wipes out the NWO by himself before leaving team WCW in a lurch because they wouldn't give him the time of day for no good reason. Luger's slow crawl up the ramp begging Sting to come back, before the NWO finished him off was a rare perfectly-acted Luger moment. The fallout was dead on too, with Sting becoming more and more of a recluse, while the rest of Team WCW (instead of introspecting on where they went wrong) just proceeded to blame each other, allowing the NWO to entrench themselves at the top even further (and also a series of surprisingly great Luger/Arn matches). Really, the whole of the NWO from Memorial Day 96 through Starrcade 96 was almost flawless, but that angle with Sting and the booking around Fall Brawl stands out among everything.

 

One of my other faves is Nigel's heel turn in ROH as champ. The match with Bryan in February of 2008 was a thing of beauty. The milking of his legitimate injuries finally went overboard with Bryan doing everything he could to be an upstanding competitor, and the crowd reacted perfectly. The finish with Nigel using his head that Bryan so valiantly went out of his way to avoid to nail Bryan's lingering injured eye that he never complained about was absolutely perfect. Then he added the elbows for extra dickishness and took a pass-out victory off an "injury" to his opponent. I honestly didn't follow the rest of Nigel's reign too closely, but this one match was about as good as it gets for in-ring story-telling.