My least favorite moments in WWE/WCW

NOTE: My actual least favorite moments are whenever I hear about anyone dying from the professional wrestling business.   It seems to me that over the last nearly 20 years,  that if I really thought long and hard enough I could come up with 100 pro wrestlers or more than have been taken from us.   Death is most certainly something that professional wrestling fans have had to learn to deal with.   I don't know if anything has ever happened or will ever happen in the wrestling business will bother me as much as the day Owen Hart died.   With that said though,  I'm not including deaths in this list. 

Last night I sat in bed and wondered what matches and/or moments happened in the history of WWE/WCW that really bummed me and disappointed me.   What moments just hit me like a ton of bricks and took all the steam out of me as a fan?   As hard as I tried to think,  most every moment, except for one came from WWE.  I could only think of one single time WCW disappointed me as much as WWE did.    I think this is because WWE just had a magic about it at the time to where they were able to suspend disbelief so much, that you as a fan became so emotionally invested that certain events would get a genuine response out of you.

With that said, some of these moments are from my perspective as a fan, some of them are from my perspective as a worker and some of them are from my perspective as both a fan and as a worker.

Without further ado here are from least to greatest.... My Least Favorite Moments in WWE

7.  Brock Lesnar ends Undertaker's Undefeated Streak

I think a lot of people seem too look at Wrestlemania XXX from a here and now standpoint, and wonder why so many are offended by the fact that Brock Lesnar defeated the Undertaker to make him 21-1.    Well,  think of it as if you have been watching the Undertaker the entire time.   I was 5 years old the first time I saw the Undertaker.   This guy was like a killer out of a horror movie.   For the first 8 years of his career, they made him out to be invincible and indestructible.   To be quite honest I haven't followed WWE or any other television wrestling for many years now, but when I read that it was Brock Lesnar that ended the streak, it brought back a lot of memories I had watching the Undertaker growing up.    It just seems to me that they put so much time and so much effort into building him up and making his Undefeated streak mean something.   Two decades worth of ideas and efforts, all to just be faded into the grey with a loss to Brock Lesnar.  
       A lot of workers are saying, "it was brilliant! No one suspected it!"  and I'm thinking to myself,  was Undertaker's streak supposed to represent a one night stand or was it supposed to be something more special and meaningful?   To me having Brock Lesnar be the one to win that match and end the streak made 21 years worth of everything that was put into the Undertaker meaningless.    They could have made his loss much more significant, not just for Wrestlemania XXX but for the longevity and legacy of the character.   Instead they did it this way to shock a few people and have the majority of us remember how something that could have been very, very memorable was ruined with this idea instead.

6.  Crush turns on Randy Savage

I was 9 years old when this happened, but I can remember it like it was yesterday.   I was a huge Crush mark, and would often take cans of Mountain Dew after I drank them and give them the Crush "Cranium Crunch".   I remember watching this on Monday Night and being so excited when Crush shook Randy Savage's hand and the two decided to remain friends.   Then when Crush turned on Savage and nailed him with the clothesline,  literally getting up off the couch and yelling at the T.V.   I was so angry about Crush becoming a "bad guy" that I grabbed my toy action figure of Crush and my toy action figure of Randy Savage and had them wrestle.   I made the toy action figure of Randy Savage hit the toy action figure of Crush so hard with his elbow drop that his arm completely broke off.   Needless to say the armless toy version of Savage still registered a 3 count.

5. Shawn Michaels defeats British Bulldog for European Title

Many events around this time period just made me sick to my stomach, and this was most certainly one of them.   I don't really have an opinion on who Shawn Michaels is today, but I say unabashedly that during this time period he was about as horrible of a person as one could be.   Just the way that the Bulldog was humiliated and thrashed in his home country, in front of his family just isn't right.  You can get on your high horse all you want to and proclaim your "I'm a worker" status all you want by saying that, "it's a work"  but there is still a level of decency, even in a world of make believe that should be obtained.    This was a shot in the face to a guy that was only guilty of being related to someone that Shawn didn't like.  It was done in a very degrading manor.    I've only been able to sit through this match once.   It makes me sick to even think about the way the Bulldog was treated.  

4. Shawn Michaels throws Marty Jannetty through the glass window

I was around 8 years old when this happened and I can remember how riled up this got me.  I think I might have actually thrown something at the T.V. I was so hot.   Even though I had recently just been smarted up to the fact that professional wrestling was a work,  I still wanted to beat the ever loving crap out of Shawn Michaels.   I remember vowing that when I grew up, I was going to be Jannetty's new tag team partner and help him to get revenge on Shawn.   I guess as an 8 year old, you don't realize how much things will change in the 13 year time period it takes you to become an adult.   I personify this moment as probably the moment that made me go from what I'd call more than a casual fan, to a obsessed fan.   Before this moment,  I was a WWE wrestling fan, but I had other interest in life as well.   After this moment,  I was fixated on professional wrestling.   It really hooked me into the programming.

3. Ludvig Borga squashes Marty Jannetty

I have a lot of things in common with a lot of fellow workers and/or professional wrestling fans, but one of them is most certainly not who I consider to be my all time favorite wrestler.   Along with Bret Hart, it is and it always has been Marty Jannetty.  I think the man owns a record for the number of times he has returned to the WWE.   I remember how excited I was when he made another comeback and had a series of wins over the WWE regular jobbers  Damien Damento and Bastien Booger.   I really thought that big things were in store for Jannetty and that he might be given another intercontinental title run.   Instead he was paired up with Ludvig Borga and was completely squashed  in their Summerslam match.   He was made out to be such a wimp and a pushover that he never even took Borga off of his feet.   The match made Jannetty look like a girl scout against a Marine.   I knew from that moment on Jannetty would never have another shining moment in his career and he would be nothing more than a jobber from there on out.  I secretly kept hoping that a day would come when he'd make a comeback and be one of the top stars, but it never did.  

2. Hulk Hogan turns Heel

I became a pro wrestling fan at the height of Hulkamania.   While I understood that most of the professional wrestlers were just ordinary men, with extraordinarily size and strength,  to me Hulk Hogan (and for the record the Ultimate Warrior and The Undertaker) were more than just men.   I like most kids around my age that were pro wrestling fans,  idolized Hulk Hogan.  He was my hero and a guy that I looked up to.    I can remember just going numb when I watched Hogan turn heel.  I mean I took it so hard, that you would have thought someone had just died.   Judge that as  pretentious if you want to, but I was about 10 years old when this happened and how a 10 year sees the world is much different than how a 28 year old sees it.   

1. The Montreal Screwjob

I've written about this moment a couple of other times, so I don't know if I need to say a whole lot more than what I've said in prior blogs.    This moment just took all the steam out of me as a professional wrestling fan and while I still cherish and get excited about moments that happened before this,  I've never been able to feel the same magic about professional wrestling on television sense.   I guess what really happened here is that this was my first real introduction to just how political the wrestling business was and how the real "fake" part of the business wasn't what happened in the ring, but instead what happened outside of it.    I think that since the WWE was transitioning into the "Attitude Era" around this time, I would have eventually been turned off from it any way, but this was the moment when I went from being one of the world's biggest professional wrestling fans, to just being a guy that liked it and would watch it occasionally.   From 1989 to this moment, I would absolutely die if I had to miss any pro wrestling show on TV. Yet after the Montreal screwjob, it didn't matter to me whether I missed it or not.