They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot/Professional Wrestling

"Tony Schiavone: That's gonna put some butts in the seats, heh."
 * The best example is WCW's infamous "Finger-Poke of Doom." Kevin Nash was set to fight Bill Goldberg in a highly-anticipated rematch for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. However, halfway through the show, Goldberg was "arrested" for "aggravated stalking." Hollywood Hulk Hogan (returning after a hiatus) then challenged Nash to a title match, which consisted of a couple seconds of circling, followed by a single fingerpoke to Nash's chest. Nash simply fell to the mat, Hogan covered for the win, gaining the title and announcing the reformation of the N Wo stable. Considering A) how the fans were tired of the NWO storyline, B) the popularity of Goldberg, and C) the incredible lameness of the match, many fans really wished they had just been given the match that had been promised and advertised. This wasn't helped by Tony Schiavone spoiling/advertising how the incredibly popular Mick Foley would be wining the title on RAW that night, causing millions to switch over.


 * Mick Foley mentions in his first book that he felt WCW wasted a perfectly good angle in his feud with Vader. In Germany, Foley was involved in a match with Vader where his ear was accidentally ripped off. Rather than go with an angle where Foley would blame Vader for his ear, WCW opted to not acknowledge the accident.
 * Then they DID do a Foley/Vader feud, which started with a brutal match between the two, and Foley being stretchered out after taking a powerbomb on concrete. How did they follow up this? With the infamous "Lost In Cleveland" skits, where Foley gets Easy Amnesia and thinks he's a sea captain. Yeah, that'll put butts in seats.
 * The big one is definitely the massive failure of InVasion. Contractual issues aside, people felt that WWE still wasted what they DID have. And even if everyone was there people still cynically believe it wouldn't be what people wanted.
 * Following Invasion, WWF also acquired quite a few former WCW main eventers, like Diamond Dallas Page and Booker T. Unfortunately, the mass majority of them ended up rotting away in Mid and Lower card status.
 * This What Could Have Been is so massive that it's led many to think that it was deliberate. Most people believe that although the WCW contracts might have been expensive, frankly, combining the best wrestlers of both companies would have made them their money back ten times over. Quite a few people believe that the InVasion was just Vince McMahon being unable to put his notoriously huge ego aside and delivering one final Kick the Dog to WCW as a whole.
 * The argument regarding contract costs doesn't really hold water. WWF made a profit of more than $80 million per year around that time and most big-name WCW contracts would have fit within that. For example, Goldberg's contract? Only $6 million. Now, I'm no finance executive, but it sure seems that WWF could have afforded to bring in the big names, especially since they would have generated even more profit.
 * John Cena has had his recent program with The Nexus become this: instead of exploiting one of the several intriguing Face Heel Turn possibilities resulting from Wade Barrett winning the WWE Championship, instead Cena gets "fired" in an intelligence-insulting angle that has essentially rendered months' worth of hype as an anti-climax.
 * Honestly, on the Face Heel Turn possibilities, there are other possibilities and reasons why it was wasted. Looking at that alone is the most obvious route and misses factor of how things did play out and ruin things still. Even going the fired route and keep John Cena face, John Cena never acted like he was fired. They could of used it to put over Nexus as a bigger threat for a while with them getting rid of John Cena for about at least 2 months. They could of continued Nexus' threat by now showing what would happen with John Cena not standing in their way. Even have the locker room unite together with Cena's sacrifice making him a Doomed Moral Victor and fight against Nexus to pressure them to bring back Cena. Any of this would take more work and be an interesting route to take and there are plenty of great options to go. Instead, we get him wearing his wrestling attire still, cutting promos all over, jumping Nexus members just like he was before the "fired" part happened, security was not getting in the way at all, General Manager not punishing him for his actions, and his THEME MUSIC PLAYING. Even worst is fact that Nexus, who has stood united up until now, instantly caved in from threat after just 1 week of attacks after all they've been through and forced Barrett to give Cena back his job. So, John Cena was fired all for....2 weeks. Emotional farewell promo that gave no break or anything at all. Face Heel Turn is the most obvious option anybody can aim for, but they dropped the ball still in even face options and was still anti-climatic.
 * One big one now is the Lay Cool angle. For the past few months, Michelle and Layla have been playing stereotypical Alpha Bitches and seeming to take most of their material from films like Mean Girls. Considering the recent string of bullying-related suicides, it would have been a great time for one of their many enemies (Natalya, Beth Phoenix, Kelly Kelly) to give them their comeuppance and prove that bullying doesn't pay off. However, they continued to be Karma Houdinis, occasionally getting into a scuffle, but for the most part always managing to slither away. Long after this (and long after they ran out of new material) they finally started having things unravel, losing the Divas Championship and losing a tables match at TLC.
 * Another wasted plot from the Invasion was a battle royal between all of the Alliance guys where the winner would be immune to firing for a full year. The winner was the late Test (who was in the WWE before the angle). Aside from that annoying fact, they did nothing with this fact. Since he was immune to firing, he could have done anything he wanted. He could have gone around the locker room randomly assaulting people and wouldn't face any consequences for it. If the immunity was really serious, he could have assaulted Vincent K. McMahon himself and gotten away with it. However, his immunity was basically forgotten after a very short period of time.