10 Horrible Booking Mistakes Made By WWE

1. Booking Brock Lesnar over Stone Cold on RAW

The match didn’t officially occur, but the booking plans tarnished the career of WWE’s biggest star forever.

In the spring of 2002, Stone Cold was meant to lose to a rookie Brock Lesnar in the qualifying match for the King of the Ring tournament. WWE’s intention was most likely to shock the WWE audience, build Lesnar’s stock immediately and eventually run the Austin vs. Lesnar program somewhere down the line.

For Austin, this was a combination of not being able to handle his diminishing value to the WWE product and his body is breaking down. For WWE, this was likely a combination of trying to build a guy too fast and wasting a great PPV match. Ultimately, Austin “took his ball and went home” as WWE put it.

Both sides could have figured this out, but miscommunication and stubbornness got in the way. It also cost WWE and the fans the last full year of The Texas Rattlesnake before the injuries piled up too much for Austin to continue wrestling. Wrestling might be so different if this had gone differently.