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00:00 So as you all know from listening to the end of the videos that I voice here on YouTube,
00:03 I like to promote a bit of self-love and I encourage people to forgive themselves for
00:07 mistakes they've made in the past. It is definitely okay to make mistakes, we're
00:12 all human, just make sure that you try to learn from them. Unfortunately, when it comes
00:15 to the WWE though, they tend to repeat mistakes ad nauseum and never learn a single thing.
00:22 So let's take a look at them, as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10
00:26 times that WWE tried the same failure twice.
00:30 10. Doppelganger Warfare
00:32 Now back in 1994, somebody thought it would be a good idea to try an Undertaker vs. Undertaker
00:37 match. Maybe it sounded good on paper, I mean this is the kind of thing young kids lucky
00:41 enough to have two Taker action figures might have actually booked on their own kitchen
00:44 table. But in reality though, it completely sucked.
00:47 SummerSlam '94 should have taught Vince McMahon that Doppelganger Warfare is less
00:51 horror movie showdown and more horror show in general. But in 2006, he tried it again.
00:57 There was a slight twist this time, admittedly, because Fake Kane appeared as the character's
01:01 old school gimmick and new, baldy serial killer Kane didn't return to the mask. Still, it
01:06 was just as bad as Taker vs. Faker.
01:09 WWE failed to realize that fans didn't want twin sanity, they wanted fresh ideas. The
01:15 Kane story arguably bombed harder than the original with Taker, and that is saying something.
01:20 9. A School Teacher Gimmick
01:22 Now the logic behind turning Shane Douglas into a hoity-toity professor called Dean was
01:27 pretty simple. Douglas would get on everyone's nerves for reminding them of school when they
01:31 were watching wrestling. And then he'd get nuclear heat without doing much other than
01:34 playing the smug git who uses words like "vivify" on WWF telly. But years later, on WWE's
01:41 version of ECW, Matt Stryker tried the same thing.
01:44 But the bizarre moment here is that Douglas was a genuine legend in the original Land
01:48 of Extreme. By 2006, Stryker was plundering Dean's old material and using it as part
01:53 of his unwanted classroom segments. Now, Stryker was admittedly a teacher in real life, but
01:58 neither of these characters had any success. So why in the name of buttoned-up polo shirts
02:03 did the company think that this monstrosity was ripe for recycling? Things wouldn't have
02:07 been any worse had they looked back to 1995 and decided that Man Tore 2.0 should have
02:12 become ECW's next heel menace.
02:15 8. The Kayfabe Son
02:17 Now if you're a wrestler and somebody in creative pictures that you become Authority
02:21 Figure A's illegitimate son, punch them in the balls and then write your own P45 and
02:25 run away. Because it is a recipe for disaster, if recent WWE history is anything to go by.
02:31 You'll either become a comedic afterthought or be accused of killing an icon's comeback.
02:36 In 2007, WWE were ready to reveal that Mr. Kennedy was Vince McMahon's boy. But wellness
02:41 policy violations got in the way, and Hornswoggle got the nod instead.
02:45 A decade later in 2017, promising ex-NXT man Jason Jordan was also suddenly revealed to
02:51 be Kurt Angle's son. And it actually led to both men sinking in fan estimations, at least
02:56 for a while. WWE should sit down and have a right good think about the next time that
03:00 they try and plan some phony family reveals. It's rarely taken seriously, and it had an
03:04 adverse effect on everyone involved in the past two examples. So let's not go here again,
03:10 Vince. Please.
03:11 7. A Giant Who, Let's Face It, Can't Wrestle
03:14 Deandre Taker could have been forgiven for punching McMahon in the plums, and not just
03:18 because he was booked against himself in 1994. Because one year earlier, the WWF wheeled
03:23 out Giant Gonzalez, in the world's worst onesie, and forced Taker to try and work with somebody
03:28 who didn't know how to sell at all.
03:31 But Taker's nightmares were far from over when Gonzalez flopped and left the biz, because
03:35 the WWE's inherent need to lumber him with giants who simply cannot wrestle has been
03:39 there for all to see since the dawn of time. And so the Great Khali marched onto screens
03:43 in, you guessed it, 2006.
03:45 Seriously, this video might as well be renamed as "The 10 Worst Moments From WWE's 2006."
03:50 To be fair, the Great Khali wasn't quite as bad as Gonzalez, but he was hardly somebody
03:54 that Undertaker was going to have killer matches with. Worse still, the presentation was almost
03:58 identical to how one giant had debuted at the 1993 Royal Rumble. So much for learning
04:03 from past errors, right?
04:05 6. A Mini's Division
04:07 Now, wrestling has always had this crude fascination with what you'd term as a "freak show" element.
04:12 And that stretches right back to the medium's carny days, and isn't WWE exclusive, but they
04:17 are no stranger to promoting a circus-like feel. Now, this isn't always a negative. In
04:22 fact, variety and showmanship are good things and should be encouraged, but the dreaded
04:26 "Minis Division" definitely was an exception.
04:29 In 1997, the WWF began promoting Mexican minis like El Torito, Tarantula, Mosaic, Nova, and
04:35 the most famous of the lot, Max Mini.
04:37 Now, here's where it gets strange. They never treated these wrestlers as real wrestlers,
04:41 and instead the company presented them like children. And they'd go one step further
04:45 than that idea in 2005 when launching the Juniors Division. Ah yes, that classic tactic
04:51 to make Smackdown more appeasing to sponsors. The old classic, laughing at little people.
04:56 Brilliant.
04:57 Everything from the way that the announcers giggled throughout the matches, to the play-school
05:00 font used for the division made a mockery of these dudes. And that is not cool.
05:05 5. A Totally Useless International Bauble
05:09 So in the past, Vince McMahon has seen it fit to promote more than two international
05:13 baubles that meant precisely nothing all to viewers worldwide, and even seemed to forget
05:18 that they existed a few weeks after they were won. Braun Strowman's Greatest Royal Rumble
05:22 Championship belt, the O.C.'s Tag Team World Cup, and The Undertaker's 2-8 trophy were
05:26 all utterly useless.
05:28 And it'll irk some fans that only Shane McMahon's WWE World Cup trinket had any sort of constructive
05:33 character use when the promotion returned to the United States. This phoned-in method
05:37 of adding value to international shows didn't start when WWE struck a deal with Saudi Arabia
05:42 either. Back in the mid-to-late 90s, the company also ran a tournament for the Kuwait Cup,
05:47 and they were as thrilling and impactful on main TV as they sound.
05:50 4. Brand-Invading Wildcards
05:52 WWE's commentators made a big deal out of the fact that Fox had exploited the bold new
05:58 brand-to-brand invitational rules when Charlotte Flair recently popped up on Smackdown. According
06:03 to the guidelines, certain wrestlers can appear up to four times per year on rival brands.
06:08 That sounds eerily like 2019's awful wildcard rule. The wildcards failed before, and they
06:13 will fail again, but they will only ever leave when WWE gets bored of them. There's no way
06:17 that they'll stick to the four-times-per-year format, just like they squished the previous
06:21 shake-up attempt by changing how the wildcard trick worked.
06:24 And this idea will also be forgotten about within months. It's baffling to see the creative
06:28 team pretend brand-to-brand invitational means something different to wildcard as well. They
06:33 really should've just come out and admitted that TV is really stale right now, and explained
06:37 away this haphazard booking style as beneficial to the shows during the current climate.
06:41 3. A Definitive Brand Split
06:44 Of course, conceding that things might not be a "thriller minute" isn't something
06:47 that WWE feel comfortable doing. And that's fine, because there are always ways to make
06:51 Raw and Smackdown feel like must-see, uniquely identifiable, and totally different weekly
06:56 delights. For example, the brand extension / split. Which, uh, hasn't worked. Twice.
07:01 Both brand splits started out so promisingly in 2002 and 2016. Vince McMahon seemed dead
07:06 set on properly promoting each major show as competitive rating seekers that would drive
07:10 each other on. Unfortunately, he got in his own way and cross-pollinated to the point
07:14 that the entire premise lacked serious credibility within months.
07:17 2002's first go-around needed to teach McMahon what to do if he ever tried to divide his
07:21 top shows again. But rather than learn what not to do, he bashed his head against the
07:25 wall and repeated the same mistakes 14 years on, then decreed that fans didn't really want
07:30 a definitive split anyway. Okay.
07:32 2. The End of Mr. McMahon
07:34 "I can't be on TV if I'm dead, pal."
07:37 That line, one Vince reportedly told Bruce Prichard many moons ago, is why he penned
07:41 himself to be blown up in a fiery limousine explosion in 2007. To McMahon, it made sense
07:46 that he'd go out in such an unambiguous blaze of glory. Because then he'd never be able
07:50 to return. Because he was apparently sick of playing his Mr. McMahon character anyway.
07:54 Around 12 months later, Vince was back on Raw shifting millions of dollars to fans in
07:58 some overhyped giveaway that didn't draw the ratings that he thought it would. So, seeking
08:02 the publicity such a stunt would surely draw, McMahon killed his on-screen persona off again
08:07 by having a piece of the staging fall on top of him. Nobody bought it.
08:10 The punishing law of diminishing returns was in effect, especially when Vince had survived
08:14 the previous year's limo blast, which is one he couldn't use to disappear due to a very
08:18 real Chris Benoit tragedy, and was back on TV within six months.
08:22 1. The XFL
08:24 So Vince McMahon has given so much to pro wrestling, and it's a shame that owning one
08:28 juggernaut just isn't enough for him. Rather than being content with the empire that he
08:32 built in the mid-1980s, Vince wanted to expand to other avenues and prove himself as a promoter
08:37 who can thrive in real-world sports. That's why he tried to push the XFL as the NFL alternative
08:43 twice.
08:44 2001's defeat was a harsh and brutal lesson that sent Vince away to lick his wounds. The
08:48 XFL lost millions, and led to a thorough roasting in the mainstream press for those lining up
08:53 to bash this wrestling guy for thinking that he could hack it in pro football.
08:57 "Stick to the fake stuff" was very much the prevailing message from the anti-WWE revelers.
09:01 By 2018, McMahon was back for another shot, though. With the brand new XFL launched in
09:06 2020, things initially seemed hopeful. The first week delivered solid football and benefited
09:11 from doing away from the WWE razzmatazzer before, but sadly, because thanks to "The
09:15 Big Vid," it directly affected the XFL, and Vince's league filed for bankruptcy in mid-April.
09:20 Ah well, at least we'll have the memories, right? So what's next, Vince? ICO Pro 2K22?
09:25 Yeah, let's get on it, mate.
09:27 And there we go, my friends. Those were the 10 times WWE tried the same failure twice.
09:30 I hope that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in
09:33 the comments section below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter
09:37 at RetroJ with a zero, and it'd be lovely to see you over there, my friends. But before
09:41 I go, I just want to say one thing. As I said in the opening of this video, it is okay to
09:45 make mistakes. We are all human, we are all fallible, but as long as you're trying to
09:49 learn from your mistakes and forgiving yourself for mistakes that you made in the past, that
09:52 will allow you to go on and live a healthier and happier life. And at the end of the day,
09:55 that is all I want for you, because you are a massive ledge and you deserve all the best
09:58 things, alright? Now go out there and absolutely smash it. As always, I've been Jules, you
10:03 have been awesome. Never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.