7 WWE Booking Decisions That Aged Horribly in 2025
To call WWE's 2025 creatively inconsistent would be an understatement.
Even at its absolute worst, WWE programming was still stronger on the whole this year than almost any other period during the final years of the Vince McMahon-led regime.
SmackDown in particular struggled to catch fire with a vast majority of its characters and storylines, while the quality of Raw improved upon arriving on Netflix and becoming a shorter show.
Triple H proved he was capable of creating greatness throughout 2025, but there were also plenty of moments where his weaknesses as a promoter were on full display.
Some of WWE's calls were questionable from the start, while others appeared to be promising but ultimately aged horribly. The common theme among most of them was that there was no real plan to capitalize on the buzz—or lack thereof—in the long run, resulting in stories being unfinished or not fully fleshed out.
All Triple H can do now is learn from the mistakes that were made this year and attempt to improve upon them in 2026, especially as it pertains to seeing things through and not focusing nearly as much on viral moments.
These were the seven booking decisions that defined WWE's creative shortcomings in 2025.
Seth Rollins Aligns with Paul Heyman
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Coming into 2025, Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman had achieved all they could as a duo, including turning babyface.
The only thing left to do was for The Wise Man to cut ties with Reigns, and thankfully, WWE saved his betrayal for the biggest stage possible: the main event of WrestleMania 41.
Heyman delivering a low-blow to Reigns—immediately after doing the same to longtime friend CM Punk—before The Tribal Chief could take out Seth Rollins with a chair Shield-style made for a massive moment.
The mastermind behind ECW ending his five-year partnership with Reigns was a significant swerve, as was his subsequent alliance with Rollins. It quickly became apparent that Heyman only hitched his wagon to The Architect out of convenience, not because he saw him as the future of the industry.
The two then recruited Bron Breakker on a subsequent edition of Raw followed by Bronson Reed, but Rollins and Heyman never felt like a cohesive unit during their time together.
Rollins suffering an untimely injury against Cody Rhodes at Crown Jewel and then having to be booted from his own faction days later was the best thing WWE could have done with The Vision, but it begs the question of what purpose pairing Breakker and Reed off with Rollins was supposed to serve in the first place.
Reed benefited from being aligned with Rollins for a few months, but Breakker was well on his way to main event stardom before The Vision came to be.
There was no reason for Rollins to be positioned as the leader from the get-go other than him already being amid rivalries with Reigns and Punk.
Charlotte Flair Wins Women's Royal Rumble
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WWE did an excellent job in building up the men's Royal Rumble this year and making it as unpredictable as possible, but the women's match received far less focus and didn't have more than one or two realistic outcomes.
Among those outcomes was Charlotte Flair returning from a year-long hiatus due to injury and winning the whole thing to punch her ticket to WrestleMania 41.
There wasn't anything egregiously wrong with the idea, except for it being bland and something fans had seen before with The Queen in 2020. There were also better options, specifically Iyo Sky or Bianca Belair, who would have made more sense for the spot and not had as much backlash.
It couldn't have been more apparent that the intent was for Flair to be a babyface upon her return to the ring and for her to be cheered as she challenged Tiffany Stratton for the WWE Women's Championship at WrestleMania 41.
There were boos for The Queen as early as the post-Rumble edition of Raw, forcing WWE to pivot right away and gradually do a double turn with the two of them. The issue was that neither character came off as likable, which resulted in several segments being disjointed and falling short of what they could have been.
Stratton emerging victorious when they clashed at 'Mania was exactly how it had to end, but the road WWE took to get there—starting with Flair winning the Rumble—was a mess, to say the least.
R-Truth Says Ron Killings Has Arrived
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Regardless of the regime, R-Truth has never been positioned as a perennial player in WWE's main event scene. Outside of a brief period in 2011 when he was a heel, he's largely been a midcard competitor in WWE, and an incredibly entertaining one at that.
That wasn't going to change even after online outrage among fans forced WWE's hand and saw him rehired within a matter of days in the summer.
One June 1, Truth's revealed his contract wasn't being renewed, yet he was brought back by the following weekend's Money in the Bank and interfered in the main event where he cost John Cena the win.
Truth had previously lost to The GOAT in quick fashion at Saturday Night's Main Event.
Truth continued to target the then-undisputed WWE champion over the next few weeks and went so far as to cut a promo changing up his signature look and referring himself by his real name, Ron Killings, but the angle was abruptly dropped.
Truth winning the top title was always a far-fetched possibility, but surely more could have been done to capitalize on the hot momentum he had coming off his return. Instead, he floundered on television before reverting back to the comedy character that made him such a fan favorite in the first place.
Jey Uso Taps Out Gunther
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Jey Uso's detractors were out in full force on social media in 2025, but it hardly affected his raucous crowd reactions, especially when he won the men's Royal Rumble.
It wasn't the most appealing outcome on paper, but Uso going after Gunther's World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 41 and finally avenging all of the losses he endured against him was the right story to tell.
Uso was popular enough to justify putting the prestigious prize on him, if only for a little while.
Where WWE went wrong was the execution of the finish to their 'Mania match, with Gunther almost immediately tapping out when Uso locked him in his own submission hold.
Uso winning was the definition of a WrestleMania moment, but it would have been equally satisfying had he just won by pinfall. The Ring General submitting should be saved for special occasions, not when he's facing someone who is inferior to him in almost every respect.
Gunther didn't suffer in the slightest as he regained the gold soon after and beat John Cena by submission in the latter's retirement match, but he continues to generate "You tapped out!" chants from crowds, reminding the fans of his one moment of weakness that didn't amount to much for Uso in the long run.
Giulia Wins Women's United States Championship
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The future of the WWE women's division was on full display on the post-WrestleMania edition of Raw when Stephanie Vaquer, Roxanne Perez and Giulia all made their formal debuts on the red brand to wage war with Iyo Sky and Rhea Ripley.
Vaquer was a standout from the start and had won the Women's World Championship by September, while Perez was the perfect fit for The Judgment Day and has been a regular on Raw since the spring.
Giulia the only one WWE didn't have a clear path for based on how she's been booked in her time on the main roster.
Sending her to SmackDown was smart as it gave her a chance to shine on her own away from the other call-ups, but there was never a genuine effort to get her over with the audience. She peaked when she won the Women's United States Championship from Zelina Vega in June and all but disappeared from television from that point forward.
Putting her in meaningless matches with Michin and B-Fab did nothing to cement her as a threat whatsoever. If anything, it hurt whatever shred of importance the title had at that point.
Giulia was then beaten for the belt in roughly one minute by Chelsea Green right before she could break the record for having the longest reign in the title's short history.
WWE should not have given Giulia the gold if it was only going to do near-irreparable damage to her credibility.
Carmelo Hayes Gets Paired with The Miz
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It's astonishing that WWE still holds the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal as an annual tradition over WrestleMania weekend when it's been proved that winning it is more of an albatross than a stepping stone for bigger and better things.
Carmelo Hayes winning the 2025 installment should have been an encouraging sign for his future. Instead, he was inexplicably paired with The Miz, who hasn't been involved in anything of note in ages.
As a team, the two worked well together and had quality chemistry, but it didn't benefit Hayes in the slightest. WWE's plan was presumably to have him eventually turn on Miz and emerge from their feud as a star on the rise, but that betrayal never materialized.
They did break up a few months back, but the long-awaited one-on-one encounter didn't happen. They quietly went their separate ways without paying off their program, and Hayes didn't get to give him his comeuppance.
Hayes will fare well for himself in 2026 if he keeps building momentum the way he has been of late, but a lot of valuable time was wasted on his alliance with The A-Lister.
John Cena Turns Heel
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One of the greatest moments in WWE history will be forever marred by its atrocious aftermath.
John Cena's retirement tour was filled with ups and downs, but it was obvious from the moment it got underway that virtually everyone was going to be behind him for his final year.
Gone were the days of The GOAT receiving dueling chants from crowds; fans were willing to show him respect on his way out.
And WWE's decision to turn him heel was a short-sighted one. Zero thought was put into where it was going to go or explaining how it would make sense. It was only ever supposed to be about the moment itself and nothing else.
Cena's heel turn, which had been fantasy-booking for decades, had the potential to be the best thing in wrestling, but it lacked long-term planning and Cena failed to deliver both on the mic and in the ring for most of his matches until the very end.
Worse yet, The Rock and rapper Travis Scott were there the night Cena went rogue and even took part in the vicious attack on Cody Rhodes at Elimination Chamber on March 1, only for The Great One to never be acknowledged again or factored into the remainder of the storyline.
The Cena character redeemed himself with a stellar SummerSlam match against Rhodes and a strong final stretch before retiring in December, but the heel turn will go down as Triple H's most monumental miscalculation ever as a booker.
Graham Mirmina, aka Graham "GSM" Matthews, has specialized in sports and entertainment writing since 2010. Visit his website, WrestleRant, and subscribe to his YouTube channel for more wrestling-related content.
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