By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

2008 MISSES

Hornswoggle: I don't quite know how Hornswoggle came up first in my list of Misses for the year, as these Misses are mostly in chronological order and Hornswoggle didn't start to become a Miss that early in the year. I used to be a big fan of the little guy, but his act has just grown so stale. The problems started when it was revealed that he was not actually Vince McMahon's son, but is Finlay's son instead. That was a disappointing ending to a unique storyline from 2007. It just sort of ended and he and Finlay were left to do the same thing in match after match over and over again all year long. It is to the point where I cringe when I hear their music.

Untimely Suspensions: There were two very untimely suspensions for Wellness Policy abuses this year. The first was when Jeff Hardy was suspended for 60 days just before WrestleMania. Hardy had to lose the Intercontinental Championship and missed out on a WrestleMania pay day, and possibly a win in the Money in the Bank ladder match and a chance to become World Champion. Later, William Regal was also suspended for 60 days at the height of his heel character as General Manager on Raw. He was the most hated man on Raw and possibly all of WWE at the time of the suspension. Both have come on strong at the end of the year which is good. However, I want to make it clear that this Miss isn't for WWE suspending them, it is for them putting themselves in the position to be suspended. They are both very talented performers and I hope they both have their acts together and can have even better 2009s.

Injuries: This was a bad year for injuries in WWE. It seemed like every month a major star (or two) was going down to some type of significant injury. Batista just had to undergo surgery on his knee and will miss several months. That caps off a year in which Superstars such as John Cena, Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton, Candice Michelle, Melina, Hurricane Helms, Mr. Kennedy, Umaga, Evan Bourne and Matt Hardy all spent time on the disabled list. That doesn't even count a guy like Edge taking time off to let some various nagging injuries heel. Didn't The Undertaker do that to? Hopefully 2009 will be a healthier year for the WWE Superstars.

Triple H “Destroys” Titantron: This year's Misses includes several individual moments that were so bad that I had to include them despite the fact that the list is supposed to be for performers, storylines and trends, not for individual bad moments. But as I said, some of these moments were so bad that I have to bring them up. This is the first and it took place on the January 14th Raw when Triple H was confronted on the screen by Vince McMahon who told him to calm down. Here is what I wrote at the time: "Instead of calming down, he decided to use his sledgehammer on the screen. He tore the thin screen which looked bad enough, then pyro started shooting off to give the impression that he had destroyed something more valuable than what he actually ripped. He then ripped it again to a similarly cheesy effect. He then threw the sledgehammer through the screen to an even bigger "explosion." This was terrible."

Chavo’s Title Run: Chavo Guerrero as ECW Champion was a joke. Nobody bought into him as the Champ. He had a decent feud with CM Punk over the Title, but it really was not a good Title run. Ratings were down. Interest in the brand went down. Chavo is a solid performer who has had some nice runs as Cruiserweight Champion in the past. But, he just doesn't have the talent to carry a brand as the top Champion on that brand. Nobody complained when Kane beat him for the Title at WrestleMania in about three seconds as nobody wanted to see that match in the first place and everyone was glad Chavo lost the belt.

Coach on Color: The experiment of putting Jonathan Coachman on color commentary failed. In late 2007, WWE needed someone on Smackdown to take the place of John Bradshaw Layfield who had left the announce table to get back into the ring after a few years of retirement. WWE could have done a much better job coming up with a replacement than with the Coach. I liked the move at first because it meant that Coach would be doing something different than just playing Vince McMahon's ass kissing gofer, but he proved me wrong. He was boring and bland. He added nothing. Michael Cole isn't very good, and he needs a strong color man to help bring up the quality of the broadcasts, and Coach wasn't the answer. Luckily he left WWE and was replaced by Mick Foley.

Brand Split: What brand split? Need I say more?

Mike Adamle: The Mike Adamle experiment was even worse than the Coach as color commentator experiment. From his first appearance at The Royale Rumble to his last appearance when he resigned as Raw GM, Adamle was a total bust. He sucked at everything that he did. He was a terrible interviewer, constantly making mistakes. He was just as bad when he replaced Joey Styles as play by play announcer on ECW. He didn't know the names of the moves. He was terrible. Then he became Raw's GM and he had to read his announcements off of notes and he still managed to often mess up. I don't think anyone misses him at this point.

Three Hour Raws: When WWE announced that there would be a special 3 Hour Raw for the Slammy Awards in early December, I thought it was odd that they would do another 3 Hour Raw this year. After all, it seemed like they had already done two of them in 2008. As I was going through my past lists I was reminded that they had actually done three of them already, making the Slammys the fourth. That is one every three months which is too many. One a year would be sufficient. It isn't that they were all bad, but most of them were. In three of the four (WrestleMania Rewind from March, the Draft from June, and the 800th Episode Celebration), I complained about there being too much filler which could have easily been cut out to make a regular 2 hour show. 3 Hours is a long time to sit through a non-PPV wrestling show. I would be fine if there were none in 2009.

Politicians on Raw: I salute WWE's Smackdown Your Vote campaign and the fact that they sent Superstars to both the Democratic and Republican Conventions. However, that one particular Raw when they had prerecorded messages from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain as well as a "match" between poor look alikes of the Democratic candidates was an embarrassment to the entire WWE Universe. The prerecorded messages were cheesy, but I guess they weren't too bad. However, the "match" was ridiculous. I suppose Vince McMahon found it funny, but I have to assume he was the only one. It was another example of a moment on Raw that was so bad I just had to include it here.

La Familia: The faction of Vickie Guerrero, Edge, Chavo Guerrero, Bam Neeley, and the tag team formerly known as The Major Brothers, Kurt Hawkins and Zack Ryder was one of the least imposing factions in WWE history. They sucked. And they sucked the life out of Smackdown. When the team first started, it was featured way too often on multiple shows. They were just on too often and after Edge and Chavo, the quality of the team really went downhill fast. Nobody cared about the others. They were not elevated from their involvement with Edge and Vickie. Nobody missed La Familia when it went away.

Million Dollar Mania: I had the unpleasant experience of being in the arena live the first week of Vince McMahon's Million Dollar Mania. It was not a good show. There were no backstage segments or interviews to give storyline advancements, because all of the non wrestling air time was given to McMahon trying to dial a phone. It was horrible to watch in the arena the first week, and it was bad to watch on t.v. in the subsequent weeks. It got a little better and ran a little smoother after the first very bumpy week. But, it still stunk. Plus, I never won any money!

Stage Blows Up: I was glad when the Million Dollar Mania came to an end when Vince McMahon was severely injured when the stage blew up underneath him. I even gave it a Hit for being a big surprise, the end to the giveaway, and to hopefully being the start of a good mystery. However, I did have reservations despite the Hit, mostly for how cheesy it was and for McMahon's over acting and for saying that he couldn't feel his legs. The worst part about it wasn't what happened that night, but what happened afterwards. There was no mystery. Nobody tried to figure out who did it. WWE did some very lame things to try to seem like Raw was in chaos without him, when it made absolutely no sense that the Board of Directors wouldn't assign someone to run the show. There were some nice parts to it, like when JBL declared Martial Law. But in the end, it gave rise to Ademle as the new GM, there never was a mystery, and to this day the whereabouts of Vince are still up in the air, and few people seem to care.

Draft: This was a disappointing year for the mostly annual WWE Draft. Like the year before, they decided to go with the silly format of having matches to determine which brand would get the next pick. The graphics are horribly cheesy. Everything just seemed a little too scripted. Few of the picks were really that exciting. It resulted in Michael Cold and Jim Ross switching places which has not turned out well. And with the total lack of a brand split, what does it even matter?

JBL Tries to Kill Cena: This moment, from the July 14th Raw was another individual time that was so bad that I have to include it. This was so staged with multiple cameras where there wouldn't have been cameras that it totally ruined what was supposed to be a very realistic and serious situation. But, the biggest problem was that JBL tried to kill John Cena. If it were real, JBL would be arrested for attempted homicide. This came one week after the really stupid segment when Cena and Cryme Tyme wrote "poopy" on JBL's limo, and it was like WWE realized how bad that scene was and decided to take it as far away from that childishness to this other extreme. It was just bad.

Championship Scrambles: I was not a fan of he Championship Scramble concept. It reminded me of some of TNA's more convoluted gimmick matches from over the years. There was some definite confusion in WWE about it, because the rules changed slightly after it was first announced by Mike Ademle. Also, it was never clear whether or not those who got a pinfall during the Scramble were actually Champions. They were referred to as Interim Champions, and there were other terms used too. Then, WWE decided that this lame gimmick was so great, that they would do it for all three brands on the same PPV. That was a bad idea. It was the very definition of over kill.

Candice Michelle: This was not a good year for the former Women's Champion. I never thought she was that good in the ring, but she had a lot of the "it" factor and the looks and the crowd was really behind her. However, after coming back too soon from an injury, she re-injured herself. After coming back from that injury, she has been very tentative. She looks scared in the ring, like she is afraid of hurting herself. That is understandable, but she has to get
over it at some point. Whatever "it" she had, she doesn't seem to have any more.

Jackass: In 2007, when the stars of Jackass decided not to participate in SummerSlam, I was relieved. Unfortunately, Johnny Knoxville decided to get involved with WWE in 2008. The silly interview with the Great Khali was far from entertaining. Watching him get beat up by Khali the next week was equally not entertaining. Then for some reason, Hornswoggle gave him a tadpole splash? It was all very bizarre and stupid.

Dance Party: Speaking of bizarre and stupid, that brings us to the last of the horrible horrible individual "worst moment ever" type moments from WWE in 2008. After a commercial break in the 800th Episode celebration, one of those ridiculous filler segments aired when Kung Fu Naki was randomly in the ring dancing. He was soon joined by various other random gimmick characters for a dance party. I remember Boogeyman being among them. I think Sgt. Slaughter was too. Michael Cole even joined in the "fun." It was not worth sitting through that crap just to get to hear Ron Simmons say "Damn!"

Khali Kiss Cam: The Great Khali became a babyface in 2008, which is horrible. The babyface turn was largely due to the unbelievable popularity of the Khali Kiss Cam. Now, I will admit to the fact that Runjin Singh goes all out for these segments and can be entertaining in them. But for the most part, they are unamusing and offensive to overweight women. They were really bad every week. They morphed away from having him kiss heavy women from the audience, but having him kiss Mae Young isn't much better. Hopefully this is a recurring segment that will cease to recur in the New Year.

MVP’s Losing Streak: At the very end of 2008, it seems like WWE is finally on the verge of going somewhere interesting with Montel Vontavious Porter's losing streak angle. I am hopeful that in a year from now, I will be listing MVP's coming out of the losing streak as a Hit for 2009. But, for now it is a Miss. MVP is too talented to be treated this way. He has looked really bad. It is going to be hard to ever take him seriously again as a threat when he loses clean to people like Fu Naki. How are we going to ever buy into him as a Champion in the future after this? I'm not saying it's impossible, but WWE had its work cut out to rebuild him at this point.

McCool vs. Maria: This has been a rather lame feud. Their matches have been poor. Maria is not a good wrestler. McCool is solid, but clearly not good enough to carry a lesser skilled opponent to a good match. It was hard to buy into Maria as a threat to McCool's Divas Championship. McCool is the heel, yet she had legitimate complaints about Maria like when Maria wasn't there for her because she was distracted by Jesse & Festus. The writing has had me more empathetic to the heel than the babyface which isn't a good thing. Plus, did I mention that their matches have been poor? Yeah, I think I did.

JBL and Michaels: Despite a good final two weeks of the year for this storyline, I still have to list it as a big Miss for 2008. After Shawn Michaels was in such a great angle with Chris Jericho, it is disappointing for him to move on to this. I was initially intrigued by the idea of a short feud between these two. Instead it seems like it is going to be a very long drawn out feud, with a possible match at WrestleMania which I am not looking forward to. The premise of this angle is the main problem. I don't believe that Michaels is in such a bad financial situation, and if I did, I would have no sympathy for him when so many real people have lost their jobs and their homes and have never made anywhere close to the money that Michaels has made in his career. The particulars of the business relationship between Michaels and JBL have never been explained. They filled in some of the initial holes in the plot, but not all of them.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hitlist Specialist, providing his point of view in the Torch's hitlist format for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

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