10 Worst Booking Decisions in WrestleMania History

credit: wwe.com

6.18 Seconds: WrestleMania XXVIII

Not only was this one of the worst booking decisions in WrestleMania history, for its two combatants, Daniel Bryan and Sheamus, it was also one of the most insulting.  Battling over the World Heavyweight Championship that Bryan had defended over the course of 105 days, their Mania matchup ended basically before it started as Sheamus used a distraction from AJ Lee to administer a Brogue Kick and a three-count.  And just like that, the opening match of WrestleMania 28 was over and two young, budding talented kids looked utterly ridiculous.

18 seconds was all the time Bryan and Sheamus were given and if you look around the rest of the card, that idea is just absurd.  The Rock wrestled in the main event while Triple H and The Undertaker did battle in Hell In A Cell.  Granted they were very good matches but the combined time of those two bouts was over an hour and these were three guys who wrestled in a whopping four matches in all of 2012.  Bryan and Sheamus on the other hand, wrestled in 433 matches that year (cagematch.net).  Thanks for all the hard work carrying the company all year guys, here’s 18 seconds to tell your story.

If you look around the rest of the card it gets even more laughable.  Television host Maria Menounos got 6 minutes of in-ring action while a twelve man tag match starring Santino Marella and The Great Khali got about 10.  Why not send those two matches to the pre-show and give two guys wrestling over a world title 15 minutes?  Because the WWE likes to forget about the guys that got them to the show and rely on old tricks of wrestling’s past.  Luckily for Bryan, the biggest victim in this whole charade, he got his WrestleMania moment two years later but the taste of this booking will forever remain sour.