WWE: 5 most overused booking tropes employed by the company

When a promotion has been around as long as WWE has, it’s bound to have spells of less-than-ideal creativity when it comes to the product. Also, WWE is far from the only promotion that experiences these lean periods.

To a far lesser extent, New Japan Pro Wrestling is going through something similar. Ring of Honor has slowly dug itself out of one over the last year or so. Lord knows TNA/Impact Wrestling’s ups and downs have been well documented. And eventually — hopefully, not anytime soon — All Elite Wrestling will experience this at some level, too.

For WWE, though, the staleness of its booking often manifests in ways that leave fans baffled at what they just saw, if not turned off on the promotion altogether.

Over the years, WWE has relied on some weird booking tropes that often make its fanbase groan. But which of these plot devices stand out amongst the rest?

If you’ve watched WWE for a while — or, at least, since 2001 — many of these idiosyncracies won’t be new to you, but it’ll still be fun to see how often the company has turned to these strategies in lieu of trying something new.

Sure, there’s nothing wrong with going back to some reliable tropes every once in a while — if it works, it works — but when a booker uses these five storytelling gimmicks over and over again, it could indicate a larger problem.