Feuds are at the foundation of professional wrestling storytelling. There are feuds based around titles and ones based on pride. There are rivalries set up when one wrestler does wrong by another or when professional jealousies spill over.
For all of the compelling ways in which wrestling storylines have gotten started over the years, there are certainly those times when the motivations behind a grudge are poorly conceived. Be they illogical, silly, or forced, these are instances in which the talents and even their resulting matches may have been good, but the reason for the feud was not.
10 Chris Jericho Spills Coffee On Kane
When fans think back to the Attitude Era, Chris Jericho and Kane were among WWE's biggest names. Jericho was an exceptional in-ring talent and talker. Kane was a respectable big man with an awesome gimmick that he played to perfection. The idea of these two feuding was sensible enough.
Rather than feuding over a title or a title shot, and rather than one attacking the other to set up a story that may have joined the list of Jericho's best rivalries, the story of Y2J vs. The Big Red Machine got rolling because Jericho accidentally spilled coffee on Kane backstage. This setup felt as though it were simply lazy and silly, particularly given the star power involved.
9 Zeus Wanted Top Billing For No Holds Barred
In 1989, long before the big hits and misses of WWE Studios to follow, WWE made its first meaningful foray into the movie business with No Holds Barred, starring Hulk Hogan. To promote the film, WWE brought in his co-star Tiny Lister, who had played the film’s antagonist, for a wrestling feud with The Hulkster. The concept was that Lister was jealous of Hogan and wanted top billing for the movie instead—to the point that he lost his mind and started thinking that he was the character he’d played on screen, Zeus.
To be fair, Zeus had an awesome look and it made sense enough for WWE to use its own television product to support the feature film. The story logic was positively absurd, though, and only made worse the for that Zeus wasn’t actually a trained wrestler.
8 The Best Friends Break Miro’s Video Game
An October episode of AEW Dynamite saw an arcade console owned by Miro become a part of the action. Trent took a dive to the outside and wound up colliding with the machine, and the wrestler formerly known as Rusev was none too pleased about it, destroying Trent and Chuckie T after the match.
While the Best Friends have always walked a line of being more comedic in their angles, it’s highly questionable to see a serious talent like Miro drawn into it. After all, one of the biggest criticisms of his WWE run was the degree to which The Bulgarian Brute was subjected to silly angles like the Lana-Bobby Lashley love triangle.
7 Kevin Sullivan And Evad Sullivan Over Hulkamania
When Kevin Sullivan returned to on-air action for WCW as the big brother to Evad Sullivan—formerly known as The Equalizer—it made a fair degree of sense. The two looked similar enough to conceivably pass for brothers, and the size differential between the two led to a fun dynamic with Kevin as the diminutive, but controlling mastermind, and Evad as the bigger but goofier younger brother.
What started as a novelty act that offered Evad more personality became the stuff of silliness when Evad came out as a devout Hulkamaniac, just as Kevin went full-tilt into his cultish heel persona to declare war on The Hulkster and his allies. Brother vs. brother feuds are natural stories tell, but this one had about as silly of a premise as any. Little better, Kevin's pursuits with The Three Faces of Fear and Dungeon of Doom set up some of Hogan's worst WCW matches.
6 The Big Boss Man Feeds Al Snow His Own Dog
The Big Boss Man went on a maniacal tear when he came back to WWE in the late 1990s, perpetrating some of the most heinous acts of the Attitude Era. The period saw him play a henchman for the McMahons and crash The Big Show’s father’s funeral. Perhaps most absurdly of all, he killed Al Snow’s dog, Pepper, and fed the canine to an unsuspecting Snow.
The angle was way over the top when it came to animal cruelty and psychological warfare. Snow won an abysmal “Kennel from Hell” match in response, and mercifully, both men moved on.
5 Booker T And Edge Over Shampoo Commercial
When WrestleMania 18 rolled around, Booker T was still riding a wave of credibility from his run as one of WCW’s top stars, and Edge was inching closer and closer to being a main event level face, though he hadn't yet settled on the best version of himself. So, putting the two talented and charismatic workers together for a ‘Mania program made a fair bit of sense.
Rather than the two simply vying for a top spot on the card or battling for respect, WWE felt the need the base their issue around Edge getting cast for a Japanese shampoo commercial and Booker being jealous of him. The resulting match was fine, but storyline was flat out silly and beneath the talents at hand.
4 David Flair And Buff Bagwell Over DNA
Pregnancy angles don’t have much history of success in professional wrestling. Nonetheless, the Monday Night War era, full of reality-tinged, soap opera-esque angles, saw this type of storyline and more take hold.
In one of WCW's worst storylines, Stacy Keibler announced a kayfabe pregnancy and boyfriend David Flair went on a warpath to figure out who the father was. That included battling Buff Bagwell in a First Blood Match designed to get a DNA sample for a paternity test.
3 Jean-Pierre Lafitte Stole Bret Hart’s Jacket
Bret Hart was one of the most credible, serious wrestlers of WWE’s New Generation. He enjoyed more than one world championship reign in that era, and while he was away from the title picture, it made sense enough to book him opposite Jean-Pierre Lafitte. Lafitte was a super agile big man who could work, who got an overdue opportunity at a singles run, albeit in a silly pirate gimmick.
WWE ostensibly had two choices. Lafitte could get more serious to challenge Hart, or Hart could get drawn into something sillier to fight a pirate. WWE went in the latter direction with Lafitte stealing The Hitman’s jacket to spark their rivalry.
2 Harlem Heat Explodes Over The T'
Harlem Heat went its separate ways. Booker T got a push as a singles star, while Stevie Ray looked to keep the tag team momentum going, replacing his brother with Big T (previously known in WWE as Ahmed Johnson).
It was reasonable enough for Booker to feud with his brother based on their long tag team history and now being on opposite sides of the face-heel divide. However, the silly crux of the feud was battling over who got to use the “T” as a part of his name. Booker lost, thus becoming just “Booker” in the days to follow.
1 Gail Kim And The Bellas War Over Daniel Bryan
After the initial luster of the Nexus angle wore off and Daniel Bryan had won his first major feud with The Miz, WWE seemed uncertain as to what to do with him. After all, he was clearly one of the best in-ring talents of the day, but his personality, style, and look didn’t neatly fit any WWE paradigm. The result was one of the weaker periods in Bryan's WWE career.
One of the roles WWE tried was casting Bryan as an unconventional ladies' man. The Bella Twins were grouped with him and seemed to be playing games with him, only for Bryan to ultimately reveal he was actually dating Gail Kim. This set up the Bellas to jealously feud with Kim, in a storyline that awkwardly positioned Bryan as the nerdy love interest for three female talents to feud over.