The 2025 Worst of WWE Awards

Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to 2026! Last week, we celebrated the best of the WWE for 2025. So, this week, let’s look back at the worst of 2025. It was a year filled with ups and downs. And while I try to be the voice of positivity around here, it’s important to examine what went wrong as well. I’ve written a couple of articles on where I thought the WWE struggled this year. So, for those of you who read those articles, some of the winners shouldn’t be a big shock.

With that said, let’s get on to the awards!

The Awards

Biggest Disappointment of the Year: The SmackDown Women’s and Men’s Raw Tag Team Divisions

(Runners Up: John Cena’s Heel Run, Injuries Causing a lot of What Ifs?, Jey Uso Main Event Run)

I’m sure most of you would put Cena’s heel run or Uso’s main event run as the biggest disappointments. And I can see why. I also want to clarify that I don’t think Uso was undeserving of the shot at the top. I am just disappointed that he couldn’t step up to the position. The fans are clearly behind him, but he just never evolved enough to be a true main event player.

I will write more about Cena later on, and his heel run had a lot to do with why he won the award he did. But for my money, the booking around the SmackDown Women’s and the Men’s Raw Tag Team divisions is what disappointed me the most. It felt worse, because we had the other to show compare it to.

The women have been kicking ass all over Raw this year. They had two of the best matches of the year, and the feud between Lynch and Valkyrie helped to establish the Women’s Intercontinental Championship. But on SmackDown, Stratton was stuck in a never-ending feud with Nia Jax, and the Women’s United States Championship was being fought over by the same three women all year. The fact that Green still hasn’t won a World Championship and Giulia didn’t have a similar year to Vaquer is a shame.

Meanwhile, the men’s tag scene on SmackDown was on fire for most of the year, putting on bangers every week and two amazing TLC matches. And on Raw, The New Day beat The War Raiders at WrestleMania Night 1, and then proceeded to do absolutely nothing with them before dropping them to the Judgement Day. Who also didn’t do anything with them. It wasn’t until AJ Styles & Dragon Lee got the belts that they started to matter. And now that the Usos are champions again, we will hopefully have better booking in 2026.

Worst Booked Women’s Tag Team of the Year: Raquel Rodriguez & Roxanne Perez

(Runners Up: The Secret Hervice, Michin & B-Fab)

When Perez replaced an injured Morgan, I thought it could have led to an interesting dynamic. You could have had the team hold the titles for more than a couple of months. Helping to further establish Perez on the main roster, and her relationship with Raquel and the rest of the Judgement Day. They dropped her trying to steal Dom as he took off in Mexico. But if they had kept that going, and she had stolen Raquel as well, then it could have made a built-in story for Morgan on her return.

Instead, they dropped the belts at SummerSlam, got one rematch, and have mainly stayed away from the scene since then. As it stands, the team has a losing record, and with Raquel being the one to challenge Vaquer, it doesn’t look like they will be getting another shot soon.

Worst Booked Men’s Tag Team of the Year: The Creed Brothers

(Runners Up: Finn Balor & JD McDonagh, The New Day, Motor City Machine Guns, The LWO, Los Garza)

Chad Gable’s injury helped Ludwig Kaiser, but it came at the expense of The Creeds and Ivy Nile. The last time The Creeds were in a match on Raw was the Number One Contenders Triple Threat from July. They’ve had a few matches on Main Event, all of them losses, a few NXT Live matches, and a loss to Pagano & Psycho Clown on an AAA Alianzas show in November.

I just don’t understand why, in a division that needs teams, you would waste a young and talented team like The Creeds. With Gable rumored to be returning soon, hopefully, it will also see The Creeds get more attention. They are more than deserving, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them mix it up with New Day, AJ Styles & Dragon Lee, Judgement Day, and The Usos.

Worst Match of the Year: Steel Cage Match for the United States Championship: Jacob Fatu vs Solo Sikoa – SummerSlam 2025 Night 2

(Runners Up: Undisputed WWE Championship: John Cena vs Cody Rhodes – WrestleMania XLI Night 2, Jimmy Uso vs Talla Tonga – SmackDown, Brock Lesnar vs John Cena – Wrestlepalooza)

Again, I know most of you will probably be saying that Cena vs Rhodes was worse. But for me, this was the most disappointing match of the year. Fatu has main eventer written all over him. He works well as a face or a heel and is so believable in the ring. He provides a style that is unique to most of the WWE roster, and he deserved better than this.

The match was plodding, bogged down by the MFTs interference. Solo is also just not that interesting in the ring. Yes, he has some facial reactions and comedic timing. But he is an average wrestler at best. The ending is what really brought this whole thing down, though. Fatu struggled to get the cuffs off while Solo slowly crawled through the door. And when Fatu finally breaks free, he should have had plenty of time to grab Solo before he escaped.

It just made Fatu look dumb and was a disappointing moment from an otherwise great SummerSlam.

Worst Booked Women’s Wrestler of the Year: Giulia

(Runners Up: Tiffany Stratton, Zelina Vega, Jordynne Grace, Candice LeRae, Ivy Nile)

For a woman who spent 133 as the United States Champion, you’d think Giulia would be in a better position. But when you look at her booking during those 133 days, you can see why. She beat Zelina Vega for the championship on the 6/27 episode of SmackDown, lost the Battle Royal at Evolution, Beat Vega again, defended the title against Michin, and then didn’t defend the title on television again until she lost it to Chelsea Green on 11/7.

Two televised defenses, two PLE matches (The Battle Royal and Money in the Bank), and only a total of 15 televised matches since debuting on the main roster. When you compare that to Stephanie Vaquer’s booking in the same time frame, it is enough for me to say that Giulia has been booked like crap all year. Triple H, please move her to Raw and away from Road Dogg’s terrible booking as soon as possible!

Worst Booked Men’s Wrestler of the Year: John Cena

(Runners Up: Rey Fénix, Carmelo Hayes, Damien Priest, Aleister Black, Rusev)

And here we are, the last year of Cena’s in-ring career is over. A lot has been, and will be written about Cena’s Last Time Is Now run. Most of it will be around his heel turn and run. From the beginning, there were issues. Having it tied to The Rock, when he wasn’t planning on showing up again, was a bad choice. Including Travis Scott in the turn and being a distraction at WrestleMania was also a bad choice. He added nothing and took away something from those moments.

Cena’s explanation was also lackluster. The story was right there, Cena was paranoid, worried he would be forgotten and passed by. He couldn’t get it done in the Rumble; it took a Curb Stomp by Rollins to help him win the Elimination Chamber. So, to make sure he beat Flair’s record, he sold out. You play up the old vet grasping for his last shot at glory angle. Not the “You were never there for me.” bit. Cena never cared that some of the fans booed him; he often played it up. And in the last few years, the fans fully embraced him and acknowledged his contributions.

If they gone down the selling out for glory angle, it still would have made sense for him to have had the matches he did. You’d have Orton trying to talk sense into him, Punk challenging him to show he still had it, R-Truth trying to get his hero to remember how great he is. And then Cody finally challenges him to reach down deep and bring that Cena of old to SummerSlam. Then, after a hard-fought match, where Cody beats Cena, we get the handshake and embrace. Lesnar can come out after to ruin the moment.

We still end up in the same place, but it would have made a better-written and more compelling storyline then what we got.