The purpose of any feud should be first to enthrall an audience and second, to raise the status of both competitors. The winner should get a boost, while the loser should have a powerful story told in the defeat so that he or she doesn’t look too bad and everyone wonders what await him/her.

These feuds didn’t do any of that. Whether it was through a bad follow up or a course of events that was badly told to the point that we awaited relief, these feuds gave nothing to anyone.

#10 Alexa Bliss vs. Nia Jax

This actually didn’t start out too badly. Alexa Bliss did some good work in manipulating Nia Jax so that she could avoid threats like Asuka. Her backstage “hot mic” segment with Mickie James, which revealed her true feelings about her “best friend,” was a hit.

However, I knew that lurking behind this story was two performers with notable limitations, ones which would show themselves before the feud was over. Show themselves they did.

The first match at WrestleMania 34 wasn’t quite the train wreck I expected, but things would go downhill from there once Jax won the championship. Her limitations soon came to the surface. The second match at Backlash was a dud, which was followed up with one of the worst promos in history.

WWE then decided to make that promo meaningless by turning Jax into a bully all the while Bliss accused her of being one week after week. The heel would ultimately go on to be proven right at Money in the Bank. We got one final match at Extreme Rules (thanks to the now mercifully killed rematch clause), and it was a dud, too, the initial heat that built this feud long forgotten by then. Jax ends 2018 in, at best, the same spot that she was in at the start, so this feud turned out to be pointless.

#9 Braun Strowman vs. The Bar

Braun Strowman didn’t get the Universal Championship match many people thought that he should get, but he did get a title shot at WrestleMania - against The Bar and their Raw Tag Team Championships.

After he won the battle royal to determine the contender on Raw, WWE had a mystery angle on their hands. How would this battle go? Some people were amused by the thought of Braun Strowman simply winning the titles by himself and defending them in handicap matches, something which the man himself hinted at on Twitter.

Then Kurt Angle demanded he find a partner. We wondered whether it would be a surprise return or an unusual alliance. For weeks, the mystery was kept in place.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a fourth grader. The titles were relinquished the next night, rendering the whole thing pointless.

#8 Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn

This angle started hot in the fall of 2017, but by January, it had descended into endless, repeat, and ultimately meaningless segments that consumed SmackDown and overshadowed the other angles on the show. The blue brand was in a bad state at the start of the year, and the omnipresence of Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, and Shane McMahon was one of the primary reasons why.

Week after week for months, this story continued, without a clear structure or a discernible destination. It felt like the writers just wanted to get through each episode of SmackDown and move on to the next one.

The feud was saved from being much worse by the last-minute and shocking return of Daniel Bryan, who would go on to give it a mercy killing at WrestleMania 34. If not for him, it probably would have ended on a note as bland as we were getting week after week.

#7 Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens

Months later, I still wonder what the point of this feud was. Braun Strowman bullied Kevin Owens mercilessly for months, to the point that people began to wonder why the former was supposed to be the babyface throughout all of this.

The feud also had the dubious distinction of giving us one of the worst segments of the year with Kevin Owens in the portable toilet. Hopefully, that kind of humor will be a thing of the past in this supposed “new era.”

It ended with a squash match at SummerSlam. Then, stunningly, Kevin Owens would go on to assist Braun Strowman in attacking the Shield, as if the preceding months never happened.

Kevin Owens is slated to return to the ring soon. Hopefully, his 2019 will be better than the past 12 months were for him. Braun Strowman too, for that matter.

#6 AOP vs. Chad Gable and Bobby Roode

The Authors of Pain (now AOP) had one of the biggest fall from grace this year. Bobby Roode isn’t too far behind them. He was randomly paired up with Chad Gable, because evidently there was nothing else to do with them. That this was the dominant tag team title feud in the last months of the year speaks to how far those titles have fallen.

Random wins were traded back and forth, guaranteeing heatless matches. To make matters worse, urination jokes were the story that this feud ultimately centered around, starring Drake Maverick, the manager of the champions. No one will forget Maverick, the toilet, and the robe. It was a microcosm of the state of Monday Night Raw this year.

Roode and Gable won the titles and the rematch clause is thankfully killed, so hopefully, it’s over now.

#5 The Brothers of Destruction vs. DX

Sad. That’s the only word that can be used to describe this feud. The Super Show-Down encounter between Undertaker and Triple H was among the year’s worst, but things weren’t over there. We were served up another legacy-destroying match at Crown Jewel. Michaels was still serviceable, but he sullied his retirement by coming out of it for this match. He seems to know that, too.

In the interceding weeks, we were served up with lame promos that felt like a “greatest hits” collection of a group of rock stars facing a mid-life crisis, their glory days long behind them. It was a microcosm of WWE resting on its laurels all these years, only now the point of diminishing returns has finally entered negative territory. The allure of the part-timer was killed in 2018. With promises of new matches, the higher-ups in the company might have realized it, too.

#4 Sasha Banks vs. Bayley

Both Sasha Banks and Bayley had a horrible 2017, but things looked on the up for them as the New Year came. Sasha Banks had a banger of a Royal Rumble performance, where it looked like she was finally finding her old “Boss” persona. Instantly, thoughts turned to a feud between her and Bayley, in a hope to relive their glory days in NXT.

That feud looked to be on as the weeks passed…and then it was off. Then it was on again. Then it was off again. It was as if the company couldn’t make up its mind. We even saw the return of Dr. Shelby to make sure Banks and Bayley stayed friends, or they would be forced to leave Raw.

What we really wanted to see was them going at each other’s throats.

It just never happened, though, and both women end 2018 in as bad a spot as they began it. The now-coming women’s tag team titles may give them hope, but one suspects that as long as one is trapped in the orbit of the other, they’ll never break free. Becky Lynch’s example must weigh heavily on them.

#3 Bobby Lashley vs. Sami Zayn

It seems amazing now, but Bobby Lashley’s return was eagerly anticipated at the beginning of the year. He had improved drastically in TNA. Fans wanted to see that version of Lashley take on Brock Lesnar.

What we wound up getting was Lashley talking about how much he loved his sisters. Sami Zayn used this in a truly ‘worst of all time’ worthy segment. We got a series of bad segments between them, culminating in a heatless match at Money in the Bank.

Being saddled with this feud did more than anything else to kill the momentum of Bobby Lashley’s return. It just wasn’t exciting to see him afterwards. Even a heel turn later in the year didn’t manage to do the trick.

The feud didn’t do anything to help Zayn, either. He’s been sidelined with an injury ever since, but his coming return doesn’t feel like anything to be too excited about.

#2 Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns

Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns needs to be considered one of the most bizarre feuds in WWE history. For an age, Roman Reigns had been built to slay the beast, but for some reason, the company refused to pull the trigger, time after time. So Roman Reigns was then built up again, and the trigger still wasn’t pulled, and the cycle continued. It was a nightmare seemingly without an end. The entire Monday Night Raw brand was a casualty, as the disappearance of its top title for over a year left the card directionless.

It didn’t help that all three encounters between Lesnar and Reigns this year were abysmal. Doing four moves in a loop doesn’t make for a good match.

The mercy killing (for now) finally came at SummerSlam, with Vince McMahon concocting a highly convoluted scheme to prevent a repeat of WrestleMania 34. Maybe it would have been better if he just got the message that people weren’t interested.

Hopefully, when Roman Reigns returns, he moves on to better things, though we can never be totally sure. Let’s hope this feud never comes back from the dead.

#1 Asuka vs. Carmella

After Asuka finally suffered her first WWE loss at WrestleMania, the follow up was crucial. That loss had to come at some point, but it didn’t need to be fatal for her career. She could have gone into the next phase of her career with a new purpose.

What she got instead was Carmella.

It was apparent long before it happened that putting the blue brand’s women’s title on Carmella would be a terrible mistake. Dull segments and an awful match with Charlotte at Backlash during her first month as champion confirmed this.

Asuka was next to feud with Carmella. James Ellsworth returned. Asuka looked like an idiot week after week, in segment after segment, culminating in the worst match of the year at Extreme Rules.

The worst feuds elevate no one and damage a performer’s career beyond repair. For Asuka, this appeared to be the case, until a Christmas miracle occurred and she got a new push that finally saw her capture the title that long bedeviled her. It was because she remained popular in spite of this feud, and because of her new push, that she ends the year on a high note.

Carmella, meanwhile, ends the year doing dance breaks with R-Truth, which is where she belonged all along. This feud did nothing to elevate her game, either. It was just a classic misallocation of resources that WWE so excels at.

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