10 Most Controversial WWE Ruthless Aggression Storylines

The Attitude Era is often looked at as being the most controversial time in WWE history, where the envelope was not just pushed but set on fire and soaked in beer and urine, as the company embraced crash TV in a bid for ratings supremacy.

It worked like gangbusters but, ultimately, ran its course, as the times and WWE’s audience changed.

Still, it took WWE a while to properly shake their controversy-courting habits, and the Ruthless Aggression era – especially in the beginning – is full of contentious characters, moments, matches and storylines.

The Attitude Era may have been in the rearview, but Vince McMahon and co. were still peddling a product that frequently bordered on the insensitive, offensive and downright nasty.

It may have been a time for transition, but WWE still knew (or thought they knew) what would pique viewers’ curiosity and get people talking, whether the reaction was positive or negative. Storylines centred around sex, violence, race and a host of other hot-button topics were fairly common and are very rarely remembered fondly today.

These are the 10 Most Controversial WWE Ruthless Aggression Storylines.

10. JBL At The Border

Injuries to Big Show and Kurt Angle and the departure of Brock Lesnar meant that WWE Champion Eddie Guerrero didn’t have any top-line heels to work with following WrestleMania 20. So WWE decided to create a new one, disbanding the APA and transforming Bradshaw into JBL.

The Texan needed heat and needed it quickly, so he and WWE went the cheap route, just a couple of weeks into the character’s life. On the April 8, 2004 episode of SmackDown, JBL was shown at the ‘Mexican border’, chasing off supposedly illegal immigrants who were trying to cross over.

Now, it wasn’t actually the US/Mexico border, but rather a ranch that belonged to Bradshaw’s family friend, but the segment was still shocking. JBL continued to rail against Mexican people in his promos after, too, in a bid to goad Latino Heat.

An unapologetic heel who was willing to try anything possible to draw interest and make sure the character worked, JBL continued to up the ante and court controversy in the weeks that followed, goose-stepping at a German live event and causing Eddie’s mother to have a ‘heart attack’ at an El Paso house show.

You can’t say these stunts and storylines didn’t work because JBL soon became a long-reigning WWE Champion, but they certainly weren’t in good taste.

9. Batista & Melina

When you’re trying to establish your next big star babyface of the company, it’s probably not advisable to write them into a storyline where they are accused of sexual harassment.

That’s the fate that befell Batista in late 2005, when he was put into a short-term feud with MNM, who were defending their WWE Tag Team Titles against The Animal and Rey Mysterio.

In an attempt to dissuade Big Dave from destroying her team, Melina seduced and then, supposedly, slept with the World Heavyweight Champion.

Far from being dissuaded, Batista thanked Melina for the ‘warm-up’ and pledged to destroy Mercury and Nitro later (which he did). Things took a turn when Melina held a press conference after the fact, claiming that Batista had actually harassed her, which forced a similar press conference from him, professing his innocence.

It was all very icky, especially when Melina and Batista were being spoken of as a couple behind the scenes, despite the fact that she was publicly in a relationship with Nitro.

In the end, the storyline was all a setup for Batista’s feud with Mark Henry, who was enlisted as Melina’s personal protection.

To make matters worse, that feud never actually ended up happening, because Batista got injured before they could make it to the ring.

8. Not His Fault

The relationship between Kane and Lita in 2004 was far from your classic love story. Boy meets girl. Girl is terrified of boy. Boy kidnaps girl and ties her up backstage. Boy impregnates girl against her will. Boy destroys boyfriend of girl. Girl is forced to marry boy. Girl has miscarriage on live TV.

Honestly, so many aspects of the Lita/Kane/Matt Hardy/Edge affair were controversial for different reasons, but it was the flame-haired daredevil losing her unborn child on an episode of Raw that really upset people.

With good reason too, since that is the sort of real-life tragedy that many have experience with and probably don’t want to be reminded of when they are tuning in to a wrestling show.

WWE should have known better as well, having previously attracted condemnation for a similar storyline with Terri Runnels several years earlier (during the Vince Russo Attitude Era peak).

The saga didn’t do anybody (besides Gene Snitsky) any favours and just felt like WWE trying to be edgy for the sake of it.

7. Tim White's Lunchtime Suicides

When Tim White injured his shoulder inside the Hell in a Cell at Judgment Day 2002, forcing him to retire from active duty, WWE decided to make the best out of a bad situation.

And by ‘best’, we of course mean introducing him as an on-screen character over three years later in a series of pointless, reprehensible skits.

White resurfaced at Armageddon 2005, being interviewed by Josh Matthews at his bar, The Friendly Tap, which, incidentally, was the one the APA would always destroy in their televised barroom brawls.

Timmy was portrayed as a bitter alcoholic who blamed the Hell in a Cell for ruining his life. He then took a shotgun out and (off-camera) supposedly shot himself to death.

Not only did some think making a wrestling angle out of suicide to be in poor taste, but this was coming a little over one month after the tragic death of the beloved Eddie Guerrero, who was very much in the hearts and minds of fans at the time.

WWE revealed a few weeks later that White had actually shot himself in the foot, but then proceeded to air several other, similar scenes, like the worst version of Harold and Maude you’ve ever seen.

The ‘Lunchtime Suicides’ became a weekly WWE.com feature, ending when the former official blasted Matthews away.

6. Muhammad Hassan on 7/7

Sometimes, timing is everything.

Careers have been made thanks to a superstar being in the right place at the right time. Conversely, bad timing can be a career-ender, something you need only ask the man who portrayed the villainous Muhammad Hassan.

Hassan enjoyed a meteoric rise up the ranks, working with everyone from Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin to Hulk Hogan and The Undertaker in his short, whirlwind career.

Regrettably, just months into his tenure, Hassan was written out of storylines at the behest of UPN network executives because of an angle that took place on SmackDown. In it, Hassan’s masked henchmen attacked The Undertaker and attempted to garrotte him with piano wire.

It would have been controversial anyway, but it happened to air on the same day of the 7/7 London bombings, a terror attack that shocked the world. The angle was edited out of the European version of the show and came with a warning for US viewers.

WWE went ahead with the storyline, without Hassan appearing on television, but sent the character to his end at the Great American Bash pay-per-view.

Once pegged as a future world champion, the controversy brought a premature end to Marc Copani’s time in the business.

5. Shagged To Death

Late 2002 SmackDown is thought by many to be a golden age for the brand, due to the prevalence of the so-called SmackDown Six, as well as the pushes of young up-and-comers like John Cena and Brock Lesnar, supposedly masterminded by head writer Paul Heyman.

Next to the sports entertainment silliness of Raw, SmackDown was seen as the proper ‘wrestling’ show.

Well, most of the time, anyway. Because around the same time that all that good stuff was happening, one of the main storylines on the show was the affair between and subsequent marriage of Dawn Marie and Torrie Wilson’s father Al.

The former ECW manager became engaged to the naive Al, who looked like he didn’t even know what day of the week it was, then tried to bribe Torrie Wilson by saying she would break it off if Torrie came to her hotel one night for a little bit of “hot lesbian action.”

Torrie did, as seen at Armageddon 2002, but the engagement remained on, and Dawn and Al eventually married in a barmy televised ceremony.

Sadly, Al and Dawn’s marriage came to a premature end, as the old man passed away from a heart attack during the honeymoon, having been, quite literally, shagged to death.

4. The Death Of Vince McMahon

One of the least preferred deaths is probably a limousine explosion. That’s what happened to Vine McMahon at the climax of the June 11, 2007 episode of Raw.

After cutting a bizarre in-ring speech and walking past his entire roster backstage, Vince’s ride went kaboom when he closed the door, ending the broadcast on a soap opera-worthy cliffhanger.

Now, obviously Vince himself didn’t really kick the bucket on live TV, but some in the media speculated that the stunt could land the CEO and WWE in hot water, particularly where stockholders were concerned.

This came to light after WWE ran a story on their website where they speculated that McMahon was ‘presumed dead’ following the explosion. Let’s not forget his poor, confused pal Donald Trump, who actually believed his fellow billionaire had perished.

In the end, real-life tragedy necessitated the end of the ‘whodunit?’ storyline, with it being revealed later that Vince had faked the whole thing in order to see what people really thought of him.

3. 'People Like You'

Booker T may have been a five-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, but it took him a while to snatch the main prize in WWE.

He finally accomplished it in the Summer of 2006, but had a few near misses in the years prior.

His most high-profile world title pursuit came at WrestleMania 19, where he faced Triple H –  who was at that time bang in the middle of his infamous ‘reign of terror’.

To generate heat for the ‘Mania showdown, WWE took things in a very murky direction, emphasising Booker’s previous criminal conviction while having The Game stress that people ‘like him’ (as in Booker) weren’t championship material.

According to Hunter, Booker T, with his ‘nappy hair’ was there to dance and entertain people like himself. Later on, he ordered Booker to fetch him a towel after he had used the restroom.

While the Cerebral Assassin denied that any part of the feud was deliberately racist, the implications were there for all to see, and it made for deeply uncomfortable viewing.

Still, the heroic babyface was going to vanquish the despicable heel at the biggest show of the year, shutting him up and proving him wrong once and for all…Nope, Pedigree, 1-2-3, clean in the middle!

2. Kurt Angle & Sharmell

It’s pretty hard to mess up someone like Kurt Angle.

The man is a freak athlete and an Olympic gold medallist with charisma and intensity dripping out of his every pore. Angle was a team player and also incredibly versatile, effortlessly switching from serious to comedy and able to make just about anything work.

The key phrase here is ‘just about’, because try as Kurt might, he couldn’t do anything good with the creative plans he was given during his 2005 feud with Booker T and Sharmell.

Angle became obsessed with Booker’s manager and wife, stalking and sexually harassing her in some very icky backstage segments.

He also cut some truly outrageous promos outlining his obsession and intention to have perverted ‘bestiality’ sex with Sharmell.

I’m not sure the WWE creative folks actually bothered to look up the meaning of that word before scripting this rubbish, but the former WWE Champion sure as hell said it anyway.

Angle has said in years since that this is the one storyline that he regrets doing, feeling like it did nothing for his character or career and just made him uneasy, given his high respect for Booker and Sharmell.

Why WWE felt the need to saddle two world-class performers with this type of nonsense, we’ll never know, but it certainly pushed people’s buttons and got them talking, for better or worse.

Definitely for worse.

1. Katie Vick

Though some performers may have had the misfortune of being associated with one or two dodgy storylines, poor old Kane career seemed to be plagued by them.

The worst of them all, however, was the ‘Katie Vick’ debacle. Katie Vick was the name of The Big Red Machine’s high school sweetheart and, well, after having one too many and getting behind the wheel one night, Kane apparently ended up crashing the car and killing her.

This was all revealed by Triple H, who upped the ante a week later by dressing up in a Kane mask and pretending to have intercourse with a dummy in a casket, the punchline (if you want to call it that) being him literally screwing her brains out.

Don’t worry, though, because Kane’s tag partner The Hurricane got him back, showing the world a film of someone in a Triple H mask receiving an enema and getting a sledgehammer (among many other things) removed from their rectum.

It sounds bad, but it was genuinely way, way worse, making Harold and Kumar Get the Munchies look like The Shawshank Redemption in comparison.

Oh, and Triple H won the feud relatively easily in the end. Obviously.