Top Five Wrestling Turkeys of 2025

Brian Damage

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers! For everybody else, Happy Thursday! As is the tradition here on the blog, we have our Top Five Wrestling Turkeys for the year. Basically, the very worst in pro wrestling this past year. What bombed, flopped or simply stunk in professional wrestling?

The Death Riders

There is nothing wrong with having factions in professional wrestling. A great faction can “spice things up” for a promotion. Unfortunately, the Death Riders hasn’t been that for AEW. The heel group was the focal point in most of the top storylines for All Elite Wrestling in 2025 and for the most part has fallen completely flat. It isn’t so much the personalities involved, they are skilled in the ring, but most lack charisma.

The Death Riders were seemingly shoved down fans throats despite not really getting over. Plus some of their tactics went overboard with suffocating people with plastic bags and trying to drown people in fish tanks. Violence is a part of pro wrestling, but many fans weren’t digging the level of violence used. I guess attempted murder isn’t as popular as they thought. No matter, the faction continues to be used prominently and Tony Khan’s stubbornness with this group hasn’t paid off.

TKO Ownership of WWE

Initially, the TKO purchase of WWE felt like a much needed breath of fresh air. Especially when Vince McMahon stepped down and Triple H was put solely in charge of creative. The promotion was at its hottest and new faces were getting opportunities with more focus on wrestling than sports entertainment.

The thing is, we are now seeing TKO’s fingerprints on the company. The amount of sponsorships that the company has is impressive, but at the same time very distracting. There are multiple sponsorships around the arenas and the actual ring has become more than a place for rivalries to be settled, but also a billboard. While it is great to see WWE make millions on sponsorships, as a fan, the never ending Slim Jim tables, the Prime energy drink displays and Snickers wrestling mats are overkill.

Add to that the insane number of streaming services and networks to watch WWE content is confusing. Raw is on Netflix, the PLEs are on ESPN, NXT PLEs are still on Peacock, Smackdown is on USA network and NXT is on the CW network. Enough is enough…but it doesn’t end with all of that. For some crazy reason, TKO wants to increase ticket prices to become unaffordable to most families. This move will eventually backfire big time for the company. Just like having Wrestlemania take place in Saudi Arabia, the WWE has gotten way too big for its own good.

John Cena Heel Turn

For years, WWE fans clamored for the ultimate hero John Cena to turn heel. There have been some teases, but under the Vince McMahon administration, the trigger was never pulled. That all changed when Triple H took over creative and Cena finally turned to the dark side with help from The Rock and Travis Scott of all people. The move was unexpected and surprising which is what you want from a successful heel turn.

At the time, some fans were saying that the Cena heel turn was up there with Hulk Hogan’s in WCW. Here you had the uber babyface finally becoming a heel. It had all the ingredients to be huge. For weeks and weeks after, John Cena promised to do things for himself and ruin professional wrestling. He won the WWE title for a 17th time at Wrestlemania in a very slow paced, sloppy main event with outside interference from Travis Scott. The Rock was absent for the rest of Cena’s heel run which quite frankly hurt it a great deal.

After a few months of Cena as a villain, he suddenly and inexplicably turned himself back to a babyface character. No Rock, no Travis Scott, no real reason as to why the change in attitudes. It seemed as if there was never a solid plan in place and Triple H was never ‘all in’ on the heel run. Definitely a disappointing point in the John Cena Farewell Tour.

The WWE ID Program

The concept seemed great. WWE would partner with various independent organizations to scout and get first dibs on many of the talented wrestlers on the independent scene. The company then signed a number of wrestlers to ID contracts. The ID program was a solid idea, but as the year wore on, the wheels started to fall off.

It began with an incident that went viral when the son of MMA star Rampage Jackson (Raja Jackson) assaulted an independent wrestler named Syko Stu. The assault happened at an ID affiliate run by former WWE star Rikishi. WWE was swift in dissolving their partnership with Rikishi’s group, but the issues didn’t stop there. ID women’s champion Kylie Rae became pregnant and had to forfeit her title. She was eventually released from the ID program.

Since then, a top ID wrestler and one of the very first wrestlers signed to the program Zayda Steel decided to drop out and not renew with WWE ID. That in turn started an avalanche of wrestlers under the ID program getting released. While nothing has been made official and the ID program seems like it still exists currently…it has been rumored that the idea is either being revamped or quietly scrapped. As of this writing, the ID program is still going, but really hasn’t produced anyone to the next level.

TNA Versus NXT

The TNA vs NXT war has been mostly entertaining to be quite honest with you. The exchanging of talent to both promotions has helped TNA especially considering they do not yet have a good television deal in place. Having TNA talent appear on NXT’s program has elevated the promotion a great deal. There was a ton of momentum for TNA going into their signature pay per view called ‘Bound for Glory.’ The end result saw TNA star Mike Santana defeat NXT wrestler Trick Williams for the TNA world title in front of a red hot crowd of over five thousand fans.

Then, seemingly inexplicably, TNA went on a hiatus for a month. Meaning no new shows for over four weeks. Instead, there were a series of ‘Best of’ shows in its place. Not exactly a good time to build on the Bound for Glory momentum. There were rumors that a reason for the hiatus was to solidify a new television deal, yet when TNA returned to action…that was not the case. As of this writing, (a week before Thanksgiving) there is still no much needed new TV deal.

Add to that, the newly crowned TNA world champ Mike Santana vowed on the first show back to be a fighting champion. That is until he lost the title that evening to Frankie Kazarian after outside interference from members of the NXT roster. Many of whom aren’t really big stars with the developmental brand and some more suited for the B show for NXT in Evolve. Granted, there is still time for all this to play out into a much better, clearer storyline, but for now, many fans have crapped on TNA for being NXT lapdogs. Not exactly what you want while searching for a brand new TV home.

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