WWE Paying The Price For Two Major Creative Mistakes

2025 was not a good year for WWE booking-wise. A lot of fans were disappointed with the repetitive storylines and lack of interesting plots and angles.

Ahead of WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event, which featured John Cena’s retirement match, ex-WWE star Stevie Richards sat down for a deep discussion on the Cafe de Rene with Rene Dupree podcast.

During the conversation, Richards highlighted two big creative mistakes Triple H made in 2025. The first one was Cena’s heel turn, and the second one was Gunther losing his title.

How WWE CCO Triple H Fumbled Big Time Creatively in 2025?

Richards stated that WWE should’ve kept Cena a heel throughout his farewell tour and let him retire with the title. A new champion then could’ve been crowned at Royal Rumble 2026.

There are two major creative problems, what happened? And they’re paying the price right now for it. Most notably, turning Cena a heel and not keeping him a heel. We’re not handling a turn right with that.

If you’re going to turn him heel, he’s going to win the title. keep the title and retire with the title, and maybe make a redemption arc in the last month or two, retire as champion, and have a tournament or the Rumble winner is the new WWE champion. Easy as that.

And I always believe the WWE title should be on the line in the Rumble and really make people pay attention to that. You have two different streams of angles that can come off going into the Rumble, and then whoever wins it, now the person they have to determine the number one contender at elimination chamber to fight a wrestle. You get a lot more carryover like that.

The second thing they should have never done is ever had Gunther lose. Ever had him lose. He should still be Intercontinental Champion (he meant World Heavyweight Champion) right now.

And if anything, title versus title, Cena, world champion, versus Gunther. Now we got not nostalgia, but the big fight feel that they try to replicate on a weekly basis. (From 1:05:35)