The Authority was an incredibly dominant faction during their run from 2013 - 2016, with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon pulling the strings and various different wrestlers working for them as their underlings. The group was often in the main event scene and got a lot of screentime and plenty of opportunities when it came to storylines.
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However, while WWE clearly invested a lot of time and effort creatively into The Authority, that doesn't mean everything about the faction was booked perfectly. There were certain elements about their storylines or the people within them that simply did not make sense, which left audiences puzzled at times.
10 Sting vs. Triple H
Sting joining WWE was a huge deal and originally, he was brought in seemingly to take down The Authority. He was pushed in that manner and that was the storyline that the company pushed. However, throughout their build to WrestleMania, the entire angle changed.
Things went from a storyline about The Authority to one final WCW vs. WWE angle, which was pushed to the point of D-Generation X and the nWo appearing. It didn't make sense that WWE would completely shift the angle on this, especially when Sting's debut was to damage The Authority in the first place.
9 Bringing In Seth Rollins
Seth Rollins joining The Authority was great in the end and it was absolutely the right call. However, from a character perspective, this didn't make any sense. The Authority was created to have complete power and Randy Orton was seen as the guy to make that happen.
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However, bringing Rollins in was always going to create obvious tension between them. This is one situation that didn't make sense from a creative point of view, as someone would never think that would be a good call in reality.
8 J & J Security
On television, J & J Security were an amazing part of the group and it worked well because other wrestlers could dominate them. In reality, it makes no sense at all that Triple H and Stephanie McMahon would have hired two wrestlers as small as them to be the security.
With the entire wrestling world at their control, if they wanted it, things would have made more sense if The Authority had brought in two bigger, stronger wrestlers to play this security role.
7 Kane Relinquishing His Mask
There were elements about the Corporate Kane character that worked, but overall it isn't seen as one of the great versions of the gimmick. A big reason for that is because it was never truly explained why he was giving up his mask and what the thought process was.
Kane just decided to give up his mask and commit to The Authority. While this was obviously something that led to him gaining a different type of power, it really didn't suit the Demon personality that he had become famous for.
6 Recruiting John Cena
The feud that The Authority had with John Cena was another that didn't really work from a basic storytelling perspective. It made sense that they would have wanted Cena to be part of the group, purely from his star power alone.
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However, when they set up the Survivor Series match, this is where things didn't make sense. Triple H put The Authority's entire control of Raw on the line simply to bring him in, which wasn't a smart idea from a creative point of view.
5 Not Getting Their Comeuppance
While John Cena's team was able to defeat The Authority on that show, the fact that they regained control meant that they never truly suffered any comeuppance. They were a dominant heel faction for several years, yet they never ended up being punished or defeated in the manner that they should have been.
Fans wanted to see this group taken down one by one and have a babyface end up on top because of it. However, that never took place and it did leave an empty feeling at the end of the run because nobody truly benefitted from it.
4 The League Of Nations
One element of The Authority that truly made sense at all was The League Of Nations. The group wasn't officially in the faction, but they worked alongside them and that was a strange situation because this stable never made any sense.
The four men involved had absolutely nothing in common outside of the fact none of them were American. They became one of the worst factions of all time and the group did more damage to The Authority than anything else.
3 End Of Power
One of the strangest situations about The Authority was the fact that the group disbanded after WrestleMania 32 as Shane McMahon gained control of Monday Night Raw. However, this didn't make any sense considering the fact that Shane failed to defeat The Undertaker at 'Mania that year.
The stipulation in that match was that if Shane lost he wouldn't gain that control, therefore it was a strange situation with WWE just completely going against what they had set up in the storyline. While Shane was very popular at that time with fans, it is a moment that didn't make sense.
2 A Vacant WWE Championship
At one point in time, Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan feuded over the WWE Championship when it was vacant. They had a match at Hell In A Cell where the title was vacant, but this situation didn't make sense as The Authority had the power to simply put the title on Orton.
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They had the backstage influence and power, yet they didn't use it. WWE had stripped Bryan of the title because of a fast count, yet they didn't fully commit to the situation and put the championship on Orton. Instead, they created yet another match.
1 Big Show Being Broke
Out of all the storylines that ran during the course of The Authority, the worst was when the group tried to blackmail Big Show. They wanted to use him and his power to take down the wrestlers who were going against them, which made sense.
However, their attempts to claim that Big Show was broke were completely ridiculous. It was impossible to believe that someone who had been in the wrestling industry as long as he has would be broke, especially when he was a top star in WWE at that time.
