There’s no question that 2014 has been a disappointing year for World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. WWE 1.79% and its shareholders. After first going public in 1999 at $17 per share, WWE stock has drifted mostly sideways for the next 14 years while the S&P 500 has gained more than 60 percent.

All that seemed to be changing in the early weeks of 2014, as WWE stock skyrocketed from under $10 per share in late 2013 to more than $31 per share by mid-March of this year.

Why All The Excitement?
Certainly investors were excited about the potential size of WWE’s imminent TV deal. However, the majority of the enthusiasm at the time was over the launch of the brand new WWE Network at the end of February.

Shortly after a disappointing TV deal was announced, the stock crashed to below $11 when the company revealed that it came up more than 300,000 subscribers short of its goal of one million network subscribers by WrestleMania weekend in early April.

“The problem with WWE is a fiscal one, it’s not creative/leadership one,” Rev. Emmanuel Lemelson told Benzinga’s #PreMarket Prep on November 18. “Vince McMahon cannot do this forever, and if you look at the next generation, it doesn’t look like they’re getting prepped to run the show.”

One Disappointment After Another
Ever since missing its first one million subscriber mark, WWE has been releasing a continuous stream of disappointing news about network subscription numbers.

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