Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialThe Ten Worst Matches I've Ever Seen

The Ten Worst Matches I’ve Ever Seen

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For every Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart, there is a Santino/Ricardo Rodriguez tuxedo match looming. Good and bad matches in WWE are like light and darkness. Pizza and cheese. Yin and Yang. Lindsey Lohan and DUI’s. There needs to be a balance. You can’t have great matches all the time, though Vince knows we could use some more of those. I have seen some bad matches in my day, so I will begin by listing the ten most egregious. Here are some of the honorable, or dishonorable in this case, mentions that were also dreadful, but just missed the cut of downright dubious. Oh, and I know some of you may be expecting some WCW material, but I’m afraid I have some bad news. I didn’t have the nerve to bother including WCW because their were far too many stupid moments in this promotion for me to count. The fingerpoke of death, David Arquette winning the belt, Bash at the Beach 2000, I could go on. You guys know what was horrible.

And the (dis)honorable mentions go to:

Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan – WrestleMania 28: Yes, an 18 second match qualifies as a match. Especially considering there was a world title change. This was just damn insulting. Considering what they did at Extreme Rules later that year, the fact that they did this was absolutely disgusting. WWE thought that Randy Orton and Kane needed more time. Because we just need more Kane. 

The Great Khali vs. Kane – WrestleMania 23: I could need a whole other article to make a list of The Great Khali’s worst matches. But he isn’t worth it. And asking him to produce anything resembling a good match with Kane is like asking John Cena to put over Erick Rowan in a match. Cleanly. This was a mess. How did The Great Khali defeat The Undertaker and John Cena cleanly?

The Undertaker vs. Kane – Judgement Day 1998: Horrible match, unsatisfying ending, and the only reason why this match is worth watching is to see a fan throw something at Vince.

The Undertaker vs. The Dudley Boyz – The Great American Bash 2004 (Concrete Crypt Match) : The feud stank, the match sucked, and the whole Paul Bearer gets submerged, is supposedly killed, but is not, and is rushed to a hospital thing was not working for me. At all.

John Cena vs. The Miz – Over The Limit 2011 (I Quit Match) : No Selling 101. This was a handicap match between Cena and Miz with Alex Riley throughout the whole match. They beat him senseless to a pulp, Cena made fun of Miz every time he was asked a question, they do a piss poor, contrived, unoriginal false finish of having a pre-recording of Cena say “I quit”, the referees discover the microphone, Cena gets right back up like a spring chicken, like he didn’t just take an extended 10 minute beating, and makes Miz say the magic words.

Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez – WrestleMania IX: Not only did Giant Gonzalez look like a 7’6 Marvel character, this match went on for far too long. Lest we forget Taker’s streak was still alive on a technicality via a disqualification ending in this match. Brutal.

Bray Wyatt vs. Kane – Summerslam 2013 : This was just an overbooked mess. People were salivating at when would Bray would make his debut. This was not the way to go about it. Not to mention they nilled this as a “ring of fire” match and we ended up having a finish involving fire extinguishers. Need i say more?

Randy Orton vs. Big Show – Survivor Series 2013 : And the Slammy for most underwhelming main event of 2013 goes to this match. I mean the fact that The Big Show of all people got a singles match for the WWE Championship in 2013 is simply baffling. Coupled by the fact that these two simply stank up the joint made it all the more worst. It was slow, plodding, predictable, and this match just needed interference. We just needed to make Big Show look strong, right?

Trust me, I could put much more under the dishonorable mentions, but I don’t want to cloud my memories too much of bad matches. So let’s just get straight to the main event.

10. John Cena vs. Michael Cole 

 – This actually happened. Yes, this was the match where you had John Cena, in all his manliness and toughness, challenge a play by play color commentator to a match. Not only did were we treated to Michael Cole’s, ahem, underwhelming physique, but we had bad comedy, 10 minutes of it at that, and of course we couldn’t have this match complete without another fat guy coming in to interfere. And what Cena/Cole match would be deemed perfect without BBQ sauce? The main event of Monday Night RAW. But don’t worry folks, I have a feeling we may see these two on this list again.

9. The Undertaker vs. Hulk Hogan – Judgement Day 2002

Sure, this match only got 11 minutes as the main event, but I couldn’t help but feel they needed five more minutes chopped off this debacle. It was actually sad to see how much Hogan deteriorated since his heyday. Slow punch after slow punch, and only his flexing and ripping of his shirt got the crowd involved. They certainly tried, but they failed. Then you consider that you had a match of the year candidate in Edge and Kurt Angle (the last time we saw him with a head of hair), and Jericho/HHH inside Hell In A Cell that preceded this match. Oh, and if you want to see the worst chokeslam in WWE history, look no further.  

8. John Cena vs. John Lauranitis – Over The Limit 2012

– This PPV had a technical wrestling classic between CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, followed by a fatal four way between Sheamus, Randy Orton, Alberto Del Rio and Chris Jericho. But neither of those matches were the main event of that show. So the main event must have been one hell of a slobbernocker, right? Dead wrong. I mean, seriously. This match got more time than the World Heavyweight Title match. A whole 17 minutes! There’s matches meant for comedy, and then there are matches that are meant to be insulting to our intelligence. You had to believe this was just for the kids. You had Cena make time for an announcer’s table impersonation, Big Johnny escaping the match, being caught by none other than the Big Show, cause his fat ass needs to get involved, and he costs Cena the match. And you know what bothered me the most? Cena had the unmitigated temerity to blame Big Show why he lost. Like he didn’t already have Big Johnny right where he wanted him and could have saved the childish antics for after the match. Insulting, disgusting, awful.

7. Gerald Brisco vs. Pat Patterson – King of The Ring 2000 (Hardcore Match)

Would someone like to explain to me what the hell was this bullcrap? WWE actually had the gumption to make a video package before this “match” started? You have two grown men dressed like women, and you expect people are going to laugh and buy into it? Vince couldn’t send Crash Holly out there quick enough to save this atrocity. I mean, was Vince turned on by this? When Vince rang in the Attitude Era by saying that he is sick of seeing the fans’ intelligence insulted, did he think this was going to help matters. You can’t appreciate how horrible this was until you’ve actually seen it. You’ve been warned.

6. Royal Rumble 2015 Match

Easily, the worst Rumble match of all time. At least 1999’s Royal Rumble had some appeal in the train wreck that it was. This was just flat out boring, not to mention that the ending was predictable and the star power of people who returned was rather low. Bubba Ray Dudley returning was a huge mark out moment from me, but The Boogeyman? Ya can’t do any better? From beginning to end, this was flat out boring. Not to mention that the people the crowd cared about, from Ziggler to Bryan to Ambrose, were all unceremoniously thrown out. And Kane and Big Show somehow became two of the final three of the Royal Rumble. The fact that WWE are pushing these two guys like they are still relevant are beyond me. Roman winning wasn’t an issue for me. There was just no drama and WWE didn’t give us the slightest tease of some credible action. We didn’t even get a damn Ambrose/Reigns face off. Screw this.

5. Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg – WrestleMania XX

I mean, need I say more? Lesnar was on his way out to play for Minnesota’s NFL team, and Goldberg was straight up done. The issue with this was that this was once considered a dream match. You had everybody harping about Lesnar’s individual accolades and his great athleticism and then you had Goldberg’s undefeated streak in WCW. This could have been something. This could have been a match that tore the house down. But these two did not care. It was like they gave a huge middle finger to anyone who actually gave a damn about this match. You could see it on their faces. They literally couldn’t care less. No story was told, and there was lots of stalling, more stalling, and more stalling. Did I mention that there was more stalling? You could finish an entire Papa John’s pizza with the amount of time they were in the collar and elbow lock position. Lord knows what might have happened had Austin not been there to salvage this mess. 

4. Triple H vs. Scott Steiner – Royal Rumble 2003

Take it away, Paul Heyman! Say something stupid, why don’t you? SUPLEX, REPEAT! This match was all over the place. You’d have to figure that Big Poppa Pump would have asked for a greater start to his WWE run, and you can see why it was kept mercifully short. Triple H desperately tried to put over Steiner in this match. The crowd rapidly lost patience as each dreadful minute went by. Never before have I seen a wrestler of Triple H’s caliber try so hard to get a man who is so out of it. This was approaching Ultimate Warrior/Hogan after half an hour bad. Overhead suplex after overhead suplex. You can tell the crowd caught on to how little Steiner had to offer them. Triple H running away from Steiner in this match couldn’t salvage this either. I mean poor Scott was physically gassed at about the halfway point. Not to mention there was botched spots right in the middle of the ring for all to see. Everything was being booed out of spite, and somehow they managed to go over 18 minutes. They should have had Triple H low blow Steiner within five minutes instead of wasting everyone’s time with complete nothing-ness. Hell, Steiner couldn’t even do some push ups right. And then you consider one of the greatest matches of all time, Angle/Benoit was on this same show. Remember when I said you couldn’t have great matches without bad ones? Watch at your own risk. HOLLER IF YOU HEAR ME!

3. John Cena vs. The Miz – WrestleMania 27

When you think of the greatest WrestleMania moments of all time, this probably won’t be in your memory. First of all, a choir sining John Cena’s entrance music to the entrance ramp? Come on now. I’ve heard of bands singing your theme song, but a choir? Who does he think he is? Now digest this for a minute. On a PPV that has Triple H vs. The Undertaker in a No Holds Barred Match, would you expect this match to be the main event? Of course you did. Getting into the actual match, it sucked. Hard. And the reason why it was so high up is because of it’s underwhelming nature. When one Wrestlemania main event is used to advertise the main event for next year’s WrestleMania, something’s wrong. Mania is usually the culmination of certain feuds, but this match was used to be just the start of the year-long build-up between The Rock and John Cena, thereby making The Miz’s presence merely a distraction and as an uninteresting third banana. Oh, did I mention the brilliant bookers decided to have the original finish of this match a double count out? You wanna have this match at Night of Champions? Fine. WrestleMania? Get out of here. The Miz makes so much about defeating John Cena in the main event of WrestleMania. But who cares when the match was as awful and unmemorable as this? And take a gander at where The Miz is now in his career. Says it all, doesn’t it?

2. The Undertaker vs. Big Boss Man – WrestleMania 15 (Hell In A Cell)

This was just…wrong. First off, a Hell In A cell match that’s less than ten minutes seems like a waste of the structure. The match was freaking ridiculous, The Ministry/Corporation feud leading up to this was awful, but we all know why this match is up here. The crowd witnessed a lynching, even if there wasn’t a harness. There’s torturing your opponent, but then you do something that is completely in bad taste. Giving the audience the visual of a man hanging from the rope in the middle of Hell In A Cell. You have to figure what the monkeys behind the typewriters were thinking when they decided to do this. And you have to figure that people may have thought The Big BossMan may have actually died at that incident. Michael Cole posed the question “Is this symbolic?” It was symbolic of what a horrible booking decision looks like.

1. Owen Hart vs. Bret Hart – WrestleMania 10

These two absolutely tore the house down and gave HBK/Razor Ramon a run for their money for what was the best match on the card. And considering Bret won the WWE Title later that night and…..wait a minute. What’s that you say? This is a list of the WORST matches I’ve seen? Whoops. Had a little brain fart there.

1. Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole – WrestleMania 27 and Over The Limit 2011

Why? Why did this have to happen? I don’t even remember why these two feuded, but I saw both matches, and quite frankly, I don’t want to know why. This one thing I do know. These two should never face off in a wrestling capacity. Ever. And what’s more mind boggling is that WWE felt the need to span this feud for three straight PPV’s. I’ve heard of dumb booking, but this was insulting. WrestleMania 27 is arguably the worst WrestleMania of all time, and this match precisely summed up why. Note to WWE: Never, ever, EVER, have Michael Cole wrestle. EVER. 

Welp, that does it for my trauma-filled memories of the worst matches I’ve seen. I’ll be taking requests for any more lists you guys want. I’m open to anything. Thanks for the support guys, you’re awesome. Until next time.

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