In the annals of wrestling history, we all remember the great times. Where we were when Shawn Michaels was retired by the Undertaker. That electric feeling of watching Stone Cold and The Rock face off. The buzz of CM Punk’s entrance in Chicago. The euphoria of watching Hulk Hogan slam Andre the Giant. Wrestling at its best is truly the greatest form of entertainment ever created.
While one of my passions is celebrating great wrestling, people who have gotten to know me over the last 15 years on Wrestlingclique will know that one of my true joys is the other end of the wrestling spectrum. I get a sort of ironic enjoyment looking at when things go tragically wrong. Even when I initially watch something and hate it, I often find myself looking back years later and laughing. Similar to bad horror films, there’s something I find fascinating about it. There’s infinite reasons why a wrestling match would fail. Maybe it’s the fault of the booking. Maybe the wrestlers have little chemistry. Perhaps they have an off night. For whatever reason, wrestling is littered with terrible wrestling across its history. This series is my tribute to those miserable matches that have over the years made us collectively scratch our head or cringe. Join me as I count down my list of the worst 100 WWE Matches Ever.
Over the past few years I’ve done several top 100 lists. From the Greatest WCW Matches in history, to a countdown of the 100 Greatest WWE Matches for two separate decades. All my completed projects can be found in my shared Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dE3-uubhDeDLdI8OCi_4cE4AKdHNBlH_
When I did my previous top 100 lists they were pretty straightforward in terms of criteria. I have followed the same rules here, but did encounter some problems. Any match that isn’t featured on a televised or Network event is not eligible, so this rules out most house shows with the exception of those that were turned into those aforementioned Network events.
What makes this list problematic, however, is that my previous lists featured matches before a certain life changing global pandemic. Not only did the virus shut down the entirety of the world for over a year, but Covid also caused a lot of issues with regards to this process. Firstly, how do you fairly compare matches from 2020 when they are so drastically different to the rest of the eligible matches? Matches without crowds suck (trust me, you’ll see that on this list), but this wasn’t done by design during Covid. I tried to be as fair as possible to the talent involved, and did sympathise with them during a time when every aspect of playing to a crowd was suddenly removed. But there are some examples of Covid/Thunderdome era matches that are so bad that I couldn’t ignore them.
Beyond that, certain matches in 2020 gave me a sort of philosophical experience: what is a wrestling match anyway? The rise in high profile cinematic matches in WWE in 2020 caused me to evaluate what would constitute a match and what is a segment. For that reason, I thought the fairest method would be to say that any match that is eligible for this list must have a clear beginning and endpoint. This means that certain cinematic matches do fall out of eligibility, however these will all be referenced in the Honourable Mentions post if I deem them bad enough. If you consider these to be matches, then I’ll put where I would have put them in if I allowed them.
To help understand the process and how I go about ranking, it is worth looking at what it is I look for in a bad match. The most important factors for me were (but not limited to):
- Quality - or lack thereof. It’s redundant to say, but a bad match is a bad match. Whether that’s by boredom, botches or any other criteria that makes a match terrible. Almost every match on this list will fail this category in some way.
- Context - if you have a bad match in the main event of Wrestlemania after a 6 month build, that is far more offensive than a bad match on an episode of Heat that even the people in the building will have forgotten by the end of the show.
- Expectations - if I watch Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels and it sucks, I’m going to judge it harsher because I know that those two can and have produced incredible matches. If I watch The Great Khali vs Hornswoggle, I’m going to go slightly easier on it because there isn’t a great deal of scope for it to be successful.
- Booking - sometimes WWE make such outrageously stupid decisions that they end up on the list. Let’s face it, all wrestling companies make bad choices, and WWE was run by a madman for decades so it’s inevitable that some stupid booking kicks in.
Certain matches, which I’ll reference through the process, gave me real headaches because they might only fit one of those factors above, but they might be so bad in that regard that it soars up the list. This isn’t a foolproof scientific process, and certain matches make the list purely on the weight of one of those factors. Ordering these lists is a time consuming process, but ultimately it comes down to gut feeling and vibes more than anything.
Above all else, I just want to say that bad wrestling is something that I really enjoy in the same way I enjoy bad horror films. I love when stuff goes wrong, and I love when booking misses the mark. No post here is intended to be a personal attack against the performers, they’re all ridiculously talented people with far more athleticism than I’ll ever have. I’ll also inevitably include matches that you may enjoy unironically and maybe even some extremely highly regarded matches. Again, that’s all power to you, and I hope you still enjoy reading these and I'll try to get a match posted at least once a week.
The List
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