94.
Dolph Ziggler & John Cena vs. Kane & King Barrett
Beast in the East 2015
It’s fitting that this match takes place in Japan, as I haven’t felt a sense of existential dread watching an overly long piece of supposed entertainment since I watched Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbour.
Yes, long before venturing to Australia and Saudi Arabia in recent years, the early days of the WWE Network saw the company experimenting with converting house shows into live events. With the Network still relatively new, they hadn’t quite worked out the quirks of these events. Beast In The East was nothing more than a house show that was promoted to a live event at fairly short notice - similar to Elimination Chamber 2015. What we have is the most house show match that ever existed to close out the show. But not only is it a house show match, but it is long. Very long. At 23 minutes it is easily the longest match on the card, and make no mistake you feel every second of it. While the other matches on the Beast in the East card felt like fairly big affairs that could have easily aired on a regular TV show or PPV, this was wrestled exactly like a house show match. Safe, boring, exaggerated expressions. One of my main gripes about this match is how distracting and corny the babyface mannerisms are on the apron all the time in this match. It's even worse considering Ziggler and Cena are both prone to being corny over-actors at the best of times. I think it reinforces how unsuitable for standard television this style is. There’s a reason that house show matches stay as house show matches.
The lineup of this match is tragic. Wade Barrett is the latest in a long line of guys that get given a king gimmick following a King of the Ring victory, complete with the stupid recycled costume. He’s also feuding with R-Truth at this time. Kane is the Director of Operations for the Authority, and his ring gear is at its absolute worst. Plain black dress trousers, with a bad haircut. He’s currently in a sort-of feud with Seth Rollins. Meanwhile Ziggler, fresh off being depushed after a promising close to 2014, is in the middle of his summer romance with Lana - arguably the worst romance put to television since Anakin and Padme. He’s in a feud with Rusev which derailed both men's careers. Meanwhile John Cena is actually having one of the most lauded years of his career as the United States Champion and having fun matches every week. He’s currently feuding with Kevin Owens.
So we have four guys in a thrown together tag match and none of them are feuding with one another.
And I think John Cena sums up my frustrations with this match because it feels like a waste. The show is named after Brock Lesnar, so why not put him in the main event? Or what about the NXT Championship match between Kevin Owens and Finn Balor? Those two were special matches in their own way. If Cena needs to main event, why not make it an open challenge match to make it slightly interesting?
The match is so long and tedious that any commentary on it feels redundant. There’s a face in peril section featuring Cena which goes on for eternity. Cena, in what would become a running theme for 2015, would hit an AA in the middle of the match to zero consequence. Ziggler gets a hot tag, injects a bit of energy into the match, before we get a second excruciating face in peril section. Seriously, why does this match need two face-in-peril sections? Barrett and Kane are hardly the Midnight Express and they can’t keep a match like this interesting. Not only this, but they also lack credibility in comparison to Cena. This match would also be why I would not say Ziggler is a great seller. He’s fantastic at bumping, but for prolonged selling he kind of sucks. It’s why he’s never been a very good babyface wrestler.
I think if this match were anywhere else on the card and a bit shorter, I’d just consider it a shit tag match. But the fact they made this a main event match with zero stakes, no build, and made it about twice as long as it needed to be, makes this an easy pick for this list.
Up next - we’re sticking with a Japanese theme as we venture into the dark, miserable world of mid 2000s Smackdown.
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