Worst WWE Match Ever - 81 - Al Snow & Head vs. Too Much - King of the Ring 1998

 81.

Al Snow & Head vs Too Much

King of the Ring 1998

Jerry Lawler is your special guest referee for this match. In the words of JR, “he must went to the Vince McMahon refereeing academy”.

Long before they hit lightning in a bottle with the Too Cool gimmick, the team of Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor were a lower card heatless tag team. They are the opponents of the newly returned Al Snow, and his mannequin, Head. Thanks to the madness of Vince McMahon at Backlash 2006, this is only the second weirdest tag team partner in WWE history.

Growing up I never really warmed to Al Snow. Maybe it’s because at the time this match aired, I was just 7 years old and didn’t understand or get the “Head” reference. By the time I was old enough to know such things, it came at a point where Al had been on TV doing this for several years, and my indifference was then boredom. There’s no denying Al and Head were a popular act, and it wasn’t unwarranted as Al was a naturally very funny on-screen personality. In retrospect, Al Snow was very much a “you had to be there” gimmick, much like a lot of the Attitude Era.

Al Snow returned to the WWE in May 1998 trying to get a job. Several backstage skits would air each week where he and Head were trying to get into the building wearing various disguises. This would lead to the set up for this match where Snow stole King’s crown. In return, King put together this tag match and said if Al Snow and Head win, Al Snow gets a meeting with Vince McMahon to get himself a job. But it’s not all easy going for Al Snow, as Jerry Lawler is revealed at the pay-per-view to be the special guest referee. Lawler pretending to be shocked while pulling out a referee shirt from under the ring is pretty funny. 

One consequence of having Lawler in the match as opposed to commentary is you miss out on some Lawler commentating for Brian Christopher (Lawler’s real life son), which is always hilarious when they’re both heels. Instead, JR is commentating solo here. The match features a lot of evil referee antics, such as reprimanding Al Snow for pulling hair when he never touched it, or chastising Al for closed fists while turning a blind eye to Too Much. On the discord I touched on the greatness of Dude Love vs Steve Austin from Over the Edge 1998. Arguably the greatest overbooked match in WWE history, and the ultimate example of an evil heel referee match. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that just one month later they were running a second such match, and over the next year they would whore out this concept on an almost monthly basis. The match itself feels a lot longer than its 8 minute run time. I think the biggest problem, outside of the obvious nonsense of fighting a manikin head, is that Too Much are a heatless jobber team. Despite the popularity of Al Snow, the crowd dies a death when Too Much are on offence, and the special referee aspect allows the match to be dragged on far longer than it should be. Eventually Al Snow gets the hot tag to which JR gives a great line “Head is the legal man … what the hell am I saying!?”. 

The finish is, of course, infamous and one of the main reasons this match is so memorable. How do you pin just a head? Well you attach a bottle of Head and Shoulders to it. This allows Brian Christopher to pin head for the three count.  It’s one of the dumbest finishes in wrestling history, the absurdity of which is difficult to put into words. And I hate myself because I also think it’s kind of clever. The suspicion I have is that someone suggested this as a concept during a creative meeting and then they planned out the entire match after the fact. 

If nothing else, this match serves as a reminder of the incredible run of popularity that WWE would go through over the next couple of years. The three men in this match would not progress much higher up the card, but because everything WWE was touching turned to gold, they all became far more popular than their push warranted. 

Up Next - Our very first Wrestlemania main event. So I guess you can call this the best of the worst Wrestlemania main events. 

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

Worst WWE Match Ever - 82 - Andre the Giant vs. Jake "The Snake" Roberts - Wrestlemania V

 82.

Andre the Giant vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts

Wrestlemania V

This is one of the last matches where I don’t particularly have a lot to say. It feels like low hanging fruit to rag on a match featuring a man who suffered immense health problems later in his life and would unfortunately be a few years from passing. Jake has never been a renowned workrate guy, and while I’ve found myself to enjoy Andre’s prime a lot, unfortunately this is a far cry from that. If you told someone watching this match that Andre would be just four years from death, they’d probably say “yeah, sounds about right”. It’s hard to hold it against the performers, when it shouldn’t have gotten to this point. If you still want your Andre attraction match, don’t make it a nine minute match. There’s nothing they did in nine minutes you couldn’t have achieved in two or three. Particularly when Andre’s offence consists of chokes, nerve holds, and weak looking strikes. So while this match sucks, my criticism is more directed at McMahon for putting this on and giving it the time it got for an unsatisfying finish. The match is sad to watch and is one of those bad matches that gives me no enjoyment, whether ironic or otherwise.  

Andre the Giant is deathly afraid of snakes, which acts like a theoretical equaliser for the much smaller Jake Roberts. Except it makes no real difference until the end of the match. In another piece of classic Andre the Giant mythology, Roberts has said that Damien did bite Andre in real life, leaving his fangs in his shoulder and Andre didn’t notice at all. Big John Studd, recently turned face, is the referee for this match featuring his previous Wrestlemania appearance. Tensions rise which leads to Andre attacking Big John Studd until he’s scared off by Damien leading to the disqualification win for Jake Roberts. There's interference from Ted DiBiase in there which briefly brings the crowd to life which is pretty lifeless when Andre is on offence (which is about 90% of this match).

Apologies for a shorter review, there’s not a great deal I want or feel the need to say. Thankfully there’s only a couple more matches in this list that are the same.

On the plus side, I’ve always been a fan of the aesthetic for the Wrestlemania 5 entrance way. So that’s nice.

Up next - a much more in depth review of nepotism, fellatio, and shampoo? 

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

Worst WWE Match Ever - 83 - The Alliance vs. The Mercenaries - Survivor Series 1990

 83.

Traditional Survivor Series Match

Boris Zhukov, The Orient Express & Sgt Slaughter vs. The Bushwhackers, Nikolai Volkoff & Tito Santana

Survivor Series 1990

Quite fitting that on the show that provided us with an all time historic wrestlecrap moment finds itself with representation here. While not as infamous as the Gobbledygooker, this match is probably every bit as terrible.

One of the best things about modern WWE that we often take for granted is the improvement in traditional Survivor Series matches. If Wrestlemania gives wrestlers superhuman powers to kick out of stuff they shouldn’t, Survivor Series is the show where wrestlers cannot survive the most mundane offence. Thankfully WWE are a lot better for this now, but even as recently as the early 2000s, guys were jobbing to scoop slams, clotheslines, everything under the sun.. It takes less than a minute for Boris to get eliminated by a single flying clothesline. Dudes are getting eliminated left and right to immediately set up a 4 on 1 situation with Slaughter versus the babyface team. For example, the Orient Express would go on to have one of my favourite WWE tag matches ever just two months later at the Royal Rumble. But if you’re expecting anything from them here, I’ve got some bad news.

I mentioned a couple weeks back about feeling guilty about putting on some Bushwhackers matches, given Butch’s recent passing. I’m afraid to say that there’s times where I watch the Bushwhackers and think it’s the lowest point in wrestling history from a workrate perspective. Maybe it’s a sign of the times, but these guys can be very difficult to watch. Their offence looks like shit, they are so over the top cartoonish, they’re slow. It’s grim. Slaughter manages to easily defeat Volkoff and the Bushwhackers in some quite terrible wrestling. Despite quick eliminations, somehow this match is boring me. 

That leaves Tito Santana and Slaughter. Tito, to his credit, actually brings a slight energy and workrate to this match very briefly. This is comfortably the only tolerable part of the match, which makes it end on a relative high point. Adnan ends up getting Slaughter disqualified unintentionally despite Slaughter never feeling like he was in any particular danger. So on top of very bad wrestling, we’ve got illogical booking. 

Every time I watch this, I cannot help but think how ridiculous, terrible, and long winded Slaughter’s promo is before the match. My dude’s throat must have been killing him by the end of it. This is of course during Slaughter’s heel turn as an Iraqi sympathiser that would eventually lead to him shocking the world at Royal Rumble 1991 to win the WWF Championship from the Ultimate Warrior. I won’t pretend to be an expert of this era of WWF, and my exposure to Slaughter during this time period is limited mostly to this, the Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, and the shockingly great Desert Storm match with Hulk Hogan. But I know enough to know that deciding to use a real life war as the basis of a storyline is about as tasteless as you can go, from a company that is renowned for some pretty tacky shit. 

The only reason this match isn’t higher is because I had no expectations for it in the first place, and I thankfully didn’t have to exist through this in real time. But make no mistake, this is one of the worst examples of these early traditional Survivor Series matches.

Up Next - there’s times when I look forward to these reviews because I’ve often got a lot to say. Next time, not really, as we go to Trump Plaza for a sad match between two legends. 

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

Worst WWE Match Ever - 84 - John Bradshaw Layfield vs. John Cena - Great American Bash 2008

 84.

New York City Parking Lot Brawl

JBL vs. John Cena

Great American Bash 2008

Ah, the infamous JBL is Poopy feud. In the midst of a quite horrible 2008 return, JBL renewed his rivalry with John Cena stemming back from 2005. JBL’s 2008 return was pretty awful on the whole, and would only get worse and worse as the year wore on. Despite this, he imposed himself on the Raw main event scene for the majority of the year, mostly as the most credible heel who could actually give CM Punk a much needed victory through the summer.

John Cena and JBL did have a phenomenal match in 2005 in their I Quit match. And people have always had fond memories of the John Cena vs Eddie Guerrero parking lot brawl from 2003, so you’d be forgiven for having some optimism for this match.

However, this match - and the aforementioned JBL is Poopy feud - is symptomatic of its time, and the difficult transition WWE was in the middle of making. One of the iconic images of their 2005 I Quit match is the incredible blade job by John Cena, which added a layer of violence to the match. However, in the summer of 2008 WWE was making a transition to a new PG focused era which would create a sharp change in both storylines and wrestling style, particularly in a seemingly big blood feud. Interestingly, this show features the last confirmed intentional blade job in WWE (Shawn Michaels vs Chris Jericho). After this, blading was banned from WWE. Correct me if I’m wrong, but all subsequent instances of blood have been hard way, or at least that is what WWE have claimed in instances such as Brock vs Roman, Brock vs Undertaker Hell in a Cell and, infamously, Brock vs Orton. 

This is all to say that tone is the biggest issue concerning this match. It’s a feud featuring “JBL is Poopy” but this match features multiple attempts on a competitor’s life. They are literally trying to murder one another, but blood is too far for the match, and nobody seems to treat these ridiculous over the top spots with any weight. Is this a blood feud, or is it a joke? 

The first thing that stands out when putting this match on is the lack of commentary during the parking lot segment. We’ll see this in future entries, but matches without commentary are difficult to watch unless you’ve got extraordinary circumstances like a raucous crowd. It just makes the match uncomfortable to watch. There’s a reason movies have soundtracks, and sports have commentary. Because shockingly, watching two people do stuff with only natural sound effects is extremely boring especially in this case where neither are the most compelling wrestler. If this had commentary, I probably wouldn’t even consider putting it on the list. I’m assuming this was a design choice because the match is clearly pre-recorded, at least in some portions. I think that’s a weak argument because it would be easy to implement commentary, but it’s the only justification I can think of. 

To kick off the match, John Cena ambushes JBL and tries to run him down immediately. Cena then channels his inner Kane by electrocuting JBL’s balls with jumper cables. This is where you start to feel the vacancy left by commentary. The Kane and Shane McMahon spot only worked because you had JR on commentary screaming about how barbaric it was. Whereas here, it’s not even in the top 3 most ridiculous spots, and there’s no commentary to complement it. 

In a second attempted murder Cena launches a keg at JBL full force, only for JBL (with the aid of a convenient camera cut) to move out of the way. WWE’s editing of this match was not good at all. When watching it, it feels like one of those cinematic covid matches that didn’t hit the spot. 

The spots between the attempted murder feature the two men with some weak trash talk; heavy breathing; listening to the ref constantly asking them if they want to quit; and bumping around the cars like it’s a 1999 WCW Hardcore title match. Speaking of the referee, this is another overly concerned referee who constantly tells the competitors that they’re taking it too far. This is one situation where commentary is desperately missed, because they should be going apoplectic on commentary when we see attempted murder number 3. The poor referee has to do the job that the commentators should be doing by talking about how barbaric this is. 

JBL takes out a gas canister and douses a car in gasoline with Cena locked inside. Thankfully there’s crew members on hand to put out the fire, and after another convenient camera cut, Cena is seen exiting the now extinguished car and is back after JBL. Cena, not content with the attempt on his own life, tries to one-up JBL by trying to impale him with a forklift, before taking JBL out to the stage. The commentary team is now awake, ending the uncomfortable silence and the conclusion of the match feels more like a traditional falls count anywhere match.  

To go along with the weird tone to the match, Cole and Lawler are commentating the match as if we haven’t just seen a violent attempted murder. Hell, after nearly being set on fire, Cena is laughing at various points. Eventually JBL throws Cena off the stage into the windshield of a car. That’s enough to give Bradshaw the win, and another loss in a year seemingly filled with them for John Cena. Tonally, this match is a total mess, and despite the ridiculousness of the spots that make it “entertaining crap”, there’s too many problems to not include this on the list.

Up next - we go back to the start of the 90s for another traditional Survivor Series match.

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

Worst WWE Match Ever - 85 - Jesse Jammes vs. Rockabilly - In Your House 14: Revenge of the Taker

 85.

Jesse Jammes vs. Rockabilly

In Your House 14 - Revenge of the Taker

Talk about a match that feels out of place for its time. By April 1997, the wrestling landscape had changed dramatically. The nWo had debuted in the summer the previous year, introducing a new edgier side to the WWE’s primary competition. WWE took a bit of time to catch up to this, but on the back of the push of Steve Austin, as well as the change in character for Bret Hart, there were signs that the WWE were on its way to its own edgier brand of television. That change didn’t come overnight, and while the seeds had been planted for what would become the Attitude Era, there were still plenty on the card that reflected the mid-90s New Generation of WWF. An era of wrestling that no longer complemented the culture of the late 90s. 

Sometimes it is funny how life precedes itself. Both men in this match had a largely unspectacular career to this point, mostly floundering within the lower card and tag division. Tonight, Billy Gunn debuts his new gimmick as Honky Tonk Man’s protégé, Rockabilly. Honky Tonk Man had been teasing his new protégé for weeks, including offering Billy the chance two weeks earlier. As if the prospect of the Honky Tonk Man’s protege isn’t anticlimactic enough, but the big reveal is … the guy that he approached two weeks earlier. I can’t really recall any time in wrestling where a mystery reveal is just someone that was teased a couple weeks earlier. The rumour is that Honky Tonk Man’s protégé was intended to be Disco Inferno, but due to a no-compete clause in his contract the timeline didn’t work and WWE were left scrambling for a replacement. I can’t think of many things worse than Billy Gunn in this role, but Disco Inferno would have been pretty damn close. 

Jesse Jammes is not having much of a better time himself, as his own gimmick mimicked that of the now departed Jeff Jarrett. 

If I had to describe this match in a word, it would be sad. The match is not good by any means - in fact it is quite terrible - but to have a match with so little heat must be demoralising for the talent. No matter what antics Billy, Jesse Jammes or the Honky Tonk Man tried to pull, there was no getting a reaction out of this crowd here. I think we’ve all been part of a crowd like this. Whether at a wrestling show, or perhaps at a stand up comedy show - when there’s performers on stage that are getting zero reaction and at a certain point I almost start to pity them. 

Between just about every move, Rockabilly takes the time to do a little shuffle to gloat to try and revive the crowd. Nothing happening and instead you just have this guy in an outdated gimmick doing a lame little shuffle to crickets. This is embarrassing. Eventually those shimmies would inevitably come back to bite him when Jammes would roll him up for the win.

In a way, if this were anyone but Billy Gunn, this is a career ender. However WWE were always enamoured with Billy, and would constantly push and re-push him in an attempt to get that winning formula to make him a star, meaning he got more opportunities even after this disaster. In a twist of irony, the lowest point of Rockabilly’s career is against the man that he would later go on to become synonymous with. By the end of 1997, the New Age Outlaws had formed seemingly from nowhere. Their chemistry and personality finally shined as the Attitude Era developed. Instead of playing campy country musicians, they were edgy and brash. In a way, when I find myself feeling sorry for these two for what they must have felt during this night, I remind myself that in less than a year they would go on to become one of the most popular acts in the history of WWE. And in a way, I find that little irony that this match exists between these two a little heartwarming in its own perverse way.

Up Next - After a few matches of just bad matches, no we have bad wrestling that comes under the category of “entertaining shite”. This time featuring attempted murder and vehicular manslaughter.

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

Worst WWE Match Ever - 86 - Billie Kay & Carmella vs. Lana & Naomi vs. Liv Morgan & Ruby Riott vs.Dana Brooke & Mandy Rose vs. Natalya & Tamina - Wrestlemania 37 Night 1

 86.

Tag-Team Turmoil

Billie Kay & Carmella vs. Lana & Naomi vs. Liv Morgan & Ruby Riott vs.Dana Brooke & Mandy Rose  vs. Natalya & Tamina

Wrestlemania 37 - Night 1

It’s a sad state of the women’s tag division at the time that this match exists on Wrestlemania. Winner of this match faces for the women’s tag team championships at Night 2 of Wrestlemania - a match that features one properly established team, and three makeshift teams that are set to face the makeshift champions the following night.

I’ll come outright and say that Billie Kay is the biggest disaster of this match and pretty much single handedly brings this otherwise below average yet inoffensive match onto this list. You have to do something quite special to make Lana, fucking Lana, look like Ricky Steamboat in there. There’s a good 30 second section of wrestling which might just be the worst piece of wrestling in Wrestlemania history where Billie first completely screws up on a tilt-a-whirl bump, wildly and embarrassingly flails at thin air while Naomi hits the ropes, and then sells a similarly whiffed kick from Lana. It’s as ugly as anything from the infamous Jackie Gayda tag match. She’s uncoordinated, her timing is all over the place, and she can’t bump for shit. She looked every bit the untrained wrestler that Jackie Gayda was, but without the excuse that she actually was that. She had been wrestling for over 10 years at this point, compared to Gayda’s 3 televised matches, yet she didn’t look like she’d stepped foot in a ring before. 

Carmella assists Billie Kay in eliminating Naomi and Lana ensuring that the pain had to continue a bit longer. At the very least Lana is out, and they’re replaced by the Riott Squad who spend the whole match trying to get something good out of what was around them.

I somewhat enjoyed the IIconics outside the ring, they were funny characters when given the right material. But once they got in the ring the pair of them were bad, both in terms of their wrestling ability and - most obnoxiously - their incessant screeching. That’s on full display here. In an era where women’s wrestling is supposed to be taken more seriously on a show main evented by Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks, having her and Lana in this match feels incredibly out of place. 

Once Billie Kay and Carmella are out, the match improves significantly, although that is a low bar to clear. Mandy and Dana come to the ring - edited from the Network version is Mandy Rose’s Ultimo Dragon-esque trip.That’s not to say the match isn’t without its problems after this point. Dana and Mandy are no special talents, but thanks to Liv’s bumping and the general work of the Riott Squad it is a lot better in the second half. Even the ring announcer gets in on the misery, declaring that the Riott Squad had been eliminated, despite the fact that it was actually Dana and Lana who were out.

The final team out is Natalya and Tamina, who I’m afraid to say are two of my least favourite wrestlers on the roster. I am not a fan of talents that just exist for nearly a decade without changing anything about their character or significantly improving. They don’t do anything offensive, outside of Natalya waiting around for the sharpshooter for entirely too long before deciding to tag in Tamina for the win. The wrong team won, as Natalya and Tamina are old news, whereas at least the Riott Squad were a somewhat interesting team. The following night they’d have a mediocre match with Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler, although inexplicably Tamina got some great reactions on Night 2. I don’t understand it, but good for her at least.

Up Next - Billy Gunn debuts his new gimmick against the man that would save his career.

Join the discord discussion below:

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

Worst WWE Match Ever - 87 - Armando Elejandro Estrada vs. Braden Walker - ECW, 8th July 2008

 87.

Armando Elejandro Estrada vs. Braden Walker

ECW - 8th July 2008

You only get one chance at a first impression.

Shinsuke Nakamura. Chris Jericho. Kane. These are among the standard bearers of great debuts. The sort of debut where you remember vividly every detail, and watch a star emerge overnight.

Then there’s the other side of the coin.

Sin Cara. The Shockmaster. Tito Ortiz. The debuts that became infamous for their failure. One that derailed future plans and left the talent scrambling to salvage what was left of their career, broken by an ill fated, poorly booked, or badly executed introduction.

Braden Walker is in the latter category.

Braden Walker had maybe a combined 15 minutes of television time on WWE TV across the two weeks he appeared on television. And yet those 15 minutes have been enough to cement his name in infamy. In a segment that has been parodied and mocked for the last 15 years, Braden Walker is introduced backstage as ECW’s newest superstar, debuting with a knock knock joke with all the writing, delivery and comedic timing of a eulogy. He was doomed from the start.

Now if Braden Walker was just some dude, then nobody would have batted an eye about him, and he’d be lost to history only to those brave enough to dig into the archives of WWE ECW. But Braden Walker was the former Chris Harris from TNA. One half of TNA’s greatest tag team, America’s Most Wanted. He was part of one of TNA’s finest and most memorable matches against Triple X in 2004. Even as recently as a year before this match, he and his former tag team partner, James Storm, were having TNA’s match of the year at Sacrifice 2007. At Slammiversary he was briefly pushed into the TNA World Championship picture as part of the King of the Mountain match. It looked like he was set to break out as TNA’s next big homegrown star. So when he was let go and picked up by WWE there was some optimism from a lot of fans, myself included.

But Shock, I hear you say, surely the promo isn’t enough to ruin his career. And that brings us to the match. 

His opponent tonight is Armando Alejandro Estrada, who was fighting for a contract in ECW after his tenure as ECW General Manager ended. Estrada - who was a fun manager character at the start of his WWE run - had inexplicably been changed to a wrestler role that didn’t work for him whatsoever and would ultimately end with his own release in 2008.

In a vacuum, does this match warrant a place on the list? Probably not. This is a plain-ass 4 minute match where nothing interesting whatsoever happens. But therein lies the problem. Braden Walker, out of shape, in his plain black singlet, with his new generic name, standard stock entrance music, with his default entrance where he simply points once, and fresh off one of the most infamously bad opening promos, did absolutely nothing interesting in this match. He is a default create-a-wrestler and this is the tutorial match. Any enthusiasm anyone might have had for Chris Harris in WWE was killed in a single night. 

First of all, at 4 minutes long, this is entirely too long for a debut match against Estrada. Why is he taking meaningful offence from Estrada? Why is he selling for him? Walker could have maybe, maybe survived that horrible opening promo if he was given the opportunity to shine. But he didn’t - he spent most of this 4 minute match selling for Estrada. This debut should be a showcase for him. I referenced Sin Cara earlier - even in his debut match against Primo, at least WWE tried to showcase some of the stuff he could do by pairing him with someone like Primo who could (in theory) complement him. Walker is sitting there in chinlocks and bearhugs from Armando Estrada. He wins off the most basic of babyface moves (a flying cross body) so nothing original there - and even in doing that he nearly landed on Estrada’s head.

Am I saying this to say Braden Walker is blameless? Absolutely not, he is definitely just as much at fault for the mediocre showing as WWE was. Clearly he was not in the best shape, and didn’t look particularly motivated during his debut match. 

However if I didn’t know better, I’d say the entire presentation of Braden Walker was a sabotage, like someone vehemently opposed the signing of Chris Harris and went all out to kill his WWE career dead. In short, this is the most bland presentation of a wrestler you’re ever likely to see, from the music, the promo, the wrestling style, the attire, the look. And if it were anyone else, it wouldn’t even be in consideration for this list. But because it’s Chris Harris and we know he could be at least something, this deserves its place here and its place in wrestling infamy.

Up Next - modern day women’s wrestling is brought back 15 years at the Grandest Stage of Them All.

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

Worst WWE Match Ever - 88 - Stephanie McMahon vs. Vince McMahon - No Mercy 2003

 88.

I Quit Match

Stephanie McMahon vs. Vince McMahon

No Mercy 2003

Truthfully, this wasn’t in consideration when I first started drafting my shortlist of matches. It’s not a match I remember hating when I first watched it back in 2003, and it wasn’t something I revisited often, if at all if I’m honest. Then it came up during Vince’s scandal and controversies last summer. It made me feel gross to think about, which led me to a rewatch as I happened to be working my way through my shortlists. Let me tell you - and perhaps this is a symptom of the time - but this is the trashiest shit you are likely to see in wrestling. It’s Jerry Springer car crash style TV in the worst way. That feeling of it being a symptom of the time is reflected in the crowd response, because the crowd is fanatical through the whole match. Vince gets some of the biggest heat you’ll ever hear. Make no mistake, the live attendances ate this storyline up. Therefore, the argument may be that I’m watching this match with 2023 eyes, not 2003 and thus I am harsher on it in retrospect. I’ll leave that to you.

Stephanie was named general manager of SmackDown in 2002, but by the fall of 2003 Vince had become frustrated by her management style and decisions, notably the hiring of Zack Gowen. In turn, Stephanie also became frustrated by Vince's on-screen relationship with Sable. Speaking of, Sable accompanies Vince to the ring, while Linda McMahon accompanies Stephanie - something that will be important later.

The reason for the match and stipulation is because Vince didn’t want to fire Stephanie because that would be him admitting he made a mistake, and also make him a bad father. So instead he’s going to beat the ever loving shit out of his daughter to make her quit instead, like any good father would. At this point it becomes a little uncomfortable to watch Vince gaslighting Stephanie into saying that the beating she’s going to take is her fault.

If Stephanie loses, she’s out as general manager of SmackDown. If Vince loses, he promises to quit as owner of WWE. Before, during and after the match they hype the drama and importance that this would be the end of one of these two in WWE forever - and here we are 20 years later, of course. For Stephanie she can win by pinfall, submission, or making Vince quit, whereas Vince can only win by making Stephanie quit. 

In terms of actual commentary for the match, it goes without saying that expectations should be limited. Neither are active wrestlers, with Stephanie in particular having far less experience as an in-ring competitor. Neither are capable of bumping convincingly, which can sometimes work if you have a competent wrestler opposite. But together it is awkward, clunky, the timing is all over the place, and they constantly repeat spots. Because Stephanie can’t bump cleanly like a trained wrestler can, every fall feels ugly and I think that adds to the weirdness surrounding this match.

Even by Vince's standards he’s enormously bloated for this match. It’s uncomfortable to watch to see this massive human being beat the hell out of his real life daughter, with the mother at ringside. Somehow, despite all this, Linda still fails to emote one bit. Richard Blummenthal must have been jumping for joy when some intern probably brought this shit to his attention in the 2010 Connecticut election. There’s shenanigans featuring Sable and Linda which are also awkward because of Linda’s robot expressions. 

Stephanie can win via pinfall, and she gets a couple of near falls off numerous lead pipe shots that the crowd bites on big. Eventually Vince gets Stephanie in a choke using the lead pipe, which leads to Linda throwing in the towel for Stephanie. To say this is not quite Survivor Series 1994 would be an understatement, and I put that blame 100% on Linda whose best acting performance was pretending to be drugged in 2001 because she didn’t have to act differently. 

An interesting tidbit is that this match took place around a week before Triple H and Stephanie’s real life wedding, to the point where HHH, Stephanie and Linda all vehemently disagreed with it taking place in case Stephanie got hurt. Seriously, the more you think about this match, the weirder it becomes. 

To me this is another symptom of the awkward post attitude era time period. As wrestling’s popularity dwindled in the twilight of the attitude era, WWE in the early 2000s continued to try and push the boundaries with more tasteless storylines. Vince vs Stephanie, Eric Bischoff raping Linda McMahon, Vince beating up a one-legged man, Vince threatening to have Undertaker’s wife raped - all off the top of my head all happened within mere months of one another in the summer and fall of 2003. WWE was desperately trying to cling on to what made it successful, and push it further despite the fact that car crash television was on its way out, and in my opinion the correct move would have been to move the other way. 

It makes me happy how far wrestling has come that this will likely never be seen again. For the first time in this list, we’ve come across a match that is not just poor quality, but actually outright unpleasant to watch.

Up Next - what a difference a year makes. From a match of the year contender and a brief world title push in one company in 2007, to this …

Join the discord discussion below:

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

WWE Worst Match Ever - 89 - Braun Strowman vs. Tyson Fury - Crown Jewel 2019

 89.

Braun Strowman vs. Tyson Fury

Crown Jewel 2019

At some point it was inevitable we’d get to one of these shows. Since expanding their premium live event format into Saudi Arabia, they have been infamous for some of the worst matches of recent years. Our first entry comes from 2019 as one of the most famous boxers in the world takes on Braun Strowman in a match that, at least on paper, sounds interesting and wouldn’t look out of place at a Wrestlemania. After all, WWE has a history of success bringing in stars from the world of boxing into wrestling, most notably with Floyd Mayweather in 2008. There’s a world where this match is a total blast and a true spectacle.

Unfortunately, this is not that world. 

Celebrity matches live and die by the celebrity’s commitment to the cause. Guys like Logan Paul, Floyd Mayweather, and Bad Bunny put a noticeable effort and went all in to put on a show and that reflected on their performances. However we should have known this was going to be a bad one with the most awkward press conference in history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUb0WXirF4A

Tyson Fury gets an obnoxious amount of pyrotechnics during his entrance. It’s like that Kevin Nash gif from WCW. Or someone going OTT on their create-a-wrestler entrance.

When you get boxers into wrestling, it must be a struggle for them to untrain themselves to throw a worked punch after learning to do the exact opposite for their entire life. Fury and Braun try some routine wrestling sequences that look awful, before we finally get a sign of things to come when Fury “hits” a shoulder block on Braun. Except it’s done with so little velocity you’d be mistaken for thinking it were Jenna Morasca hitting it. To me, this is almost like that Brock Lesnar vs Dean Ambrose match from Wrestlemania 32, but on a worse scale. In that case, Brock had no interest in doing anything intense or risky because of an upcoming UFC fight. Same here with Fury - you have one of the most legitimately scary motherfuckers in the world and he’s wrestling such a tepid match because an injury to him would be devastating. When Floyd Mayweather wrestled Big Show in 2008, it was a full 18 months before his next boxing match, meaning that he could take a few risks and bumps. The timing of this match is horrendous planning because Fury was just four months away from a highly anticipated heavyweight rematch against Deontay Wilder. An injury to Fury in this environment would have been so catastrophic to Fury and boxing as a whole that it’s a wonder why they even agreed to it in the first place (although I could give you 12 million reasons why). 

However when you watch this match, you realise that the risk of injury is laughably low. 

Braun is in the unenviable role of trying to make Fury’s awful offence look good, while also tuning down his own offence to make it as safe as possible. He also has to account for Fury having no sense of timing or positioning for WWE wrestling. This makes Braun look horrible. Fury wrestles like someone that doesn’t have a great deal of interest in putting on a show, which adds to the perception of this being a quick cash grab. The whole appeal of these two monsters is that they are larger than life ass kicking behemoths. When they have to tone down their offence because they’re petrified of someone getting hurt, it makes the entire spectacle of the match pointless. Instead we get an awkward, mistimed mess. Eventually Fury hits Braun with a right hand, which gives him the win in 9 minutes via count out. After the match, Braun gets his heat back by hitting the running powerslam on Fury, only for Fury to get up immediately and begging Braun to “get back here, pussy!”

In a bizarre twist, this isn’t even the worst match featuring a non-wrestling legitimate fighter on this show, but we’ll get to that later.

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the actual controversies of these shows, so allow me to get a little personal about it. However if the politics of the show does not interest you, or you’ve heard it all before and don’t want to relive it, then feel free to skip the remainder of the post as the commentary on the match is now finished. This will be the only time on the blog that I’ll reference the controversies of the Saudi shows, so I figured I’d get it out the way now in this first entry.

I’ve always had difficulty with these shows for many reasons, but on a personal level I struggle with it because I am part of a community that is illegal by law in Saudi Arabia. There is no tolerance for people like me. Me and my fiancé would genuinely be at risk of death if we were there, just because of how we were born to be and our beliefs that adults should be allowed to love other adults regardless of gender. Even looking beyond the journalists, the atrocities in Yemen, the misogyny, the worldwide funding of terrorism, and the environmental aspect, there is a very real part of these shows that offends me on a personal level as an individual that hits me hard. People from the forum or know me outside it may be aware that I gave up supporting my local football team of 30 years, Newcastle United, as a direct result of their takeover by the Saudi Public Investment Fund because I couldn’t in good conscience support a team whose future success will be directly attributed to the funding and governance of the Saudi Royal Family. With the way they’ve dipped their funds into just about every walk of life, it is impossible to truly boycott everything. Does that make me a hypocrite because I consume media from WWE and Disney (to name a couple) knowing full well where they get some of their money? Perhaps, but it is also a consequence of the imperfect world we live. The best we can do is our best, whatever you think that is, and to protest in a way that suits you. 

This is all compounded further by one of the men in this match, Tyson Fury, who is a well documented homophobe who has made vile comments towards the LGBT community including likening it to bestiality and paedophilia. It was around 3-4 years before this match took place that he made those comments, and to my knowledge he has never explicitly said that he no longer feels that way. However he did apologise to people he had hurt. Fury is a complicated man, who had a unique upbringing that warped his views on life. By his own admission, he struggled mightily with addiction and mental health issues at the time of those comments, and for that I can sympathise with him. I also recognise that he has done more than most to promote men’s mental health awareness in the UK in recent years. For this I feel he is difficult to evaluate and he is living proof of the grey in people. He’s not a person I would find easy to forgive for his previous comments, and that of course does mean that I went into this match with a less-than-enthusiastic approach even before watching it.

I say all this to say, there are plenty of reasons to hate these shows and what they stand for. The purpose of this blog and future entries is not to shit on the concept of these shows, but the matches that happened to take place on them as it just so happens to be where bad wrestling takes place.

Up Next - As WWE goes through a power struggle off-screen in real life, let’s look back to a time when the McMahons kept their power struggles strictly on-screen.

Join the discord discussion below:

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

Worst WWE Match Ever - 90 - Triple H vs. The Undertaker - Super Show-Down 2018

 90.

Triple H vs. The Undertaker

Super Show-Down 2018

Addiction can come in many forms. It stems from seeking a high that you previously experienced. I bring this up because if you’ve ever listened to anything the Undertaker has had to say since retirement, you know that the last few years of his career are him chasing that last great match. After the CM Punk match in 2013, Undertaker’s match quality plummeted as father time finally caught up with him. Time and time again he would return, have a stinker, and try and try again. Even the tagline for the match has loose addiction connotations:

The Last Time Ever.

Yes, six years after their previous last time End of An Era match we have the actual Last Time Ever match between Triple H and Undertaker. This is definitely the last time they’d feed this addiction of this particular feud. Just one more hit. Until next month anyway. After failing to meet his own lofty expectations with matches against Roman Reigns, and Shane McMahon, Undertaker looked to recapture the magic he once had with Triple H. Despite my own feelings about their Wrestlemania 28 match, there is no doubt that the men involved are immeasurably proud of that accomplishment, and the majority of fans acknowledge it as one of the greatest moments in Wrestlemania history. 

A part of me sympathises with them on a personal level. Particularly with Undertaker, wrestling has, at the time of this match had been in wrestling for over 30 years. As a wrestler, he aged remarkably well, enjoying his peak years well into his 40s. For someone like that, who is clearly passionate for the business, to be faced with his own mortality and a sudden decline must be difficult to handle. Similarly with Triple H, who has also declined, albeit not as sharply as Undertaker.

The story going into this match is that Triple H and Shawn Michaels are upset about losing to Undertaker over the course of four Wrestlemanias. They then decided to make the feud personal by saying that the four matches between 2009 and 2012 led to the Undertaker eventually losing the Streak and becoming the shell of a man we see these days. It sounds like a decent premise for a feud, but the problem was how contrived it was put together. For starters, they didn’t start feuding then announce this match as a consequence. Rather the match was announced at the time that the PPV as a whole was, and then the storyline came afterward. Instead of being an organic storyline, this is nothing more than nostalgia bait for a time when these two were competent wrestlers, and had a storyline that had the fans invested. This was a sequel nobody asked for, for a movie with actors that are washed up and phoning it in for an easy payday. This is the Hocus Pocus 2 of wrestling. 

Even going as far back as Wrestlemania 28, these men were on the tail end of their career. Shawn Michaels was retired, Triple H and Undertaker were once-a-year wrestlers, and Kane - well Kane was still around. Now it’s 6 years later, Undertaker and Triple H are still once-a-year wrestlers but each are noticeably slower and their match quality fell off a cliff. Shawn Michaels was retired but now bald (more on this later). Kane (more on this dude later) is essentially retired, now a mayor. 

Had this match been a short house-show style 12 minute match nobody would have negatively cared one bit about this match. It would have been fun, inoffensive nostalgia bait that left the fans happy. I would liken it to the ultimate nostalgia bait match, Stone Cold vs Kevin Owens from Wrestlemania 38. That match was 12 minutes long, well paced, hit their spots, and sent the fans home happy. If this match was in that vein, it wouldn’t even be considered for this list. 

Instead, these guys just couldn’t help themselves. They were chasing the dragon of that 2012 match and story. They had to make it epic. They had to try and make it a poignant, deep storyline. They had to bring back Shawn Michaels for his hammy over-acting. They had to go for 30 minutes. They even brought Kane in to try and one-up the epic. Undertaker was chasing that one last classic epic, and Triple H was more than willing to go along. 

The Australian crowd, as you’d expect, are extremely enthusiastic for this with “This is Awesome” and “You Still Got It” chants throughout. And to start with, what we have is a meandering but ultimately inoffensive encounter. It’s clear that both still have some juice, and the first few minutes were reasonably enjoyable. Unfortunately, the match keeps going, and as they do they start slowing down. They’re out of position for spots; the timing is all off; they can’t lift each other over (one very noticeable botch comes when both are in the crowd and Undertaker can’t manage a back body drop). As the match goes on, it’s just sad to watch them deteriorate before our eyes. The crowd dies a horrible death as the match progresses - some are still willing to try and get some chants going, but they lost all enthusiasm in the second half of the match. 

Since it’s topical to these wrestlers, I’ll take an aside to talk about the funniest Undertaker trope in his twilight wrestling years. Since Wrestlemania 27 he always teases the dive to the outside, only for him to be cut off. Which, given how he nearly killed himself on that Wrestlemania 27 dive, I don’t blame him one bit for not doing it again.

My review makes this sound incredibly negative about Undertaker and Triple H. But they arguably weren’t the biggest frauds in this match. That award goes to Kane. Kane gets the easiest payday of his life. A free holiday to Australia to stand around in his mask doing absolutely nothing, probably thinking of mayor stuff. Undertaker might as well have brought Bam Neely to be his backup for all the good Kane did. Let’s compare Kane to what Shawn Michaels was doing on the outside. Shawn was causing distractions, chaos, setting up tables, throwing Undertaker into the ring post, handing Triple H weapons. HBK essentially made this a handicap match at times. What does Kane do to respond? Anything between nothing and slowly chasing Shawn Michaels around. One hilarious moment comes as Michaels sets up a table on the outside. Kane, looking to protect his brother, awkwardly chases Michaels and Triple H around the table before retreating. Speaking of said table, Kane takes a Sweet Chin Music and then a very weak elbow drop through the table. That puts Kane out of commission for a good 15 minutes of this match. In the only moment he does anything, he pulls the referee out of the ring to deny a pinfall, before Grandpa Joe’ing his way back into his comatose state for the rest of the match.

If you know anything about me, it’s that I was never particularly fond of the Hell in a Cell match at Wrestlemania 28 - but not through any fault of Triple H or Undertaker themselves. That match is brought down immeasurably by the C tier horror movie acting of Shawn Michaels. I bring this up, not to once again regurgitate my hatred of that match, but because this match, once again, has Shawn Michaels’ over-acting concerned face after they start hitting finishers on one another.

Now time to talk about the most memorable moment of this match, and the only thing anyone talked about afterwards. Shawn had been wearing his cowboy hat all match. Even when taking a bump, the cowboy hat stayed on, desperately clinging on for dear life. That is until near the end, when Undertaker tosses HBK over the top rope, and the cowboy hat decides it has seen enough and flies away, revealing for the first time the horror. Millions of people see their childhood fly away with that cowboy hat, as the world is introduced to bald Shawn Michaels. Poor guy was desperate to keep that hidden. 

The match concludes with a lot of shenanigans, an awkwardly pieced finishing sequence, a standoff between a guy with a steel chair and a guy with a sledgehammer, and ultimately Undertaker loses because he brought the worst bodyguard in the world while Triple H had the smart idea to bring the best wrestler in the match to back him up.  In the end this match could have been a lot higher, had it not been overshadowed the following month.

Up next - We’ve seen a match in Japan, one in Australia. Now time for the lowest hanging fruit as we head to our first (and surely not last) match from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Join the discord discussion below:

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

WWE Worst Match Ever - 94 - Dolph Ziggler & John Cena vs. Kane & King Barrett - Beast in the East 2015

 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. 

Join the discord discussion below:

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

WWE Worst Match Ever - 96 - Batista vs. The Great Khali - Summerslam 2007

 96.

World Heavyweight Championship

The Great Khali (c) vs. Batista

Summerslam 2007

SmackDown in 2007 can only be described as a cursed brand. After being absolutely rinsed in the draft (losing Booker T, Chris Benoit, and Mr Kennedy with not a lot in return), the World Heavyweight Champion Undertaker ended up getting a serious injury. Enter Edge, who came over from Raw to save the main event scene …until he himself got injured and had to vacate the title within a matter of weeks. To further these injury woes, SmackDown was already dealing with long term injuries to Rey Mysterio. What about Raw and ECW? Surely they had more talent that they could lend to the cause. Well no, because in the aftermath of the Chris Benoit tragedy, a massive steroid scandal saw the aforementioned Booker T and Mr Kennedy - and others - in some trouble that left the other two brands in their own mess. 

With a vacated World Heavyweight Championship, it was time to find someone new. WWE in all their glory, decided that Khali was the guy going forward. In fairness, due to the above situation, the choices were slim. Just look at the guys involved in the battle royal to decide the vacated World Championship:

Great Khali, Batista, Kane, Mark Henry, MVP, Finlay, Matt Hardy, Chavo Guerrero, Chris Masters, Brett Major, Brian Major, Dave Taylor, Deuce, Domino, Eugene, Funaki, Jamie Noble, Jimmy Wang Yang, Kenny Dykstra, Shannon Moore

After you get past Batista, it’s real slim pickings. If it were me, and you really didn’t want to give it to Batista for whatever reason, then MVP was the guy. Instead we got this iconic image:

That leads us to this match. After having a shockingly ok match with John Cena at One Night Stand, you’d be forgiven for thinking this might have some potential. Not only that, but these two actually had a fun Punjabi Prison match two months after this one. Khali, with enough smoke and mirrors to make Robert Angier blush, could in fact be dragged to something resembling a competent match. However - while people cite that fun Punjabi Prison match, or the John Cena One Night Stand match as the shining moments of Khali’s in-ring career - they overlook that both matches were sequels to awful singles matches. 

There’s a lot of scope for Khali matches in this list and a lot were in consideration. Some may yet to appear. This is a man that was deemed so horrible that WWE were embarrassed to have him wrestle on live TV for a year after his first PPV match. Expectations for most Khali matches are rock bottom, so filling the list with too many Khali matches feels like low hanging fruit. Batista, on the other hand, had found himself in the middle of a career year in terms of in-ring quality thanks to the discovery that he and the Undertaker had remarkable chemistry with one another.

Going into the match, the story is that Batista can’t survive the Khali vice grip, however he did manage to get Khali off his feet a couple of days earlier on SmackDown. The main problem this match has is Khali’s offence looks awful. You can almost forgive Khali’s poor selling because he’s a monster who isn’t supposed to sell. That said, his orchestra conductor arms will always be some of the goofiest selling you’ll ever see. 

But by far the biggest issue is Khali’s offence just doesn’t look impactful at all. For such a big guy, none of his offence looks like it would hurt. When a guy has to bump around trying to make it watchable, it only works if the offence looks slightly impactful. Not once when watching this match would you ever assume Batista is hurt by any strike. That in turn makes Batista’s selling look stupid that he’s selling so much trying to put Khali over.

Following the opening exchanges, Khali gets a nerve hold which leads to “you can’t wrestle” and “boring” chants. This lasts for approximately 50% of the match until Batista hits a singular Spinebuster. Khali catches Batista coming off the top rope, hits the tree slam and gets 2. Khali then hits Batista with a chair after the referee practically begged him to take it from behind his back, leading to the anticlimactic DQ finish. 7 minutes of alleged action for a DQ finish. If the play-by-play is short here, its because there’s so little to discuss because nothing happens. 

Even more insulting was the commentators trying to justify the DQ. Cole claims that Khali knows he couldn’t beat Batista so he got himself disqualified. This was a classic Cole line tht he’d always use in situations like this. That barely works at the best of times, but the rare times it does is when it feels earned. Batista hit one move in the entire match. A spinebuster. What part of this entire ordeal made anyone think that Khali didn’t have the match comfortably in hand? If you’re going to do that story to justify your awful finish, at least try to make it seem that way. 

Furthermore, this was another in a trend for SmackDown Summerslam main events. This was the third time in four years that the SmackDown world title match ended in a disqualification. It certainly reinforces the B-Show stigma that the brand had in the post-Brock era, and each time seemed to get lazier and lazier. 

I know a lot of people talk about the Kane vs Khali match from Wrestlemania 23, and while that is pretty bad, it at least didn’t have a finish this stupid (and given that finish involved a giant rusty hook, that’s impressive), nor was it 7 minutes long and a world title match on a big four PPV. For that reason, I give this match the nod over it, though I certainly wouldn’t begrudge anyone who opted for that instead. 

Up next, the most infamous feud of 2009.

Join the discord discussion below:

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

WWE Worst Match Ever - 97 - Dean Douglas vs. Razor Ramon - In Your House 4: Great White North

 97.

Intercontinental Championship

Dean Douglas (c) vs. Razor Ramon

In Your House 4 - Great White North

By 1995 the Kliq had a strong influence on the direction of the company - the Intercontinental Championship was for two years almost solely in possession of one of them (with the exception of a couple of brief Jeff Jarrett reigns). The WWE Championship had been held by Diesel for nearly a year to this point. Naturally that meant if you weren’t in their good books, things didn’t look great for your prospects unless Vince really liked you. 

This is a rematch from the previous month’s pay-per-view but under slightly different circumstances. Michaels was the Intercontinental Champion going into this show, but the previous night had an unfortunate run in where he flirted with the wrong lady and got IRL beaten up by a marine. That leads to this show where he turns up with a nasty looking bruise beneath his eye and vacates the Intercontinental Championship. The title is then handed over to Dean Douglas, the ill-fated gimmick of the Franchise Shane Douglas.

This was a doomed match from the start, and a bad situation all round that could have never led to a good match. For starters, Razor had already wrestled earlier in the night. Secondly, it’s clear Douglas had mentally checked out by this point. He was reportedly deeply unsatisfied with the gimmick and position in the company, not to mention the backstage politics surrounding him. This is where my opening paragraph comes into play. Douglas and the Kliq did not get along, in particular tensions between Douglas and Michaels and Douglas and Hall. Depending on who you listen to, this match was designed to humiliate Douglas by giving him the distinction of being the shortest reigning Intercontinental Champion in history. 

Knowing this, it’s not surprising how this match plays out. This match is just pure laziness from start to finish. Razor works over the arm of Douglas. And it goes on. And on. And on. Every now and then Razor lightly slaps Douglas across the head. Whatever offence Douglas gets is brushed off by Razor. It’s clear Hall has no interest in making this a competitive or interesting match. At numerous points, Razor is essentially laughing off or making Douglas look like crap. The icing on this shit cake is the finish. Razor hits a very basic back suplex near the ropes and lightly puts one arm over Douglas’ chest. That is inexplicably enough to give Razor the win, despite Douglas being under the bottom rope. If you’re going to bury Douglas then do it decisively, I’m not sure why you need the controversial finish here. Everything about this match is miserable and you can tell nobody involved was enjoying any of it.

As an aside, In Your House 4 is one of the more miserable events in WWE history. Goldust vs Jannetty, Yokozuna vs Mabel and Douglas vs Razor might be the worst three match stretch in WWE history. The other two matches just missed this list but will be on the honourable mentions list. 

Up next - what does a year of injuries, steroid scandals, and vacated championships give you? The 2007 SmackDown main event scene.

Join the discord discussion below:

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

Worst WWE Match Ever - 98 - The Royal Rumble Match - Royal Rumble 1999

 98.

The Royal Rumble Match

Royal Rumble 1999

Royal Rumbles in the 90s are a rough affair. There’s some gems like the 1991 and 1992, but on the whole they fall far off the average quality set by modern standards. This is thanks to a combination between a depletion of star power as the 90s wore on, and them not quite working out the almost fool-proof formula. In the process of making this list, I rewatched the 90s Rumbles, and this one stood out as the weakest (more on some of the others later). 

Prior to the match, Fink takes extra long to go through the rules of the match, emphasising twice that you need to go over the top rope, and going through the ropes does not constitute elimination. I can’t recall them ever going to such lengths to emphasise the rule, but the motives of why they do this become very clear very shortly. 

Austin is number 1, and Vince McMahon is number 2. Vince’s entrance is without music, which he’d have later on the show.. If I’m remembering right, I think this might be the first time we ever saw just how jacked Vince is - in kayfabe thanks to heavy training from Shane McMahon. The story of this match is that Vince is trying to stop Austin win by any means necessary, and put a bounty of $100,000 on any one who could stop him. Commissioner Shawn Michaels put Vince in at number 2 just to fuck with him. The match begins as you’d expect with Austin beating the hell out of Vince. After Golga’s entrance at number 3, Austin and McMahon conveniently go through the ropes and brawl to the back. There, Austin is ambushed by members of the Corporation and sent away in an ambulance. Droz is number 4, but he gets no entrance and just stands around in the ring for 90 seconds waiting for the next wrestler.

The thing that I find about Royal Rumbles is that there is a fairly easy formula to it. A) you need to space out your star power. There’s nothing worse than a Royal Rumble where all the big names are held until the end; B) you want at least one or two guys that are prominent names to go the distance and always be there. I find this makes the flow of the match better, and ensures you always have someone the fans are interested in. Great examples of this are Flair in 92, Kane in 01, Benoit and Orton in 04, Edge in 07. Now you may say, “but Austin and McMahon are the biggest names in this match and they go the distance”, to which the natural response is, yes but neither were in the ring for a long period of time. C) You need stars. This is a key part. Stars and storylines in a Royal Rumble are the way to keep fans invested. 

Here’s the list of entrants in order after Austin and McMahon start brawling to the outside.

Golga, Droz, Edge, Gillberg, Steve Blackman, Dan Severn, Tiger Ali Singh, Blue Meanie, Headbanger Mosh*. Road Dogg, Gangrel, Kurrgan, Al Snow.

*Replaced by Mabel almost immediately.

That’s the first 15 people. Road Dogg is by far the biggest name there at that point which kind of says it all. You don’t get a real big name until Kane at number 18 (more on him in a second …) leaving a very very long period of uninteresting wrestlers. If Austin was in there, it would be forgivable because the fans would have someone to latch onto and you could actually make a story out of the $100k bounty (more on this later too …).

In theory, the Royal Rumble match should suit the short attention span booking of Vince Russo. Every 90 seconds a new opportunity to make a new story. But the problem lies in that the stories have to be good. As you’d expect for a late 90s Rumble, there’s lots of gimmicks but not a great deal of narrative that any of them add. The first big story after Austin’s injury is when Mabel replaces Headbanger Mosh. Mabel dominates in a slow, unenthusiastic way for a minute or two, clearing out the ring in the process. That is until the Ministry of Darkness turn off the lights and take Mabel away, leaving just Road Dogg in the ring. Mabel would go on to be rebranded as Viscera, and would end up doing absolutely nothing of note in the Ministry of Darkness. Excellent use of a stand alone spot within the Rumble. Undertaker, an actual big star in a match desperate for them, never appears outside of this.

Kane is number 18 and we finally get a bit of star power and he quickly eliminates every other wrestler in the Rumble. Then, in a classic piece of Russo bullshit, men from the insane asylum in white suits come out to take Kane away, and Kane … just steps over the top rope and eliminates himself. Kane was part of the Corporation, but had started to defy Vince McMahon, so McMahon tried to get him institutionalised and taken back to the asylum he grew up in. Kane, the first meaningful star in the match since Austin at number 1, is involved in the match for less than a minute.

For a time period where factions were all the thing, the wrestlers are very stupid about how they target their guys. It feels like everyone is just attacking each other at random. Members of the Corporation fighting each other (while Austin is in the ring, no less!), D-X fighting each other. The commentators play it off as “every man for himself”, but there’s no logic to anything. Why is everyone not going after Austin with the $100k bounty on his head, especially those loyal to Vince? Why does nobody even entertain the idea of working with their faction partners?

Ken Shamrock is number 19, so again a little bit of star power but this now makes the fourth time in this match where one wrestler is in the middle of the ring waiting for the next competitor. Vince is back too and goes on commentary. To the shock of absolutely nobody, Austin makes a shocking return in the ambulance and the crowd starts to come alive. Shocking that having a bit of star power will keep people interested. Austin, despite going to the hospital earlier, shows no ill effects of the attack and is business as usual. It’s similar to the Roman Reigns booking in 2016 - if he’s taken out the match and then comes back showing no effects, then he’s essentially just taken an extended break. It might have even added a bit of suspense to the match if he was showing signs of injury.

Another annoyance is they are extremely liberal with Austin and McMahon going in and out of the ring. I counted 5 times that Austin or McMahon went through the ropes at various points in the match.

In fairness to this match, there’s more star power at the end of the match with a lot of popular midcard acts coming out in the final 10. But I can’t help but get frustrated that some of these weren’t showcased earlier when we had battles between Tiger Ali Singh and the Blue Meanie. Secondly, while Ken Shamrock, D’Lo Brown and Triple H are prominent midcarders, that’s all they are. Chyna makes history as the first woman to enter a Royal Rumble match, eliminates Mark Henry before her own anticlimactic elimination. The “final four” (not counting McMahon) are Austin, Owen Hart, Big Boss Man, and D’Lo Brown. It’s one of the most lopsided final fours ever with zero drama as to what’s going to happen. We inevitably get down to Austin and McMahon. Austin pisses about beating up Mr McMahon for a few minutes. I get that he could just throw McMahon out, but there’s also the deal that he could only physically hit McMahon in the confines of a match which is at least some logic in a match bereft of it. That said, it makes winning the Rumble seem less important to him that just punching Vince for a minute. The finish also made Austin like a complete moron and benefited nobody outside of that initial shock factor of Vince winning the Rumble, which is such a typical Russo piece of booking.

Fuji on the discord guessed this would be the 1995 Rumble, but despite that match being very bad and also having a lack of star power, that has the redeeming factor of Shawn Michaels bumping like an absolute madman to make the match watchable. The 1997 Rumble is boring, but at least that has an interesting overarching story with Austin and Bret. I don’t think this match has any redeeming factors. Even the commentary on this match is pretty unbearable. Cole in these early 1999 shows was so irritable. It’s not the worst Royal Rumble ever, but it’s certainly one of my least favourite. Predictable booking of Austin, boring wrestlers, a couple of ridiculously overbooked sections, and a terrible winner makes for one of the worst efforts in the match’s history. 

Up next - speaking of 1995, we take our first visit to 1995 as one poor midcarder suffers the wrath of the Kliq.

Join the discord discussion below:

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227

Worst WWE Match Ever - Number 99 - Diamond Dallas Page & Kanyon vs. Kane & The Undertaker - Summerslam 2001

 

99.

WCW & WWF Tag Team Championships

Steel Cage Match

Diamond Dallas Page & Kanyon (c) vs. Kane & The Undertaker (c)

WWE Summerslam 2001

Ah the Invasion storyline, you beautiful mess. Enough words have been said about the angle to last a lifetime, but it can’t be understated how much WWE fumbled the bag when it came to what should have been the easiest, money printing storyline ever. Despite this, 2001 is not a bad year for WWE at all in terms of in-ring quality, and there’s only a handful of matches on this list from 2001. Due to contractual disputes, WWE did not have a lot of bankable WCW stars available to it in 2001, so a lot of the focus remained on WWE guys, with a sprinkling of the high potential talent like Booker T and Rob Van Dam. 

Diamond Dallas Page, however, was a different story. DDP was one of the most organically popular babyfaces in WCW in the late 90s. By all rights, he should have been easily fit in as one of the more prominent stars within the Invasion storyline. Him and Booker were two of the only high profile guys to not sit out their guaranteed contract in order to show up in WWE. Given how popular they were, it seemed like a no brainer to use them as the focus of the Invasion, along with RVD.

Even when revealed as Sara’s stalker, he got arguably the biggest pop of any wrestler to make the jump across. It was immediately obvious that this was a miscasting. If you ever want to hear something cringeworthy, check out Bruce Pritchard’s comments on the DDP angle on the Invasion episode of Something to Wrestle With podcast. In short, Pritchard was adamant that bringing in DDP as Undertaker’s stalker was a good idea because “nobody knew who he was”. His justification for not using DDP as WCW had was because “that character didn’t work - if it did then WCW would still be around”. Yes, that’s the sort of nuanced argument you get from the guy in charge of booking at the time. I’ve seen more common sense in Twitter comments.

A lot has been made about why DDP got buried so decisively by the Undertaker. The common story is that Undertaker didn’t like that DDP didn’t know how to work. It’s speculated that could mean anything from just the WCW style of bumping, to DDP usually scripting his matches in advance. DDP has repeatedly denied there was any heat between him and Undertaker outside of them not having much in-ring chemistry. 

On to the match, Kanyon and DDP look nervous and apprehensive as they come to the ring. Undertaker and Kane, meanwhile - with Sara on the outside - are here to beat the living shit out of them. If you’ve seen a match featuring Undertaker against a WCW guy, you get the idea what’s going to happen. He’s going to beat the piss out of the opponent, and you’ll be lucky if he sells at all. I’ve always been hit or miss with Undertaker across his career, but 2001 is by far the least favourite year of his career for me.

You can make an interesting story out of a heel overmatched and stuck in a cage against a monster babyface. Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels from Badd Blood 1997 is a ridiculously one-sided match when you watch back on it, and remains one of the best matches in WWE history. That worked because the fans were interested in seeing Michaels get destroyed, and complemented by interesting, exciting work by both, with just enough heel offence to keep the match flowing. The problem is that the DDP stalker angle killed any momentum and overness that DDP had. He had been essentially squashed at King of the Ring.. His tag team partner, Kanyon, while coming into this match as a double champion (also the WCW United States Champion), also wasn’t enthusiastically pushed by the Fed outside of his ironic “Alliance MVP” gimmick (one of the few fun gimmicks of WCW stars). Despite Undertaker and Kane being an extremely popular tag team, the lack of legitimacy to the heels made this a heatless affair, and that in turn eliminates any potential the match had.

The match itself is utterly boring. Undertaker and Kane just slowly, methodically, beating the hell out of Kanyon and Page with only a handful of offensive moves from the heels. Any brief moments of offence were quickly shrugged off by Undertaker and Kane. The babyface offence isn’t interesting or brutal, it’s just a meandering of slow power moves and punching, without ever being made to feel special. For example, Undertaker gets a visual pin of a basic sidewalk slam. It’s ironic because JR mentioned the Hell in a Cell matches with Mankind, HBK, and pushing Rikishi off the Cell - so you’re planting in the audience’s mind that he might murder his opponent in this environment. But he doesn’t do anything particularly violent at all. At about ⅔ of the way through, Undertaker tells Kane to let Kanyon escape. However, as both competitors needed to escape to win the match, that just left DDP alone with the Brothers of Destruction, while Kanyon sheepishly left.

They have a bit of fun with DDP, beating the hell out of him for a minute (one spot sees Kane literally just sitting on the top turnbuckle chilling for a good 30 seconds and watching it all go on). Eventually Undertaker tells DDP he can leave as long as he never looks at his wife again. Kane, naturally, tells Undertaker this is a very stupid idea considering there were two sets of titles on the line. Undertaker then grabs DDP, hits the Last Ride, and basically ends any hope of DDP having a substantial WWE career.

The match itself is mostly just a boring slog, but it earns a place on this list for what it represents. A miscast WCW star squashed by established WWE stars. It’s sad to see because Page was a favourite of mine in WCW. The following night, DDP would lose in a match to Undertaker’s wife, Sara. After that, DDP would go on to have 0 matches for the next three months, 0 wins in the rest of 2001, and then recast as a lower midcard babyface briefly in 2002. Kanyon stuck around in the background of the Alliance storyline for a little bit but never made another PPV appearance in WWE until the APA Bar Room Brawl at Vengeance 2003.

Up next - 90s Royal Rumble matches are rough to watch.

Join the discord discussion below:

https://discord.com/channels/1007269901859307631/1059557356238811227