Peaked at ‘good’

[RedTwoster]

Inspired by this comment by @d-d-d-dAz in the Wrestlemania matches you’ve forgotten thread:

2 hours ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

Slight derailment of the thread, but I think I'd struggle to recall most individual matches from Kane's career. He was a good character act at times, but I don't think he ever had a great match.

With that in mind, which decent wrestlers (ie. Not people like Khali, Kenzo Suzuki and Heidenreich) do you think never managed to have a truly great match?

I’m going to throw this guy’s name in the mix…

You’ll immediately think ‘TLC’ I’m sure, but I’m talking about Matt Hardy specifically as a singles wrestler. Sure, the cinematic matches were memorable - but do they really count? 

As far as I can think, throughout his whole career as a singles wrestler, the guy has not had a truly great matches. Plenty of good ones, and very few duds - but I’m not sure he’s ever hit that next level, whereas his brother definitely did.

[FUM]

Some will disagree because they’ll refer to a certain WrestleMania match but that was more about the moment than the match and gets put on a higher pedestal as a result…

Similar to the OP, purely on a singles wrestler basis.

[RedTwoster]

9 hours ago, FUM said:

Similar to the OP, purely on a singles wrestler basis.

I do think that the Wrestlemania match holds up, but it was this comment that struck me in that it made me realise New Day as a collective might be relevant here. I’m not sure they’ve ever had a truly great tag match.

[Sphinx]

10 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

As far as I can think, throughout his whole career as a singles wrestler, the guy has not had a truly great matches. Plenty of good ones, and very few duds - but I’m not sure he’s ever hit that next level, whereas his brother definitely did.

I enjoyed his match with Rey for the Cruiserweight title on Smackdown if the memory serves. Was his cage match with Edge any good? Other than that, just the Final Deletion stuff springs to mind (though I know that's not what you mean by a truly great match).

[HarmonicGenerator]

1 hour ago, RedTwoster said:

I do think that the Wrestlemania match holds up, but it was this comment that struck me in that it made me realise New Day as a collective might be relevant here. I’m not sure they’ve ever had a truly great tag match.

My memories of ‘10s WWE aren’t the strongest but they had a Cell match with the Usos that I thought was excellent at the time.

[The Reverend]

Controversial this one, but it's got to be Jake Roberts.

A big, big star for sure - but mainly for the gimmick, and certain angles. It's hard to think of an actual 5* match he ever had. Not an incompetant wrestler by any means, but his limited moves - short arm clothesline, knee to the face, DDT don't hold up against other limited moves of Hogan, Hart etc. because the rest of the matches were just bland.

Saying that though, he was a mega-star. 

[Merzbow]

27 minutes ago, The Reverend said:

Controversial this one, but it's got to be Jake Roberts.

A big, big star for sure - but mainly for the gimmick, and certain angles. It's hard to think of an actual 5* match he ever had. Not an incompetant wrestler by any means, but his limited moves - short arm clothesline, knee to the face, DDT don't hold up against other limited moves of Hogan, Hart etc. because the rest of the matches were just bland.

Saying that though, he was a mega-star. 

I was going to say the same about Ted Dibiase, but pre-WWF he has having bangers with Duggan, Flair and Tenryu. It's more that his style in The Fed was toned down and he didn't need to be better than good, with maybe the exception of against Savage.

[Mr. Levity 84]

Gotta throw Big E into the mix. Decent NXT Champion, had some fun matches as part of the New Day, but never had a better than 'good' singles match, particularly during his completely forgettable WWE Title run.

[wandshogun09]

2 hours ago, The Reverend said:

Controversial this one, but it's got to be Jake Roberts.

A big, big star for sure - but mainly for the gimmick, and certain angles. It's hard to think of an actual 5* match he ever had. Not an incompetant wrestler by any means, but his limited moves - short arm clothesline, knee to the face, DDT don't hold up against other limited moves of Hogan, Hart etc. because the rest of the matches were just bland.

Saying that though, he was a mega-star. 

Yeah Jake was all about the character and the promos rather than actual exciting matches. I genuinely think the best match he had in his entire WWF run was the Blindfold match with The Model at WrestleMania VII. It was great but it was all about the angle and the drama and the characters involved. Sums it up really.

It was that time though, 80s WWF wasn’t really about match quality so much was it? You had big exceptions like Savage and Steamboat having great matches with the right opponent, and obviously with each other. And you had the Hart Foundation and the British Bulldogs come along in the mid 80s. But it was mostly about the characters and gimmicks and colours back then and even a lot of the best in ring performers probably quickly figured out that they could tone it down and still get the same or better crowd reactions. And who could blame them with the barmy road schedule they were on back then? When you really think about it though, even a guy like Mr Perfect didn’t have many really good matches in the WWF outside the Bret stuff. Jake and DiBiase as mentioned as well. They were all definitely more than capable but having killer matches wasn’t what was really called for in the WWF in that era in general. People were invested in the personalities. 

[kidzero]

3 hours ago, Merzbow said:

I was going to say the same about Ted Dibiase, but pre-WWF he has having bangers with Duggan, Flair and Tenryu. It's more that his style in The Fed was toned down and he didn't need to be better than good, with maybe the exception of against Savage.

Ye had a great bump I thought 

[Callum1993]

People might say he’s less than ‘Good’ but I’d put the Miz in this category. Always has a solid match, safe worker but never anything spectacular. 

[Chili]

I reckon a lot of people who will pop up in here are what Steve Austin likes to call mechanics, or good hands etc. It's also completely based on personal taste isn't it. Jake Roberts isn't a big MOVEZ fella etc, but he's had great matches. Technically the Blindfold Match to me is great, they work the stipulation perfectly, it's a good gimmick to end that storyline and every spot or tease or movement gets the maximum reaction wanted from the crowd. That'd be a job well done for me watching it from the performance art aspect of it.

[King Coconut]

The blindfold match is definitely a great match. Roberts is disqualified.

[Carbomb]

I think Rikishi would be a good candidate. Lots of fun, solid worker, great character work, over with the crowd, but I don't think I can point to any matches memorable for quality - there was that one where he just got smashed up by Austin in revenge for the hit-and-run, but I don't think it counts as such.

[SwayWays]

On 3/29/2025 at 10:15 PM, RedTwoster said:

 @d-d-d-dAz

To be honest I think Matt is quentessentially the poster boy this thread in his singles work. I will say however he's so consist, constantly capable of reinvention with xtrmeme Matt, broken, money matt, v1 and has that ridiculous extra gear when he's stood beside Jeff. 

He's so consistent, and with everything else stated I almost felt compelled to offer compensation counter argument... But almost a  Mandela effect, that now looking back, even with his rey mania match in mind which I really enjoyed, I can't think of anything to counter this. Except that he's "great" at being good. But absolutely bang on the money. 

Edited March 31, 2025 by SwayWays