Strange Matches

[wandshogun09]

Terry Funk dragging Virgil of all people into a wild brawl in NWC. This has definitely been posted on here before but it fits the theme of this thread. 

Another one that seems mad it ever happened is Dory Funk Jr vs Rob Van Dam on that Terry Funk ‘retirement’ show in 1997. If I hadn’t seen that match myself with my own eyes I’d never believe it was real. 

[gmoney]

1 hour ago, Chico Torres said:

From around that same time, Onita vs Tony Atlas in a Catskills country club in upstate New York (think dirty dancing)

 

Atlas does a promo on Onita building up to this that's absolutely fantastic. He had a hell of heel run on the indies in 1990, he was an incredibly funny heel promo. 

[Snitsky's back acne]

On 7/9/2025 at 7:02 PM, Hugh Thesz said:

The (returning (after years off TV), Kendo Nagasaki against Clive Meyers in a ladder disco record bout does it for me.

An iconic wrestler in his TV return against the always amazing Clive Myers.

Why did it need any form of stipulation?

Then again, it temains a good bout.

Held in Stringfellows at the London Hippodrome just to add to the strange stakes. 

[Chili]

10 minutes ago, gmoney said:

Atlas does a promo on Onita building up to this that's absolutely fantastic. He had a hell of heel run on the indies in 1990, he was an incredibly funny heel promo. 

Yes he was!!! Go to 5:41 here where he both scares and corpses the poor young lady trying to interview him.

 

[wordsfromlee]

Simon Gotch (then known as Ryan Drago) in a tag team match facing Mitsuharu Misawa.

 

[WrestlingForFun]

FWA/TWC threw some wild stuff out there.

British uprising 3:

Terry Funk, Burchill, Paul Travell (with (Dean Ayass) vs Drew McDonald, Thunder and Raj Ghosh (with Greg Lambert). don’t forget to throw in Jimmy Hart as a special referee. I don’t think you’re going to see a more random selection of people thrown into matches ever. Although i was there and if was actually a lot of fun.

Frontiers of Honour (FWA vs ROH)

this one threw up some admitted bangers with Daniels vs Fleisch and Storm vs Styles but some of the other matches had some pretty random pairings.

jack Xavier vs Mikey Whipwreck

James Tighe beating Paul London

and in a YES THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:

Zebra Kid vs Samoa Joe for the ROH title

WWE wise

Was reminded recently of the multi man match with The Shield (angle replacing Reigns vs Miz, Bo Dallas, Curtis Axel, Cesaro, Sheamus, Kane and Braun Strowman. Just …. What. 

 

 

 

[Statto]

6 minutes ago, WrestlingForFun said:

and in a YES THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:

Zebra Kid vs Samoa Joe for the ROH title

The match that made the RoH title a World title!

Edit: and also that gave birth to Joe's Ole Kick!

Edited July 11, 2025 by Statto
Kick.

[RedTwoster]

There was also that time in 2008 when Randy Orton and John Cena teamed up to face the entire Raw roster in an elimination match…and won (albeit via DQ - although they did pin quite a few wrestlers along the way)

 

[Merzbow]

45 minutes ago, WrestlingForFun said:

British uprising 3:

Terry Funk, Burchill, Paul Travell (with (Dean Ayass) vs Drew McDonald, Thunder and Raj Ghosh (with Greg Lambert). don’t forget to throw in Jimmy Hart as a special referee. I don’t think you’re going to see a more random selection of people thrown into matches ever. Although i was there and if was actually a lot of fun.

Yeah I was there for that one, too. Didn't even know it was happening until I walked through town and some girls were giving away free tickets.

[Hugh Thesz]

7 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

Held in Stringfellows at the London Hippodrome just to add to the strange stakes. 

Wow, never knew that.  

Thanks

[westlondonmist]

13 hours ago, WrestlingForFun said:

FWA/TWC threw some wild stuff out there.

British uprising 3:

Terry Funk, Burchill, Paul Travell (with (Dean Ayass) vs Drew McDonald, Thunder and Raj Ghosh (with Greg Lambert). don’t forget to throw in Jimmy Hart as a special referee. I don’t think you’re going to see a more random selection of people thrown into matches ever. Although i was there and if was actually a lot of fun.

Frontiers of Honour (FWA vs ROH)

this one threw up some admitted bangers with Daniels vs Fleisch and Storm vs Styles but some of the other matches had some pretty random pairings.

jack Xavier vs Mikey Whipwreck

James Tighe beating Paul London

and in a YES THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:

Zebra Kid vs Samoa Joe for the ROH title

WWE wise

Was reminded recently of the multi man match with The Shield (angle replacing Reigns vs Miz, Bo Dallas, Curtis Axel, Cesaro, Sheamus, Kane and Braun Strowman. Just …. What. 

 

 

 

 

Jack Xavier was essentially a Mikey Whipwreck knock off wasn't he? So I can sort of understand the pairing. Probably wasn't very good though, can't really remember. I think the whole show was pretty much a fun live experience but not a show great to watch back. If you watch the FWA shows with imports you pretty much see those imports hitting their key spots, which the crowd loved but not much else. However that was probably how they wrestled 90% of their matches outside of Roh, PWG or TNA. 

 

I think Zebra Kid vs Joe became a title match on the night after a Joe promo but the reality is it meant the match went from a 99% chance of Joe winning to 100%.

Edited July 12, 2025 by westlondonmist

[Snitsky's back acne]

9 hours ago, Hugh Thesz said:

Wow, never knew that.  

Thanks

Even stranger - the future Jushin Thunder Liger also wrestled on the show. 

[Dai]

On 7/11/2025 at 3:43 PM, air_raid said:

Ah, Hustle of May 2004. Foley was a last minute replacement for an injured Bill Goldberg. Foley wasn’t feeling great but they were (a) desperate and (b) silly money marks so they threw a Goldberg-level cheque at him. An utterly daft card featuring as diverse random matches as Kaz Hayashi & Spanky vs Low Ki & Taka Michinoku, Steve Corino vs Dusty Rhodes, and an utter mess of a main with Scott Hall & Kevin Nash vs Shinya Hashimoto & Naoya Ogawa.

But fear not, Goldberg did wrestle some daft matches in Japan.

 

Think I remember Powerslam saying it was 250k that they offered Mick, which is insane when you think of it. 

As for Goldberg, you're right that his matches should probably be mentioned in here. Surely one in a long line of huge blunders by AJPW up until that point in having Goldberg squash two of your biggest stars in Kea and Kojima. Goldberg's special Budokan entrance area definitely fell into this category at the time.

 

As a side note, I think that Nash/Hall entrance is one of the greatest of all time isn't it, when they use Ready or not. Not on YouTube by the looks of it, which is a shame. 

 

Edit - I for sone bizarre reason have just had a strange match pop up into my head. Can't fully remember it but it was Bob Holly in a TNA ring wrestling some of the Aces and Eights guys. Just strange that it was Bob in TNA and interacting with Aces and Eights. 

Edited July 12, 2025 by Dai

[RedTwoster]

2 hours ago, Dai said:

Edit - I for sone bizarre reason have just had a strange match pop up into my head. Can't fully remember it but it was Bob Holly in a TNA ring wrestling some of the Aces and Eights guys. Just strange that it was Bob in TNA and interacting with Aces and Eights. 

I was certain you were wrong about this, but after googling it, I see you’re correct - he teamed up with James Storm and Magnus (Nick Aldis) at One Night Only: Hardcore Justice 2013 to face DOC (Luke Gallows), Knux (Mike Knox) and Wes Brisco.

[air_raid]

Remember that match Hacksaw had with Kendo Nagasaki (Sakurada, not our bloke) included on World Tour 91 from one of the WWF/SWS collabs? Not a shitshow of Earthquake vs Koji Kitao levels but… fuck.

Staying in Japan, Double J tagging with Yujiro and Bad Luck Fail against TenKoji & Honma is still a match I can’t believe happened. Although might share honours with the weirdest team up of the night with legit-fantastic in a work rate sense Marufuji tagging with bants Yano (and TM61) against Suzukigun. Re-reading that show bottom to top… fuck me, it’s in the conversation for my favourite show ever. Even if the top 5 matches the year after were better still.