Great wrestlers’ worst matches

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

What Rooster said, I should learn to read. 

Edited September 2, 2025 by Lion_of_the_Midlands
Blind and that's me and not Daly.

[TheScarlettChad]

17 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Surely Shawn and Hunter's worst match. Taker too if we're considering him a top worker. Kane was in it as well.

Bad Blood 2004 was pretty damn awful. 

[wandshogun09]

2 hours ago, gmoney said:

He wasn't madly consistent anyway, but Rick Rude had an absolute stinker with Chono in WCW in 1992, I want to say it was Halloween Havoc? I'm not the biggest Chono fan, in fact I'd say he was probably my least favourite of the big Japanese names of the 90s, but you'd expect much better for these two. Goes on for bloody ever. 

It was Halloween Havoc 92 yeah. An awful match, made more baffling by the fact they’d had a belter the year before in the G-1 Climax in New Japan. For Rude you can also chuck in the two stinkers he had with Ric Flair at Fall Brawl and Havoc 93 as well. Terrible matches given who was involved. 

4 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

I'll go for Bret. The worker of all workers. His match with Bob Backlund at Mania 11 is as high-profile a stinker as I can ever recall him having. It's a terrible gimmick, is refereed horribly by Roddy Piper, has a non-existent story and the work is average. I think Bret talks in his book about it being doomed to fail and he wrestles like he knows it. Boo boo face for bad matches.  

Yeah I’m pretty sure Bret himself has even said that was the worst match he ever had. Can’t really think of a worse one myself. 

4 hours ago, sivy said:

Talking of Undertaker him vs Austin at Rock Bottom (terrible ppv) that's a terrible match too. 

Taker and Austin had a few rotters. The one at Backlash 2002 might be the worst for me. I never thought they had amazing chemistry but that match in particular seemed to come at a terrible time for both, they were both in shite form. It was Taker at the start of maybe the worst three PPV match run ever from a top guy (vs Austin at Backlash, vs Hogan at Judgment Day, vs Triple H at KOTR) and Austin all burnt out and about to ‘take his ball and go home’ a couple of months later. And the match dragged like fuck. 

Edited September 2, 2025 by wandshogun09

[BomberPat]

I think Austin even said on his podcast that one of his regrets in his career is that he feels he never had a good match with 'Taker.

For a double whammy, Bret Hart and Mitsuharu Misawa had an absolute stinker when Misawa was in the Tiger Mask gimmick.

[wandshogun09]

10 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

For a double whammy, Bret Hart and Mitsuharu Misawa had an absolute stinker when Misawa was in the Tiger Mask gimmick.

That’s a great shout. Surely one of the biggest examples of two rights sometimes making a wrong.

Oh and thinking about that Rude vs Flair dud from Fall Brawl 93 reminded me of the awful Arn Anderson/Paul Roma vs Nasty Boys match from the same show. Nobody needed or wanted or did anything bad enough to deserve to endure 30 minutes of that. Poor Arn. I think the other three might genuinely have dragged him to the worst match of his life that night. 

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

Surely Shawn and Hunter's worst match. Taker too if we're considering him a top worker. Kane was in it as well.

I did consider that - but as @TheScarlettChad says, there’s definitely competition when it comes to Triple H. His matches with Scott Steiner were horrendous, and his match with Kevin Nash at Bad Blood was also abysmal. Then there’s the match with Vladimir Kozlov at Survivor Series 2008, which was just horrible - it gets better when Edge appears, but up until then, it’s definitely a contender. He also wrestled Khali at Summerslam 2008, in a match that’s only saving grace is that it’s just 10 mins long. Doesn’t feel it, though.

The Crown Jewel match might be the worst of the bunch, but Triple H has a real portfolio of shit that has to come into the conversation.

[DCW]

Triple H had loadsa stinkers in 2002-2003, during his post quad injury mega roided up run. His match with RVD at Unforgiven 2002 which revolved around a poxy side headlock is up there. RVD was made to look dumb as fuck for trusting Flair for the finish too.  H sure knew how to kill any potential rivals crack at a main event spot stone dead. 

That Unforgiven card also had a a fairly ropey Edge/Eddie match too. But they rectified that by having that belter of a last man standing match on Smackdown a few weeks later, one with the sunsent flip bomb on the ladder.

Edited September 2, 2025 by DCW

[SaitoRyo]

44 minutes ago, DCW said:

That Unforgiven card also had a a fairly ropey Edge/Eddie match too. But they rectified that by having that belter of a last man standing match on Smackdown a few weeks later, one with the sunsent flip bomb on the ladder.

That Unforgiven match was great! Eddie was really feeling it after coming back and Edge was out to prove that he could be a proper singles star. Their SummerSlam outing was also solid but, yes, the No DQ one they had on SmackDown was the best one they ever had together. 

On the subject of Eddie, I don't remember seeing him ever have a truly terrible match, but he did have some disappointing ones. The No Mercy '03 match he had with Big Show springs to mind as one that was well below his usual standards. 

[TheScarlettChad]

24 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

That Unforgiven match was great! Eddie was really feeling it after coming back and Edge was out to prove that he could be a proper singles star. Their SummerSlam outing was also solid but, yes, the No DQ one they had on SmackDown was the best one they ever had together. 

On the subject of Eddie, I don't remember seeing him ever have a truly terrible match, but he did have some disappointing ones. The No Mercy '03 match he had with Big Show springs to mind as one that was well below his usual standards. 

Benoit vs Eddie ONS 2005. Not awful, but not good either. 

[sivy]

39 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said:

Benoit vs Eddie ONS 2005. Not awful, but not good either. 

That's the one Eddie clearly didn't want to work that night. 

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, SaitoRyo said:

On the subject of Eddie, I don't remember seeing him ever have a truly terrible match, but he did have some disappointing ones. The No Mercy '03 match he had with Big Show springs to mind as one that was well below his usual standards. 

His WWE matches with Rey Mysterio were generally pretty underwhelming. They were fine, but no better than that.

As far as his worst match goes, his bout with Luther Reigns at No Mercy 2004 was pretty bad. He tried his hardest, but ultimately, he was wrestling someone who couldn’t do a great deal. 

His match with Triple H on the 2004 Raw draft lottery show is pretty boring - the fact it ends in a DQ makes it even worse. Ultimately, it didn’t leave you wanting more from the pair of them.

[SaitoRyo]

1 hour ago, sivy said:

That's the one Eddie clearly didn't want to work that night. 

Yeah, there's some backstory to that one. Apparently Eddie was pissed off that he was booked to do a clean job on PPV, having already done a bunch for Mysterio in the months beforehand. Also, he got a cut on his nose early on, which seemed to throw him off. Then he got annoyed that the crowd were chanting at the group of WWE 'invaders' who were there, rather than pay attention to his match. Atfer the match you can see him mouth 'I owe you one' to Benoit. They had a much better match on SmackDown a few weeks later iirc.

54 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

His WWE matches with Rey Mysterio were generally pretty underwhelming. They were fine, but no better than that.

As far as his worst match goes, his bout with Luther Reigns at No Mercy 2004 was pretty bad. He tried his hardest, but ultimately, he was wrestling someone who couldn’t do a great deal. 

His match with Triple H on the 2004 Raw draft lottery show is pretty boring - the fact it ends in a DQ makes it even worse. Ultimately, it didn’t leave you wanting more from the pair of them.

I liked his WWE matches with Rey! They weren't on par with their Halloween Havoc classic but, then again, how could they be? Their match at Judgment Day '05 is particularly good, as was a SmackDown main event not long after. They also had a really underrated singles match on SmackDown in like October of '02. I thought the SummerSlam ladder match match good, chaotic fun, too.

Agreed on the Luther Reigns match for the reasons you stated. I thought his match with HHH was pretty decent as far as TV main events in that era went. 

I think the thing with Eddie in the last eighteen months of his life is that he was clearly struggling physically. His back was completely wrecked and his heart clearly wasn't functioning as it should have been. Kurt Angle has told a story about how Eddie basically latched onto the bottom rope and told him to fuck off and not do anything during a SmackDown match, which twigged him to the fact he might have been dealing with something health-related. That was a little under a year before he passed away. 

[LaGoosh]

Lots of mentions of Triple H in this thread. I wouldn't say he's a great wrestler. A mostly average/dull one who has had the odd good match but is generally boring.

[Supremo]

Okada and Bryan Danielson being each other’s kryptonite. Gave major Bret and Shawn vibes. Putting two of the very best together and they somehow cancel the other out. All the ingredients for a guaranteed five stars and they don’t even hit three and a half.

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

Okada and Bryan Danielson being each other’s kryptonite. Gave major Bret and Shawn vibes. Putting two of the very best together and they somehow cancel the other out. All the ingredients for a guaranteed five stars and they don’t even hit three and a half.

I wonder if it’s purely down to where Okada is in his career right now, because I don’t think he’s had anything better than an OK match in AEW with anyone. I’m not even sure I’d bother resigning him when his contract expires if I were Tony Khan, for what he’s actually bringing to the table these days.