AEW has been one of the best wrestling companies in the world since it’s inception in 2019. It has some of the best matches in history, like Bryan Danielson vs Kenny Omega, and some of the best moments in wrestling, like Hangman Adam Page’s return in the Casino Ladder Match. However, it has not been devoid of it’s bad moments. Some of the worst moments in AEW history are boring, bad and downright embarrassing to watch.
For every Kenny Omega classic, there’s a Orange Cassidy injury ruining a great match. While Britt Baker is one of the biggest stars in the company, Mel is also allegedly a wrestler who has been seen on AEW Dynamite.
QT Marshall’s feud with the Big Show is definitely one of the low points. It doesn’t make the list of worst AEW moments because I can’t pinpoint one particular moment – it was all awful. Especially the match, but mainly the whole thing.
Worst moments in AEW
The Nightmare Collective ruin a World Championship Match
January 8th 2020 was the date of one of the worst moments in AEW history. Then AEW Women’s Champion Riho defended her Championship against the top ranked contender Kris Statlander.
The first half of the match was fantastic. It was one of, if not the best, women’s match in AEW at that point. The fans were behind both women, with Riho being incredibly popular with the AEW fans.
However, the second half of the match was dreadful.
The match was going really well, until the Nightmare Collective interfered, ruining the match. The team, consisting of Brandi Rhodes, Awesome Kong, some woman called Mel and the debuting Dr Luther all interfered in the match, attacking the competitors.
However, the match wasn’t thrown out until Awesome Kong actually got into the ring, hitting Kris Statlander with a huge clothesline.
This completely ruined a great match, and at a time when the women’s division needed a shot in the arm. They had so far failed to excite the AEW fans but it looked like a turning point for the division.
Sadly, Brandi Rhodes and co had other ideas.
This was definitely one of the worst AEW moments in history. It still sticks out to this day, especially with the eventual fate of the Nightmare Family (They would quietly disband weeks later and this would never be mentioned again).
Big Show can’t work a scale – Cody Rhodes & Anthony Ogogo weigh in
Cody Rhodes vs Anthony Ogogo was an interesting feud. Every Anthony Ogogo match in AEW was different, and most were bad. But none were as bad as the weigh in segment between the two at AEW Dynamite.
Before their disappointing clash at AEW Double or Nothing 2021, the pair took part in a weigh-in segment on AEW Dynamite. Despite this not being a title match and AEW having no weight classes, Tony Khan thought this to be a good idea.
Well, it was not. First both men entered with their 300 strong entourage a piece. This took way too long and added very little to the segment. We know Cody has 4000 people in his Nightmare Family, but we didn’t need them all yelling in the background.
By the time the weigh in started, I was already bored. However, once Cody hopped onto the weighing scales, that’s when the real entertainment started.
Paul Wight, aka the Big Show, was the man to host the weigh in. He didn’t do great, although he did his best to try and make something entertaining out of this. He tried making jokes and moving the segment along, but what happened next solidified it as one of the worst moments in AEW history.
The weighing scales were placed inside the ring. Inside the ring was also the aforementioned entourage of Anthony Ogogo and Cody Rhodes. This meant that the floor was unsteady, and thus making Paul Wight unable to read the scale.
This led to a hilarious situation where Cody just stood there while Wight tried to make the scale work, and being completely unable to make the segment move on.
Cody Rhodes even resorted to telling Wight discretely his actual weight, but Paul Wight rightly ignored him and tried his best to keep weighing him. He seemed to forget that wrestling is fake, and that helped make this one of the most boring segments in AEW history.
The Librarians
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
The librarians said as they entered the arena.
Shhhhhhhhh they said as they made their way to ring.
Shhhhhhhhhh they cried as they wrestled, annoying the crap out of everybody.
That was literally it. Peter Avalon and Blue Pants telling the crowd to shush because, hey look guys, they’re libararians! get it?
I got it. It was just awful. They debuted at AEW Fyter Fest on the buy in show. Even though the buy in was free, I felt like AEW owed me money. And in only it’s second event, it gave me a horrid feeling toward the future of AEW. I didn’t want any bullshit WWE comedy, and this felt exactly like that.
Now Avalon has moved forward with the hugely entertaining Wingmen stable, while Leva Bates wrestles regularly on AEW Dark and AEW Dark Elevation.
Matt Hardy vs Sammy Guevera continues after huge injury
Matt Hardy and Sammy Guevera had a heated feud going into AEW All Out 2020. Guevera and Hardy had been fighting numerous times over the previous weeks, with many matches ending in injury for either men.
This included a huge botch on Sammy’s part during a brawl between the pair on the August 5th episode of AEW Dynamite. The pair brawls, before Sammy laid Hardy out on a table. Hardy fought back, so Sammy threw a chair right at the face of Matt Hardy.
It has been clarified that this was a botch, and that there was a “gimmicked” chair that was lighter that Hardy would have been able to block with his hands. However, Sammy grabbed the heavier steel chair, launching it too quickly toward Hardy. He had no time to raise his hands to block his face, and required 13 stitches in his head once the segment was done.
However, if you can believe it, that wasn’t the worst injury that came from the pairs matches. That came at All Out 2020, and was one of the most brutal injuries in AEW history.
The pair fought to the backstage area, before ascending to the top of a scissor left. Sammy spears Hardy off the edge of the lift, before goes too far with his tackle. Hardy falls too far, not hitting the centre of the table below as intended. He instead misses it, and slams the back of his head on the concrete below.
This STILL isn’t the worst part of it. Hardy is clearly concussed. Audrey Edwards, the referee, has to pull Sammy off of Hardy so he can get medical attention. Hardy clearly cannot finish the match. He could even have brain damage for fuck sake.
The worst part is – they finished the match. Matt Hardy should be in a hospital for treatment on an exploded brain. Hardy goes on to win the match five minutes later, throwing Sammy Guevera off the scaffolding the two had climbed.
What makes this one of the worst moments in AEW history is that everyone knew the right thing to do. Aubrey signalled that he was injured and couldn’t continue but let the match go on. Sammy still attacked Hardy before having to be dragged away by medical personal.
Matt Hardy could have died, and AEW let it happen. Luckily they have managed to come back from that, but days after All Out, there was huge negative reaction towards AEW.
The end of the Exploding Barbed wire Death Match at AEW Revolution 2021
One of the worst moments in AEW came after one of the best and move extreme matches in the companies history. Borrowed from the legendary FMW promotion, the Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match was one of the craziest and most intense match types in the world of wrestling.
Legendary Japanese death match wrestler Atsushi Onita pioneered the match in his own promotion, Frontier Martial Arts, in the mid 1990s. It featured barbed wire for ring ropes, weapons like light tubed and barbed wire for the wrestlers to inflict pain on each other.
Outside the ring explosives were primed. Whenever a wrestler hit the barbed wire ropes, it would set off an explosion, burning the victim.
The match had a time limit, with a countdown featured throughout the match. Once the clock hit zero, then a huge explosion would take place, severly injuring each competitor.
However, that did not happen when it came to Jon Moxley vs Kenny Omega at AEW Revolution.
The match itself was a great match. Moxley is one of the best hardcore wrestlers out there, and Omega adapted well to the unfamiliar style. They used the weapons and the environment to perfection, and Omega eventually won the match and retain his world championship.
It took two One-winged Angels to keep Moxley down, and Omega left him knocked out in the ring, as the clock counted down.
With the clock about to striker zero, and Moxley about to fucking die from a giant explosion, out runs his former friend and rival Eddie Kingston. Kingston and Moxley had feuded all summer, culminating in a brutal no-holds-barred match and some brutal promos between the two.
Kingston jumped on top of his friend, cradling his head and shielding him from the impending explosion. Mirroring the ending to Funk vs Onita, he made the ultimate babyface move, sacrificing himself to protect himself.
Then came the wet far of the explosion. The pyrotechnics failed, and something you’d be disappointed with at a primary school bonfire night fireworks show fell out of the ring posts.
Kingston lay on top of Moxley, selling the lack of explosion. It made everyone involved looked ridiculous and tainted a brilliant match in the eyes of everyone who saw the ending. I wouldn’t be surprised if AEW never do this match type again after one of the worst moments in the history of their PPV’s and the worst ending of all time in AEW.
