11 Worst WWE Matches Of All Time, Ranked Best To Worst

Hamish Woodward

It’s finally here. Feast your eyes upon the worst WWE matches you will ever see in your lifetime.

WWE has been the biggest wrestling company in America for near 20 years since the death of WCW. They have been at the forefront of Sports Entertainment since Hulk Hogan took over the world in the 1980s. However, WWE has produced some of the worst matches in wrestling history.

When wrestling is good, it’s really good. A great match can make you leap to your feet, shout out in anger and cry into your hands.

However when it is bad it can be one of the most boring, disgusting or even embarrassing things you’ve ever watched. Some matches make you embarrassed to be a wrestling fan and many times have made me thing “well maybe WWE is not for me”.

Here are ten such matches. Ten of the worst matches in WWE history, and some matches that I beg you to never watch more than once. For your own sanity.

Worst WWE Matches Ever

11. Alex Bliss vs Bayley – Extreme Rules 2017 (0.57)

Despite being only six-minutes long, the Kendo Stick on a Pole match between Bayley and Alexa Bliss managed to kill Bayley’s character in one fell swoop. The entire feud seemed to be more about ruining Bayley than building up Alexa Bliss, which was actually well planned – it was exactly what happened.

The rivalry leading up to this match had been terrible. Alexa humiliated Bayley at every turn, mocking her for enjoying wrestling (when every WWE character at this time was “gee, I sure do love the wrestling!”) and bringing up fake people from her past, as a stick to beat her with.

This led to an actual stick to beat her with being suspended above the ring post, in the ever-terrible “Kendo Stick on a Pole Match”. Literally zero “on a pole” matches have ever been good, so you’ll be shocked to find out that this was indeed terrible. The story showed Bayley terrified of using the stick to win the match, which gave Bliss the chance to hit Bayley with it and win the Raw Women’s Championship.

10. John Cena vs John Laurinaitis – Over the Limit 2012 (0.59 Rating)

Starting the list if a match between a man who has received a five star match from Dave Meltzer, and John Cena. Somehow these two combined to have one of the worst WWE matches in history.

A dream match in wrestling was CM Punk vs Daniel Bryan. Two of the all time great, finally setting foot in the ring together battling for the greatest prize in Sports Entertainment – the WWE Championship.

That match was put on the undercard, as long retired wrestler John Laurinaitis took on John Cena in a match that nobody wanted to watch.

There’s not much to say about this match. John Cena beat up this old man for twenty minutes, before Johnny Ace got hold of a chair and a large man called the Big Show. He used both those things to his advantage, hitting Cena with both and pinning him for the win.

So not only did this match take precedent over CM Punk vs Daniel Bryan, it wasn’t even John Cena getting revenge on big Johnny. He lost. And it was not good.

9. Braun Strowman vs Tyson Fury – Crown Jewel 2019 (0.51 Rating)

This is one match that I am shocked is on this list. By no means is it a good match, but a 0.77 rating seems harsh to me. I’ve definitely seen worst WWE matches than this on WWE TV, and much worst matches involving celebrities in the ring for the first time.

The match had seemingly no setup, but had a big fight feel to it nonetheless. Strowman was a star in WWE, whilst Tyson Fury was one of the most famous boxers across the globe. He entered the ring dressed in the classic Saudi dress, with an entrance that would make even Triple H at Wrestlemania jealous.

The match wasn’t great, but it was passable. Fury gave a good showing in his debut match, especially against someone not known for their in-ring acumen like Strowman.

They protected the lethal punches of Fury well, only landed them on his opponent. Once in the begininng of the match to great effect, and the other to end the match with a brutal shot to Strowman. He knocked the big man out of the ring with a lethal right hand, winning the match by count out and ending his WWE run as undefeated.

8. Diesel vs King Mabel – Summerslam 1995 (0.74 Rating)

The lowest drawing WWE Champion taking on by far the WORST King of the King of all time. Despite being a terrible, boring and dangerous wrestler, Vince McMahon in his infinite wisdom decided that Mabel should win the 1995 King of the Ring.

His prize for winning the Kingship was a chance to face Diesel, real name Kevin Nash, for the WWE Championship. Neither men had ever been the most mobile, and work rate was a word not in their vocabularies.

Mabel (who was later known as Viscera and Big Daddy V) was a tag team wrestler who, due to his size (both height and width) was pushed as a main event star as WWE tried to recreate the success of the 1980s.

The match was boring. Despite interference from Lex Luger, nothing about it was memorable. Diesel pinned Mabel with a shoulder tackle of all things and thankfully ended the main event push of one of the WWE’s worst ever wrestlers.

7. The Dudley Boys vs The Undertaker – The Great American Bash 2004 (0.71 Rating)

To set up one of the worst WWE matches in history, Paul Heyman had the Dudley Boys to abduct Paul Bearer. Why? We may never know. However, what we do know is that it set up a match for the Great American Bash in 2004.

In that match, Paul Bearer was stuck inside a glass box, and if the Undertaker lost to the Dudley Boys in a handicap match, then they would pour concrete into the box and murder Paul Bearer.

This is normal. This is normal Paul Heyman behaviour.

The crowd could not have given less of a shit. They were silent as The Undertaker and Dudley Boys plodded through a slow, boring match. Worse than it being awful, it was completely forgettable.

To make it worse, people do remember the post-match, but again for the wrong reasons. Despite Undertaker single handedly beating the Tag Team Champions, he himself pulled the lever and murdered his manager by filling his box with concrete. It made literally no sense, and looked ridiculous. It also made no sense for him to beat the tag team champions and making them look like shit.

6. The Bushwackers & Men on a Mission vs Bam Bam Bigelow, Bastion Booger & The Headshrinkers – Survivor Series 1993 (0.70 Rating)

For reasons I am unaware of, in this match the team Bushwackers and Men on a Mission came out wearing Doink the Clown masks, and just sort of clowned around for the entire match. Also Bastion Booger was a part of this match. Some of the talents in this match just deserved better.

Rather than give you my own thoughts on this match, I wont waste your time and just paste some of the most accurate reviews from Cagematch.com

“Jesus Christ, this SUCKS. A painfully horrible match where four worthless talents put on a goddamn clown mask in an awful attempt at bad comedy. Watch this if you want to hate wrestling. [DUD]”

“This match was terrible it bored me to death. A comedy match that was painful to watch in 1993 and even worse today. It was barely funny at any point. If you want an example of why business was down for WWE in 1993 and why it was one of the worst years in company history, this match explains it. Horrible stuff (DUD)”

“In my 20+ years as a wrestling fan, this is the worst match I have ever seen. I lost the will to live watching it!”

This should be the worst match on this list. I lost the will to live too.

5. D-Generation X vs Brothers of Destruction – WWE Crown Jewel 2018 (0.69 Rating)

It’s better for the sanity of wrestling fans that we simply ignore this match. Pretend it doesn’t exist and go about your day. Because it ruined the greatest retirement of all time after the best retirement match in WWE history.

But, money talks, and millions and million of Saudi blood bucks later Shawn Michaels was lacing up his boots and shining his now hairless dome to step foot in a WWE ring for the first time in eight years. He teamed with Triple H, reuniting the legendary team of D-Generation X, facing, at the behest of the Saudi Government, Undertaker and Kane.

It was a match that did not need to happen. Each man was at least 10 years past their prime. All were pushing retirement and were soon going to be collecting their bus passes. Kane was already Mayor of Knox County, The Undertaker was on his way out, Triple H had stopped his yearly Wrestlemania bout and Shawn Michaels was happily enjoying retirement.

The match was not good. Triple H suffered an injury early on, meaning the long retired HBK had to carry the match for his team. The match felt long, partially due to the 9 and half minute long entrances. At one point Kane’s mask even fell off, which was just the most hilarious in a comedy of errors in this match.

27 MINUTES AFTER THE BELL RANG, Triple H hit Kane with a pedigree and pinned him for the victory. All four men in the match has expressed regret in this match, wishing that they had never done it. Their bank accounts disagreed though, and in WWE that is literally all that mattered.

4. The Undertaker vs Goldberg – WWE Super Showdown 2019 (0.57 Rating)

The gift that is the WWE Saudi shows just keep on giving. This list of the worst WWE matches has been dominated by the “Dream Matches” that WWE has been providing up as these shows funded by the murderous Saudi regime. The Undertaker vs Goldberg took place at Super Showdown 2019, and was as bad as you might expect – even worse, according to most!

This match was a dream match for fans 20 years ago. The WWE legend versus one of the biggest WCW stars would have been great during or after the invasion. However, in 2019 with both men over 50, it was doomed to be disastrous.

However, nobody would predict just how bad this match would turn out.

The match started out how you’d expect. Both men went for all their big moves, spears and chokeslams mostly, albeit at a much slower pace than usual. Goldberg was moving better than Undertaker, although probably due to him having about 3000 less matches under his belt.

The match was okay. They hit all their spots as expected, not bringing anything new to the table. I’m sure if you were a huge fan of these two it was a dream match and exactly what you wanted to see.

Then, Goldberg lifted Undertaker up for the Jackhammer and plonked him right down on his head. A horrible accident that knocked Undertaker for six, with the Undertaker saying he came close to “Making Michelle (McCool, his wife) a widow.”.

Now this may be seen as a normal mistake that happens when one OAP tries to lift another OAP above his head. However, before the match Goldberg continued his ritual of headbutting doors before a match (Don’t even ask). He concussed himself before the match, and had blood trickling down his face before the match even started. It was a disaster.

Goldberg lifted Undertaker up for a Tombstone (for some reason) for the finish. They tried the classic Tombstone reverse spot, but both men fell on their arses, messing up the whole thing. Thinking quickly, Undertaker hit Goldberg with a Chokeslam, pinning him for the win.

The match went eight minutes but felt like twenty. It was clear that neither men should have been in the ring that night, and the whole thing was a disaster. Luckily, this is the last of the Saudi matches on this list, as I don’t think I could take anymore old men nearly dying in front of me.

3. Sable vs Tori – Wrestlemania 15 (0.50 Rating)

Sable was not a good wrestler. She was signed to WWE because they wanted to sign her husband Marc Mero, saw she was hot and decided to sign her too. She became a huge star in WWE, there’s no question of that. But it wasn’t because of her in ring talent, her mic skills or her natural charisma.

On the other side was Tori. She had been a full-time wrestler, but not since 1993 and never with many plaudits. The women’s wrestling scene in American during this time was absolutely dire, and this match just emphasised it.

The match was for the Women’s Championship, which Sable had held for a remarkable 176 days, despite having very little wrestling ability. It was a bonus that the women got a match on the Wrestlemania card, but they wouldn’t start to be taken seriously as wrestlers until many, many years later.

The match has no real horrible things to write about. There wasn’t any awful booking decisions or awful botches. It was just bad. Moves were executed poorly, the match pacing was off and both women seemed to have no idea what they were doing. Overall it was just a disaster, with both women put in a position they clearly were not ready for.

2. “Miss Wrestlemania” Battle Royale – Wrestlemania 25 (0.24 Rating)

To celebrate the 24th anniversary of Wrestlemania, NOT the 25th as WWE kept erroneously referring to it as, WWE put on a battle royale to celebrate 25 years of women’s wrestling in the WWE. Stars of the past and present all competed in a 25 woman battle royale, with the winner being given the title of Miss Wrestlemania.

However, WWE failed. Big time. They didn’t bring back any of the real stars of the past, like Trish Stratus or Lita. Instead much less popular wrestlers like Joy Giovanni and Jackie Gayda-Haas to full the spots. This impressed nobody and just added to the matches disappointment.

The worst part of this boring battle royale was the winner. Despite being used to celebrate the women in WWE, the winner was “Santina Marella”, WWE superstar Santino Marella in drag pretending to be his own sister.

Yep, that really happened. Can you tell my this is the second worst WWE matches ever?

1. Michael Cole vs Jerry Lawler – Wrestlemania 26 (0.16 Rating)

Coming off the heels of the worst heel turn of all time, Jerry Lawler vs Michael Cole is the worst WWE match of all time.

The worst match in WWE history is not even close for me. I’m shocked it got as high as 0.16 rating. If I could give it a numerical value, it would be in the minuses. The build up was bad enough, with Brian Christopher’s return proving to be one of the worst returns of all time and Cole being generally insufferable, the match itself was something else.

Jerry Lawler is a legend of the squared circle. The King of Memphis has been a fixture of WWE for over 20 years, and was one of the most recognizable voice of the Attitude Era. He also has a long and storied career as a top class wrestler, having wrestled in his hometown of Memphis for over 40 years.

Michael Cole is a long time WWE character who is in no way a wrestler. Now, non-wrestlers have had matches before. Tyson Fury has shown that already in this list. However, most times a non-wrestler is given a chance in the ring, they do it smartly. They have short matches with just a few spots, and usually involving some interference or as a multi-man match.

They don’t stick a man who’s pushing sixty in the ring with a man who’s never wrestled a day in his life and expect it to go well. And you certainly don’t do that at Wrestlemania, and you certainly don’t give it the same amount of time as the main event of the show.

Unless of course you’re an idiot like Vince McMahon, who sat in the back with glee as he watched nearly 14 minutes of Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler struggling to wrestle in the middle of Wrestlemania 26. Even having the legendary Stone Cold Steve Austin as the special guest referee did nothing to make this match better.

If you’ve seen the match, you’ll be shocked at what you just read. I too was shocked when I saw the match only went 14 minutes. Because watching it it felt like it went about 30 minutes. I hate myself for watching this match again and I swear I never will again.

The worst part of the match though? Jerry Lawler finally beat the obnoxious heel Michael Cole, but the stupid Raw Anonymous General Match overturned the result, because Steve Austin dared try to make it slightly enjoyable by dishing out a few stunners.

The laptop awarded Cole the winner after the fact, making the whole thing not only awful to watch, but completely pointless too.

Jerry Lawler vs Michael Cole was voted the worst WWE matches in history. Can you think of any worse matches? Let us know in the comments if your least favourite match missed out.

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