2015 Awards: Worst Match of the Year
It’s not the Divas for once.
This is actually a tricky one as it depends more on your definition of the word “worst”. So often, a match that is described as the worst is really more boring than anything else. It’s kind of rare to have a match that really is horrible, but often times boring is a lot worse than bad. Therefore, your mileage might vary here.
We’ll start with a match that actually was bad, at least in its booking: Seth Rollins vs. Brock Lesnar from Night of Champions. This was a nine minute squash with Brock squashing the champ and then a screwy finish as Undertaker came back to get revenge for a match he lost clean a year and a half ago. The story made sense, but I see no need to have the World Champion get DESTROYED to get there. At least have Seth cheat to get in some offense or something, but don’t have him get beaten down that badly. He’s the World Champion for a reason.
Then we have a match that might take this one running away: TNA’s Gauntlet for the Gold at Bound For Glory. No matter how you look at this, it was a twenty four minute Royal Rumble with 12 names (one of which was Pope, who eliminated himself), including Mahabali Shera, Chris Melendez, Tommy Dreamer, Aiden O’Shea and the winner, earning a World Title shot at some point in the future, Tyrus. This was stupid booking (setting up Tyrus as a title contender), stupid planning (the show never recovered after this mess) and just bad in general. We’ll come back to this idea in a bit.
We’ll go back to the mess at TripleMania XXIII with Los Villanos vs. Los Psycho Circus. This was the Villanos’ (youngest member: 50) retirement match as a trio and the match made them look older than their ages. The match was a disaster and the technical issues weren’t any help either. However, I can put this one lower on the bad list because what was supposed to happen here? One team is over 150 years old combined so what are they supposed to really do out there? Yeah it’s a disaster, but it’s a disaster that I feel sorry for.
One more thing before we get to the worst match: I’ve seen a lot of loathing for the Intercontinental Title Elimination Chamber match. I really don’t get this as I found the match to be totally watchable. It’s completely forgettable and was boring at times, but one of the worst matches of the year? Really? The right guy won, the lineup was decent enough and the match wasn’t horrible. I really don’t get the hate for this as it’s really more middle of the road than bad.
Then there’s the match that I think you know is coming: the Royal Rumble. This was the 1993 version all over again as everyone in the arena knew Reigns (Yokozuna) was winning and Daniel Bryan (Undertaker), the only person with a prayer of eliminating him, was taken out early, leaving the crowd to be bored for the rest of the match.
On top of that, you had what looked like a hot finish with a bunch of promising talent in there near the end. Here’s the final ten in the match: Reigns, Rusev, Big Show, Kane, Ambrose, Wyatt, Ziggler, Cesaro, Barrett and Swagger. Save for Big Show and Kane, that could be one heck of a hot finish as the new generation shows that they can take this thing over.
And never mind as Big Show and Kane took out Swagger, Ziggler, Wyatt and Ambrose before being dumped by Reigns at the same time in a moment that was done way better when Shawn Michaels eliminated Yokozuna and Vader in 1996 (a good way to do a Rumble where everyone knew who was winning).
This was a complete disaster with the Rock not even able to save it. Unfortunately this continued Reigns’ push to the main event of Wrestlemania WAY before people wanted to see it (though at least they were smart enough to not pull the trigger just yet). The match was just boring throughout and saves the Gauntlet for the Gold by having so many of the same problems but at over double the time. This one wins and I’m almost scared to look at it again for the redo.
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Yes and no on the people trying to blow the roof off the place.
The wrestlers should always try to, but as was said, there are moments where you can do anything and people just aren’t going to care. The wrestlers should be trying as hard as they can, albeit with an understanding that the fans not exploding every five seconds might not be their fault. The post Brock vs. Undertaker match (which was the 14 Divas mess) is a great example. They were working in that match but the fans weren’t going to react strongly to anything yet. You could have thrown anything out there and it would have gotten a similar reaction. That’s wrestling in a nutshell.
However, always remember that the bosses are likely watching so make the most of the chances you have.
“It’s not the Divas for once.”
Good sir, I’ll remind you Paige/AJ vs the Bellas was at Wrestlemania. Not the pre-show, the main card. And there’s something to be said for having a high profile match sucking that means a lot more than just a filler ppv match being bad.
The match was fine however. Shows need a filler match to let the crowd rest.
No they don’t. Every single person having every single match should try to blow the audience away.
Oh crowds need a rest match. Everyone knows this. Take Taker vs Brock at WM 30 (extreme example but doesn’t change my point). After that, the crowd was in complete shock. The crowd needed time to digest that. The crowd is not going to care about whatever happens next for a bit. So trying to do something mind blowing immediately after that won’t work because the crowd needs to recover.
Night of Champions was Sting vs Rollins. I think you meant Battleground?
The elmination chamber match is hated for how much the fell apart to the point Ziggler had to hold a 2 minute meeting with everyone during the middle of it
My vote would have gone to either Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania or Brock Lesnar vs Seth Rollins at night of champions.
Lesnar vs Rollins was the worst match and the bigger disappointment (Seth’s promo got me excited) but the match with Reigns was on what’s supposed to be the biggest stage of them all which makes it a lot worse.
The sad thing is I actually like Lesnar, if he’s used right. A hardcore match with another big guy like HHH can be really great.