Gosh there were some good wrestling matches in 2021 weren’t there? Just a quick note that my
list of favourite matches didn’t include Hangman vs Danielson’s ridiculous 60 minute broadway
because I wrote it before that happened, just know it would have made it, because holy cowboy s-word.
He landed on his feet, like Cowboys do! Anyway, I’m sad to inform you that not every wrestling
match was as good as my top 10. In fact, quite the opposite. Some were either a waste of time,
laughably produced, or the old classic, a slap in the face with a giant clown glove
stuffed with rotten eggs and piss. To close out what’s honestly been a pretty rubbish year, we’re
running down the most rubbish wrestling matches that people had to pay their hard earned money
to watch. I’m adam hailing from partsfunknown and here are my 10 Worst PPV Matches of 2021
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10. Braun vs Elias - Fastlane
Hey do you guys remember the Braun Strowman is a dum dum storyline between the Monster Among
Men and Shane McMahon? That was a wrestlemania feud you guys, culminating with an admittedly
very impressive spot that seems to have finally slain the sweaty dragon that is shane mcham’s
omnipresence on WWE programming. Anyway, the storyline basically consisted of Shane coming
out and saying ‘hu-durr’ at a confused and angry Braun, then dodging a fight and it kept happening,
and happening and happening. Part of the filler used to stretch this hot glop of nothing out
for literal months of all of our lives was Braun Strowman vs EliasShane’s music tinged heavy who
was also shackled by the ankle to Jakson Ryker at the time. Elias, where have you gone?? No
one benefitted from this 4 minutes of dreck. Not Strowman, mired in an awful storyline,
not Elias who got jobbed all the way out, and not Shane, because he’s sentient spam.
9. Doudrop vs Zelina - Crown Jewel
Ah WWE’s legacy of bad things in the name of Saudi Money continued apace with Crown Jewel, which was,
annoyingly, from a show quality perspective, pretty darn fine. Heartbreaking. Between the main,
the opener and the very good indeed women’s triple threat the show was a giant step up
from past indignities. However, there was at least one stinker on the card,
courtesy of Doudrop vs Zelina Vega to crown the first ever Queen’s
Crown, the crown queen of crown jewels in the queen’s crown. Just call it Queen of the Ring,
Jesus wept. Honestly, this match is partially on the list, not just because it was bad, and it was,
with Doudrop randomly wrestling heel for no reason and with no buildup, but it’s also here to talk
about how bewildering bad the entire tournament was, with the matches given an insulting lack of
ring time, both compared to the king of the ring matches AND matches in general. Bell to bell,
totally every single match’s runtime in the entire tournament, it came to 19 minutes and 24 seconds,
an average of 2 minutes and 46 seconds per match. Bleak that, in the year of our lord 2021.
8. The Pizza Thing - Survivor Series Fucking hell WWE really stepped up their
huckster game this year didn’t they, presenting to the god of crowbarred capitalist content
like a cat deep in heat. Don’t get me wrong WWE hasn’t been cool in decades,
but there’s something especially dispiriting about the intro package to Survivor Series,
the second oldest PPV on WWE’s books, being a trailer for Red Notice, Vince grumbling to himself
about eggs, Xavier hawking water from Nestle, one of the world’s most notoriously shady companies,
the Army of the Dead stuff, which we’ll fucking get to, and then there’s this, a pointless,
heatless mess of pratfalling and pizzas, a battle royal ostensibly to celebrate 25 years of
the rock, but in actuallity just a platform for wrestlers to point at pizza, cross their eyes,
smile, zany antics and I’m just so tired all of the time. I legitimately can’t remember
who won the match, and I refuse to look it up, in case the street profits reach
through my screen and slowly push an entire pepperoni through my eyeballs.
7. Women’s Tag Team Turmoil - WrestleMania 37
Let me just prime my hypocrisy cannons. Remember a few entries ago when I ragged
on the Queen’s Crown tournament for being two short. Well, WWE sure as hell overcorrected at
wrestlemania didn’t they, bringing us a women’s tag team turmoil match that went 15 minutes,
which felt like 90, and the only thing I can remember from the entire thing is that Mandy
slipped and fell walking down to the ring, something that affected her so deeply that it
changed her hair colour and won her the NXT women’s championship. It was so boring it
almost broke WrestleMania. Even fans being in attendance for the first time in over a year
couldn’t give it any juice, a drab parade of quick matches, almost no spots to speak and,
over the course of the two night Mania, Tamina wrestled a total of half an hour,
more than all of the Queen’s Crown competitors combined. Please WWE, is there not a middle
ground between a 5 minute tournament final and half an hour of Tamina. Please WWE is there not?
6. Becky vs Bianca - SummerSlam
Bloody hell though. WWE’s incomprehensible booking of their women’s division continuing apace,
in one of the biggest fuck yous to their fans in recent memory. Now, to be clear,
the concept of having beloved anti-hero Becky Lynch returning, doubling down on
the obnoxiousness that her character already had before she left to make a little Rollynch,
and turning heel right in the middle of a welcome home parade, that’s an fun and interesting idea.
And indeed Big Time Bex has been great since they clarified it was a heel turn,
but god DAMN did they not make that clear at SummerSlam itself. Becky Lynch returned,
cheapshotted Bianca Belair, and ended her unstoppable run post-wrestlemania in 26
seconds. WWE have handled the EST with care since then, but this felt like a huge slap in the face,
making Bianca seem like a rookie for the sake of brief pop. There’s legit no reason
why this couldn’t have been a full match, with an actual narrative that clearly demonstrated Becky
cheating to win. A potentially great story, handled in the worst possible way.
5. Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch - Revolution
Sorry, guys. But I mean… yeah … sorry. AEW are currently the hottest fire they’ve ever been,
thanks to a combination of huge defections, barnstorming matches and consistent, long-term
booking slowly but surely paying off. Which is not to say that everything’s been smooth sailing
this year, with AEW still trailing WWE in terms of basic production. For the most part it almost
works in AEW’s favour, it’s less micro-managed, fewer camera cuts, the lack of a glossy sheen
makes it feel a bit more real, more intense, but sometimes it blows up in the company’s face,
and what they planned… DOESN’T blow up in the company’s face. At Revolution, Kenny Omega fought
Mox in a barbed wire exploding ring death match, with the stip being that if the timer expired,
the ring would explode. The match itself was pretty good, lots of stupid barbed wire ring
ropes splodey spots, then after the match, Kenny and friends left moxley for dead in the ring,
eddie kingston turned face to save his friend, the ring exploded and
oh no. Oh absolutely no. Genuinely it’s one of the worst bits of wrestling production,
maybe ever, and it’s not about casting blame, it’s the simple fact that it’s fucking embarrassing,
the only time to date that the ending of an AEW ppv has been booed down by its fans,
ruining what could have been a moment of the year. Sometimes a match is only as good as its finish,
and it’s one of the worst finishes of the year. Not the worst though…
4. Roman Reigns vs Demon Finn Balor - Extreme Rules
Fuck me purple. Talk about a great match that no one will ever remember because they’re too
busy pissing themselves laughing at one of the worst finishes since THAT hell in a cell
match. A finish so monumentally embarrassing and character destroying that it might just have put
an end to Demon Finn for good, old yeller style. Much like the exploding ring match,
the actually meat and potatoes of Reigns/Balor was really good, because both men are really good,
lots of big spots, crazy athleticism, and then there’s… this. Suddenly the lights go red, Finn
starts flopping on the ground like a salmon with a cattle prod up its arse. Thinking Hulking up,
but if the thing hulking up is a newcastle man on the floor of a train after passing out from
8 pints of newly brown. The Duracell Demon pops up, sets roman up for the coup de grace
when the top rope kayfabe breaks and the demon lands on his stupid face,
eats a spear, main roster undefeated streak over. How do you get something so wrong, so hard.
3. Alexa Bliss vs Shayna Baszler - Hell In A Cell
Spoiler: the rest of this list is going to be WWE trying and failing to do spooky bollocks. You have
been warned. Alexa Bliss has had a hell of a year from her beloved pig Larry Steve passing away,
to having all the internet's worst wrestling fans coming after her for airquotes ‘stealing’
the fiend’s gimmick. If your reaction to WWE dropping the ball on the fiend was to go after
a performer just doing the job asked of her, have a long think as to whether wrestling might be too
academic for you. Anyway, most of what WWE had Alexa doing this year was dreadful, the result of
a 8 year old being tasked with writing the remake of beetlejuice in 20 minutes. The match with Randy
at Fastlane, the match with Eva at fastlane, the winking doll, all of it a hodgepodge of
hackneyed horror tropes with no actual substance, story or game plan. The second worst of them all
was Alexa vs one of the greatest and most legit NXT champions in history. All of this sucked,
from Shayna being scared of the fact that Alexa Bliss is famously double jointed,
to reginald’s “oh no scary” horseplay at ringside, to a laughably shit possession of Nia Jax, none of
which played into the finish of the match in any way shape of form. But don’t worry, it gets worse.
2. The Fiend vs Randy Orton - WrestleMania 37
One year on from the firefly funhouse, this is what we get. This is what we deserve.
After months of the Fiend stalking randy, randy setting the fiend on fire, alexa prophesying
his return like the hot topic silver surfer, the fiend returning like a burnt pizza roll,
this is the payoff. The Fiend appears out of a jack in the box, which you know what,
could have been great, but then gets distracted by Alexa looking like a mannequin of hela from
thor ragnarok melting in the florida heat, randy hits the rko, and that's your lot. 5 minutes. One
promo aside, that was a wrap on Bray Wyatt in WWE. One year removed from the funhouse,
one of the best things wwe ever did, what a clear statement that they had no fucking idea what
they had in their hands. What a waste of time, money, fan investment, Bray’s creativity. When
John Cena’s DAD cuts a promo on how shit your booking of a match is, that is saying something
(https://www.essentiallysports.com/wwe-news-theyre-slowly-killing-the-fiend-john-cena-sr-makes-a-daring-statement-on-wwes-booking-bray-wyatt-alexa-bliss/). I dunno man, I’m sure someone out there liked it.
Maybe Randy’s kids? I’m just tired of hoping for the best.
1. Those Fucking Zombies - WrestleMania Backlash
Army of the Dead is a terrible film. Army of the Dead sponsored WrestleMania Backlash. That
sponsorship took the form of zombies appearing on the thunderdome screens, ok that’s quite clever,
zombies appearing backstage in the lockerooms, ok that’s some cornball shit but WWE have done worse,
then WWE did worse. The Miz fought Damien Priest in a Lumberjack match, and all of the lumberjacks
were zombies. It’s worse than Robocop, it’s worse than Chucky, it’s the worst example
of WWE being a baby show for babies. John Morrison did the parkour stuff with zombies,
the Miz got eaten by zombies after suffering a major injury and wrestling on like a fuck hero,
Damien Priest continued his run as WWE’s pop culture liason after the bad bunny thing.
What’s worse is that literally every other match on the Mania Backlash card was great.
Reigns/Cesaro, Ripley/Charlotte/Asuka, Lashley/Strowman/Mcintyre, all shown up by
the presence of this clown car pootling down the ramp and dominating the conversation. The E in WWE
stands for Entertainment. WWE have produced some absolute classics this year, on almost every
single PPV there’s been a potential match of the year candidate, but then there’s also been
one of these. Happy new year everyone, can’t wait to do this again next year
That’s our list