10 Greatest Squash Matches In Wrestling History
In which everybody dies.
You.
Yes you, Daniel, with your three anime porn tabs open next to this article. You, who thinks deep down this is just a flu and enough already, we probably need a cull, let's go outside, Jesus.
You're a piece of sh*t.
Even if unlike Daniel you make a concerted effort to be an outwardly good person - maybe you volunteer, donate to charity, refuse to buy goods from known, horrendous companies - you are still, as a professional wrestling fan, an inherent piece of sh*t. That moral compass is a facade. You can deny being a piece of sh*t, but you can't stop being one. If it's that easy, simply stop watching - and cackling at - squash matches. Nope. Impossible. The thrill is too cheap, too fast.
The action is predetermined and performed as safely as possible, even in a context in which the victim knows they're in for a particularly rough shift, but you know this stuff really hurts - and you know the optics look spectacularly cruel - and you don't care. It is simply too much of a twisted base pleasure to watch a tiny human being - often selected for how unremarkable or plain pathetic they look - get f*cking wrekt by a monster in a total, ethics-devoid mismatch.
The squash match rules so hard it's worth going to hell for, and if you're going to do something wrong...
10. Brock Lesnar Vs. Zach Gowen - WWE SmackDown (August 21 2003)
Just to further flesh out that point, before the list proper, there is scene in South Park that doubles as a moral quandary. You are dared to laugh at its horror, in effect.
It's the big hockey game in Stanley's Cup, and the life of a terminally ill child is in the balance. It pits a pee-wee hockey team against - following a farcical set of circumstances - elite adult professional males. The young children are crushed in a series of gruesome visuals, and their loss leads to the death of their sickly teammate. It's as dark as hell...
...to the normal being. The pro wrestling fan is accustomed to and delights in this dynamic.
Brock Lesnar was at one point the most lethal man alive. In 2003, he faced a very skinny pro wrestler. With one leg.
Good God, this was fantastic. Before the match began, Lesnar walked over to his mother, watching from the front row, as if to haunt her. She would see that visual in the years to come, tormented by the knowledge that she could have slapped him. Gowen used this as a diversion, assaulting Lesnar from the skies, but it had no effect. Lesnar flattened him with a punching lariat of sorts. It was as if he couldn't even wait to stretch out his arm. He then bruised the poor bastard's spine with multiple, revolting powerbombs before - as one does - F5ing his sole leg into the metal ring post in a total bloodbath.