10 Wrestling Matches Never Meant To Be This Good
Great wrestling from outta nowhere!
"Wrestling promotion" has been something of a misnomer for WWE for several years now. Or, in the case of the "wrestling" side of that, nearly four decades.
Vince McMahon's pivot to "Sports Entertainment" was tax-based and tactical in the 1980s, but he was at least a promoter with a promotion, until very recently. For the longest time, television shows promoted house shows, house shows promoted other house shows, and both promoted occasional pay-per-views. All of those promoted the merchandise.
Then, house shows existed to promote television, television shows promoted pay-per-views, and pay-per-views promoted the idea that it was worth tuning in for more pay-per-views when it turned out the show you'd just watched wasn't the end of the known world.
The Network then ushered in everything everywhere existing to promote the Network, but that was a trojan horse for WWE's Content Production era, in which television shows are homogenised within an inch of their creative lives in order to foster a product generic enough to sell for billions to those who only needed the short-form notes.
Nothing promotes anything, but all of it promotes the presentation of an executive trying to put more money in Vince McMahon's pocket. Every great WWE match in 2021 is something of a surprise in this context. These had other things working against them...
10. John Cena Vs JBL (WWE Judgment Day 2005)
John Cena and John Bradshaw Layfield might have kicked off a rotten modern trend by keeping their match lowkey at WrestleMania 21.
The pair assembled a massively disappointing WWE Championship match at 2005's 'Show Of Shows', putting forth something less than television standard on a night designed to elevate Cena as one of the company's two brand new top stars.
They were saving their A+ performances for the B-Show.
With expectations subsequently diminished thanks to the first stinker (and the general malaise around the I Quit stipulation after too many turkeys), the pair shocked the world with a bloodthirsty war that rounded out Cena's CV at the top of the card. After months of failed attempts, Layfield found chemistry with a babyface rather than constantly taking countless chickensh*t shortcuts. That this came before WWE had given Cena's inhuman recuperative powers only made the match more impactful.
P*ssing blood and ready to bludgeon Bradshaw with a car part, Cena forced the former Champion to quit in sheer horror rather than through the pain of a hold. It was just one more ingenious element for a contest everybody had already written off.