10 Holy Grail WWE Dark Matches You Wish You Could've Seen
These fascinating clashes between huge names happened when the cameras were turned off.
Dark matches are a wrestling tradition as old as tiny pants and changing your name to something ridiculous.
The term refers to a match held before a TV taping purely for the benefit of the live crowd. They aren't usually taped and, even when they are, they rarely ever see the light of the day. News of them does get out, though, and that's what we're interested in today.
These ten battles feature huge names in combinations that, in some cases, never made it to TV. Whether the matches themselves were of a high quality or just an interesting footnote in a performer's career, they all represent something unique in the wrestling world.
While its annoying that these matches aren't available to everyone, it's nice that things like this still exist.
In an age where everything is recorded in the name of sweet sweet 'content', wrestling matches that happened once and can never be seen again feel even more valuable. If you were in the crowd for any of these brawls, then consider yourself incredibly lucky.
Just don't be smug about it...
10. Cody Rhodes vs Jacob Fatu - Raw 21/10/2024
After The Bloodline interfered in Jey Uso's Intercontinental Championship match on the October 21st 2024 episode of Raw, Jacob Fatu called out none other than Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, Cody Rhodes.
Most people in that situation would have just handed the belt over to Fatu, as well as the keys to their house and their first-born child, but Cody isn't most people, so the match was on.
This dark match was purely for the Philadelphia crowd, which explains why it was given the stipulation of a Philly Street Fight. The Samoan Werewolf put on a great show, but The American Nightmare was ultimately too strong for him and retained the belt.
Not only was this Fatu's first singles match in WWE, it was also his first pinfall loss in the company. This was a really weird choice, given that he'd been booked as an absolute monster up to this point. This is the freaky world of dark matches though, so it doesn't count.
Were WWE planting seeds for this rivalry all the way back in 2024? Or was this just a wild coincidence? We'll never know (it was definitely the latter).