10 Times Wrestlers Botched Their Biggest Moment

It is debatable whether Buff Bagwell botched his own debut in WWE or if he was a victim of circumstance. Still, the man he worked with in front of that hostile WWE crowd went on to win over fans, becoming a WWE World Champion and Hall of Famer.

The bout in question, Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell on Raw’s 2 July 2001 episode, is consistently ranked in lists of all-time worst matches. It was an experiment to test whether the WCW brand could exist as a separate entity to WWE, but it quickly terminated these talks.

Bagwell was noticeably the weak link, starting the match with soft and phoney strikes and trying two separate pin attempts for a single DDT. The boring chant was earned. Buff allowed fans to see the inner workings of kayfabe fighting, making the whole match more unnerving than a Spotify playlist of parental headboard noises.

Jim Ross described the match as “abnormally bad and seemingly ill-timed” and Booker T reflected that “Buff wasn’t prepared for that stage”.

If WWE wasn’t over enough, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Kurt Angle saved fans from boredom by interfering in WCW’s last match.