10 WWE Matches Doomed From The Start
You don't have to face The Undertaker to be a dead man walking...
A number of factors need to converge for a match to be a truly magic piece of work.
The performers are key, of course. Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels and select others at times entered "broomstick" form (so called because it was posited that they were so good that they could carry said household item to an entertaining match), but something truly great usually requires both or all wrestlers to be super-skilled rather than superfluous.
The booking is key, of course. Without a story, a match is half itself. With either a tale told beforehand or one weaved during the battle itself, a match grows in stature because its very reason for being is validated. Investing in a battle between Wrestler A and Wrestler B will only happen if there's something to invest in in the first place, or at the very latest half way through. Without an angle for fullness, the contest will be empty at the end.
The setting is key, of course. When is nearly as important as why. Wrestling, like comedy and picking the right moment to end introductions like this, is all about timing.
One of these features - at least - is key, of course. Without them though...
10. Triple H Vs Goldberg (Unforgiven 2003)
Perhaps Triple H's cleverest ever political manoeuvre, the loss to Goldberg at WWE's listless September 2003 offering Unforgiven was forever forgotten compared to his victory over the former WCW star at the prior month's SummerSlam.
That hot August night turned molten when Big Bill charged through the field en route to presumed glory. He dominated with the sort of frightening physicality that got him over in the first place - an intensity WWE had infuriatingly bottled since debuting him the night after WrestleMania XIX. 'The Game' was barely fit enough to compete, laying storyline knocked out to rest his real life injury until time came for Goldberg to put the bullet in his decades-long title reign.
It wasn't to be. Hunter used his trusty hammer under the proviso that he'd put Bill over the following month in the proper fashion. The fashion he knew full well wouldn't actually put him over at all.
The pair wrestled a boring 15 minute affair that felt thrice as long, with a series of rest holds again allowing Hunter some relaxation when he should have been rehabbing away from the entire product. The deflating feeling in the crowd as Goldberg celebrated his pyrrhic victory was palpable.