15 Greatest Match Finishes In Modern Wrestling History

This is a list of Greatest Match Finishes, not Greatest Matches. 

It's an importance distinction, because the finish is so important. You will have seen scores of would-be excellent matches undermined, drastically, by a cop-out finish or a wildly misjudged result. 

This is in fact so important that just one match in WWE history might get away with an objectively dire finish; Mankind Vs. Shawn Michaels, from In Your House: Mind Games, was in fact so goddamn incredible that people simply forget the finish even happened. It's the only classic with a bad finish ever. The body is simply too undeniably awesome; people are just glad they got to see something so textured and violent and thrilling in 1996. The opposite might be true of CM Punk Vs. Gunther from SummerSlam 2025. 

A lot of people really liked it. Some loved it, Some thought it was far too long. Subjectively, at times, the match was actively bad. Punk sold and sold. The idea was to enhance his improbable, dying-seconds win, but too often, it didn't feel like he was deliberately performing; it just looked like he was gassed. The struggle was too real, and it dragged on and on and on. The worst feeling in wrestling is when you wonder out loud when the wrestlers are going home. 

But then the finish happened, and it was so awesome and thoughtful that the match was elevated immeasurably. In a use of blood massively effective for how rare it is in the WWE context, Gunther got busted open - and he crumbled. He plays an arrogant, dominant champion who sometimes struggles with a real test - this story was consistent with the Gunther who had no answer for Sami Zayn's Brainbustah! at WrestleMania 40 - and this "bottle-job" arc is a rare treat of a sporting story in WWE. 

Gunther's frightened selling was exquisite, as was Punk's hopeful, opportunistic surge of spirit and adrenaline.