Not delivering on a promised stipulation? In a professional wrestling match? Perish the thought. From the moment the Kiss Me Arse stip was announced for the Dolph Ziggler versus Sheamus match, you knew that this was going to end with some form of hijinks that was going to detract from the match itself. And that is exactly what happened. Sheamus and Ziggler had a pretty decent little match going, fast-paced with hard-hitting moves. Sheamus continued to show that hes made for this role as a brawling bully, delivering some choice trashtalk during the bout. The end came a little out of nowhere, but it was the kind of victory for Ziggler that allowed for a rematch in the near future. If that was it, then it wouldve been a decent TV-quality match. Instead, we got the entire sideshow of who will kiss whose arse? throughout the entire match. The announcers incessantly talked about it and made kissing noises, and then Sheamus reneged on the stip, knocked Ziggler out and rubbed Dolphs face on his ass. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUF6DAVWY88 A grown man lost a match and then rubbed another mans face on his ass. Sure, theres plenty of weird things that happen in professional wrestling, but this is a tough stipulation to justify.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.