50 Worst Wrestling Moments Of The 2020s (So Far)

Is this really a new wrestling boom period…?

by Michael Sidgwick
Jon Moxley Kenny Omega
AEW

You know what was obviously a terrible wrestling moment, but won’t be included here? The dud explosion at AEW Revolution 2021.

Go with this, and rest assured, AEW will take a battering elsewhere. If you're thinking WWE will get off lightly, think again; Paul Levesque's cinema house offered up slop worthy of a Razzie.

Kenny Omega and Don Callis built a device with which to blow up Jon Moxley at the end of their Exploding Barbed Wire Death match. The match itself was really damn good, even if the triggered explosions were best described as “just about adequate”. Omega and Mox both observed and subverted the suspense at the core of the stipulation, with great dramatic timing and a shock rapid-fire double blast spot. Mox detonating an explosion in Kenny’s eye to get out of the One-Winged Angel was inspired.

The very idea behind the match was bold and sensational: this genre, evidently very difficult to pull off, was massively compelling. It was simply a very cool thing for a mainstream promotion to experiment with. And then the finale flopped, when the ring erupted into a laughable sparkler shower.

Tony Khan deserves the flak, for both his poor planning and his subsequent attempts to deflect criticism, but it was a great idea that - forgive the wordplay - was meant to spark more good ideas. And it did!

Eddie Kingston, having saved Mox à la Atsushi Onita, was meant to form the ultimate authentic badass unit with him as Mox’s war with the Elite evolved into a battle against the Young Bucks. This all still happened, with some brilliant self-deprecating comedy on the following Dynamite. It was a dismal humiliation, but how well AEW rebounded was staggeringly impressive. A truly terrible moment isn’t just a moment, but rather a symptom of a much more significant problem.

Terrible ideas executed terribly deserve far more of a kicking, and in this supposed great era of pro wrestling, where competition is back, the talents are jumping again, and you see more great matches on pay-per-view and even free TV than ever before, the industry remains plagued by wretched creative…

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!