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

15. Last Man Standing

Edge Vs. Randy Orton remains the third longest match in the history of WrestleMania, and quite possibly the very worst.

It lasted 36 minutes and 35 seconds. For almost the entire duration, Edge and Orton grunted, breathed heavily, and wailed in agony as they executed a rudimentary brawl in the bowels of the WWE Performance Center. The scene was steeped in darkness. Visually, it was horrendous to look at. Even in the most middling matches at WrestleMania, in a world that hasn’t shut down, the backdrop is spectacular. Here, WrestleMania resembled a slightly less depressing EVOLVE.

Aurally, this was so unpleasant that it verged on nightmarish. The metallic clank of bodies being thrown into production equipment, of pipes getting rattled around by the impact: it sounded like a challenging, deliberately unlistenable experiment in noise music.

The promotion’s corporate motto at the time was “to put smiles on people’s faces”. WWE sought to accomplish this, during the Last Man Standing match, by having Orton strangle Edge with a weight machine cable in a scene redolent of Chris Benoit’s suicide.

This wasn’t intentional, obviously - but good grief was this thoughtless blunder a sign that the match could have been approached differently.