8 Weirdest Wrestling Matches From Every Major Promotion

5. ECW: Ric Flair Vs. The Big Show - July 11 2006

Paul Bearer Paul Ellering
WWE Network

The early days of ECW yielded some bizarre matches one wouldn't expect to see from the promotion, but it literally wasn't the same promotion; it was Eastern Championship Wrestling, the temporary home of the out-of-work, abandoned traveller.

As the real ECW, the company promoted itself as the antithesis of the mainstream by putting on blood, guts, and internationally-flavoured "workrate" bouts, drawing in the process the ire of several old school vanguards.

Ric Flair loathed Mick Foley's influence on the game, at King Of The Ring 1998, but less than a decade later, as WWE revived the league as a soulless exercise in proto-super-served-content, Flair's declining profile saw him hypocritically flail around in thumb tacks and scrape the Big Show's head with barbed wire.

And it was awesome: amid the jumbled mess of ideas and philosophy that was WWE in 2006, Flair and Show underpinned their blood-and-guts sideshow with classic, building storytelling; Show made Flair bleed, and Flair, older and frailer, timed his comeback to typical perfection. Even his chops couldn't compete, and so, with his skills deserted, he fired back from being swatted aside, with a barbed wire baseball bat and steel chair shots, in a wild, weird match with genuine drama, pathos and logic powering them over the line.

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!