9 Wrestlers Who Had Their WORST Match EVER This Year

9. COPE Vs. Jon Moxley (AEW Revolution)

Contrary to the intro, Adam ‘Cope’ Copeland stunk the joint out the old-fashioned way at Revolution: by wrestling an incredibly long and dull match that played out to utter indifference.

Cope and Mox did the right things in the right order and all of that, but much of the action was janky - and when it wasn’t, it was just tedious. Ahead of it, Cope said he wanted to have a “gritty, old school NWA World Heavyweight title match”. Why, then, was it paced and worked like a Triple H main event in 2004?

Laboured and methodical, the match was cursed by the weird image Cope has conjured up about himself following his return. In his head, he’s a violent, vengeful, authentic badass. In reality, he’s off-putting and impossible to take seriously. His snarling facials are comical. There’s an almost profound disconnect between what he thinks he’s doing and what he’s actually doing. Edge got over by being an entertaining rapscallion. How come he thinks he’s Steve Blackman now?

And was this really Cope’s worst match ever?

This is a guy who unwittingly referenced Chris Benoit’s death in a three-hour walk-and-brawl against Randy Orton at WrestleMania 36, after all. That can be disqualified. It was the pandemic. The very purpose of pro wrestling as an interactive performance art was broken; the few great empty arena matches of the time were miraculous.

Cope Vs. Mox was a match featuring two performers intent on proving that they were intense and tough that it forgot to be, you know, entertaining. And it wasn’t even stiff or bloody or actually intense.

Almost everything Mox did after it was awesome, too, which was quite the indictment of the former Edge.