One Moment WWE Wants You To Forget From Every Year (1985 to 2026)

7. 2020 - The Horror Show At Extreme Rules

Extreme Rules Seth Rollins vs. Rey Mysterio Eye for an Eye
WWE.com

There's no unanimously-agreed-upon subjective worst pro wrestling match/moment/show ever, because everybody likes something. The business of the wrestling business can be looked upon objectively using data, but the artful (?) side of the industry is open to interpretation. Anybody can like anything and everybody likes something. 

With the one glaring exception. The Horror Show At Extreme Rules is the worst.

It's the worst.

The pandemic was predictably hard to navigate, but when AEW proffered some of the best creative in the company's short history and WWE made an admirable fist of a locked-down WrestleMania, hopes were measured that empty arena wrestling could be a purpose-serving form of escapism during the most difficult of times. 

For about a month.

All Elite Wrestling - ideally placed in the Daily's Place amphitheatre - remained a tonic. World Wrestling Entertainment, the market leader, stumbled its way through a truly stifling run of shows at the Performance Centre, meshing bad action with bad pre-taped production to create a nightmare version of a show that was already circling the drain.

A Swamp Fight between Universal Champion Braun Strowman and another doomed incarnation of Bray Wyatt was a diabolical exhibition of "cinematic" excess, Dolph Ziggler failed to dethrone Drew McIntyre despite every stupid rule favouring his win, a 20-minute Sasha Banks/Asuka bout went to an abysmal non-finish, and, stupefyingly, Rey Mysterio and Seth Rollins wrestled until one wrestler removed the other one's eye. Having threatened and attempted it over prior weeks, Rollins saw through his longstanding plan to blind Rey on one side, pushing him eyeball-first into the corner of the steel steps. Seth was subsequently sick at the sight of his actions. Weren't we all. 

As impossible as any of this sounds, was a match to build a match. It was all to play mind games with Rey's son Dominik, who debuted against Seth in a remarkably credible effort at SummerSlam the following month. 

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for nearly 10 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 65,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live.