Ranking What Was REALLY The Worst Wrestling Match Every Year 1990-2021

Featuring Triple H, Randy Orton, and the Undertaker: supposed WWE legends...

Kronik Nia Jax
WWE

Bad wrestling matches are often much more fun than good matches.

Good matches are almost boring in 2021. Routine. A good match is easily accessible every week.

WWE RAW is an automatically atrocious and narratively convenient sh*t-show, but because it is three hours long and the roster is so talented, a very good match is almost a byproduct of a broken, creatively bankrupt system. On certain Mondays, scrambling for content, WWE has allowed certain performers to go out a kill it for 20+ minutes. The taxing three-hour duration means that there have been more good matches on RAW than the precious SmackDown this year. A good wrestling match is something even a brain worm-infested 75 year-old Vince McMahon can still book.

You don't really get laughably awful pro wrestling matches anymore. The standard is too good and WWE is more soul-crushingly drab and cruel than it is perversely entertaining. Sh*t finishes to competently-worked matches are what's killing interest in WWE. Where's the hilarious awfulness? Where's the joy only calamity can elicit?

WWE are even bad at being bad in this boring modern era.

With a few notable exceptions...

32. 1990 - Sid Vicious Vs. The Nightstalker, WCW Clash Of The Champions XIII

Kronik Nia Jax
WWE Network

An atrocity exhibition of a pro wrestling match, it was nothing beyond the Nightstalker giving Sid Vicious a gentle bearhug. When Sid "rallied", he threw some of the most sh*tty kicks you've ever seen, and Nightstalker worked into a somehow even more boring heat sequence in which he was nice enough to give Sid a deep tissue massage.

Together, they botched Big Cat's interference spot when Nightstalker failed to hit him with the safest possible angle of a fake ax, which was referred to as a "big, club-like thing" on commentary.

Then again, Jim Ross might have been talking about Sid.

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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!