WWE Matches That Were PAINFUL To Watch

Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly going really, really long in an ostensibly brutal stipulation match might have once been a dream destination for NXT fans, but by the spring of 2021, a TakeOver was the wrong place and the wrong time for the former Undisputed Era men to try and settle their beef.

As the brand sputtered through the final days of the miserable Capitol Wrestling Center era, so too did the black-and-gold era icons. NXT in its old form had been made redundant by the launch of AEW in 2019, and when the latter did a frankly unbelievable job of coping with the pandemic in 2020 the final nail had been hammered into the developmental brand’s coffin. That’s a long way of saying this supposed epic had a funeral atmosphere, but it’s also about as generous as anybody could be to an Unsanctioned Match that felt like they put One Final Beat in front of some caged fans.

Dripping in fake-feeling intensity from the opening bell to last, the whole presentation felt…off. The hatred between the former best friends didn’t remotely translate, nor did a sense that either man would be in a better spot when the feud concluded. Lots of loud acTING in between the grisly weapon shots undermined the very real damage they were doing. Even their sub-Undisputed Era new themes just made fans pine for the relatively recent good old days.

This was true to an equally painful extent - O’Reilly put Cole down for the count here, but the violent stunt spots and ‘Cool Kyle’ especially “going to that place” forced commentator Wade Barrett to ponder aloud if either man could be considered a winner. He foreshadowed a summer series that went as needlessly over its time limit as this original clash.