The 411 Wrestling Top 5 1.20.10: Week 58 – Worst World Title Matches

Hello everyone and welcome to 411 Wrestling’s Top 5 List. What we are going to is take a topic each week and all the writers here on 411 wrestling will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, plus up to three honorable mentions. So, on to this week’s topic…

THE TOP 5 WORST WORLD TITLE MATCHES

For every AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle classic, there is a World Title match that we wish we never saw. Today, we look back at the latter category.

So what did our group of writers select? Let’s find out…

Aaron Hubbard

HONORABLE MENTION

Various and assorted overbooked matches in WCW circa 2000 – If you were watching, you know what I mean about all this crap, but I decided to focus on stuff that vaguely resembled wrestling matches instead.

Undertaker vs. Yokozuna, Royal Rumble 1994 – Wrestlecrap at it’s finest/worst.

JBL vs. John Cena, Wrestlemania XXI – One of the most forgettable matches in Wrestlemania history, and it was the semi-main for the WWE Championship

5.Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry, Royal Rumble 2006 – I give these guys credit for trying, because they story of the match was good, with Angle struggling to find a way to beat Henry. But you can only do so much. Besides, everyone knew Angle was going to win, so it was totally heatless. This match proved that Angle is no miracle worker.

4.Low Ki vs. Xavier, Unscripted – If you’ve been a regular on these forums you know that ROH fans HATE Xavier. This is where he won the ROH Title from Low Ki. That alone would be bad enough for me to consider it, but the match is almost mind-boggingly awful. To give you an idea, there are theories that say Xavier intentionally dogged this match because he knew it would get the workrate smarks that go to ROH to hate him. Well, it worked, but it wasn’t the “I love to hate this guy”, it was the legitimate “we hate this guy and don’t want to watch him.”

3.Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant, The Main Event – I’m in the minority that states that Hogan vs. Andre from Wrestlemania is actually an average match with decent body work from Andre and the environment kicks it up to be a highlight of wrestling. This match was not that matches. It was shorter, it wasn’t nearly as epic, and was just a bunch of punches from Hogan before the screwjob finish. This was really, really awful and I don’t care to watch it again.

2.JBL vs. The Undertaker, Summer Slam 2004 – Man is this match ever boring. I like JBL and I love Undertaker, but I can’t defend this match because even I found it boring. It’s eighteen minutes of uninspired brawling leading to an over the top and screwy finish. Thankfully Undertaker made a turn around in the next couple of years and actually became worth watching again. This match is not worth watching.

1.Scott Steiner vs. Triple H, Royal Rumble 2003 – I didn’t watch this match until 2008, and the negative hype around it was so infamous that I said “it can’t possibly be that bad”. I was wrong. This was AWFUL, and it lasted FOREVER. Steiner only had about four moves at this point and Triple H couldn’t save it and didn’t even try to save it. This is so, so boring.

Shawn S. Lealos

5.Kevin Nash vs. Hulk Hogan – The finger poke of doom – The only reason this match is not higher is because if they had fought, it might have been much worse..

4.Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant, Wrestlemania III – It is historic, especially the body slam, but is one of the most boring matches I have ever seen.

3.Scott Steiner vs. Jeff Jarrett vs. Sid Vicious vs. Animal, WCW Sin – The main feud leading up to this match was between Scotty and Sid, which tells you that their youth push was coming to an end. No wonder they were only three pay-per-views away from The End. When Vicious returned he was automatically named the number one contender, lost to Steiner and got put back in this four corners match with the fourth opponent a “mystery.” Most of the match was Jarrett and Steiner double teaming Sid. Then Sid broke his leg and Jarrett lay on the outside while Steiner did pushups and occasionally kicked Sid. Then a masked man slooooooooowly walked out, hit Sid with a forearm and Stiner pinned him. The masked man unmasked to reveal Animal and I yawned.

2.Batista vs. Khali, SummerSlam 2007 – I am a fan of Batista and feel a good big man is needed in wrestling. He is charismatic and can have a great match against a technically sound opponent. Khali is not a technically sound opponent and this match BLEW. Khali dominated the match, using chops, kicks and clotheslines. He finally hit Batista with a chair to get himself disqualified. Any match that Khali dominates for seven minutes is going to be ass. Batista killed him with repeated chair shots after the match but nothing was going to save it.

1.The Undertaker vs Yokozuna, Royal Rumble ’94 – The match was horrible. It is a casket match that included a number of run-ins and ten other men to help lock Undertaker in the casket. The match was just really, really bad but what followed up was even worse. The smoke seeps out of the urn and then continues down the aisle and then Undertaker levitates to the ceiling and promises to be back. From start to finish, this was just horrendous.

Ryan Byers

HONORABLE MENTION

Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant (Wrestlemania III) – If you strip away the angle leading up to it, the crowd reaction, and the historical significance, this is one of the dirt worst main events of all time. However, I can only put it in honorable mention status because, in making a fair evaluation of a wrestling match, you CAN’T strip away those things.

Scott Steiner vs. Sid Vicious vs. Jeff Jarrett vs. Roadwarrior Animal (WCW Sin) – Part of me feels bad for listing a match that sucked in part because it contained one of the goriest wrestling injuries of all time, but the fact of the matter is this probably would’ve been a contender even if Sid’s leg remained in tact for the whole thing. Plus, for four veteran wrestlers, these guys did a lousy job of improvising a finish when that happened.

5.Kensuke Sasaki vs. Bob Sapp (NJPW 2004) – I will admit, from a technical standpoint, I have seen significantly worse matches than this one. However, as a an IWGP Title match in the time and place that this was taking place, it was ridiculously bad. For those of you who do not know the backstory, Bob Sapp had become a HUGE draw in Japan in mixed marital arts. He wasn’t all that great of a fighter, but he got by on his charisma, his look, and how promoters protected him. Leave it to the NJPW office in 2004 – headed up by Antonio Inoki – to decide that this act needed to be brought into professional wrestling, despite the fact that Sapp had virtually no in-ring experience. The result was a title match that needed so much smoke and so many mirrors that I felt like I was in a carnival funhouse while I was watching it. There were run-ins, there was blood, and there was use of foreign objects, all of which are virtually unheard of in Japanese championship bouts. I could have dealt with this if the whole idea was to give Sasaki a win and establish that, in professional wrestling matches, pro wrestlers can take out MMA fighters, but that’s the exact opposite of what happened. Instead, after kicking out of Sasaki’s finishing hold and out of a lariat that Kensuke delivered with the IWGP Championship belt wrapped around his arm, Sapp came back to win with two lousy lariats and a falling powerbomb. The result was a match did a lot to kill the credibility of professional wrestling in the eyes of a country that was already having a love affiar with MMA, which helped to contribute to an enormous downswing in the popularity of wrestling, the effects of which are still being felt to this day.

4.Rick Rude vs. Masahiro Chono (Halloween Havoc 1992) – Masa Chono and Rick Rude had several matches against one another for the NWA World Heavyweight Title in 1992. The two of them made for an interesting pairing, because I don’t think that there has ever been a set of opponents in history that has had such a marked difference in the quality of matches that they had against each other. Rude and Chono had some encounters that were legitimate ****+ matches. However, when it came to Halloween Havoc in 1992, they bombed and bombed hard, which is unfortunate, because it was probably the biggest US audience that they plied their trade in front of. Honestly, I’m not sure what caused this encounter to be so horrific, especially when compared to all of their others. It just seemed like the two wrestlers were on different pages to an epic degree. It also didn’t help that there was a hell of a lot going on here, with each man having a manager (Madusa for Rude and Hiro Matsuda for Chono), each man being allowed to select a referee (Harley Race for Rude and Kensuke Sasaki for Chono), and Ole Anderson floating around ringside as a special “enforcing referee.” This is one of the rare situations in which I like both wrestlers individually and I generally like their matches against one another but, for some reason, the stars just didn’t line up properly for one night.

3.The Undertaker vs. Hulk Hogan (Judgment Day 2002) – When you take a match that occurred in 1991 and wasn’t particularly good then and decide to bring it back eleven years later, you shouldn’t expect match. Though the Hulk Hogan 2002 nostalgia tour had some fun moments – most notably his interaction with the Rock – it went downhill pretty damn quickly after that. The Hulkster’s title victory over Triple H was fairly weak, but somehow his title defense against the Undertaker wound up being WORSE. Obviously nobody was expecting much out of Hogan in the ring at this point in time, but Taker was probably one of the worst opponents for him because, even though he has put on great matches in recent years while he is healthy, UT was so beat up and in such great need of time off when this match occurred that he in some ways looked like he was older and even more beaten up than even the Hulkster. The result was a bout that bordered on matching the worst of the Heroes of Wrestling pay per view from 1999. Of particular note is the world’s lousiest chokeslam, which saw Hogan “jump” a grand total of 1.5 inches off of the mat in order to sell the fact that Taker was lifting him off of the ground for a devastating finisher.

2.Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant (Hog Wild 1996) – In 2010, I would call the Big Show one of the best superheavyweight wrestlers in the history of the business. Yet, in 1996, when he was known as the Giant and lumbering around the rings of WCW, he was only a small step ahead of historically bad lunks like El Gigante, Haystacks Calhoun, and Giant Silva. A large part of this was not his fault. After all, his first appearance ever on a professional wrestling television show was during May of 1995, so it’s not as though he had a lot of time to learn the ropes. However, regardless of who can be blamed for the level of talent (or lack thereof) of the Giant, the fact that he lacked that talent was a major contributing factor to turning this into one of the worst championship bouts in history. Hogan, who had just turned heel and founded the nWo a month earlier, wasn’t exactly in a mood to work hard either, given that he had a very cushy deal with WCW and could now just coast along on the momentum of his brand new, very successful gimmick. Combine that with a crowd of bikers who really couldn’t give a flying rat’s patootie about the current wrestling scene, and you have all of the ingredients necessary for a disaster of a matchup that set the tone for the next several months of the nWo: One of the greatest angles of all time combined with some of the worst wrestling of all time.

1.Batista vs. The Great Khali (Summerslam 2007) – Everything that I’ve read about the Great Khali makes him sound like an outstanding person. He does a ton of charity work in his native India, and, in every interview that I’ve read with him, he comes off as incredibly humble and as though he has a good head on his shoulders. He’s also got this goofy charisma as a babyface that leads to me not mind him too horribly these days. However, when he has to attempt to wrestle a serious match at a main event level, he is the absolute, dirt worst worker to ever hold a major WWE championship (yes, even worse than McMahon). On the other side of the ring from him in this epically bad encounter was Dave Batista. Batista, who is capable of putting on amazing matches with the right opponents (e.g. the Undertaker) just isn’t the sort of guy who can drag something decent out of a performer who is worse than he is. As a result, this match looked ghastly on paper and may even have been worse in execution. Khali’s offense consisted almost exclusively of nerve holds, and his selling was probably even lousier than his offense. Anybody is capable of replicating the selling that the Great Khali did in this match. Want to try it? First, stand up. Now, take a step backwards. As you are taking the step backwards, raise your hands over your head and then put them down at your sides. This was the Great Khali’s attempt to make it look like he was in a REAL FIGHT with a 350 pound musclehead. To top it all off, we got a very lame disqualification finish in which Khali used a chair on Batista despite fact that Khali was actually in control of the match at the time. There was nothing to like about this match, not even the commentary, which consisted almost entirely of Michael Cole and John Leyfield making trite remarks about how various parts of Khali’s body were as large as and/or as hard as various household objects. If I ever see a match of this caliber again, it’ll be too soon.

Michael Bauer

HONORABLE MENTION

Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant (Wrestlemania III) – For every reason Byers stated.

Kevin Nash vs. Hulk Hogan (Finger Poke of Doom) – Need I say more.

5.JBL vs. John Cena (Wrestlemania XXI) – I think the fact it was a World Title match at Wrestlemania and it felt like a match you would have seen on Smackdown put a huge damper on the whole thing.

4.Sting vs. Abyss (Bound for Glory 2006) – The infamous TNA World Title DQ job was in play here, which is why I thought it was so bad. Forget the fact that Abyss should have been nowhere near the NWA World Heavyweight Title, but having him win it from Sting by DQ was a joke.

3.Rey Mysterio vs. Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton (Wrestlemania XXII) – See my #5, but add in a third person, cut the time down to only ten minutes, and add in the fact that this wa sthe BIGGEST storyline in the WWE at the time with Rey fighting in Eddie’s name, and this was crap.

2.Austin Aries vs. Tyler Black (RoH Final Battle 2009) – Seriously, the worst hour long match I think anyone has ever seen. The fact that it ended in a time limit draw just adds to how boring this match was, from the front row even.

1.Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry (Royal Rumble 2006) – Well, there is a reason that we give Mark Henry so much crap when he is pushed too high and this is the reason. Kurt Angle has good matches with everyone. Hell, he had the 411 Match of the Year the very next month with The Undertaker. But against Mark Henry, Kurt Angle was unable to do anything.

Stephen Randle

HONORABLE MENTION

Hulk Hogan vs Kevin Nash – WCW Nitro – This would be the Fingerpoke of Doom match, but it gets a pass only because it wasn’t actually a match, just an angle masquerading as a match.

Bruno Sammartino vs Buddy Rogers – WWWF Title – The start of Bruno’s first reign, it lasted less than a minute due to Rogers’ failing health.

JBL vs The Undertaker – WWE SummerSlam 2004 – I was there! I helped do The Wave! They deserved it!

5.John Cena vs Brock Lesnar – WWE Backlash 2003 – Before John Cena was the man we know and love (admit it), there was his first ever WWE Title shot, waaaay back in 2003, when he was a heel, just coming off an injury caused by Brock, and refining his “angry white rapper” gimmick that would ultimately send him into the stratusphere. Unfortunately, at this point, he was far from a polished wrestler, and Brock was struggling under the weight of a whole lot of expectations and not being in a match with someone who could carry their end. The result? An eight-minute resthold. Sadly, not the worst match on this particular PPV.

4.Triple H vs Randy Orton – WWE WrestleMania 25 – What started out as the hottest feud of 2009 ended up as possibly the most disappointing WrestleMania main event since…well, since the top entry on my list, as two men supposedly engaged in a blood feud, to borrow a line from Mick Foley’s books, “cluster-fucked to a symphony of silence” in a match that might have passed for a Raw main event, but which was far too poor for the final match of the silver anniversary of WrestleMania. This match was a large factor in why Mania 25 was voted the Biggest Disappointment of 2009 by the 411 Staff, and when you consider the talent involved, and the booking gymnastics that went into it, that is inexcusable.

3.Brock Lesnar vs Bob Holly – WWE Royal Rumble 2004 – You know, I know everyone tries to excuse the weak undercard matches on the Rumble because the Rumble match is the real main event, but there was absolutely no need for this. It wasn’t a horribly bad match, but it was horrendously boring, and featured absolutely nothing interesting. Plus, no one on earth gave Bob Holly a hope in hell of taking the title, and rightly so. You think the IWC thought Sheamus had no chance? Sparky Plugg had even less.

2.Triple H vs Scott Steiner – WWE Royal Rumble 2003 – Just awful. Everything about this was awful. The build featured no wrestling, just weeks and weeks of arm-wrestling, posedowns, and weightlifting challenges that made me want to claw my eyes out. And then this match, which was so bad it actually made me feel bad for Triple H, stuck out there trying to carry a man who had no business being in the ring at all, to increasing crowd mutiny. And then, to emphasize how bad it was, Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle went out and put on the Match of the Year for 2003 immediately afterwards, which just made all the blunders of Steiner and HHH seem even worse. And they still did a rematch!

1.Hulk Hogan vs Yokozuna – WWE WrestleMania IX – Come on, you know I couldn’t let this one pass. WrestleMania IX has done more than its share to earn the title of Worst WrestleMania of All Time from more than one person, and here’s one of the big reasons why. Sure, like the Fingerpoke, it wasn’t really a match, but it did have the added benefit of completely burying the match that took place immediately before it, and at the time once again showed the world that Vince just couldn’t say “no” to Hulk Hogan, letting him steal the main event of WrestleMania, even though pretty much everyone was tired of his act.

Robert S. Leighty Jr

HONORABLE MENTION

Hulk Hogan vs Sting: WCW Title: Starrcade 97 – The biggest match in the history of WCW and they sure fucked things up royally.

5.Hulk Hogan vs Roddy Piper: WCW Title: SuperBrawl VII – The Starrcade match wasn’t for the title, had a clean finish, and had the fact that it was their first meeting in years. The rematch as SuperBrawl was just as bad plus it had horribly, predictable ending with Savage going nWo.

4.Yokozuna vs Lex Luger: WWF Title: WrestleMania X – This only added to the choker status that Luger had developed over his career. Just a horrible match, with a horrible finish at the Biggest Show of the Year. Thankfully, they ended the show on a higher note.

3.The Great Khali vs Batista: World Title: SummerSlam 2007 – Injuries that decimated SmackDown in 2007 lead to the Great Khali winning the World Title and then having to face the often injured Batista at the second biggest show of the year. Khali works well enough when he has a baby face that can bounce off him and generate sympathy, but Batista is not that guy and the results were ugly.

2.Yokozuna vs The Undertaker: WWF Title: Casket Match: Royal Rumble 94 – Thank God for the Rumble match because the Rumble PPV itself gets some pretty horrible title matches. The only reason this isn’t #1 is because if you are high on something it probably would come across as enjoyable. Plus the ending with Taker delivering his own eulogy from inside the casket before ascending to heaven is so far out there that it can be laughed at.

1.HHH vs Scott Steiner: World Title: Royal Rumble 2003 – Scott Steiner actually looked pretty good in his run as WCW Champion. I thought going in that 2 years off would hurt, but HHH would be able to get something decent out of the match. Boy was I wrong! This match was atrocious and the crowd in Boston shit all over it. The fantastic Benoit/Angle match that followed only added to how shitty this match was in comparison.

Julian Bond

5.Randy Orton vs Triple H (WWE Wrestlemania 25) – Sure the match technically wasn’t the worst in the world, but the way it was built up as the MAIN EVENT of Wrestlemania 25 made it one of the most disappointing and worst World Title matches I’ve ever seen. I swear…with the all of the build-up behind it…aka moments like Orton being thrown through a window by HHH and Orton taking out all of the McMahons…it was simply a horribly bland bout.

4.Big Boss Man vs. Big Show (WWF Armagedeon 1999) – The Big Boss Man…in a main event on PPV…in the year 1999….just…not…right.

3.Kane vs. Undertaker (WWF Judgment Day 1998) – People often forget about this horrible, HORRIBLE match. Remember when Stone Cold lost his World Title to Kane and Undertaker due to the schemes of Vince McMahon and THEN in one of the dumbest underrated booking decisions in wrestling, they decided to book a major PPV main event pitting Kane/Taker against one another despite the two guys getting major heel heat (in a bad way) and then just having Stone Cold be a “referee” of some sorts….which resulted in Taker mainly (and only) working on Kane’s leg…without a real submission move attempt of any sort…for a dreadful 10-15 minutes only to have Stone Cold stun them both leading to a f’n No Contest. Just wrong…very very wrong.

2.HHH vs. Steiner (WWE Royal Rumble/No Way Out 2003) – This match was so damn awful that I am not lying crossing my heart that when me and my friends were watching the Royal Rumble live, one of my peeps were soooooo bored that they actually fell alsleep in their seat! God awful pair of matches and even worst feud behind it…remember the body-building contest?!?

1.Just about every other main-event World Title match that WCW had from 1999 – 2001 – Let’s see…the “fingerpoke of doom” with Hogan vs. Nash…David Arquette winning the World Title in a freaking tag match…Vince Russo beating Booker T in a WCW cage match…um…the four way with Steiner, Sid, Jeff Jarrett and “mystery opponent” Road Warrior Animal…any bout involving Hogan in the red and yellow at this point…uh…I think Booker T and Jarrett fought over the World Title by cracking open some boxes in a “San Francisco 49-er” gold mine match or something (please someone correct me!!)….the list goes on and on and on…I just really can’t pick one!