The 10 Worst Gimmick matches in WrestleMania History

 

Author’s Note: These are based on Gimmick matches i.e. matches with special props or stipulations.  Yes, there are plenty of bad regular matches, but for now these are the ones I focused on.  Enjoy.

 

10. Dumpster Match- WrestleMania XIV.  New Age Outlaws Vs Cactus Jack and Terry Funk – This bastardized version of a casket match didn’t seem like a bad idea on paper, but in practice it failed.  Miserably.  The premise was the Outlaws trapped Funk and Foley in a dumpster and threw it off the RAW stage.  So to “gain revenge” Jack and Funk challenged the Outlaws to this goofy ass match where you have to put both your opponents into a dumpster to win.  Same rules as a casket match except in this one they used WEAPONS.  Oooo weapons.  Here’s where it really got dumb.  During the match, the fight spilled into the backstage area.  While backstage, Funk and Jack found ANOTHER dumpster so they proceeded to put the Outlaws in the WRONG dumpster using a forklift.  Once they put them in, the ref. declared them the winners and new tag team champions.  No one said they couldn’t use another dumpster, but what happens the next night on RAW?  They were stripped of the titles for using the wrong dumpster.  WHAT THE FUCK?  It would have been nice to know before sitting through this crap that they had to use the one at ringside.  This was obviously a poorly planned concept from the beginning and it had an even worse follow through.

 

9.  Gimmick Battle Royal – WrestleMania X-Seven.  Yes, I understand the premise.  I understand that it’s just supposed to be light and fun, a way to display some of the goofy characters of the past, but it was just painful to watch.  Once the nostalgia wears off, you’re left with pure awfulness.  “Hey it’s Doink the Clown and Duke the Dumpster Droese.  I remember those guys.  Didn’t they suck major ass?”  Yes they did.  They also had no problem showing you exactly why they sucked ass with their sluggish fat bodies attempting moves that they couldn’t even do in their prime.  Then to top it off, instead of having one of the faces win for a feel good moment, you give the win to the Iron Sheik?  Great booking there.  Yes, Sgt. Slaughter saved the day, but it kind of killed the moment when Sheik won.  I personally would have preferred to see Tugboat get his hand raised.  Cue: Boat siren

 

 

 

8. Referee Match – WrestleMania XV.  Big Show Vs Mankind.  Now as bad as this match was, the premise of two guys fighting for the right to referee the main event is even worse.  Why would two wrestlers beat the shit out of each other in order to referee someone else’s match?  It makes no sense.  “That referee job is mine, bitch.  I’m gonna count those shoulders”.  This match came about because Vince wanted Show to ref the title match between Austin and the Rock so he could help the Rock keep the belt, but Show goes and gets himself DQed.  Your boss wants you to do something, so you do the opposite on purpose.  Then to top it off Vince yells and slaps Show after the loss so Show hits Vince.  Then Vince has him arrested.  Ok so I guess since Mankind won the match and Show got arrested, he’s the ref, right?  No.  Mankind gets legit injured (which isn’t anyone’during the match so he’s taken to the hospital.  So after all that the referee for the title match will be Mike Chiota – a regular referee.  Someone shoot me.  Eventually, Foley did make his way back to ref the finish, but all the time that went into his match with Show could have been added to the main event or another deserving match.

 

(I apologize in advance for posting a match that has Michael Cole on commentary)

 

7. Blindfold Match – WrestleMania VII.  Jake “the Snake” Roberts Vs Rick “the Model” Martel.  This feud was good.  It had a lot of good build and these guys played well off each other.  The premise was Jake was “blinded” by Martel’s Arrogance cologne when Martel sprayed Jake in his eyes.  So after months of being blind, Jake challenged Martel to a blindfold match.  A match in which the combatants wear…get this…a blindfold.  No seriously, that was the claim.  That these guys would go into the ring and fight without being able to see.  Now in all honesty, I would pay a lot of money to see that if it was legit, but that wasn’t the case.  They wore black hoods over their heads that were completely see through and pretended to be blind.  Now if you’re saying to yourself that this match had to be something straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, then you are right.  It was so goofy and so over the top, you were literally sitting there waiting for Porky to go “th th th that’s all folks”.  At one point Martel would find Jake, slam him, attempt an elbow and hit nothing but canvas because he “couldn’t see” that Jake had moved.  As a seven year old, it was hilarious, but looking back on it now it’s simply horrendous.  Words don’t do it justice.  If you want a good laugh and are prepared to drop all logical thinking then watch this match.  Otherwise, you’d best advert your eyes.

 

(Cena should be booked in a match like this.  It’s win-win.  We don’t have to see his goofy face and he can wave his hand in front of his “blind opponent” going “you can’t see me” to his heart’s content)

 

6. Hollywood Backlot Brawl – WrestleMania XII.  Rowdy Roddy Piper Vs Goldust.  This was during Piper’s brief run as the “President” or on-screen figure head of the WWF.  During Piper’s reign Goldust was an immerging character who played mind games with his opponents by making sexual advances towards them.  Goldy set his “sights” on Piper and the match was on because Piper intended to and I quote “make a man out of this fruitcake”.  Ahem.  Of course this couldn’t just be a regular match.  Since WrestleMania was in L.A. the match had to be on a Hollywood back lot.  The premise wasn’t horrible.  It was essentially a street fight/falls count anywhere type of thing.  Here’s where things got a little weird.  Piper is standing in the lot holding a bat and Goldust drives up in his solid gold Cadillac (no, I didn’t make that up).  Piper then takes a hose and sprays the car as its coming towards him.  What?  Hose water can stop a moving car any day.  It’s science.  Goldust stops the car and Piper smashes the window with the bat and one of the weirdest, most non-sensical fights ever is ON.  After some brawling, Goldust gets back in his car and “runs over” Piper with his car (cheesy Hollywood stunts FTW).  Now despite being hit by a car, Piper gets right up and jumps in his car to follow Goldy.  This is where the “hilarity” really begins because Piper’s car just happens to be a white Ford Bronco.  Yes, just like the one a certain murderous ex-football star used to drive.  If only this match would have ended on that note, but it didn’t.  During the next hour and a half they would break away to show clips of a white ford bronco being chased by police cars.  Sounds familiar right? What made it really painful was that instead of WWE shooting their own footage, they decide to up the lols by using the ACTUAL O.J. Simpson news coverage footage.  Are you kidding me?  Finally, they both show up at the arena.  Piper magically has shaken the imaginary cops and is pursuing Goldust on foot through the arena.  Goldust for some reason thinks “I don’t think he’ll find me out in the arena”.  Piper finds him easily and the match apparently is going to continue inside the arena thus making the whole backlot brawl part irrelevant.  I love when we devote our time to watching some of WWE’s crap and are paid back by having out time completely wasted.  After some more brawling, the match that should have started in the arena, but instead started in a parking lot, ended in the arena with a complete non-finish.  Yes, that’s right this pile of shit didn’t even technically end.  Goldust simply walked out after being stripped of his gold jumpsuit (under which was women’s lingerie) and Piper’s music played.  If your thinking “hey that can’t be as bad as it sounded”.  Well, watch it monkeys and see for youself:

 

 

5. Loser Bows – WrestleMania III.  Junkyard Dog Vs “King” Harley Race.  As if it wasn’t stupid enough having one of the greatest of all time Harley Race doing a king gimmick, he was booked in a loser bows match in front of 93,000 people.  Granted Harley Race was no longer in his prime in 1987, but they stuck him in a lame gimmick match against JYD.  Now don’t get me wrong, JYD was fun to watch as a kid, but the guy was a horrible wrestler.  I don’t think Race could have carried JYD in his prime let alone 4 years after the fact.  Now throw the stupid bowing stipulaion on top of it, and you have one mega crapfest.  In the end, JYD lost and had to bow to Race who was sitting on a thrown (the same place where any footage of this match should be put).  Predictably, JYD was not a graceful loser and he proceeded to jump Race, take the cape and crown and dance around.  Fun for all, or maybe just some, ok just Vince then.

 

 

4. Playboy Evening Gown Match – WrestleMania XX.  Sable & Torrie Wilson Vs Stacy Keibler & Jackie Gayda

Oh WWE and the playboy tie-in matches.  If you thought today’s divas were bad wrestlers, you obviously have never dug up this gem.  The premise was that Stacy and Jackie were jealous of Sable & Torrie’s playboy spreads and were determined to show they were the better whor…I mean models…I guess.  Ok, let the games begin.  Firstly, this match had NO heat on it.  None.  Nobody in MSG even remotely cared (I should know, I was there).  Second problem was there was nothing that resembled any sort of wrestling.  Third, it was just an excuse to have hot women on the show.  If you think that girls stripping each other down to their bra & panties in front of millions of people just to prove whose hotter makes no sense then…I completely agree with you.  Especially considering this was the 20^th anniversary of WWE’s biggest show.  Let me put it this way, when Sable is the best wrestler in the match, your in trouble.

 

 

 

3.  Brawl 4 All – WrestleMania XV.  Bart Gunn Vs Butterbean.  This was one of the major flops of all time.  Bart Gunn unexpectedly won a semi-shoot fighting tournament that was set up to propel Dr. Death Steve Williams to main event status so he could challenge Austin for the belt.  The only problem was Gunn knocked Williams out in the semi-finals.  So they went with plan B.  They brought in tough-man champ Butterbean and matched him up against Bart Gunn, the Brawl for All champion.  Sounds like a good plan right?  There’s just one problem, BUTTERBEAN IS ACTUALLY A FUCKING BOXER.  Did no one think of this?  Was the WWF that arrogant?  Or maybe they knew what would happen and wanted to teach Gunn a lesson for fucking up their plans?  THAT second one sounds more like Vince to me.  Either way, the fans are the ones who suffered the most.  A three month long tournament full of awkward punching and several legit injuries culminated in this forty five second shitfest.  Yea, you read that right.  Gunn got knocked out in forty five seconds and when I say knocked out, I mean knocked the FUCK out.  The only saving grace was watching Bart’s head dangling from his neck like it was made out of jello.  That’s entertainment.

 

 

2. Catfight – WrestleMania 2000.  The Kat Vs Terri Runnels.  We all loved the attitude era.  The middle fingers, the beer, the hot women.  It was a great period in wrestling.  We would like to think that it was all peachy and great, but it wasn’t.  WWE despite all the great things they were doing still felt the need to put on some real sucktastic matches and this was one of them.  The first thing you should know that there was basically NO premise for this match.  This was thrown on at the last minute and was just a reason to have two hot women roll around on the floor together.  Not that I didn’t like that sort of thing (especially at age 17), but there is certainly enough of it on the internet that I didn’t need it during my wrestling shows.  Oh, did I mention Val Venis was the guest referee?  In a black and white stripped towel?  Yea…The real icing on the cake here was that Mae Young and the Fabulous Moolah just HAD to be thrown in the mix and each had to choose a side (Mae w/the Kat and Moolah w/Terri for those who care).  The match (and I use that term loosely) ended when Terri won, but then of course Mae had to have her fun and do bronco busters on the heels.  You really couldn’t ask for a more disgusting waste of time than an 80 year old granny bouncing up and down on another 80 year old granny’s face.  Now go have sex with your girlfriend/wife/life partner with that image in your head.

 

(Still want to complain about the Divas division?)

 

1. Sumo Match – WrestleMania 21.  Big Show Vs Akibono.  Yes I know that it takes hard work to fall a slot below a Terri Runnels match, but this one managed to do it.  At least the idea of two women rolling around together is hot.  The idea of two fat men rubbing their bellies together while wearing thongs is um…not.  This pointless showdown with no build up between these two fat asses is probably not only the worst WrestleMania match ever, not only the worst match WWE has put on , but perhaps the worst thing ever witnessed by human eyes.  Why they had this match, whose idea it was, why Big Show would agree to do it, no one fucking knows.  You know something is bad when the visual ALONE makes your stomach turn.  As for this enthralling contest of “strength”, it lasted a little over a minute with Show coming out on the losing end (as he does in almost every WrestleMania match he’s ever been in).  In truth, though we all lost something – our minds, our lunch, our ability to defend watching this crap.  Click it if you must.

 

 

 

There you have it, the worst of the worst.  These matches will forever be burned in our minds for all the wrong reasons.  The sad part is I know someday these matches will be topped.  Something worse will come along.  I don’t don’t want to even imagine anything worse than Big Show in a thong.  ::Shivers::