Reach for the (Minus) Stars: Sky's Collection of Bad Matches

[Rosie]

"The stage does not count as ringside."

-Triple H from one random episode of Smackdown before the 2009 Royal Rumble where MVP (Losing streak MVP) beat Big Show in a Last Man Standing match because Triple H clocked Show on the stage with a Sledgehammer when he was banned from ringside. If MVP lost or he interfered, he'd be out of the Royal Rumble. Evil Vickie Guerrero (Who might be shoot not the nicest with some of her anti-immigrant comments in the past and if the Royalties from Eddie are genuinely not going to her and Eddie's kids) was like "Haha, you interfered so you are out of the Rumble." Triple H was like "Last time I checked, the stage isn't ringside."

And boom.

Doesn't make it any more stupid. Like one time in an e-fed I tasked someone with writing a world title match. We had the stipulation of "Banned from ringside" but we wanted the heel champ to cheat somehow. So he decided to have his stablemates appear on the other side of the barricade-

And it was shit on. I even didn't like it. HE SHOULD HAVE JUST HAD A SWIFT OLD KICK TO THE DICK, DAMNIT!

 

[Sky]

Entry #192
Andre the Giant vs. Akira Maeda
NJPW Big Fighter Series - April 29, 1986​

Those last few days were pretty rough, but I think I've recovered now, so it's time to watch a surreal bit of wrestling history. Just like Tenta vs. Kitao, this is cited as an example of what happens when wrestlers didn't want to co-operate with each other. Short-fused entertainment-hater Akira Maeda colliding with a very "tired and emotional" Andre the Giant, who's insulted by Japanese people' distates for American-style wrestling. In the company where Maeda left a while ago, so Inoki had a reason to punish him by throwing him at Andre. What could go right?

Andre isn't facing the right way when the bell rings. He demonstrates his inability to walk in a straight line, and the two have a staredown for a good 40 seconds. Maeda goes for a leg kick but Andre just shrugs it off. Then Maeda tries a takedown, and Andre responds by just... lying on him. For about a minute. There really isn't much of a hold going on, just Andre crushing his opponent. Staredown continues. Maeda comes from the ropes and Andre just swats him away. More staredown. Maeda goes for a wheel kick, bounces off Andre, then Andre tries to lie on him again before Maeda goes to the outside.

Brief lock-up to the ropes, then Maeda tries to engage but Andre drags him down with a double underhook. Maeda tries to get an arm submission but Andre ignores it and starts choking him on the mat. Back up, Andre gets a full nelson and proceeds to lie on top of Maeda again. Maeda eventually gets a rope break but Andre keeps it locked on for way too long. Staredowns return. More Maeda leg kicks which go unsold. Maeda finally gets some offence by feinting a wristlock before going for a single leg takedown and toppling Andre legit. Andre just lies back and starts going for legit eye rakes. We are NINE MINUTES in to the match. Barely anything has happened.

Maeda grabs the arm and eventually legitimately locks in an armbar. Andre does eventually overpower him, but Maeda, bless him, keeps trying to work the arm, as if Andre's interested in working at all. Andre's just chilling, not even caring about making a legit match, and even mumbling what I think is a taunt to Maeda. They get back up, and immediately return to staredown mode. Maeda gets a double-leg takedown but Andre chokes Maeda with his big hand to stop anything of significance happening. Maeda goes for a dropkick but Andre just bats him away. Back to staring. Maeda gets a heel hook now, and Andre is just pretending he's not even in a pro wrestling match. He's not sold anything yet.

Guess what? MORE STARING! Maeda tries a heel hook, but Andre swings his other foot around dangerously to get him to stop. Maeda maintains control of the leg, through multiple holds of the ropes (so there's just no rope breaks in this match). Andre turns over for what looks like a bodyscissors, and Maeda wriggles out. MORE STARING. Fifteen minutes of fucking nothing. Andre's manager tries to hype the crowd up, to no avail. Maeda goes for leg kicks again, and Andre no-sells again. It cannot be oversold just how dull this match is. Just so much looking at each other, Maeda moving around while this immobile drunk bastard stumbles in place.

Maeda finally goes back to the kicks, but there's a difference now: they're legit. Your typical wrestling leg kick is an attack to the shin, but now Maeda's trying to take Andre's knees out for real. That's the only difference, though, as the kicks don't seem to have much more effect and no one goes for any holds. I can't tell if the shoot kicks are doing shoot damage, or if Andre's just stumbling because of the alcohol. Either way, he doesn't want us to think they're doing anything. We pass the TWENTY minute mark.

Antonio fucking Inoki himself comes out, and the distraction allows Maeda to blindside Andre with a kick that sends him against the ropes. Andre's not even pretending to care about this match, leaning against the corner for a chat with his manager. Inoki comes in to the ring, finally waking the crowd, and tells the ref to end this farce somehow. Maeda just keeps kicking. It probably would have worked if Inoki had come in and shouted "STOP! YOU BOTH FUCKING SUCK" like he would in 2011.

Andre stumbles, and the crowd pops as if it's because of the kicks and not because he's drunk. Andre goes for another chat. Maeda gets a couple more single leg takedowns; the first Andre ignores, and the second he just lies back and demands that Maeda pin him. Inoki tries to come in again and then the match just ends. There's a little kerfuffle in the ring between Inoki and ring crew, all while Maeda and Andre just look at each other. Maeda finally tries to pin Andre. Andre gets up, Maeda starts kicking again, and that's all the footage has and FUCK THIS MATCH. FUCK IT TO HELL. Genuinely one of the most boring loads of shit I've seen in my life. I'm not even writing a wrap-up for it, because that would put more effort than either man did for this match.

 

[Sky]

Entry #193
"Donald Trump" vs. "Rosie O'Donnell"
WWE Monday Night RAW - January 8, 2007​

First of all, I want to point out that on the Network, this episode of RAW has weird edits to the iconic 2000s WWE intro. Vince's "you're fired" is muted... but so is Undertaker's "rest in peace"? Is that a new thing? Did that just happen normally in 2007? Someone clarify, please.

Anyway, here's this! Called the most embarrassing thing in wrestling history by some, here it is! Back in the days when Donald Trump was a rich reality TV guy and not a walking reminder of the coming apocalypse, he got into a public feud (Trump? Feuding? Surely not) with Rosie O'Donnell. And so, Rapey Don's friend Rapey Vince put on this match to "entertain" us all. A match between two impersonators. Ace Steel plays Trump, while lesser-known indie star Kiley McLean plays the role of Rosie (which she performs in various backstage segments by putting on a Noo Yoik accent, staring at the Divas' breasts, and most importantly, eating twice her own weight in cake). Note that Trump doesn't get any backstage segments mocking him. Wonder whose side Vince is on.

Vince himself struts down and announces what he calls "THE match". That's right, fuck Savage/Steamboat, Bret/Austin, this is the match that defines wrestling! Rosie is billed as the "double-chinned Diva" with "lesbionic fury" weighing in at "God knows how much", to the sound of farting tubas. Trump gets the original Apprentice USA theme, of course. The UK theme is better. His portrayal consists of... pointing at people and telling them they're fired. To be fair, it was back in 2007, before Trump had irreparably altered the world's vocabulary. Sad! Speaking of hindsight, I find it amusing that the ref's reminder of the rules contains "no biting", in a match involving Ace Steel.

Rosie immediately calls a time-out so she can go out of the ring and... messily eat some more cake. Crowd is already burying this. Back in the ring, and they argue. From what i can hear, Trump is significantly more generous about her weight and appearance than the real Trump is about real women. The "boring" chants begin. We finally get a lock-up, and Rosie overpowers Trump instantly. Then again. At this point Trump takes off his jacket. Headlock by Trump, which Rosie pushes him off and gives him a shoulderblock. I didn't know they taught the standard OVW playbook of moves on The View! Another shoulderblock by Rosie, then a Thesz press followed by flailing ground-and-pound.

Rosie resorts to hair-tossing, which is I guess because Trump has silly hair? "Boring" chants grow louder. Rosie's doing Hulk Hogan poses. This is where the infamous TNA chants begin. This is one of the few WWE events that got people to chant for TNA. Trump resists some face-bashes into the corner (because of his powerful hairpiece), then headbutts Rosie (because of that same reason). Trump tries to bodyslam Rosie, but can't hold her (because FAT!!!! GET IT!!!!! BECAUSE SHE'S OVERWEIGHT!!!!!!! LAUGH!!!!!!! NOW!!!!!!) and Rosie falls on top of him for a two-count. Rosie does the worst splash I've ever seen, taking it on her knees, and Trump rolls away. Trump grabs the cake and gives Rosie a faceful. A diving headbutt by Trump, then 10 seconds later, he pins her to end it.

Comedy that isn't funny meets bad wrestling. Utter wank.

 

[Rosie]

Reading the playback of that match alone makes me not want to use the name Rosie upon transitioning.

 

[Sky]

Entry #194
The Miz vs. Damien Priest
Zombie Lumberjack Match
WWE WrestleMania Backlash - May 16, 2021​

Army of the Dud. Okay, now that that's out of the way...

Somehow, this is our first step into the ThunderDome! Pandemic-era WWE was odd. The good news was that they were allowed to experiment; however, the bad news was that they were allowed to experiment. So we got shit like the Braun/Bray trilogy of turds (don't worry, we WILL get to those) and Alexa Bliss magic nonsense. This is probably the lowest-regarded of the lot, though. Zombie lumberjacks. That's all the explanation I should need. This was a tie-in for the film Army of the Dead, starring Dave "please try to forget I won Royal Rumble 2014" Batista. So Dave announced that some of his friends would show up for this PPV. While I don't recall him being too pally with the zombies in that movie, it's clear what's going to happen. There will be zombies. And not the ECW kind, either. Let's kill our brain cells.

Miz foregoes his full entrance so he can enjoy the John Morrison slo-mo. God, remember Johnny Drip Drip? Remember the Drip Stick? Remember their diss tracks? That made me wish for death. I miss Priest's babyface theme. Suddenly, the music changes, the screens switch to Post Apocalyptic City Backdrop #3, and over the barricade comes an army of ravenous, undead future NXT 2.0 stars! Miz and Morrison want to escape but are accosted by the reanimated corpses of Ikemen Jiro, Joe Gacy, Von Wagner, Bron Breakker, and more. They go their separate ways - Morrison hightails it away from ringside while Miz goes to the ring. The one place zombies cannot go mid-match. I must have missed that about zombie lore. Miz is apparently stupefied that Morrison didn't know it either.

"Don't adjust your screen, no, we're not relaunching ECW again" -sometimes Corey Graves is good, people. A fairly basic match begins, you know, except there are Performance Center trainees in zombie makeup grasping at the wrestlers' legs, and each man treats going to the outside like it's a potential threat to their life. Priest briefly starts a fight with the zombies, before eating a big boot from Miz for two. The commentators (which includes Adnan Virk, yes, it's that time) are treating the zombie thing completely seriously. Miz hits his corner clothesline, but slips to the outside, where he has to dodge zombies. Which he does by crawling under the ring. As if there aren't zombies on the other side. To be fair, the zombies on this side do include Carmelo Hayes, so that's something to worry about. Miz eats a lariat from Priest after coming back in.

Priest strikes away and gets a spin kick for two. He then goes to the top rope (which the zombies can't reach) for another. This lands square on Miz's knee, giving him his first ever major injury, that'll take him out for the next 3 months. Miz still powers through though, avoiding a powerbomb, catching a spin kick, and slapping on an even worse than usual Figure Four. Priest tries to go for a rope break, but a zombie catches his hand and drags both of them out. We get a sequence of Priest and Miz fighting off zombies together, including an emaciated Andre Chase. Von Wagner zombie tosses one of his cohorts aside and starts no-selling Priest until he eats a spin kick. Back in the ring, the Miz teases a high five and goes for a kick. Priest sees it coming, though, and hits the Broken Arrow for two.

Priest's setting up for South of Heaven, but Morrison comes out to distract and attack him. A running knee by Miz gets two. Morrison uses his parkour kicks to take out a bunch of zombies, and then goes for a splash off the barricade... until he's dragged down by two zombies, including a Creed Brother, and presumably has his brains eaten. Miz, clearly distressed by his friend being killed, takes Hit the Lights to hand the win to Priest.

Only AFTER the match do the zombies think to enter the ring, which they do, swarming Miz and presumably eating his brains too. Priest escapes, and shoots a nonexistent arrow at the roof of the ThunderDome to create an Army of the Dead advertisement. Says a lot about the point of this blowoff match. This was an actual feud! And they ruined it with advertising. Good thing they never did that sort of thing again, huh?

Really basic match dragged into badness by expecting us to believe actual zombies will actually kill us. It's a shame they never tried to follow up on this. Never made us sit through Actual Zombie Miz. That would have made even more people realise just how out-of-touch Vince's WWE was.

 

[Chris]

This resulting in Miz's only long term injury is crazy

 

[Rosie]

To comment on tThe Braun/Wyatt series. Only decent when they decided "Hey. They're both monsters. Let's let them fucking murder each other!"

They were trying something with the story, but it just felt empty. Though I will contend that the Bray/Alexa combination had its moments until they decided to go off the fucking rails.

 

[Chris]

I was sad the swamp fight was so bad. With full post production you could have made something so wacky and fun

 

[Sky]

Entry #195
Mr. Hughes vs. Sal Bellomo
ECW The Night The Line Was Crossed - February 5, 1994​

As entry number 200 draws ever closer, I thought I'd pick a few matches from one show that are filling my ever-increasing backlog, which will have the side effect of bringing me up to 500 unique wrestlers. Here is the first of three you'll see from this show, and if that isn't a pre-Extreme ECW match, I've never seen one. Fuckin' Mr. Hughes. Showing up from WCW while he still has some name value, and still sucking. Against the world's most Italian Belgian, too. Let's get it over with.

We start with Hughes tossing Bellomo around a few times with a handful of hair. Bellomo tries to control the arm but Hughes goes to the ropes. Then they get into brawling. Fairly slow brawling, but still brawling. This is beating Andre vs. Maeda by a mile (but then again, what isn't?). Hughes whips Bellomo into a corner and does a corner splash. More brawling, then Hughes tries to do that same spot again, but misses. Now Bellomo has a bit of advantage. He goes for two shoulderblocks, that stagger the big man, but can't get the third because Jason trips him on the outside. Hughes can now strike back, and he gets the fairly unconvincing-looking sidewalk slam for the win.

Meh. That's all I can say. Squash between two slow-motion dudes.

 

[Sky]

Entry #196
Jimmy Snuka vs. Tommy Dreamer
ECW The Night The Line Was Crossed - February 5, 1994​

Congratulations to Tommy Dreamer, who becomes the 500th(!!) unique wrestler in this thread. And what better way to celebrate than a boring slog with Snuka? I wonder what Dreamer would have said about the murder of Nancy Argentino. Something to the effect of "boys will be boys" or something. Can you tell I don't like these guys? Let's go.

Snuka takes his sweet time taking his jacket off, so fans entertain themselves by mocking the attire of his manager, Hunter Q. Robbins, a name that you hear but never really see. Lock-up, then staredown. It's the sort of staredown you see in modern matches where both men have just done a bunch of fast-paced moves, counter each other, kip-up, then stare to the sound of a crowd pop. You know the sort of thing. Except here, it's from a single lock-up, which makes it feel unearned. Snuka stalls by getting into it with the fans. There's a "Wet Dreamer" sign in the crowd. Snuka keeps arguing with fans... and arguing... and arguing. There's one fan in particular who gets a good minute and a half of his ire. Eventually Dreamer goes to stand up for the fan, receiving their hat in exchange. Dreamer wears it for a minute or so before giving it back.

Back to the lock-up (it has the quality of a slow dance) before Dreamer slaps on a headlock. Push out, shoulderblock... Dreamer breaks the OVW sequence with a scoop slam, and Snuka rolls to the outside for MORE stalling! The fans start a "Piper" chant, apparently referencing that moment where Piper bonked Snuka with a coconut. It's the only thing keeping Dreamer entertained at this point. "All right, round one is over, round two is ready to begin" -Joey Styles, after 30 seconds of action and 5 minutes of standing around.

Lock-up, then they start slapping each other. Dreamer goes for a crossbody but Snuka ducks and sends his opponent to the floor. I'd have expected Snuka to stand and wait, but no, to his credit, he does go to the outside for a brawl. Snuka hits Dreamer with a chair (notably not holding the legs, as if he doesn't know the standard Chair Etiquette), then sends him back in. Back in the ring, Snuka hits a running Dreamer with a chop and lands a kneeling backbreaker. He takes his sweet time to go to the top and hit the Superfly Splash, but Dreamer kicks out! Snuka goes for some strikes to the throat of Dreamer before hitting another Superfly Splash... then does it again, with a third Splash, to kill the match. Post-match Snuka just keeps attacking, even hitting Tod Gordon as he tries to intervene, before finally the locker room clears him away.

This entire affair lasted about eleven minutes, but could have been wrapped up in two. That's how much stalling and time-wasting there was.

 

[Sky]

Entry #197
Kevin Sullivan/The Tazmaniac vs. The Original Sheik/Pat Tanaka
ECW The Night The Line Was Crossed - February 5, 1994​

For the final match on this show we're looking at, it's a TEW auto-book match! Pre-suplex machine Taz teaming with Kevin Sullivan, to face an old guy and an ex-WWF guy! Maybe that's unfair, but it shows what I expect for this match.

Sheik manages to push away the entrance curtain so hard it collapses. Meanwhile, Tanaka jumps from the crowd in street clothes and attacks Taz. Sheik and Sullivan are brawling in the crowd. Real territory-esque walk-and-brawl stuff. Taz establishes an ankle lock on Tanaka. Sheik and Sullivan's brawl reaches the guardrail. They're both bloodied already. Taz now has a single leg crab, but Tanaka gets a rope break. This is why you need split screen. Did ECW seriously only have one camera? Sullivan's got a chair wrapped around his head, but he takes it off eventually. Taz is working the leg still. Sheik throws a fireball, but it misses wildly and hits Taz in the ring instead, so Tanaka rolls him up.

I'm sure this was entertaining to the crowd, but I'm just baffled. Effectively two different matches, no structure at all.

 

[Rosie]

Shiek always needs to get his fireball in.

 

[Bobby Barrows]

Tommy Dreamer has always fucking sucked tbh.

 

[Bobby Barrows]

While I'm at it, since Abdhullah actually already showed up in your reviews, can I just say I think Abdullah is one of the absolute worst wrestlers of all time to ever get over.

Dude was a hazard to himself and others, only got over because he would do some of the nastiest blade jobs known to mankind, and wrestled like shit losing its stink.

 

[Death By Looch]

He was never a great Wrestler overall... it was purely emotions and passion and even though I shit on him nowadays a lot, I did give him credit for bringing that emotion and the amount of passion for the business to the ring back in the day.

Dreamer, I mean... not Abi