We’re a week past WrestleMania now, and the match result that so many people were fearing did not happen. But believe me when I tell you that no outcome from that match would have been as bad as what I’m about to share with you. These are my five worst match results, ever. And it’s not just because of the wrong guy winning and losing, it’s how they got there. More than any other, these five matches pissed me off as a fan for how they transpired and/or ended. When I say I could have written a better ending myself even at the age I was when they happened, I’m not kidding. Now one of these I talked about back in my old blog place, and rather than re-hash it here I’ll just link to it. But the other four I haven’t talked about much or at all. So here they go:
Sting vs The Black Scorpion, Starrcade 1990:
Sting was the NWA (soon to be WCW) World Champion, and had been harassed for several months by a strange, mysterious character known as the Black Scorpion. Several cheesy vignettes and false reveals later, the two were set to meet in a Steel Cage match at Starrcade 1990. If the Scorpion won, he would be the champion and Sting won he had to unmask. They had the match, a completely forgettable affair, which Sting won. Then, as the Scorpion stumbled off in defeat the mask came off to reveal….Ric Flair. What’s wrong with that you say? Well, Sting had beaten Flair for the title in June and instead of a series of rematches over the next several months they did this. Flair had to disguise his style in the ring so that we wouldn’t figure out it was him, so we got a very average match when we could have gotten an epic steel cage encounter. But even worse than that was the reasoning: they went with Flair under the mask because they didn’t have anyone to do it! Turns out the geniuses running the company couldn’t get the guy they wanted, and had no back up plan so Flair had to bail them out. And of course out of costume Flair would win the title back anyway a few weeks later.
Triple H vs Booker T, Wrestlemania 19:
This is one the matches that helped establish Triple H’s reputation for putting himself over at the expense of others. If there was a Mt. Rushmore or Pantheon of Triple H going over when he shouldn’t have, this would be on there. Triple H was the World Champion at the time and Booker T was a little over a year into his post-Invasion WWE career. During the entire run up to the match Triple H was getting his quasi-racist on, letting a lot ‘you people’ type comments fly during his promos. Everything was set up for a Booker T victory; given that Triple H wasn’t that type of heel you don’t have him go there unless it’s to set up a big win for the black guy. So what happened? Booker hits Hunter with his finisher. 1, 2, nope! Hunter gets out of it, and a few minutes later hits Booker with the Pedigree, waits several seconds laying on the mat then covers him for three. Yeah, they spent several weeks setting up a black guy vs kinda sorta racist white guy match only to have the kinda racist white guy go over. And of course after this angle was over kinda racist Triple H was gone replaced by the regular heel Triple H we all knew and hated.
Sting vs Hulk Hogan, Starrcade 1997:
I wrote about this one here – http://robsagenius.blogspot.com/2015/03/worst-finish-ever.html
Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair – Bash at the Beach:
I grew up an 1980s NWA loyalist. I was not a Ric Flair fan at the time; I was for the guys who went against him like Dusty Rhodes, Ronnie Garvin, and Magnum T.A. But I recognized the abilities of the man from day one, and as time went on I rooted for The Nature Boy like a lot of people already did. On the flip side while I watched the WWF shows I was an NWA man and considered the WWF to be second rate in the ring. So when both companies were struggling in the mid 1990s and the now-WCW decided to bring in the biggest name from the hated WWF I reluctantly accepted it. I even knew they would put the belt on him ASAP just because. But the way they did it was downright infuriating. Hogan faced Flair for the title in his first WCW match, and no-sold for 15 minutes before beating Flair with the then-tired three punches, big boot, and legdrop. And i was pissed, because I knew what that meant: the company I grew up watching was trashing their entire storied history to put over the enemy. And I was right: Hogan’s ascendance was followed by an influx of a lot of his WWF buddies like Brutus Beefcake, the Big Bossman, and Hacksaw Duggan while people who’d bust their ass for WCW like Steve Austin, Ricky Steamboat, and Dustin Rhodes were shown the door and the man who’d held the company up when no one else could, Sting, was pushed to the back burner. And it was in WCW where all the rumors about Hogan not wanting to put people over became unquestioned reality and went into overdrive. I’ve mentioned before how much I was done with Hulk Hogan in 1990 so you can imagine how much more I was done with him four years later. Ugh…….I got pissed off all over again just typing this.
And lastly, number one:
David Arquette wins the WCW Title, WCW Thunder, April 2000:
As much as the Hogan-Flair result pissed me off, this was worse. By 2000 the Monday Night Wars were all but over and the WWF had won. WCW was barely hanging on and grasping for any kind of straws they could hold on to. What they had managed to do was collaborate on a wrestling-themed movie, Ready to Rumble, in which nearly the entire roster had cameos. The movie itself wasn’t terrible and was probably the best pro wrestling movie made (that’s not saying much; that’s like being the best smelling pile of trash in a lanndfill). But in an effort to cross-promote the film the WCW brass came up with the brilliant idea of putting the star of the film, David Arrquette, in the ring for a few matches. I know, it’s been done before, no big deal. The difference was that one of those matches was a tag team match on WCW Thunder with Diamond Dallas Page against Jeff Jarrett and Eric Bischoff, with whoever scored the pin becoming the champion. OK….sounds bad, but it gets worse. Arquette pinned Bischoff….and was WCW champion. It’s no coincidence that within a year the company would be gone. Putting the title on a non wrestler like David Arquette in an effort to gain publicity was a fitting symbol of just how inept Eric Bischoff truly was as the head of a major wrestling company. After that I didn’t watch another WCW show until the final episode of Nitro shortly before WrestleMania 17. I was that fed up. Hell I need a drink now after writing this.
Stroke of Genius 