Well I suppose not all of 2020 could be peaches and cream.
Believe it or not, this has been a tough year for an industry that is built entirely around performance for a live crowd.
WWE has, to its credit, managed some absolutely wonderful pay-per-view matches this year, but it truly is hell trying to get into heaven, and before we can bask in the glory of 2020’s best wrestling, first we must do the main roster version of basking in glory, which is changing the glory’s theme music and asking it to wear a dorky shirt for no good reason. IT’S A KEITH LEE REFERENCE.
10. Women’s Elimination Chamber (Elimination Chamber)
Right. Okay. Right. Let’s start with the really divisive one.
Just to say upfront, as an angle to get over the blood-curdling terror of Shayna Baszler, this worked really well. However, angles don’t normally last 21 minutes.
If this was the first step on the journey to probably still today Raw Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler, it’s more palatable. But seeing as Becky Lynch retained at Mania in a decent but underwhelming match, this Elimination Chamber match has aged like a fine murderer.
It’s just awkward. Baszler enters as the fourth combatant and wipes everyone out. Then we wait. Then Liv Morgan arrives and is killed also. Then we wait. The crowd lose their patience, Baszler can’t save it with posturing, Asuka can’t save it with dancing and making weird noises, it’s just, as a viewing experience terrible.
Kayfabe the time WWE, just rig it, who cares? Or have Baszler come in 5, kill everyone just in time for Asuka, although that would mean extending the pre-Baszler section of the chamber which was heatless Natalya vs the heatless former Riott Squad, which was also mega boring.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
9. Bobby Lashley vs SLAPJACK (Clash of Champions)
I mean, shrug. What do you say about this? It’s a thrown together on the day, meaningless extended squash, featuring a wrestler called, and it still hasn’t become so bad it’s good, we’re all waiting for it, f**king Slapjack.
Literally the only thing of note about this match is that, for a terrifying force hellbent on destroying Raw via stealing a bunch of bane costumes from the dollar store and [checks notes] lobbying for and receiving employment by WWE, this is at time of writing, the ONLY pay-per-view to have featured RETRIBUTION in ANY in-ring capacity.
Seriously, the faction’s been around for four months and the only impact they’ve made for anyone not watching the TV shows which is a lot of people turns up, is this weird Jason-looking motherf**ker who gets munched by Bobbles Lashford, and then RETRIBUTION turn up and bobbles beats them up too. Next?
8. The Women’s Survivor Series Match
Okay, there are definitely worse matches out there, and compared to some of the women’s Survivor Series matches we had in the 2000s, this is a Rembrandt, but god damn did NO-ONE come out of this match looking good.
When you have 10 people in a match and not one person comes out of it with improved stock, that’s a bad match.
The whole match is a joke, and I don’t mean that in a snide way, literally the match is structured like a joke, setup, development of the setup and the punchline, which is Lana won the match, lol but she’s terrible.
Hey, if WWE wants to use most of their woman’s division to tell literally this one joke, fine it’s up to them, but WWE why did you tell it so weird?!
Why did you have Lana tag in and do well. Literally Lana tags in and that would fit the story if she immediately f**ks up, but she wrestles competently before her groups screams at her to tag out.
So Bayley looks like a chump for being eliminated first, Shayna Baszler looks like a chump for getting herself disqualified for literally no reason, Jax and Belair look like chumps for not understanding how countouts work, especially Jax who is next to the ring, unencumbered at 9 and still runs AWAY from the ring, the only person who emerges with anything is Lana, but she won as a gag, what’s she gonna do, challenge Asuka again?
I dunno, maybe I’m just grumpy, it’s just, Bianca Belair is right there, why won’t you… Why didn’t she. Oh forget it.
7. Asuka vs Nia Jax (Backlash)
Asuka and Nia Jax had good chemistry for eight minutes and then double countout. Why? To set up a rematch on Raw, that Asuka won after rolling up Nia who got fast counted by John Cone because Nia shoved him. That is a story worth telling over two matches, you’re right.
I know Nia Jax has become persona non grata to a lot of fans because of certain in-ring incidents that reached a crescendo against Kairi Sane, but even so, like… just don’t waste my time.
At Backlash, Nia and Asuka did the first bit of a match, but it was over before it could develop and it didn’t even pay off well for the rematch so… raspberry.
6. Money In The Bank Match (Money In The Bank)
This is probably going to get me some backlash, but man, this match blows.
Cinematic matches have become the match type of the year and, just like they always do, WWE has done the best version of a stipulation, and also the worst.
There’s a few contenders for sucky cinematic matches. Insanely, most of them come from NXT. The Final Beat and the Cole/Dream match were both self-important bores with contrived stunts and nauseating editing, the swamp fight was also a let down, but then there’s this. The WWE standup variety hour.
Look, individual moments of this are fun, Dana Brooke is a delight, Asuka before the dancing got bad, Styles suffering from PTSD, but there’s just such a wall of irreverent “I’m so random’ wackiness and actively damaging character work that it’s a genuine chore to watch.
Aleister Black participating in a food fight sucks, Vince McMahon, the most OTT character in the history of wrestling, just being a bit startled in his office sucks, just panning to a random Doink because real Doink is dead, WWE painting itself a lolsy carnival house instead of a ruthless corporate titan that lays off a significant percentage of its workforce in a pandemic when it didn’t have to
And then it gets to the payoff, the big hook of the match, the stuff on the roof and it’s genuinely terrible. Half the wrestlers don’t show up, Baron Corbin murders two of them that do, which is handled in such a weird cold, matter of fact way, Asuka wins after stopping Corbin which doesn’t make sense cause he’s not going for her briefcase, and then Otis wins via prop comedy, and the neither Asuka or Otis got to cash in afterwards so … man I’m only halfway.
5. Elias vs King Corbin (WrestleMania 36)
Poor Elias. What a year for the lad. The first victim of Brock Lesnar in the Rumble, pushed to his death by King Corbin doing his best scar impression, hit by a f**king car, and also he wrestled in two of the worst pay-per-view matches of the year.
First there was the hot nothing against Jeff Hardy at Hell in a Cell, only there to cool down a crowd that DIDN’T EXIST after Uso vs Reigns, before Jeff clobbers Elias with a guitar, again, like Jax vs Asuka, a crappy non-finish in order to sell a rematch on TV, WWE’s single worst habit right now.
But hey at least it happened in the ThunderDome, worse than that is Elias versus King Corbin, a match that will go down in history as ‘having happened at WrestleMania’.
A completely heatless affair, going back and watching this match take place IN SILENCE, before WWE had worked out how to at least inject some crowdlife into their COVID shows, oh man, you can feel your hair growing, that’s how boring it is.
I don’t know if both men deserved better, but none of us deserved this. Fun fact, Elias vs Corbin actually went 30 seconds longer than the build for months Shayna Baszler vs Becky Lynch. What a world!
4. Edge vs Randy Orton (WrestleMania 36)
And speaking of match length, oh man. This one hurts. It really does. Edge is so great. Orton’s had one of the best years of his career. For a match kneecapped by insane marketing the greatest match ever was pretty damn good.
This was a 35 minute slow-moving, loud-grunting exploration of the performance centre with a brief visual echo of Chris Benoit’s suicide that god, let’s just hope it was unitentional.
The whole thing is walk and brawl and honestly, before you get to the emotional ending, with both men weeping like they’re in a school production of f**king Mice and Men, here are the memorable moments, RKOs at the beginning, that was good, the Chris Benoit thing, Edge doing a weird d**k-first jump onto Orton from a bit of gym, a table spot and… that’s it!
35 minutes and that’s it, the rest is just so boring, watching it ABC I just kept clicking the advance 10 seconds button on the Network, just kept clicking and nothing was happening
I’m sorry. I really wanted this to be good too, I really did. But goddamn.
3. The Stupid Viking Profits Things (Backlash)
I promise that I have a sense of humour. I super duper promise that I do.
This is the worst cinematic match of the year by a lightyear, and probably the one to make everyone think we’re done with this.
In NXT the Viking Raiders were hugely dominant and hugely brilliant, they vacated the belts and the Street Profits won them. The Profits never beat the Raiders in NXT, then they became Raw tag champs on the main roster, again without beating the Raiders, there’s your feud.
Both these teams can go, what happens? WWE makes them do a series of skits on Raw where they compete is ass challenges like bowling and golfing, and then when it comes time for them to wrestle on pay-per-view, they sack off the match for an extended comedy skit featuring ninjas, swords, bowling balls before everyone ends up in the literal dumpster, subtle visual storytelling that.
And honestly the recap on Wikipedia sums it up better than I ever could. “The segment ended after both teams were spooked by a tentacle creature. The announce team then confirmed that the Raw Tag Team Championship match would not be happening.”
2. Brock Lesnar vs Ricochet (Super Showdown)
Welcome to the last two matches. I’m actually going to try and keep these brief because they both make me SUPER cross, and endless whinging is not what christmas is all about. That’s what January is all about.
So, you’ve got two wrestlers, one is very big but also incredibly good at selling for quick smaller guys, and then you have a smaller guy who is also possibly the quickest of all guys.
You’re having them fight on what is essentially a glorified house show, Ricochet really needs a boost since losing the US title. Sure no one expects, or even really wants Ricochet to win, but 10 minutes of fun flips vs fun suplexes seems like a slam dunk.
90 seconds long. Ricochet doesn’t hit a single move, bye. Some suplexes, Ricochet picked up off the mat, F-5, plane home. Why?
To tell the story that Lesnar is strong? Never told that story I guess. All it did was make the guy who put on a stormer with Adam Cole at TakeOver, one half of the most recent Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic winners, look like a f**king joke.
Morale. Can’t buy it.
1. The Fiend vs Goldberg (Super Showdown)
F**k…. F**k. The best character in years, one who is specifically impervious to pain, and Goldberg beat him with a suplex, in Saudi Arabia.
Like, even putting that to one side, putting aside everything it says about the ass-backwards, short-term, nostalgia-poisoned way WWE conducts its business, it’s just an objectively terrible match.
Goldberg’s gassed after his first spear, he can’t even hit his own finishing move. Just. I think it comes down to a call that Michael Cole makes just after the pin.
“Turn back the clock,” he says “Goldberg is back”. But you can’t turn back the clock. That’s the f**king point of clocks.
As a match it’s dreadful, but as a handy easy-to-digest summation of everything wrong with the biggest wrestling company in the world, it really hits the spot.
And to all a good night.
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