5 Worst Wrestling Matches Of 2005

Things weren’t going well for WWE in 2005. The company was trying desperately to push new stars, which caused a lot of experiments. It was as if WWE were throwing different things onto a wall, hoping to find something that would stick.

While these things were going on, there were other companies that were competing with them (at least in the match quality department). There were so many great matches showcased by companies outside WWE that more and more people were turning away from Vince’s company. Sure, WWE still had its top spot. But the company wasn’t growing in a way that would bring back the fans that had turned away once the Attitude Era had ended.

A major reason for that lack of new fans was that WWE was showcasing bad matches. The company made questionable decisions, ranging from two non-wrestlers getting a high-profile spot to wrestle and a 500-pound man got dressed in extremely unflattering clothing. And there was at least one occasion on which WWE got such awful publicity for doing something so distasteful that they had to kill an on-screen character overnight.

So how bad were the worst matches of 2005? Read on to find out…

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#5. Batista vs. JBL – Great American Bash 2005

Batista and JBL were two big men that didn’t mesh well together. This was mainly due to how JBL wrestled. You see, JBL’s on-screen gimmick – that of a smug self-made millionaire – was so successful because it was directly influenced by his real life.

However, JBL’s in-ring gimmick – that of a roughneck Texan pretending to be Stan Hansen – was not.

JBL’s brawling, smashmouth style was supposed to be a WWE version of Stan Hansen, who is a respected veteran famous for his roughness and great matches. However, Batista was not the kind of wrestler that should’ve been brawling with JBL, and this match proved that. The chemistry was disjointed and the action was average at best for most of it.

However, like many bad matches, this one gets listed due to the combination of poor action with an unsatisfying ending. The match ended via DQ, which is WWE code for, ‘let’s extend this feud as much as possible’. That meant more bouts between two men that didn’t really mesh well together, which in turn means more disappointing matches for the fans.

#4. Orlando Jordan vs. Heidenreich – WWE Judgment Day 2005

Here are two men that had non-existent chemistry together

SmackDown’s roster in 2005 was rather threadbare. They didn’t have that many top stars, and some of the wrestlers pushed into prominent roles didn’t really excite the fans. Orlando Jordan and Heidenreich were two such wrestlers, who put on a truly disappointing performance at Judgment Day 2005.

This match took place during Heidenreich’s attempted face turn, whereby a child from the audience would come down to the ringside area and encourage him. Unfortunately, those kids got a ringside experience of Heidenreich’s far-below-average wrestling skills. Much of his in-ring work was shoddy and awkward, and he didn’t do a very good job of selling Jordan’s offence.

Of course, it takes two to tango and Jordan didn’t have much of an exciting gimmick either. As a result, the fans watching didn’t have any real reason to care about this match. Add to these problems a dreadfully short amount of time allotted to their match and you have a recipe for in-ring disaster. Neither man here was particularly polished in the ring, but when they fought each other their flaws really got exposed.

#3. Undertaker vs. Muhammad Hassan – Great American Bash 2005

An underwhelming match was worsened by a dreadful storyline ruined by the worst timing imaginable

This entire storyline was the result of bad timing and worse taste. The Muhammad Hassan character was controversial enough, but someone in WWE also had the great idea of doing a ‘terrorist’ angle involving masked men and piano wire. That segment aired shortly after the London bombings, which became the impetus to kill off the Hassan character for good.

Which brings us to this relatively boring, one-sided squash match.

For eight minutes, the Undertaker absolutely demolished Hassan. The only times Hassan got any momentum was when his ‘sympathizers’ interfered and used weapons on the Undertaker. That was enough for the audience to boo him vociferously, and enough for them to cheer quite loudly when the Undertaker made his comeback.

After the match had ended, the Undertaker proceeded to literally kill the character off by hitting him with the Last Ride through the entrance ramp and (presumably) onto the concrete floor below. That marked the end of the Hassan character and put yet another dark blemish on the Undertaker’s career.

#2. Big Show vs. Akebono - Sumo Match - WrestleMania 21

For some strange reason, WWE had a fixation with humiliating the Big Show whenever possible. Instead of booking him as an André the Giant-like monster who almost never lost, WWE embarrassed Big Show, turning him into a typical ‘big dummy’ who almost never won.

At WrestleMania 21, Big Show was shoe-horned into a bizarre rivalry with sumo champion Akebono, which then translated into an actual ‘sumo match’ between the two of them. This ‘match’ lasted all of one minute and added nothing to the show.

If anything, this was the perfect example of a ‘cooldown match’, one that’s designed to calm down an audience after a great match (in this case, the one that preceded this joke of a match was Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels, one of the best matches of 2005 and in WrestleMania history).

Not too long ago, Big Show lamented that in retrospect he had been booked ‘horribly’ in his WWE career, and this match was the perfect example of that booking in action. Instead of being treated like a genuine big star, he was the stereotypical ‘big oaf’ that WWE likes to book far too often.

#1. Eric Bischoff vs. Theodore Long - Survivor Series 2005

This was the worst excuse for a match booked anywhere in 2005. Teddy Long was a referee and on-screen authority figure for many years, while Bischoff spent most of his time as a creative figure and general manager. Neither of them had any business having a five-second match, much less a five-minute match.

Once they were both in the ring, they didn’t do very much. Teddy Long mocked Bischoff’s martial arts background by doing some wacky poses, while Bischoff choked Teddy with his black belt. There was nothing even remotely interesting in this contest until the ending when The Boogeyman appeared.

Boogeyman entered the ring as the referees were distracted by his entrance, and slammed Bischoff down so that Long could get the pinfall. It felt more like an angle than a match, yet was promoted heavily in the lead-up to Survivor Series. Needless to say, this was an enormous waste of time.