5 Worst Wrestling Matches Of 2017

Professional wrestling matches and storylines are very similar to films. There’s a lot of pre-planning involved, the right actors needed to be chosen to fill certain roles, and a film’s quality can be strengthened or hindered by a huge variety of factors. For wrestling matches, bad writing or poor execution can mean the difference between something good, great, or awful.

As proof of this, consider the wrestling matches put on display in 2017. While WWE did put on a small handful of great matches throughout that year, the overwhelming majority was average at best. A major reason for this is the overwhelming uniformity in how matches are structured. Virtually every single wrestler is forced to work in the same style, with the same predictable sequences found in almost every match.

An analogy that works for pro wrestling goes like this. WWE is like the Transformers franchise: big budget box office hits that make tons of money while having little actual substance, poor writing, and generally bad critical reception.

Their biggest competitor, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, meanwhile, are like The Shawshank Redemption: a well-executed masterpiece with subtle plot and extreme attention to detail that, while not being that much of a runaway financial success, was and is critically-acclaimed and will stand the test of time.

As perfect examples of WWE’s ‘Transformers-like’ approach to wrestling matches, consider the following five awful matches, all of which happened under their direction…

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#5 Goldberg vs. Kevin Owens – Fastlane 2017

Fastlane 2017 was an awful show for a multitude of reasons, most of them booking-related. Although several wrestlers suffered from asinine creative decisions – Nia Jax, Braun Strowman, Bayley and Charlotte being some of them – none of them suffered more than Kevin Owens.

Owens, who had been booked up to that point as the top male heel on RAW, lost to Bill Goldberg, a man that had only wrestled one match by the time this one took place. Worse, Owens was booked to look like a complete and utter moron by falling for one of WWE’s favorite and worst tropes: the ‘wrestler-gets-distracted-by-entrance-music’ trope.

Owens looked away as soon as Jericho’s music started playing, and then ate one Spear, losing his match and his title in 22 seconds. For a main-event match, this was an utter disappointment that made Owens look like a pathetic wrestler, given that he lost to a 50-year-old man after one move.

If WWE wonders why so many of its wrestlers are struggling to become more popular, they need to look at booking decisions like this one.

#4 John Cena & Nikki Bella vs. Miz & Maryse - WrestleMania 33

The build-up to this match was actually the best part of the entire rivalry. The Miz & Maryse actually put in some fantastic work in making this feud feel both personal and important. Unfortunately, the execution of the actual match was where things fell apart. Maryse hadn’t wrestled much in many years by the time this match happened, and Nikki Bella hasn’t always been the best of grapplers.

Thus, the bulk of the work fell to Cena and Miz who... honestly didn’t do much of anything. Despite all the personal jabs and line-crossing insults, this match lacked any real emotion and drama. Within the first two minutes, one could see the writing on the wall that Cena and Nikki were going to win.

After all, the entire point of the match was for Cena to propose to Nikki, which also made the match that had just happened right beforehand feel irrelevant. In retrospect, Cena and Nikki have since ended their relationship, which made both the match and the entire rivalry that built up to it completely useless.

#3 Jinder Mahal vs. Randy Orton - Punjabi Prison Match - WWE Battleground 2017

There are many reasons why there have only been three Punjabi Prison matches in WWE history. The ‘bamboo stakes’ that surround the ring so thick that you can barely see what’s happening in the ring, even with the camera operators being as close as possible.

The match has many gimmicks and rules that genuinely don’t make sense, which only makes people confused instead of interested. Finally, the sheer logic of escaping both cages is completely asinine. Mahal escaped through one of the four doors in the inner cage and supposedly had an advantage over Randy Orton.

Yet all Orton had to do was climb over the top of the inner cage and take one step and he was on the outside wall, thus negating everything Mahal had done up to that point. Add to all of this utter nonsense a surprise interference by the Great Khali (for which there was never any follow-up) and you have an utter mess of a main event that did almost nothing to make Jinder Mahal into a believable and interesting champion.

#2 Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss – Kendo Stick on a Pole – Extreme Rules

No wrestler suffered a worse transition from NXT to the main roster than Bayley. In NXT, she was booked as a gutsy underdog with a child-like naiveté to her that made her almost endearing.

On the main roster, that was translated into her being a 5-year-old girl in a 28-year-old woman’s body. This was put on full display in the dreaded ‘this is your life’ segment that set up the eventual match between these two women.

But instead of doing the logical thing and having Bayley get her revenge, Bliss was inexplicably booked to win in a 5-minute nothing match that lacked any real excitement. The whole thing felt rushed and void of story, leading many people to speculate that WWE were trying to bury the entire feud as quickly as possible.

Although Bliss has managed to move beyond this atrocious match and rivalry, Bayley has suffered so much that her character gets little to no reaction whatsoever anymore. Maybe if WWE actually let her get her revenge, that wouldn’t be the case.

#1 Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt - WrestleMania 33

This is how you create the worst match of the entire year: slow wrestling and cheesy image effects

This match signifies the very moment Bray Wyatt’s career died, with no attempt at resurrection possible going forward. Fans erupted at Elimination Chamber when he won the WWE Championship, and hoped that his major title defense at WrestleMania would be his big chance to prove he was worthy of main-eventing.

Instead, WWE delivered the worst match of 2017 by far: an odd contest that featured ridiculous ‘images’ of various insects and vermin. Perhaps WWE were trying to shock the audience with a new form of drama and storytelling that no one had seen before. But that failed to translate on the show itself.

Fans groaned at the gimmick; not because it was working, but because it was stupid. It was an awful attempt to sneak some silly production tricks into a match, which ended up harming the participants involved.

Wyatt desperately needed a big win here more than ever before, but ended up losing to someone who honestly didn’t need another world title run.