10 Worst WWE Matches Of 2019

Sometimes it seems like WWE are going out of their way to annoy their fanbase. It starts to become routine for wrestling journalists and fans alike to pick holes in each pay-per-view and episode of weekly programming to find another reason to add to the long list of things they’re doing wrong. Where we look to shed light on the many things that WWE are consistently nailing, we will throw our hands up and admit that there have been some absolute stinkers in 2019.

We’ve compiled a list of our worst 10 WWE matches of the year, trying our best to give equal treatment to both NXT and the main roster, but honestly there was too much Baron Corbin for us to even think about where things were going wrong on the black and gold brand.

Make sure you leave your own personal lowlights in the comments section below, and let’s get it all out of our systems before 2020.

 

10. Brock Lesnar vs Kofi Kingston – SmackDown Live (4/10/19)

2019 was a fantastic year for Kofi Kingston and The New Day, ‘KofiMania’ took Kingston all the way to a championship match with Daniel Bryan, which of course he went on to win. Kingston held onto the WWE title for the best part of the year, feuding with the likes of Kevin Owens, Randy Orton and Dolph Ziggler to keep things fresh. All in all, things were looking great — until WWE chose to put the champ in the ring with Brock Lesnar.

In an attempt to draw as much as they possibly could, ‘The Beast Incarnate’ was given a title opportunity as part of SmackDown’s debut on Fox. Naturally, Lesnar is one of WWE’s biggest attractions, so having his first actual match on a show that wasn’t a pay-per-view was actually a pretty big deal, so you’d think Fox would have fleshed out that match as much as they could to get their money’s worth. Yeah, that didn’t happen.

Brock obliterated Kofi in a matter of seconds, scoring his latest WWE Championship reign that is seeing us out of 2019. Kingston’s meteoric rise seemed to be all for nothing; Kofi managed to get zero offence in on Lesnar and was made to look like a complete chump in the process. Fans were absolutely livid.

It seems that WWE are trying to make it up to Kingston by giving him and Big E another run with the SmackDown Tag Titles, but quite frankly, all that hard work seems to be for nothing as, once again, WWE look for any excuse for a Bork smash.

 

9. Triple H vs Batista – WrestleMania

I’m trying not to be too harsh on this particular match, as arguably there were far worse performances on the WrestleMania card this year. Triple H stepped into the ring for his token WrestleMania snore-fest with former Evolution pal, Batista. The Hollywood star emerged as part of Ric Flair’s birthday celebrations, and made his intentions very clear for a match with Hunter at WrestleMania. Where it was pretty cool seeing the former World Champion make an in-ring comeback, the match seemed to fall apart at the seams and leave the pumped crowd in a daze for 25 minutes.

It all seemed to go wrong from the get-go, with Batista stumbling into the ring during his entrance. Not even he could save himself from looking like a bit of a fool after that. Triple H arrived with his usual pageantry, it seemed like H had only recently caught the 2014 blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road and decided that was his thing now. That was really the end of anything interesting happening in this match.

Coming off of some pretty intense wrestling matches, it was hard to get into the much slower pace of the No Holds Barred match. There were some creative spots, but ultimately it was a complete snooze. Batista seems to think this was his last hurrah in a wrestling ring, bit of a shame to go out on such a low note. Maybe just go back and watch their 2005 feud if you’re looking for a better version of this match.

 

8. Baron Corbin vs Braun Strowman – Elimination Chamber

Unfortunately, these two superstars are going to crop up a few times on this ‘worst of’ list. Corbin and Strowman just couldn’t seem to get their mojo going in 2019, starting with this poorly executed match on the road to WrestleMania. Corbin had been running RAW into the ground as the Constable, surrounded by his doting henchmen Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre. This all built to a big grudge match between Corbin and Braun Strowman, who he had been terrorising for the best part of the year.

What this ended up becoming was a bit of an embarrassment which should have been saved for an episode of RAW. Not far into the match, Corbin’s running buddies hit the ring and assaulted Braun, giving the advantage to the Constable. Braun was put through several tables by the trio, leaving Corbin to pick up the easy win.

It’s crazy to see just how far the mighty Braun Strowman has fallen since last year. Strowman was poised to become a very popular WWE Universal Champion, but has ended up in the position of taking damaging losses and comedy skits. Just to make things even worse, Corbin never really did get any comeuppance after this match.

 

7. King Corbin vs Chad Gable – Hell in a Cell

I refuse to call him Shorty G, straight up. The feud between Chad Gable and Baron Corbin started with the finals of the 2019 King of the Ring tournament. Overall, the tournament was actually a lot of fun, giving the spotlight to certain superstars that don’t usually find themselves on TV, Gable being one of them. The former Tag Champ made it all the way to the finals against Baron Corbin, who many had pegged for the winner from the start. Of course, Corbin went on to be crowned this year’s King, and is fully embracing the royal gimmick.

King Corbin continued to berate Gable over the next few weeks, insulting him for being short and going through all the typical heelish tropes. Gable fought back by using the moniker of ‘Shorty’ as a means of firing up, referring to himself as ‘Shorty G’ for the weeks leading up to their big grudge match at Clash of Champions.

This match would have been fine if it was kept within the boundaries of a TV match, perhaps 10-15 minutes would have been enough to tell this particular story, but it didn’t — it went way longer than it deserved to. I have a lot of respect for Gable as a performer, but he couldn’t pull this one out of the bag; there was no way the crowd wanted to spend the energy to get behind him.

This was a total snooze, and didn’t deserve to take up pay-per-view time.

 

6. Braun Strowman vs Tyson Fury – Crown Jewel

I’m not finished with you Braun, we’ve still got to cover your abysmal match with boxing superstar Tyson Fury. The Saudi Arabian audience demand the biggest stars WWE can give them, but in this case the Saudi Prince decided that he wanted to see attractions from outside of the world of wrestling. Instead, he wanted ‘The Gypsy King’ Tyson Fury, the lineal World Heavyweight Champion. Though it’s not uncommon for WWE to rely on celebrity cameos from time to time, this one felt incredibly random, but potentially a lot of fun.

Boxers have been known to handle themselves well in the wrestling ring. Looking back at the likes of Floyd Maywether and even Muhammad Ali, they can be relied upon to draw a crowd and put together an enjoyable 10 minute bout with an experienced superstar. Tyson Fury, however, showed just how green he was, stringing together a few spots and sequences but always coming across like he couldn’t really keep up with Strowman.

Braun did a great job at trying to get him over, but even he couldn’t really make the match interesting. I’ll give it to the live audience, if it weren’t for them being so into Tyson Fury, this match would have probably been booed out of the building.

The finish was a bit of a mess, and it’s another example of a match outstaying its welcome.

 

5. Brock Lesnar vs Cain Velasquez – Crown Jewel

Returning to Saudi Arabia and Crown Jewel once again, the Universal Champion Brock Lesnar was destined to face-off against his former UFC rival Cain Velasquez in a dream rematch. This match had all the makings to be a fantastic marquee main event, but for some bizarre reason was planned to go on first and only last for 5 minutes. Perhaps WWE have decided to sit on this one until a better time presents itself, but quite frankly, this match has done a lot of damage to Cain Velasquez.

Where WWE would likely pull the card of it being in Brock’s ring rather than Cain’s, this should have been a slightly more even fight. It began as you’d expect, hard strikes and plenty of MMA-inspired sequences, but eventually just hit a flat note when Cain tapped out to a Kimura lock only a few minutes in.

WWE seemed to have wanted to use this match to advance the developing storyline between Lesnar and Rey Mysterio, which recently culminated at Survivor Series to an equally disappointing end. Let’s hope we see a proper rematch between Lesnar and Velasquez sometime down the line, maybe away from Saudi Arabia and WWE.

 

4. Lars Sullivan vs Lucha House Party – Super ShowDown

Lars Sullivan didn’t really get off on the right foot with the WWE Universe. Backstage altercations and social media slurs had left Lars looking like a bit of a black sheep, so when WWE decided to push him with the routine monster heel shtick, fans were more than happy to sabotage him. Lars spent most of his main roster career steamrolling over R-Truth, The Bollywood Boyz and The Lucha House Party, leading to a handicap match at Super ShowDown.

Even though the numbers were stacked against Sullivan, most fans were under the impression that Lars was in charge and would definitely walk away with the win. Well, sometimes they like to throw a curveball, don’t they. This should have certainly been a complete squash, if Lars was to start generating any form of momentum going forward. Instead, WWE chose to go down the route of having a longer match with a disqualification finish on the luchadores’ part.

Lars regained his stature by demolishing all three members of Lucha House Party after the DQ had been called. This begs the question why they decided to go with the DQ in the first place? Neither of the three went on to secure any other wins, nor did they show up on RAW the next night. This was a total waste of a good win for Lars, it was strange and it put a halt on Sullivan’s main roster dominance.

 

3. Seth Rollins vs Baron Corbin – Stomping Grounds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD4QGKp0JoA

Seth had a huge WrestleMania win over Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship. The fans were more than pleased to see one of the original internet darlings be given such a massive credit to his name on the grand stage, and were more than ready to witness a Universal title reign that didn’t completely suck. Unfortunately, Rollins was then placed into a feud with Baron Corbin.

The X-factor heading into this title fight was who Corbin was going to choose as the special guest referee. Many had pegged a heel to step into the ref’s shoes, giving Corbin an advantage over Seth. What they didn’t suspect was that Lacey Evans would be that person. Evans was featured earlier in the night against Becky Lynch for the RAW Women’s title, in a losing effort against ‘The Man’, who would later come to blows with Evans once again.

The match itself was a drag and had no right being in the main event spot. Seth went through the motions of being a babyface and Corbin brought the live audience to a slumber. Lacey Evans played the part of an obnoxious heel referee pretty well, but really only served to produce the screwy finish. Rollins retained his title, with the help of his new girlfriend, leading to the cringey mixed tag feud and the moniker of ‘The Man’s Man’, which should forever be referred to as the downfall of Seth Rollins.

 

2. Seth Rollins vs ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt – Hell in a Cell

‘The Fiend’ had an incredible debut year. After revealing this new iteration of Bray Wyatt’s creepy side at SummerSlam, ‘The Fiend’ went on to become one of the most popular acts in all of professional wrestling. Everyone wanted to see more from Wyatt, and WWE knew this. They thrust him straight into the main event scene leading up to Hell in a Cell, Bray was booked into a Universal title programme with Seth Rollins after attacking the champion at the Clash pay-per-view.

‘The Fiend’ spent the weeks of build tormenting Rollins, bringing out a new layer of fear that we had never seen in the champion. Naturally, the story was focused on whether or not Rollins would be able to defeat his fear and overcome ‘The Fiend’ in the demonic structure. This is fine, but perhaps WWE tried a little too hard to keep Rollins’ credibility.

Obviously this match should not have turned out to be a complete squash, similar to his well-received match against Finn Balor. Instead, it should have been Seth using all of his arsenal to keep Wyatt down, only to no avail. In fairness, that’s kind of what they had going on, but it seemed to just drag on and on with the crowd becoming increasingly disinterested.

Of course the biggest of controversies came at the end of the match with the appalling conclusion that broke many of fan’s hearts. The ref stopped the match when Rollins chose to slam a sledgehammer into a pile of chairs that were stacked on top of Wyatt’s face. Now, in a usual one-on-one bout, I would totally be down with this kind of finish, but when you’re booking these two into a Hell in a Cell match, one of the most brutal matches in WWE, it shouldn’t fly.

This truly divided the wrestling fandom and is still considered one of the worst matches of the year, which is a real shame considering just how over ‘The Fiend’ became in a short space of time.

 

1. The Undertaker vs Goldberg – Super ShowDown

When you have two undeniable legends of the business finally stepping into the squared circle together, you know you’re going to witness something special. Unfortunately for these two ageing warriors, their dream encounter will forever be remembered as one of the most disastrous main events in WWE history, and the worst WWE match of 2019.

The Undertaker and Goldberg were two key figures of the Monday Night Wars yet never managed to be in the same place at the same time to work a match. WWE, seeing big dollar signs in Saudi Arabia, decided to book them to compete in a singles bout to close the show. While this was a pretty impressive draw, many fans knew that it wouldn’t be of the same quality as when they were both competing in their prime.

Neither Undertaker or Goldberg managed to string together any of their signature moves. Both men were quite literally putting each other in harm’s way by attempting to execute parts of their offence that quite frankly they had no business trying. The match completely fell apart and you could tell this was wearing on both of the performers. Both men have come away from the match commenting on how they could have and should have stayed away from the ring. Goldberg eventually came back around SummerSlam to right the wrong in a squash match against Dolph Ziggler, and The Undertaker competed in a tag match alongside Roman Reigns, but neither match really did much to help us forget about this abomination.

This is a real discredit to both of their legendary careers, and should be avoided at all costs. Honestly, I hope this was a wake-up call to WWE, reminding them that sometimes it’s best to let legends lie and allow fantasy booking to be just that.