Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

BEST and WORST matches you've seen live?


Recommended Posts

i live in jonesboro arkansas which hasnt been a wrestling hotbed since memphis in the 80's. I have only attended four live shows in my lifetime and they were all pretty fun for what they were.

The best match i have ever seen live was Bryan Danelson vs William Regal at a memphis show in 2000. They were uppercutting the shit out of each other and it was glorious:. Amdrag had just unmasked and was movin up the card and it was a student v teacher match. William got bloody after a back and forth uppercut fest.

the most awful thing i saw came a year before when brandon baxter took on randy hales in a falls count anywhere match. Nothing more needs to be said.

What about you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best: Silver King & El Dandy vs. Filthy Animals at a WCW Saturday Night taping in '99

 

Worst: Gail Kim vs. Miss Tessmacher at a TNA house show two weeks ago.  Tessmacher is absolutely terrible.  She even barely got a pop for a post match "ass shaking as applause meter" spot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best: Leo Burke vs Rip Rogers which went just shy of sixty minutes, I thought for sure it was gonna be a draw.

Worst: Big Slam Vader vs some scrub, just garbage. A guy with Bundy's move set doing a Vader tribute act. Lame.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best: Kenta Kobashi/Go Shiozaki v Jun Akiyama/Doug Williams - Universal Uproar 2005 - never thought I would see Kobashi live, and it was a great match to boot!

 

Worst: the bloke who went on to become Mason Ryan vs some scrub at an All Star show in Cornwall - 2010

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best live was(I think) HBK vs. Razor ladder match at Wrestlemania.

 

 

The worst was Tito Santana vs Rene Goulet in Hershey, Pa.  Goulet was using the "claw glove" during this time, and he had it adorned with sequins, ala Michael Jackson.  He literally had a clawhold on Tito for 15 minutes and everytime it looked like Tito would break free, Goulet would squeeze and put him back down.  FOR 15 FUCKING MINUTES!!! First time I ever saw half the arena go to the bathroom at once.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best: JBL vs Benoit Steel Cage match for US Title from Smackdown. Though it has been tarnished in my eyes I can't argue that it wasn't the best match I've ever seen live. Savage vs Roberts from a house show when I was a kid was really good to from what I remember.

 

Worst: Hardcore Holly vs Mordecai at a house show. Slow, boring and bad. The only time the crowd really reacted was when some a-hole yelled out go back to OVW to Mordecai and about a third of the crowd laughed. Just awful. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The worst I ever saw live was two women on a small indy show in San Bernardino, CA, but maybe that shouldn't count.  As far as professional matches go, it was Hogan & Rodman vs. DDP & Karl Malone, hands down.

 

Best was probably either Bret-Bulldog at Summerslam '92 or Liger-Sasuke at the World Wrestling Peace Festival in '96. Honestly I haven't watched either match since, so I have no idea how they hold up, but at the time they were great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's probably not the overall best, but I remember being really in to the BJ Whitmer/Jimmy Jacobs cage match they did while it was happening. I'm sure as soon as I post this I'll think of a better answer. 

 

Worst is way easier. On one of the early AIW shows, there was a Christmas Death Match featuring someone named the Thrillbilly vs. The Passion John Thorne. That whole show was terrible. There was a huge snow storm which shifted everything around. The show was advertised as Steve Corino's last ever show in the US, and he didn't even make it, which is pretty hysterical looking back on it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best mens match:  KUDO/MIKAMI vs MIYAWAKI/Yoshiaki Yago, Chikara 2006 TWGP. Yes, better than Joe vs Kobashi.

Best womens match: Aja/Shirai/Kuragaki vs Toyota/Shimono/Nakamori, Joshimania NYC.

Best major promotion match: Rock vs HHH, Summerslam 1998.

 

Worst match: Shane Douglas vs Tully Blanchard, AKA The Nightmare on Swanson Street.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best match I've seen live was probably DDP vs. Raven at a WCW house show.  So much hate in that match.  Raven got whipped into the security railing right in front of me. It was great!

 

Worst match I've seen live was some Ground Xero tag-team undercard match.  I can forgive a lot since these guys were trainees, but these dudes were too green for words.

 

Either Dean or Hangman Tim needs to post the vid of the infamous Shittiest Indie Match Ever from that Midlothian, VA event.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BEST: Probably some form of Tony Kozina vs Black Dragon (Bret Como).  These guys wrestled all the time when ECCW would come to town and it was always good.  I seem to remember Chance Beckett taking on Christopher Daniels...though that match might not have actually happened.

 

MOST FUN: It wasn't a "good" match by any stretch of the imagination but there was a 'Fans Bring the Weapons' Battle Royale once here and my brother and I went and popped into the dollar store before the match as we'd forgotten to bring any weapons.  We bought a pink featherduster and found a squash in the back of the car.  In the semi-main event Michelle Starr, doing a flamboyant homosexual gimmick, came out with our featherduster and had a swordfight with an old women in the first row with her cane.  In the main, it was just chaos with everyone getting hit with stuff.  We kept chanting "Use the pumpkin!" (It looked more like a pumpkin than a squash and pumpkin lends itself to chanting better than squash) and finally this 400 lb guy Juggernaut (Who once wrestled a handicap match against Kronik on Thunder in which his pants kept falling down and Stevie Ray kept shouting "He' losing his britches, Tony!") picked up the squash, took a bite out of it, then threw it across the ring and hit another wrestler in the back, who solid it like he'd been shot.  Most entertaining bit of pro wrestling I've ever seen live.

 

WORST: Another ECCW Battle Royal.  A wrestler got hurt the night before, plus they were also short-handed.  Also, someone forgot the music CD so everyone came out to 'Rock 'n Roll All Night' by Kiss.  In the main event, 6 guys and 1 manager under a hood stumbled around throwing half-hearted punches at each other.  At one point, the aforementioned Juggernaut stood in a corner having a conversation with another wrestler, when someone came up from behind and hit him with a clubbing blow, Juggernaut turned around and made mention of his conversation, as the other wrestler slinked off looking for another combatant.  Juggernaut then climbed over the ropes, eliminating himself, and wandered away.  That might have been the last ECCW show I ever saw.

 

BIGGEST HEAT FOR A LOUSY "MATCH": Vince McMahon vs. Brock Lesnar [steel Cage]: Lesnar shoves McMahon around a little, puts him up in the F5 then collapses.  Crowd breaks into huge "Bullshit" chant.  Angle puts McMahon in Ankle-Lock, Lesnar nips up and destroys Angle.  It didn't come across as much on TV but that crowd was INCENSED.

 

FAVOURITE LIVE WRESTLING MEMORY: A friend of mine had box seats to Nitro when it came to town and invited me along.  During the day, me, my brother and my cousin (visiting from Edmonton) went downtown to see the WCW trucks pulling in, we watched for wrestlers, followed David Penzer around a hotel, and at one point Tank Abbott came out and people were warning their kids against talking to him (because of his reputation), my brother yells "Hey Tank Abbott!" and Abbott stops, glares, then shouts "Did you come here to watch Three Count dance?!"  It was awesome.  So, my cousin decides he's got to see it (I didn't have extra tickets for him or my brother) and buys nose-bleed section seats, then about 20 minutes before the show a guy in a suit walks up to my cousin and brother and goes "Here you go, compliments of Mr. Goldberg".  So, I'm up in the box seats (Truthfully, the view is terrible) and I look down and there, directly behind Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson and Mark Madden is my brother and cousin.  They're on TV all night long, the Harris Brothers come out of the crowd next to them, they almost get hit with a chunk of busted announce table.  That night, as my cousin is going to bed, my mom comes in to tuck him in and she asks how it was and he said "Auntie Liz, that was the best day of my life."  It was, by all rights, a completely shitty show, but I'll never remember one more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best match was probably Batista/'Taker from 'Mania 23. I saw a Vader/Cactus Jack match and a Sting and Dustin Rhodes Vs Orndorff and Windham bunkhouse match when I was younger, but I don't remember how good they were.

 

Worst was probably a divas match, or that Chavo/Hornswoggle cow head match, but I just tune shit like that out. Harder to tune out something long and tedious like the Michaels/Cena match from Wrestlemania.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Both happened at the same show, a WWF house show from 1991 or so.

 

The WORST was an early card match between the Nasty Boys and the Bushwhackers. Just lazy and sloppy for what I'm sure was only 5 minutes, but felt like 20. Both teams were just going through the motions and were clearly whiffing on their shots.

 

The BEST was later that night, another tag match, but between Demolition (Smash and Crush version) and the LOD. Just 10 minutes of both teams beating the hell out of each other. Such a marked contrast between the earlier match.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I went to a Raw house show in 09 that had an awesome card, including a great Rey/Jericho match that went about 15/20 minutes and had a Steamboat run-in. I was at Insurrextion 2003 too, with the Nash/HHH street fight that really wasn't very good at all, even with Flair bleeding all over the place like a psychopath.

 

Worst general experience was a Raw in 2009 with Ricky Hatton as guest host though. Even with it being taped, the matches didn't get much time and it was deep in the DX reunion run so they were all over the show. Just not very fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have seen a fuckload of really good matches live to the point where it is really, really hard to narrow it down.  I've talked about this before on the Wrestling Culture podcast, but I used to get in free to WCW shows all over South Carolina in the late 80's/early 90's because my best friends dad worked for a private security firm that contracted with them to work all shows in state (and Savannah).  As a result of this I saw some insanely good shit over the years here, to say nothing of stuff I saw elsewhere.

 

Best WCW match I saw live that made tape

 

Larry Zbyszko/Arn Anderson v. Ricky Steamboat/Dustin Rhodes Clash of Champions 17

 

This is by far the toughest sub-category because I saw tons of WCW matches live over the years.  Some of the stuff sort of blurs together because I was younger and a lot of the best stuff I saw live wasn't televised.  Something like the end of Uncensored 97 was a better moment, but the match that proceeded it sucked and this had a pretty great moment with the return of Steamboat before the match.  Rude v. Sting from later in the night had one of the all time great mark out moments of my youth, but looking back it was a blip of a match not near the level of this one.  Being live for the Slater/Muta v. Sting/Flair tag at Clash 8 made me a fan for life but that was largely because of the crazy post match angle as well.  Windham and Flair from Columbia when I was really little was a fucking AWESOME live match, but was really short and didn't have the layers of storytelling and drama this match had.  Anyhow this match was great from beginning to end in just about every way and had the drama/emotion you want out of a great live match.

 

Best WCW Match I saw live that didn't make tape 

 

Terry Funk v. Sting - Summer 89 (tentative)

 

This is impossible to say with any degree of certainty because I saw so much over the years.  But two matches really stand out.  One was a Pillman v. Liger match that made my best friend a Liger fan for life.  He hasn't been a fan for years but even now if you ask him who the best he ever saw was he says Liger on account of that match.  The other would be Terry Funk v. Sting from the Citadel's Football Stadium some time in the Summer of 89.  This was a completely out of control, almost Puerto Rico style brawl, that saw Funk almost fighting several fans.  Funk was DQ'ed when he spun a giant metal trash barrel around and hit Sting in the head with it.  That led to Muta and Eddie Gilbert running out and crazy mists spots and a near riot.  I actually hadn't thought much about this match in years but recently a friend of mind brought it up at work and it all came rushing back.  So that's my pick.  Incidentally that also would probably be no worse than the second or third best top to bottom card I ever went to.  

 

Best WWE/F match I saw live that did make tape 

 

Savio Vega v. Steve Austin - Strap Match Beware of Dog

 

I actually have not seen a ton of televised WWE events, and offhand this is the best thing I can remember seeing live.  Violent as fuck match, that probably came off more violent in person than it did on tv.  I did see some very good tv matches live in more recent years, but nothing that stands out on this level.

 

Best WWE/F match I saw live that didn't make tape

 

CM Punk v. Jeff Hardy - Hardcore Match 7(?)/09

 

Awesome house show match, easily one of the best matches I've ever seen live and had it made tape would probably have been a top five WWE match from that entire year.  This was nominally a hardcore match as they had props but they used them sparingly and smartly and they only ended up factoring in on momentum swings and the finish.  Match had a tremendous building and this was before Punk had gone full fledged heel but he got insane heel heat to the point where my prim and proper child was rabidly cursing him out post match and trying to make it to the ring to attack him.  The whole card was great and also had a Drew Mac v. Ricky Steamboat match that went 20-25 minutes (yes RICKY Steamboat) and Finlay/Regal as an opener.  

 

Best ECW match I saw live that made tape

 

PG 13 v. Mikey Whipwreck/Spike Dudley - Wildwood, NJ 7/10/97

 

This is available as a handheld and I saw it when watching for the ECW set (which it does appear on).  Here are my thoughts on it from that process.  

 

Pre-match J.C. Ice mic work is somewhat difficult to hear at times, but what is audible is typically awesome. Opening Spike/Wolfie segment was really entertaining as they kept having these weird spots that sort of looked like something was being miscomunicated, but kept resulting in shit that made sense or was really cool like Wolfie's wipeout bumps to the floor off of a rope running exchange or Wolfie taking an attempted reverse rollup like a fucking spike piledriver. This all builds to a cool dive spot where PG-13 catch Spike only for Mikey to hit a leaping hilo onto everyone for the big bump. Ice and Mikey exchange starts off great with Ice being incapable of slamming Mikey so Mikey slams him. Ice can't knock Mikey down so Mikey knocks him down. Ice resorts to ridiculous karate posturing, Mikey bows, Ice bows, Mikey punches him in the face. Just lots of fun shit early. Wolfie comes in and throws some punches before Mikey takes advantage again and they do the spot with Ice pouting on the floor and Wolfie consoling him with a hug. Mikey eventually loses control on a cool misdirection clothesline, but the really great stuff starts when Spike comes in. PG-13 takeover on Spike with a clothesline and from there it is just a ton of awesome, with Spike taking rana's into the turnbuckle, getting punched to shit, selling his ass off, et. Mikey is great on the apron desperate to get in. Wolfie ends up taking the great flip bump off the top to lead to the hot tag and Mikey is a great house of fire. Finish is Wolfie getting tossed crotch first off the top by Mikey onto the ropes and Mikey hitting a top rope dropkick onto Ice into a Spike schoolboy. I thought this was a great match when I saw it at the time and seeing it now nothing changes my mind. Watching Mikey work as the strong man/immovable object is really pretty insane but he was great at it. PG-13 were just incredible at incorporating all of the tricks of the trade and Spike sold better than damn near anyone in wrestling at that point. Awesome stuff.

 

Best ECW match I saw live that didn't make tape

 

Chris Candido v. Tracy Smothers - Allentown, PA 7/97

 

Probably the most disappointing part of the ECW set work was realizing this didn't exist on tape.  It makes sense in hindsight because this was a show where RVD assaulted a handicapped kid in the front row and later on in the night there was a literal riot after a Shane v. Taz match with wrestlers fighting a couple dozen fans or more fans all over the building.  This riot was covered briefly in the Torch and my good buddy and Barbed Wire City filmmaker John Philapavage was there though no one else seems to remember it.  For the record it was also mentioned briefly by Shane Douglas in Forever Hardcore and a lawsuit that came out of the event is the reason that Shane and Francine were on terrible terms for years.  I know for a fact the show was taped, but for obvious reasons Heyman probably had them destroy the tape, which is a shame because this Smothers v. Candido match was excellent.  My memory is that they went about fifteen minutes and worked a match very similar to what they had done in SMW (i.e. really good), but that's just a memory and I guess we will never know for sure.  Oh well.  

 

Best Indy Match I saw live that made tape 

 

Samoa Joe v. Bryan Danielson - 7/06

 

This was the only ROH show I ever went to and while the rest of the card was pretty underwhelming this was a great match.  It was pretty obvious they were going an hour about five minutes in, but both guys were at their peak and they worked momentum changes and near falls so well that by the last twenty minutes or so I had completely forgotten about the time limit and was just marking out.  Kind of sad to look back on now, because this was toward the tail end of Joe being a guy I gave a fuck about, but that just makes it all the better that I chose to go to this show.  

 

Best Indy Match I saw live that didn't make tape

 

Chris Hamrick/The Overlord v. Terry Austin/George South - PWF spring of 96 (I think?)

 

Really I could just list every live Hamrick match I've seen that didn't make tape as he's consistently awesome live to the point where he'd probably be in my top five live performers I've ever seen and I'm a guy who saw damn near every major star of the last thirty years live.  This was Italian Stallion and George South's old fed, some of you may remember it as it did have a spot in the PWI rankings for a long time. PWF only ran the Charleston Area a few times over the years, every time at James Island High School.  This match was notable for a few things.  The first is that George South almost always worked heel on these shows but for some reason was working face here.  I assume there may have been a no show.  The second is that Charles Robinson was the official here.  The third is that it was a crazy brawl.  It started off as a solid traditional tag, but then Hamrick took the craziest bump I've ever seen live, as he took the middle rope Fuerza Guerrera/Chris Hamrick bump (just look it up on youtube for the one he did against Kid on Raw a few years prior to this), landed straight on his tail bone on the hardwood basketball court and slid a good twelve to fifteen feet after impact taking out the first several rows of chairs/fans in the process.  To this day I cannot believe someone would do that on a non-taped show in front of maybe 400 people, but I'll be damned if he didn't.  After that the match went nuts.  Other things I remember include Overlord fucking KILLING Austin with a powerbomb, Hamrick/South and Overlord/Austin pairing off with punching exchanges in the upper portion of the bleachers, Hamrick leaping over the bleachers and down about six or seven feet with a lariat to the floor on South, South getting busted open, some chairshots, South hitting a superplex on Hamrick and the heels pinning Austin after a legdrop/back breaker combo.

 

Worst Match I ever saw live

 

Jimmy Valiant v. Thunderfoot - ?/88

 

This is easy.  For years and years and years the local venue for weekly Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling was County Hall on King Street in Downtown Charleston.  In either late 84 or early 85 Crockett quit running there and moved to St. Andrews High School (which is about a mile from my house and the place my dad taught for years) because they could run outdoors there for bigger shows or move inside to the gym for a fraction of what it would cost to run County Hall (or so I was told by someone who would know - it's also notable that I think the local promoter Henry Marcus retired from active promoting in 84).  But that was not the end of wrestling at County Hall.  Not too long after the Crockett's moved out the building got a name change and became The King Street Palace.  Starting in either 89 or 90 WWF would start running there because WCW had the other major venue in town locked down (McAllister Fieldhouse on the Citadel campus.  What's funny here is that the Fieldhouse was at least double the size of the Palace so this is a rare case where WCW had a locked in deal with a bigger/better facility).  But before that the building was run by a few random feds.  I think South Atlantic may have run there a few times, but I know at least some of the shows were promoted by Extreme Akim Anastopoulo, a Charleston lawyer who would become somewhat infamous for starring in the court show Eye for an Eye (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akim_Anastopoulo).  One of these shows Anastopoulo ran included a very rare (at the time) U.S appearance from Stan Hansen, and I believe it was also on this show that we got Valiant v. Thunderfoot.  I give you the back story here partially because I think it's interesting, but also to not that County Hall had a rich wrestling history.  My Uncle Dale who went to the show with me and my dad had been a weekly fixture there in the late 70's/early 80's when he was stationed at the Charleston Naval Base and had seen a lot in his time.  He had talked up the specialness of getting to see a show there again all night.  And after this match was over he apologized, said it was the worst match he had ever seen and felt bad for even being there.  The match was that awful.  Valiant and Thunderfoot were missing punches by several feet and then "selling" them in the most absurd over the top way.  Thunderfoot went to load his boot and then his boot came off so Valiant had to stare at him to put it back on.  Jimmy tossed a trash can at him at one point and it feel two feet short and rolled over to him so Thunderfoot had to walk  toward it in order to fall over it and sell the contact (he sold by clutching his head - it "hit" him in the knees).  Most of the rest of the match was Thunderfoot "cheating" and stalling or Jimmy working a chinlock in a fashion that wasn't exactly convincing.  On top of this the match had a screwjob finish.  All in all it was a terrible match and the first time I really understood the full meaning of wrestling being "fake."  To this day it is still considered the worst match all parties present saw and is regularly brought up as a joke at family gatherings.  As for the King Street Palace, it lasted as a venue of some sort well into the 90's, probably right up until around the turn of the century if not a little after.  It is now an awkward looking high priced apartment building, strangely enough situated right next to the projects, with a parking lot that is often strolled by tranny hookers when the sun goes down (seriously).  

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have seen a lot of awesome matches live, but nothing tops Benoit vs Regal from Pillman 2000 in Cincinnati, OH.

 

I have seen so many awful matches that I couldn't even begin to list one worse than the rest of the pack. 

 

 

Worst is way easier. On one of the early AIW shows, there was a Christmas Death Match featuring someone named the Thrillbilly vs. The Passion John Thorne. That whole show was terrible.

 

Always nice to see a promoter shoehorn themselves onto a show, and then go out and have the worst match.  It is cosmic karma!

 

 

 

Best: Silver King & El Dandy vs. Filthy Animals at a WCW Saturday Night taping in '99

 

I kinda wanna watch that.  Was that the Rey Jr/Kidman version of the team? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best:  Probably HBK vs Flair at Mania 24. Honorable mention to Paige/Emma that aired on last weeks NXT or Tyson Kidd vs Michael Mcgillicutty from NXT last year. Oh and Bryan Danielson vs Generico from some Orlando ROH show. Forgot the name of it but it was real good.

 

Worst: Anya the Russian Giant vs Audrey Marie from a NXT house show last year. Anya was only around for a couple months when she had the match and for some reason, the bookers had her lead the match. Audrey wasn't the worst wrestler but man I felt bad for her here. Anya managed to botch walking in the ring and a big boot in the corner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have seen a lot of awesome matches live, but nothing tops Benoit vs Regal from Pillman 2000 in Cincinnati, OH.

 

I have seen so many awful matches that I couldn't even begin to list one worse than the rest of the pack. 

 

 

Worst is way easier. On one of the early AIW shows, there was a Christmas Death Match featuring someone named the Thrillbilly vs. The Passion John Thorne. That whole show was terrible.

 

Always nice to see a promoter shoehorn themselves onto a show, and then go out and have the worst match.  It is cosmic karma!

 

 

 

Best: Silver King & El Dandy vs. Filthy Animals at a WCW Saturday Night taping in '99

 

I kinda wanna watch that.  Was that the Rey Jr/Kidman version of the team? 

It was Konnan/Kidman (w/ Eddy at ringside!)  It aired on WCWSN on 11/13/99, doesn't appear to be on Youtube, sadly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...