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Every year has its best matches. Every year also has its worst. 2017, in particular, seemed like a year of high highs and low lows. We saw some really, really great matches on one hand, but on the other, we also saw some really, really bad things.
These 10 were the worst of the bunch and fortunately, the card developing for Clash of Champions thus far doesn't look like it will have anything surpassing these atrocious showings. Most of these matches were terrible because of the work rate, but pure in-ring action alone doesn't make or break a match. Some of them were terrible because of the moment they created or signified, which was more meaningful than the match itself. Taking all of these factors into consideration, I've ranked them accordingly. Not everyone will agree with a list like this, but I believe that most would have chosen a good number of these matches on their own lists highlighting 2017's worst.
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#10 Alexa Bliss vs. Naomi vs. Becky Lynch vs. Natalya vs. Carmella vs. Mickie James (WrestleMania 33)
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For all the self-congratulatory talk of a so-called "women's revolution", the past year or so has sure resembled the Divas matches we thought were supposed to have disappeared. Aside from Alexa Bliss' reign of terror, the biggest force of regression in the division is the series of meaningless multi-women matches WWE still loves to put out that are often of short duration (maybe not as short as before, but short nonetheless). This kind of booking has allowed few meaningful programs and stories to develop in the women's division in 2017, and the SmackDown Women's Championship match at WrestleMania was the highest-profile case of this.
There wasn't much to it. Alexa Bliss would defend her title against every other SmackDown woman. The entrances took about as long as the match itself...and they were all rushed, Naomi excepted. No one here really had an opportunity to display the fullest of her talents, though we did get a catfight spot between Alexa Bliss and Carmella, reminding us that though the Divas Championship was retired a year earlier, its ghost certainly lingers strongly.
We did get a cool spot with the double sharpshooter from Natalya on Carmella and Naomi, but the match quickly degenerated again until Naomi made Alexa Bliss tap out with the most anticlimactic submission finish possible.
Though other matches throughout the year were much worse in terms of work rate, this short, convoluted match was far more meaningful in that it showed us beyond doubt that WWE has a "one step forward, one step back" approach to its female talent, much like the 50/50 booking that keeps them all so clustered together.
#9 Jinder Mahal vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (SummerSlam)
2017 has been a disastrous year for the prestige of the WWE Championship, and to prove the point, this is only the first of several WWE title matches on this list, which is a horrifying legacy to add to the championship once possessed by some of the biggest legends in the business. A less spectacular WWE Championship match at SummerSlam than this one is truly hard to find.
This match also proved that excellent as he is, you can't depend on Shinsuke Nakamura to give you a good match in any circumstance, as you can from AJ Styles.
The promo and Nakamura's entrance were good. The crowd was on fire, firmly behind Shinsuke. It all went downhill once the bell rang. A series of restholds from Jinder Mahal dampened the energy immediately. The action just never got off the ground before the final few minutes of the match, where Shinsuke tried to make something happen, prompting the usual interference from the Singh brothers followed by the anticlimactic Khallas finisher.
Throughout the match you heard the commentary team almost trying to sell you on Jinder Mahal's clunky performance: "He grinds you down. He doesn't fly with people that fly or box with people that box. It's not pretty, it's effective."
It wasn't a terribly good sales pitch.
After it was over, WWE was quick to show the flabbergasted reactions from the fans in attendance who it had seemingly trolled. In fact, Jinder Mahal's entire title reign might be characterized as WWE having trolled its fans.
#8 Cesaro vs. Jinder Mahal (Fastlane)
The fact that I have to feature Cesaro on a list like this should tell you that the match must have been bad.
Humorously, this was described as a "bonus matchup" by Michael Cole. If that's what constitutes a bonus, I want to go back to my basic pay.
The one and only thing that came out of this match is that we learned there are some people even Cesaro can't carry. Jinder Mahal is one of those. It was a whole big batch of nothing. Every time Cesaro tried to make it into something, Jinder Mahal threw it back into oblivion. It wasn't long before the crowd was chanting for CM Punk in between telling us the match was "boring."
Eventually, Rusev came down to distract Jinder Mahal and Cesaro put him away, to our relief, even if it was anticlimactic. That Jinder Mahal went on to become WWE Champion not long after a performance like this should be embarrassing for WWE.
#7 Big show vs. Big Cass with Enzo Amore in a shark cage (SummerSlam)
Before Enzo's heel turn after No Mercy, I was ready to write him off as being one of the least entertaining superstars of the year, and his feud with Big Cass, which the Big Show got involved in, was one of the reasons why. It was one repetitive, annoying promo and match after another, but this was the nadir.
Enzo began with one of his usual meandering promos, getting the crowd confused by talking about Lil' Kim, whose existence no one seemed to know about in 2017. Mercifully, it was interrupted by Big Cass, which was about the only good thing in this match.
What we got from there on out was 10 minutes of slow, plodding movements with the only memorable sound being Enzo shouting and stomping inside the cage, because no one in the crowd cared, to the point that Brooklyn erupted in "boring" chants.
The "climax" came when Enzo stripped down and oiled himself up (and in the PG era, no less) in order to make his escape. He received a big boot from Cass for his efforts, and the crowd went back to sleep. Cass then put him away after a couple of big boots with no one bothering to notice.
The "star" of the match was the guy in the cage that you never cared about to begin with and who wasn't wrestling, which tells you most of what you need to know about it.
#6 Neville vs. Enzo Amore (No Mercy)
This match was doomed from the moment it was booked, but I never imagined it would be this bad, especially with Neville in it. Enzo Amore has been an entertaining heel that's brought some needed attention to a 205 Live whose formula just wasn't working beforehand. Unfortunately, the price to be paid for that means we have to see Enzo in the ring. His career as champion started with this match, and boy was it terrible. WWE knew it would be, which is why they put it in the piss-break spot on the card before the Lesnar/Strowman main event.
What we got was nearly 11 minutes of Neville beating Enzo senseless. Seeing Enzo get beaten up should be satisfying, but this time it wasn't because it was a very slow-paced beating that never got off the ground or excited anyone. The crowd turned on it, chanting "boring!" Eventually, Enzo distracted the referee to give Neville a low blow and become the new Cruiserweight Champion. It was a very unsatisfying, anticlimactic end to a dominant run atop the cruiserweight division, which Neville had carried all year long.
One has to imagine that this match was one of the last straws for Neville in terms of his willingness to stay in the spot WWE had him in. He disappeared from television soon afterward in a controversial manner. Should he return, he deserves a far better spot than carrying the prison known as 205 Live.
#5 Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton (WrestleMania 33)
This was one of the worst WWE Championship matches in WrestleMania history. The whole thing just fell flat and had the added touch of Bray Wyatt's toxic miasma.
It didn't help that even before the match, both men's entrances took forever. Bray Wyatt's at least had the spectacle, but Randy Orton exhausted us by taking an age just to walk down that long WrestleMania ramp. The LED viper under his feet didn't do much to assuage the situation.
The action itself started off fine, but after avoiding an RKO, Bray Wyatt did the first of what came to be this match's signature moves - the projection of LED creepy crawlies onto the canvas, in this case, worms. It shocked the crowd but didn't add to the match. That's when the action slowed considerably. Bray projected more creepy crawlies and then things went outside, where both men traded finishers on opposite sides of the ring. When the action finally went back inside, Bray managed to hit Sister Abigail, but Randy Orton kicked out of the finisher, and then came more creepy crawlies in the form of cockroaches.
Enter an RKO out of nowhere. Randy Orton is the champion and Bray Wyatt looks the fool yet again. That creepy crawlies and vaunted "mind games" the announcers sold so eagerly weren't very effective for Bray, were they?
While the ring work wasn't as bad as other matches on this list, this was a steep fall for the WWE Championship, a title which would only grow even less prestigious in the months ahead.
#4 Jinder Mahal vs Randy Orton, Punjabi Prison (Battleground)
There were only two Punjabi Prison matches in WWE history prior to this one and neither was received well. A big part of that is because it's difficult to actually see what's going on behind the bamboo bars...on TV, let alone as an attendee in the arena.
So when the Punjabi Prison was set to return at an already poorly-built Battleground, nobody was excited. Add Jinder Mahal and Randy Orton to the mix, who had been stinking up the joint all year, and you had the recipe for a perfect disaster.
We got a seemingly never-ending string of completely unremarkable "action" as Randy Orton and Jinder Mahal tried to get through the first three doors of the Punjabi Prison but were unsuccessful each time. To put it into perspective, the lifeless John Cena vs. Rusev match earlier was faster-paced...until it left the ring, that is, but we'll get to that shortly.
The attempts at using the prison as a weapon just felt boring. The crowd agreed, as "CM Punk" chants began to serenade the arena. Clearly, some prison bumps weren't going to save this thing.
Then Orton called for the fourth door after hitting a second rope DDT on Jinder, and with a clear advantage...he didn't walk out because our torture needed to continue. Jinder Mahal gave him a knee to the face for his efforts, only to receive an RKO when going for the Khallas.
Then the Singhs appeared from under the ring (you knew they would) to pull Jinder through the door, and he began to climb the outer structure like a snail for no other reason than to further prolong this monstrosity. Randy climbed up the inner structure and moved onto the outer one where he battled and got the better of Jinder, with the Singhs pulling him down afterwards, resulting in a brawl.
After more endless plodding, Orton began to climb the prison, with Samir Singh harassing him from the outside. We then saw the spot of the match, where Samir was punched off the structure, falling through the announce table. So we got one cool moment in exchange for a 30-minute borefest, as Jinder Mahal came back and things got supremely terrible yet again.
Much like the next item on this list, the feeling that this match should have ended 10 minutes ago was palpable throughout its latter half. Eventually, the Great Khali would come to put us out of our misery, which would be an oxymoron in any other context. Thankfully, this would be Khali's only appearance of the year.
But you know what's even more horrifying? This wasn't even the worst match that night!
#3 John Cena vs Rusev, Flag Match (Battleground)
Battleground is widely agreed to be the worst major WWE show of 2017, and the event was in trouble long before this match came on, but wow oh wow did it make the night so much worse.
How couldn't it? The evil foreigner vs. American hero story should have been left behind in the 80's, but it's WWE's own version of the Walking Dead - hordes of these zombie foreign heels have come and gone ever since. So the story around the match already sucked. To add injury to insult, the match itself was just as terrible.
To prolong our agony, we found out that simply grabbing the flag off the pole above the turnbuckle wasn't enough to win the match, but rather the first man to put his country's flag in its respective pedestal up the ramp would be the victor. I guess we can credit WWE for innovating the foreign heel story in that small way, maybe.
Then, John Cena took forever to come out, and to insult our intelligence further, the commentary team talked up how this was one of the highest-pressure matches of his career. Sure.
What followed seemed to be an eternity of unconvincing back-and-forth offence, including what might be one of the worst powerbomb reversals in history. It was like watching two men try to fight underwater. Neither Cena nor Rusev seemed to care at all about the match, almost like they both knew it was garbage and had agreed to phone it in. The "action" we saw was far beneath both of their talents. It would only get that much worse when they left the ring.
After grabbing the flags off their poles, both men stumbled up the ramp as if they were trapped in a tar pit, overselling all the way. Throughout, you had the feeling that the match should have ended numerous times, but the slow, plodding Chinese water torture continued.
John Cena eventually stopped Rusev's hand from putting the Bulgarian flag on its pedestal. He then put the Brute through two tables with an Attitude Adjustment and placed the American flag on its pedestal to finally end the ordeal 10 or so minutes after it should have concluded.
The flag match was a perfect storm of all of professional wrestling's vices expressed at their absolute worst - hokiness, phony-looking action, two performers that clearly didn't care, and a match that long overstayed its welcome, especially when the "action" left the ring (which is why I rate this as being worse than the very lambasted Punjabi Prison match). May we (finally) never see another such match again.
#2 Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley, Kendo Stick on a Pole Match (Extreme Rules)
Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley was without question the worst feud of 2017. Is that too harsh? This is a year which also gave us Bray Wyatt vs. Randy Orton, Bray Wyatt vs. Finn Balor, and Jinder Mahal as WWE Champion, after all.
Well, this feud was one-sided from start to end. It single-handedly ruined one of the last well-liked babyfaces in Bayley, who went from conquering Charlotte's vaunted PPV streak at the beginning of the year to being only one or two steps removed from a local jobber as the year comes to a close.
It also featured the worst segment of the year (if not the decade) in Bayley: This is Your Life. While that might have been the nadir in terms of sheer quality (or lack thereof), Bayley's loss in this awful match afterwards hammered the nail into the coffin for her character, at least in 2017.
The match began after a long reminder to fans that Bayley just didn't have it in her to "get extreme." Then Bayley looked weak when she took Alexa's bait to get the kendo stick right after the bell, only to get thrown away. There was a short scramble, where Bayley actually managed to get the kendo stick first.
Then, infamously, she wouldn't use it. She stood there, looking like an even worse until Alexa tackled her and beat her mercilessly with it. Bayley managed to hit a Bayley to Belly, but her finisher didn't amount to much, as, in a rather atrocious bit of selling, Alexa managed to recover faster than the already beaten-up Bayley did, ending the match a minute or two later in a totally haphazard manner.
The heel declared that Bayley didn't have what it took, the commentary team believed her, and they were all proven right. There were a lot of Bayley signs at this event, but they've disappeared since. If matches are ultimately supposed to elevate the talent, this did the total opposite.
#1 Randy Orton vs Bray Wyatt, House of Horrors Match (Payback)
I've been watching wrestling on and off since 1996. I can honestly say that this was the dumbest match I've ever seen. Even in a genre where stupidity is often the norm, even the grease behind its wheels, this stood out. The promo alone got you laughing at how atrociously hilarious this thing was going to be. Then there was the car, the music, and the tractor moving on its own. From that point, you knew you were getting Scary Movie rather than The Thing. Professional wrestling operates on the suspension of disbelief, and it had all dissipated in a few minutes.
Once Orton went inside the house, we basically got an unsuccessful attempt at a rerun of some old hardcore matches in the Attitude Era, with lots of screaming, tacky music, and stupid props thrown in the long intermissions between the action, notably mutilated baby dolls hanging from the ceiling.
Anyway, Bray Wyatt dropped a refrigerator on Randy Orton and left the house, demanding to be driven to the arena. One would think that should make him the winner, but our own horror at seeing this match wouldn't end so easily because for some reason the match had to end in the ring... where Randy Orton was waiting for Bray. He would eventually win, but not without the help of Jinder Mahal and the Singh Brothers, making clear what we had already known for a long time - Bray Wyatt can dump a "major appliance" on someone and still not be good enough to win on his own.
A confusing, convoluted cluster with tacky production values, no possible way to suspend your disbelief, and whose only accomplishment was pissing off the audience that paid to attend, House of Horrors takes the Golden Raspberry for worst match of 2017.
