10 Worst WCW Matches In History

Very few promotions produced terrible pro wrestling like WCW.

Obviously, World Championship Wrestling gave us a lot of good stuff, too, but when it came to really messing the bed when the lights were on bright, WCW routinely proved that no matter how much money it had at its disposal or how vast and talented its roster was, bell-to-bell things could easily fall apart at the drop of a leg, brother.

Amazingly, much of the absolute worst that WCW had to offer took place for major titles and in pay-per-view main events. One match not included on this list, though, is the Fingerpoke of Doom.

These are the 10 Worst WCW Matches in history.

10. Scott Steiner vs. Sid Vicious vs. Jeff Jarrett vs. Road Warrior Animal - Sin

Forever known as the match where Sid suffered his horrendous – and, for all intents and purposes, career-ending – leg injury, it’s worth remembering that this four-corners World Heavyweight Title scrap was resembling an omelette made with a chainsaw before the Millennium Man’s sickening snap.

Steiner was defending in a match that started as a triple threat between him, Sid and Jarrett, with the promise of the ‘mystery man’ being revealed later on.

The action was poor, psychology all over the place and the mystery reveal was ruined because Sid was lying in the ring with his leg broken after attempting a second-rope big boot.

After that, everyone involved was just killing precious pay-per-view time and hoping to get through the thing. As far as surprises go, Road Warrior Animal was a pretty lame one too, especially when WCW were bigging it up as being on the level of Steve Austin or The Rock.

Animal could also do nothing but deliver one hit to Sid – who clearly needed some medical attention by this point – allowing the Genetic Freak to retain.

For a major show main event, this was almost inexcusable. Yes, the injury messed things up, but it wasn’t exactly going great before that and it’s quite impressive just how much nonsense they managed to pack into such a short period of time.

9. Steve McMichael vs. Brian Adams - Road Wild 1998

WCW’s forays to Sturgis, South Dakota for their motorcycle-themed Road Wild events were neither commercial nor artistic triumphs.

We’re sure it was all good fun for Eric Bischoff and his fellow hog enthusiasts on the WCW roster who basically saw it as a summer vacation on Turner’s dime, but the shows themselves were genuinely pretty poor.

One of the worst was 1998’s iteration, which featured a comically bad match between Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael and Brian Adams.

The botch-tastic match featured one of the worst referee bumps ever, before it was finally put out of its misery with a Mongo Tombstone Piledriver.

8. Hollywood Hogan vs. Randy Savage - Uncensored 1998

Notorious frenemies Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan continued their Mega Powers tag team in WCW before, inevitably, they began feuding. The magic of their WrestleMania 5 main event was also long gone by 1998 too.

Headlining Uncensored in a Cage Match, Savage and Hogan looked like the knackered, ageing men that they were, lazily shuffling about at half-speed before resorting to desperate measures in a last-gasp attempt to generate interest.

Both men ended up bleeding buckets, a rare sight in the PG-rated WCW, but nobody cared. The referee even let them out of the cage door in order to brawl at ringside, but the fans remained disinterested and who could blame them?

Credit to Savage for delivering an axe-handle from the top of the cage, given the state of his famously knackered knees at the time, but that was a lone bright spot in a turgid so-called contest.

It ended in a no contest, too, because screw anyone who thinks a pay-per-view main event Cage Match should have a decisive finish.

7. Rick Rude vs. Masahiro Chono - Halloween Havoc 1992

A clean-shaven Rick Rude took on New Japan star Masahiro Chono for the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Title at Halloween Havoc 1992 in a match where both competitors were allowed to choose a referee.

Chono picked his countryman Kensuke Sasaki, while Rude opted for Harley Race. Ole Anderson flipped a coin prior to the match to determine which ref would be in the ring and which would be outside.

This match was the antithesis of excitement. Filing tax returns is more exciting than sitting through this rest hold filled abomination. Seriously, by the 10th chinlock you will be crying out for some wet paint, so you can watch it dry.

The fans in Philadelphia evidently chose to make their own entertainment during this slog, as a fight broke out in the audience.

We guarantee that fight contained way more action than this match, which was not only boring, but lasted an interminable 22 minutes and 23 seconds AND ended with a Dusty finish, when the champ was disqualified for throwing the challenger over the top rope.

6. Sid Vicious vs. El Gigante - Superbrawl I

While you would probably expect a match between two superior workers like Rick Rude and Masahiro Chono to be, at the very least, good, nobody is going into a bout between Sid Vicious and El Gigante expecting a five-star classic.

The first Superbrawl pay-per-view had been a roasting hot DUD by the time these two freaks of nature waddled out for their Stretcher Match.

While it only lasts a brisk 2 minutes and 13 seconds, it somehow feels 10 times longer. They wisely tried to keep things simple, but simple was, evidently, a step too far for the enormous Gigante, whose attempts at selling made the star of your local panto look like prime Marlon Brando.

Not only was the ‘action’ positively rotten, but WCW didn’t even adhere to the pre-match stipulation. After losing to the dreaded claw – the one move Gigante couldn’t possibly mess up – Sid didn’t go out on a stretcher, presumably because he didn’t fancy looking that vulnerable on his way to WWE.

The pitiful post-match angle with Kevin Sullivan and One Man Gang attacking Gigante only heaped on more embarrassment to this whole ill-judged presentation.

5. Steve Austin & Terry Taylor vs. Bobby Eaton & PN News - Great American Bash 1991

The 1991 Great American Bash was one of the worst pay-per-views in WCW history, the legendarily bad show coming as the company was in turmoil following the shock departure of NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair.

With serious bad vibes hanging over it, the event got off to the worst possible start with an infamously awful tag team Scaffold Match.

Ignoring how random the combination of teams was, the match had a crippling logistical flaw; whatever genius made the scaffold for the match, made it way too narrow.

Not only could the four wrestlers not do any actual wrestling on the rickety death trap, they could barely walk along the platform without fear of falling 15 feet to the ring below.

So nothing happened for eight agonising minutes, besides stalling, punching, stalling, more punching, stalling, climbing down and a little more stalling until the match just sort of ended for no adequately explained reason.

They tried to make up for it with a bit of post-match wrestling inside the actual ring, but they were essentially trying to put out a raging house fire with a water pistol at that point.

4. WarGames - Fall Brawl 1998

The WarGames concept was tried and tested but, despite being seemingly easy to execute, WCW felt the need to tinker with a winning formula at Fall Brawl 1998.

The match was now three teams of three and could end by pinfall at any time. Also, the winner would get a shot at World Heavyweight Champion Goldberg at the next pay-per-view, so it pretty much became every man for himself.

As far as star power is concerned, the match certainly wasn’t lacking in that department, with Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Roddy Piper, Lex Luger, Sting, Kevin Nash, Diamond Dallas Page and, erm, Stevie Ray, throwing down in the two cages.

The Ultimate Warrior was also in the match, though he only turned up for the brain-cell-destroying finale and to meekly brawl to the back with Hulk Hogan and his perennial coattail-rider, Ed Leslie.

Honestly, you’d think with so many heavy hitters and a gimmick to work with and all the rest of it that the match would be compelling in some way, but it just wasn’t.

Nobody cared – not the wrestlers involved, the fans watching or the poor announcers, who spent much of the match’s runtime trying to make sense of the nonsensical.

3. Vampiro vs. Sting - Great American Bash 2000

WCW was circling the drain by the Summer of 2000, with head writer Vince Russo evidently making it his life’s mission to speed up the company’s demise by presenting a show without a single redeemable quality.

The vast, vast majority of 2000’s Great American Bash was bad, awful, terrible, horrendous or otherwise appalling. The ‘Human Torch’ match between Vampiro somehow managed to top the steaming pile of excrement, though.

To win the match, one man had to take another by the entrance stage and light them on fire with a torch.

Sting started the match by changing the rules by hoisting the torch to the top of the entrance set and telling Vampiro he’d have to go up there if he wanted to make him extra-crispy.

The actual match portion, such as it was, could best be described as ‘meandering’, before they scaled the set – with Sting taking a bump onto some cardboard on the way up – in preparation for the big flaming finish.

With the lights flickering and spooky music playing over the PA system, Vampiro set fire to what was obviously a stuntman in Sting paint, before the poor bloke did his best Jeff Hardy impression and WCW crew members tried desperately to disguise his identity.

2. Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage vs. The Alliance To End Hulkamania - Uncensored 1996

Before Hogan became Hollywood by turning heel and forming the New World Order, he was responsible for some of the absolute worst stuff that WCW ever put out there. He was still responsible for that when he traded in the red and yellow for the black and white,  but Hollywood Hogan was good value for a minute or two at least.

Hogan’s popularity as the all-conquering babyface hero was seriously starting to wane when the Doomsday Cage Match main event from Uncensored 1996 just about put an end to Hulkamania.

Not that the noble Alliance to End Hulkamania – that’s Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Meng, The Barbarian, Kevin ‘Taskmaster’ Sullivan, Lex Luger, Z-Gangsta and the Ultimate Solution – actually won this 8-on-2 handicap shambles.

Oh no, no, no – how could they possibly beat the Mega Powers, especially when they were being aided by The Booty Man and his deadly frying pans?

We would try to adequately explain the rules or the storyline or anything that could help make this spandex-clad fever dream make sense, but we’d just be wasting our time.

1. Hollywood Hogan vs. The Warrior - Halloween Havoc 1998

One of the worst investments WCW ever made was signing the The ‘Don’t-Call-Him-Ultimate (unless you want to be sued)’ Warrior to a short-term, seven-figure deal in 1998.

The bloom was well and truly off the rose as far as Jim Hellwig’s cartoonish creation was concerned at that point, but WCW sensed the Monday Night War tide was seriously turning and brought him in for a boost.

Not only were his promos and segments leading up to his big grudge match with Hulk Hogan a total and utter disaster, but the bout itself was the worst in WCW history.

Rumour has it that Terrible Terry convinced Eric Bischoff to use Ted Turner’s chequebook and bring Warrior in so that he could ‘get his win back’, after putting the face-painted musclehead over in the main event of WrestleMania 6 a full eight-and-a-half-years earlier.

That match was a classic of its genre, a true clash of the titans that worked beautifully despite both men’s physical limitations. To call this match a car crash, however, would be an insult to car crashes.

It perfectly summed itself up when Hogan tried to use a fireball, only for it to malfunction and end up burning his own fingers instead.

Of course, Hogan won.