10 WORST WWE Saudi Arabia Matches
Ugh.
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0:00 Introduction
1:10 Worst WWE Matches To Happen in Saudi Arabia
1:19 10. Shane McMahon vs Dolph Ziggler - Crown Jewel 2018
2:13 Tuwaiq Gauntlet - Super Showdown 2020
3:12 Brock Lesnar vs Braun Strowman - Crown Jewel 2018
4:15 Brock Lesnar vs Cain Velasquez - Crown Jewel 2019
5:05 Shane McMahon vs Roman Reigns - Super Showdown 2019
6:07 Lars Sullivan vs Lucha House Party - Super Showdown 2019
7:23 Brock Lesnar vs Ricochet - Super Showdown 2020
8:31 Goldberg vs The Fiend - Super Showdown 2020
9:16 Goldberg vs The Undertaker - Super Showdown 2019
10:10 DX vs Brothers of Destruction - Crown Jewel 2018
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0:00 Introduction
1:10 Worst WWE Matches To Happen in Saudi Arabia
1:19 10. Shane McMahon vs Dolph Ziggler - Crown Jewel 2018
2:13 Tuwaiq Gauntlet - Super Showdown 2020
3:12 Brock Lesnar vs Braun Strowman - Crown Jewel 2018
4:15 Brock Lesnar vs Cain Velasquez - Crown Jewel 2019
5:05 Shane McMahon vs Roman Reigns - Super Showdown 2019
6:07 Lars Sullivan vs Lucha House Party - Super Showdown 2019
7:23 Brock Lesnar vs Ricochet - Super Showdown 2020
8:31 Goldberg vs The Fiend - Super Showdown 2020
9:16 Goldberg vs The Undertaker - Super Showdown 2019
10:10 DX vs Brothers of Destruction - Crown Jewel 2018
Transcript
00:00 Oh bollocks. So in case you missed it, I, biggest air quotes in the world, won the opportunity
00:06 to compete against Oli for Pete's Jam That Championship at the next major WWE show. Unfortunately
00:11 that major show is Crown Bloody Jewel, bloody being an expletive and a descriptor. Crown
00:16 Jewel is WWE's first Saudi show since the pandemic and god how I secretly hoped that
00:21 the pandemic had somehow made WWE's contract with the Saudi regime evaporate but no, no
00:25 no, here we go again. These shows, for a number of different reasons, suck, first because
00:30 of their corporate deference to a regime that murders journalists and doesn't have a definition
00:34 of human rights in their dictionary but also, these shows just, they suck. They're glorified
00:38 house shows but at least a house show is nothing's book to happen so all the babyfaces go over
00:42 and people try to at least have an uncomplicated good time. At these toilet brush, foul smelling
00:47 extravaganzas, not only are the cards mostly terrible but they routinely come coupled with
00:51 some flabbergastingly bad booking decisions. There have been only 5 Saudi shows but even
00:56 then, this was a hard list to make. That's how uniformly arse these shows are. I don't
01:02 want to watch Crown Jewel but seeing as I have to, you all have to suffer with me. I'm
01:05 Adam Hailing from PartsFarKnown and these are the 10 Worst WWE Matches To Happen In
01:10 Saudi Arabia. Please like and subscribe, I had to watch a bunch of Saudi Arabia matches
01:14 for this. Please subscribe.
01:17 10. Shane McMahon vs Dolph Ziggler - Crown Jewel 2018
01:21 AKA the match where a chub of bologna was crowned the best wrestler in the world and
01:25 like all true dads, he did it in his jeans. The entire tournament was a bit topsy turvy
01:29 because lest we forget, a tournament to crown and it bears repeating "the best wrestler
01:33 in the world" had wrestlers featuring Seth Rollins, Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle and Randy
01:38 Orton that came down to Dolph Ziggler vs The Miz, which is like a Best Film Ever tournament
01:43 coming down to Mission Impossible 2 vs Ice Age. Fine, but come on. Miz suffered a bad
01:49 case of kayfabe and had to forfeit the match, but Shane McMahon who cares so much about
01:53 your entertainment that he repeatedly charges you to watch him wrestle, took off his jacket,
01:56 put up his famously terrible dukes and beat Ziggler very quickly. And so the best wrestler
02:02 in the world was crowned amidst much rejoicing, one month to the day after the death of Jamal
02:07 Khashoggi. F*** these shows and it gets worse from here.
02:11 9. The Tuaik Gauntlet - Super Showdown 2020 Man, The Undertaker's had a rough go of
02:15 it under this Saudi deal, constantly thrown around like a snot-nosed kid bashing his favourite
02:20 toy against the floor. "Who do you like?" Vince asks the Saudis. "We like The Undertaker.
02:24 Can he still wrestle?" "Um" says Vince, looking over at Taker in his hospital bed.
02:29 More machine now than man. Yeah, kind of. These shows have all but eradicated the final
02:34 vestiges of the dead man's precarious prestige. The worst matches are yet to come on this
02:38 list and I bet you can guess them, but let's talk about the Tuaik Trophy Gauntlet. A match
02:43 tired Dave from beyond the grave, won with a single bad looking chokeslam despite not
02:47 being in it, then pissing off back to have a lie in a hammock without even taking the
02:51 trophy with him. The rest of the match, that preceded Taker beating AJ Styles for no reason
02:55 other than to build heat for him beating AJ Styles at WrestleMania, was really bad and
02:59 boring too, with R-Truth knocking off Bobby Lashley by tripping him over, beating Andrade
03:04 by f***ing accident, and then Erick Rowan by DQ. What a nail biter, thanks for lasting
03:08 20 goddamn minutes.
03:10 8. Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman - Crown Jewel 2018
03:13 So in the wake of Roman Reigns vacating the Universal title after revealing that his leukemia
03:18 had returned, WWE advertised Lesnar vs. Strowman for the title for context. Brock Lesnar had
03:23 held the title for a year and a half and fans were happy to have the title on weekly TV
03:27 again. Braun had just had his momentum crushed with a botched heel turn, being screwed by
03:31 Brock out of his briefcase cash-in. Also Strowman had already lost to Lesnar the year
03:35 before so Strowman wins in a layup right? Oh you don't know Saudi Arabia, it's like
03:40 Brock's paid by the hour in Saudi. WWE get him in and out faster than Jim from American
03:45 Pie. Corbin clocks Strowman with the belt. Lesnar F5s him. Strowman kicks out. Another
03:50 F5. Another kick out. Another F5. Another kick out. Just please f***ing end this. Another
03:56 F5. Another F5. And finally it's over. The match is an angle but WWE still managed to
04:01 stretch it out over 3 boring, anger inducing minutes in a move that was probably designed
04:06 to protect Braun but ended up just having us watch him get his arse planted over and
04:09 over again. Awful. I hate this. I hate it.
04:13 7. Brock Lesnar vs Cain Velasquez - Crown Jewel 2019
04:17 On the premiere episode of Smackdown on Fox, WWE booked Brock Lesnar to beat Kofi Kingston
04:21 in one move so he could have enough time to run an angle with the debuting Cain Velasquez.
04:24 Oh wow, said WWE in all caps and comic sans. How exciting. At Crown Jewel, Rey Mysterio
04:30 brought his other gigantic son down to the ring. Big fight feel and that big fight was
04:34 two boring cuddles, one kick and then you're done with Velasquez tapping out to the Kimura
04:39 not even on f***ing camera. You know what's good about wrestling being fake? It's that
04:43 you can plan exciting things and then make those exciting things happen. This match was
04:47 the first and only one to feature Cain Velasquez before the company went on to release him
04:51 six months later. Bloody hell, thanks for coming. The show was partially sold on this
04:55 two minute. At least Tyson Fury vs Braun Strowman went a little longer. Wasn't a lot better
04:59 but at least it was… a thing. This was nothing. Sorry Kofi.
05:03 6. Shane McMahon vs Roman Reigns - Super Showdown 2019
05:07 The best wrestler in the world vs the big dog. A sellout no matter which arena you book
05:12 it in. Crikey Moses, this match though. 10 minutes that felt like 20 or so. Shane McMahon
05:17 dominates Roman Reigns with his crappy little punches like a cat batting a piece of paper
05:21 around a table. Sure it's mostly down to McIntyre interference but so much of this
05:25 match is Shane, drenched in sweat looking like Paulie from the Sopranos after being
05:29 chased by dogs through a rainstorm, pink to the point of kidney failure, praying to his
05:33 dad that his heart won't explode, holding Roman Reigns in endless rest holds while the
05:38 crowd dies and dies and dies. Look at him, look at him trying to be MMA on Roman. It's
05:43 like a CEO paying his fitness instructor to just let him beat him up for 10 minutes because
05:46 he's in a midlife crisis. And then at the end of it, Shane McMahon wins. He beats Roman.
05:52 After constantly beating The Miz for months on end, he knocks off the big pup too. God
05:56 damn it would be funny if it wasn't so head in your hands boring, which it is, it really
06:01 is. And it's only the third worst match of Super Showdown 2019. What's the second?
06:05 That would be…
06:06 5. Lars Sullivan vs Lucha House Party - Super Showdown 2019
06:09 I hate everyone and everything, but especially this match, but especially Bart. Lars Sullivan
06:15 debuted on the main roster in April 2019 and proceeded to have only one notable feud, a
06:20 woeful series of matches against Lucha House Party, a stable made up of Kalisto, Gran Metalik
06:24 and Lince Dorado. And the tagline for that stable might as well have been "Fuck you
06:28 Cruiserweight Classic". Before Sullivan got injured in that feud, benching him for
06:31 over a year, they had this match at Super Showdown 2019, and to call it the drizzling
06:35 shit would be to give IBS a bad name. A 3 on 1 handicap match wherein the babyfaces
06:41 cheat in order to gang up on the monster heel, ending the match in a DQ. Just let that booking
06:46 sink in for a little bit. What's the point? What's the f***ing point of any of that?
06:50 The 5 minutes that lead up to one of the worst finishes on a major WWE show would be a grim
06:54 omen for the kind of wrestling that would take place a year later, because the match
06:57 occurs to absolute silence, broken only by LHP's ill-fated attempts to get a Lucha
07:03 chant going. It's genuinely painful to watch as Sullivan manhandles the babyfaces, literally
07:09 the only thing of interest is Corey Graves on commentary describing Lars as "something
07:14 Hannibal Lecter dreamed up in a lab". That's not who Hannibal Lecter is! To which Michael
07:18 Cole responded "Good point". Jesus wept.
07:21 4. Brock Lesnar vs Ricochet - Super Showdown 2020
07:25 How can a promotion waste Ricochet? How'd you screw that up? One of the most imaginative
07:31 and awe-inspiring high flyers, not only of his generation, but all time. How'd you
07:36 bollocks up someone that talented this bad? At Super Showdown 2020, which is probably
07:41 one of the most baffling PPVs WWE have ever produced, WWE booked Ricochet to challenge
07:46 Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship, and everyone around the world thought one thing.
07:50 Ricky's not going to win this one, but it'll be super fun to see what kind of Cirque du
07:53 Soleil flippies he can pull off against a base as strong as Brock Lesnar. How wrong
07:57 we were. Brock Lesnar doing what he does best in Saudi, which is turn up, win and piss off
08:02 immediately. Buried Ricochet. The word buried is overused in wrestling journalism, often
08:06 used to create undue emotion around a fairly standard loss. That is what a burial truly
08:11 is. Horrific booking. Why not just have a match? You're both there. Just have a f***ing
08:16 match. Maddening.
08:17 And speaking of rage…
08:18 3. Goldberg vs The Fiend - Super Showdown 2020
08:21 I mean, what do you say about this that hasn't been said in a thousand ways in a thousand
08:24 songs, all of which have the same lyrics, which is just grown adults sobbing into their
08:27 hands wondering why they pay their monthly subscription to the stupidest wrestling company
08:31 in the world? What else can you say about a match where the unstoppable final boss you've
08:35 been building for half a year, even booking that terrible Hell in a Cell finish to showcase
08:38 his unstoppability, just so he beefs it when confronted with the world's most redundant
08:42 gimmick and gets fed his own giant clown shoes the months before WrestleMania? Please what
08:47 is the point? Please. Even without the worst booking decision of the year, the match is
08:51 so bad. Spears, mandible claws and a botched jackhammer. That's your lot. That's your
08:56 main event. And somehow, someway, it's not Goldberg's worst Saudi Arabia match. That
09:01 would be…
09:02 2. Goldberg vs The Undertaker - Super Showdown 2019
09:05 There are sentimental reasons keeping it off the top spot, but this really should be number
09:09 one. It is one of the worst matches of all time. It's a match so bad that even WWE
09:14 have included it in documentaries that they have made, talking about how truly, overwhelmingly
09:18 awful it is. The type of bad where it transcends lack of heat, lack of logic and crosses over
09:22 into the very worst place where it's simply f***ing dangerous. Genuinely, really dangerous
09:28 to book these two in this heat to have this match. And no wrestling fan in their right
09:32 mind wants to see that kind of danger. Goldberg concusses himself, then nearly breaks Undertaker's
09:37 neck. It is not hyperbolic to say that this was a few rotations away from being The Phenom's
09:42 last match and ending his career in the most horrific way possible. Undertaker hates this
09:46 match. Goldberg hates it so much he needed to eat Ziggler at Summerslam just as a form
09:50 of redemption. Even WWE hates it. But me personally? There is one more match I hate just that little
09:56 bit more.
09:57 Number 1 - DX vs Brothers of Destruction - Crown Jewel 2018
10:01 They brought Shawn Michaels out of retirement for this. Now look, I know, I know that wrestlers
10:07 retire and un-retire and it's not a big deal, but HBK had one of the few perfect retirements
10:13 in professional wrestling. Something actually inspirational. He went out after the main
10:17 event of WrestleMania, still reasonably physically fit with plenty of dream matches still technically
10:22 possible. But no, the stipulation was honoured. Wrestling is just storytelling at the end
10:26 of the day, at least that's the part of it I care the most about, and Shawn Michaels
10:29 actually managed to have a story with a beginning, middle and end. Until this. This grotty little
10:36 epilogue paid for by bad people where he broke retirement for a terrible match. Leave the
10:41 memories alone, no one came out of this looking good. Not the D older generation X who'd
10:46 look like they'd gone to their first leather bar to support their son's band and had
10:49 to hide the fact they hated it there. Not Kane who got his bloody mask knocked off at
10:53 one point. And not Taker, once again frustrated in his quest to have one more classic before
10:58 he hung up his hat. I'm not made of stone. Taker tagging in to square up to HBK is a
11:03 legit nostalgic moment. But Christ, that is 5 minutes into a match that is half an hour
11:08 long. Shawn gets you still got it chance that slowly, over the course of the match, fade
11:13 to grim silence. And if that doesn't sum up the ugly, dark side of nostalgia that bleeds
11:18 all over these cash grab shows, what does? See you all at Crown Jewel everyone. And that's
11:25 our list. What's your least favourite? Oh, don't let's not talk about it. Let's talk
11:30 about something else. Do you like cheese? What's your favourite cheese? Let us know
11:34 in the comments and subscribe. We'll be doing the Crown Jewel show for charity at least.
11:40 So there's that. Jam that jam.
11:42 (upbeat music)