The violence and/or silence behind some of WWE's most painful ever matches.
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00:00Wrestling is not supposed to hurt the wrestlers, let alone the fans.
00:04A lot of them don't just look brutal, they simply are, and those that aren't are agonising
00:09for entirely different reasons.
00:11So I am Gareth, this is What Culture Wrestling, and here are those WWE matches that were painful
00:16to watch.
00:1710.
00:18JBL vs. Eddie Guerrero – Judgment Day 2004 So the festival of violence that was JBL vs.
00:24Eddie Guerrero probably wouldn't make this or any list if the late great Latino Heat
00:29hadn't bled a total gusher in the main event of Judgment Day 2004.
00:34Bradshaw absolutely waffled Guerrero.
00:36But such violent headshots happened regularly enough, then, that the standard wrestler justification
00:41called for the one triggering this gusher to be a doozy, and oh boy it was.
00:45It's all very of the era, simultaneously serving as a reminder of why said era eventually
00:51had to change.
00:52This was horrific.
00:539.
00:54Gunter vs. Ilja Dragunov – NXT UK October 29th, 2020
00:58The goalposts have been moved when it comes to imagining how Gunter would get on in WWE,
01:03and while he has benefited from some excellent timing with certain power changes within the
01:07organisation, the rest of his success has come from being as undeniably great as he
01:12ever was.
01:13Gunter on NXT 2.0 survived the wacky shift from the Black and Gold era and a name change
01:18because he subverted the style of the brand and forced others to bend to his will, and
01:23what he did there was have one of the most violent-looking matches in company history.
01:27Making the most of the silence surrounding them, both he and Ilja Dragunov found every
01:31single sweet spot on the human body and hit each one as hard as they possibly could.
01:35The NXT UK title, and indeed the brand it represented, had never meant more, and never
01:40would again, sadly.
01:418.
01:42Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena – Extreme Rules 2012
01:46WWE had switched to PG four years earlier, and Cena was a talismanic figure in the move
01:51to clean up the product.
01:52It informed a sizeable part of the hate side of the love-hate divide that defined his peak
01:57years.
01:58So when Brock Lesnar carved out a sizeable part of Big Match John's head with the point
02:02of his elbow, and a few thousand fists, the catharsis was real.
02:06Brock Lesnar was a legitimate dream opponent for the champ, and the stark contrast between
02:10the way the two men told their stories was the shock WWE's broken system desperately
02:15needed.
02:16And while we're talking about Big Ol' Brock, I wanna know what the best Brock Lesnar match
02:19of all time is.
02:20Was it this extreme fight with John Cena, or something else?
02:24You let me know in the comment section down below, baby!
02:267.
02:27Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels – Bad Blood 2004
02:30Shawn Michaels and Triple H were never gonna top SummerSlam 2002.
02:34A parade of over-familiar and boring bloodbaths followed.
02:38This was best exemplified at Bad Blood 2004, where they worked a supposed blood, sweat
02:43and tears, hell in a cell main event to near silence, adding 47 minutes to the ring time
02:49they'd already racked up working multiple other pay-per-view matches against each other
02:53that year.
02:54And its main event billing was a reminder that the Reign of Terror was still very much
02:58ongoing, even if Triple H had temporarily lost the title.
03:016.
03:02Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns – WrestleMania 34
03:06There are a hundred different synonyms for worst ever that could be applied to 2017-2019
03:11WWE, but no one match captures the mood more than Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns at WrestleMania
03:1734.
03:18Yikes.
03:19There's the crowd thinking it's going one way and hating it, WWE trying so hard
03:23not to be owned that they book it the other way, and two wrestlers with not a single solitary
03:28chance of salvaging it thanks to agenting that had long outlived its relevance.
03:32And all as part of ostensibly the biggest match of the entire year.
03:36The farce concluded with Lesnar scooping Reigns' brains out with the point of his elbow.
03:40This looked less painful than how being forced to sit through the rest of the match was though.
03:44So just a quick thank you for stopping on by and tap that subscribe button down below
03:48if you want some more WhatCulture madness.
03:505.
03:51Finn Balor vs. Kyle O'Reilly – NXT TakeOver 31
03:56Kyle O'Reilly wasn't yet in the midst of a singles run when he challenged Finn Balor
04:00for the NXT Championship in late 2020, and it would in fact be his own title aspirations
04:05coming before the goals of Adam Cole that helped drive the wedge between the stablemates
04:09the following year.
04:10Based on how this and that turned out, perhaps sticking to the doubles division with Bobby
04:15Fish and Roderick Strong would have been a safer bet.
04:18A divisive match in the moment for its stiffness and after-effects, it's ultimately a fairly
04:22forgotten one in the years that have passed.
04:24This doesn't exactly vindicate those that were put off by the real injuries suffered.
04:28Full force to the face was the order of the day, and the pair got all of it.
04:33O'Reilly was taken away after the show to try and fix a number of broken teeth and get
04:37checked for liver damage.
04:39And Balor's fate was worse somehow.
04:41He had to undergo surgery for a broken jaw.
04:434.
04:44Adam Cole vs. Kyle O'Reilly – NXT TakeOver Stand and Deliver
04:48Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly going really, really long in an ostensibly brutal stipulation
04:53match might have once been a dream destination for NXT fans, but by the spring of 2021, a
04:59TakeOver was the wrong place and the wrong time for the former Undisputed Era men to
05:03try and settle their beef.
05:05NXT in its old form had been made redundant by the launch of AEW in 2019, and when the
05:11latter did a frankly unbelievable job of coping with the pandemic in 2020, the final
05:16nail had been hammered into the developmental brand's coffin.
05:19Dripping in fake-feeling intensity from the opening bell to last, the whole presentation
05:24just fell off.
05:25Lots of loud acting in between the grisly weapon shot undermined the very real damage
05:30they were doing.
05:31O'Reilly put Cole down for the count in the unsanctioned bout here, but the violent
05:35stunt spot and cool Kyle especially going to that place forced commentator Wade Barrett
05:40to ponder aloud if either man could be considered a winner.
05:433.
05:44The Royal Rumble Match – Royal Rumble 2015
05:46Will time ever be kind to the worst iteration of WWE's best gimmick match?
05:50Probably not.
05:51But with the passing years and the various changes in the wrestling industry that have
05:54come along with them, the crimes committed against basic pro-wrestling promotion in 2015's
05:59Royal Rumble don't seem quite as cruel, cynical and outwardly antagonistic.
06:03It's still the work of the worst of Vince McMahon of course, namely Big Show and Kane
06:07destroying your faves, the manky old boss forcing his pet project on everybody, and
06:12a sentimental favourite drowning in an organisation that had forgotten the meaning of the word.
06:17It was genuinely headache-inducing at the time.
06:202.
06:21Triple H vs Randy Orton – WrestleMania 25
06:24Lots of painfully boring WWE main events can be put down to arrogance.
06:28Arrogance of the company for trying to get away with booking something so turgid.
06:32Arrogance of those with final say in the creative direction for thinking what they've just
06:35signed off on was good enough for the biggest contest on the show.
06:38And arrogance of the wrestlers forward suggesting that something go the distance even if they
06:42don't really have the toolbox to make it so.
06:45WWE had beaten generations of fans over the heads with the supposed brilliance of both
06:50men, despite the Games one great year being a decade earlier and Orton still being over
06:55a decade away.
06:56Yet here they were in that not-so-sweet spot, grabbing holds on the biggest stage of the
07:00year, as a blood-fued payoff that also had to follow one of the company's greatest
07:05matches ever.
07:06Not the kind of spot you want to be in.
07:071.
07:08Keith Lee vs Karrion Kross – NXT TakeOver 30
07:11By the time TakeOver 30 came around in the summer of 2020, Keith Lee was a dead cert
07:16for a main roster call-up, and Karrion Kross was even more of a nailed-on bet to become
07:20NXT champion at the first attempt.
07:22But a result that was never really in doubt wasn't why this potential clash of the titans
07:26was so painful, nor, oddly, was a shoulder injury Kross suffered during the contest.
07:31It was that all of the above took place over 21 drab and draining minutes.
07:36What this wasn't was an exhilarating Keith Lee match filled with jaw-dropping feats of
07:40athleticism from the champion, nor a destructive display from the newcomer akin to his domination
07:46of Tommaso Ciampa from the brand's last special.
07:49Wrestle holds and glacial exchanges removed the feeling of danger from a match that already
07:53lacked the feeling of suspense.
07:55But simply, it all went downhill from here, didn't it?
07:57Did you enjoy this WWE matches that were painful to watch video?
08:00Then check out this 10 Most Dangerous WWE Matches Ever list too!
08:04It's wonderful, bye bye!