10 Worst WWE Matches Of 2023

2023 saw some big changes to the WWE landscape, not least because the company joined up with UFC in an unholy union of punches, kicks, and tiny little shorts.

The Bloodline fell apart (sort of), Cody Rhodes achieved his dreams (kind of), and there was some damn fine wrestling across the board (mostly).

There was still plenty of time for matches that were disappointing, deflating, or downright disastrous!

These are the 10 worst WWE matches of 2023.

10. Rhea Ripley vs. Natalya - Night of Champions

WWE’s first Saudi show of the year saw the return of a brand name in Night of Champions.

This show featured bangers like Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins beating AJ Styles for the new World Heavyweight Championship, and Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn overcoming the combined force of Solo Sikoa and Roman Reigns.

Also, Natalya had a match, challenging Rhea Ripley for the Women’s World Championship. WWE flew both women all the way out to the Middle East for just over a minute’s worth of work.

After Dominik Mysterio ran interference before the bell, Ripley jumped her opponent, chucked her about for a while, then hit a headbutt and a Riptide to retain the SmackDown Women’s Championship.

It made Rhea look good, but fans were hoping for a little bit more out of these two and were a tad disappointed when this was all they got. If that wasn’t bad enough, this humiliation took place on Nattie’s birthday!

9. Gunther vs. Matt Riddle - Money in the Bank

British wrestling fans had it pretty good in 2023. AEW had All In at Wembley, TNA had Turning Point in Newcastle upon Tyne - featuring our very own Tom Campbell as ring announcer - and, for the WWE diehards, there was Money in the Bank.

As well as the two ladder matches and a mouth-watering Bloodline Civil War main event, this show was also home to a match that would have sold out any independent wrestling event in the country circa 2018.

Gunther was putting his Intercontinental Championship on the line against Matt Riddle, the first ever one-on-one encounter between these two talented performers in WWE. However, whether it was jetlag, overhyped expectations, or just both men having an off day, the bout under-delivered.

It was perfectly serviceable, but considering the stock of the men involved - plus the fact that they both cut their teeth partly in the UK - that simply wasn’t good enough.

8. Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso - SummerSlam

At the aforementioned Money in the Bank, Jey Uso finally scored a measure of revenge over his table-heading cousin when he became the first person to pin Roman Reigns since 2019.

This set the stage for a blockbuster SummerSlam main event - Roman versus Jey for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship once again, but now with even more history and emotional weight behind it.

WWE couldn’t lose… until they did. The match - which was labelled “tribal combat” (but was basically just a standard No DQ), was overly long and plodding and then the finish only made everything worse.

Jey looked to have the match won, when a man in a hoodie broke things up. The mysterious invader then revealed himself to be… Jimmy Uso. The same Jimmy Uso who had been the one to turn on Roman in the first place. The same Jimmy Uso who had been out of action for weeks following a brutal beatdown from The Bloodline. That Jimmy Uso.

It made no sense at the time and it still doesn’t make a great deal more in hindsight. The whole thing stunk of “swerve for swerve’s sake”.

7. Austin Theory vs. John Cena - WrestleMania 39 Night 1

On the whole, WrestleMania 39 was a great old time, with some people ranking it amongst their favourite Manias ever. Unfortunately, nothing is perfect, not even WrestleMania, as this misfire of an opening match proved.

Austin Theory had won some big matches as United States Champion, but hadn’t quite had that killer programme to take him to the next level. Enter John Cena, who had come back from Hollywood just to give Theory the rub.

And what happened? Cena absolutely buried Theory in the build-up to Mania, chewing him out on television for not being a very good champion. He eviscerated the poor boy, but surely this was all leading to a show-stealing match on the big night, right?

Instead, Cena and Theory wrestled a remarkably dull affair. Theory won, which was all well and good, but the preceding encounter was so thunderingly boring, that what should have been a stepping stone became a giant boulder around his neck.

6. Gable Steveson vs. Baron Corbin - Great American Bash 2023

Despite signing for the company in 2021, it took until July 2023 for Olympic Gold Medallist Gable Steveson to make his in-ring debut. His opponent was Baron Corbin - who’s a good hand, but hardly the most exciting first opponent for a new talent.

The pair proceeded to have a very, very, very tedious match, in which Corbin dominated most of the action. Steveson showed brief glimmers of promise, but the layout was such that the chances he had to impress were few and far between.

Two other factors severely hampered young Gable’s first outing. One was the crowd, who decided that they were going to cheer for the heel instead, and the other was the baffling decision to end this match in a double count-out.

If there had been a gold medal for bad first impressions, Steveson would have added that to his collection too. He has since been released by WWE so this stinker was it for the man WWE had such high hopes for.

5. Ronda Rousey vs. Shayna Baszler - SummerSlam

When Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler won the Women’s Tag Team Championships in May, they promised to shake things up and bring some respect and prestige to the floundering titles.

33 days later, the duo lost the belts when Baszler turned on Rousey completely out of the blue. It was later explained that she was jealous of her friend, setting up what was being dubbed an “MMA Rules” match at SummerSlam.

The two women traded worked-shoot style punches, kicks, and submission holds for seven-and-a-half minutes before Baszler got the win. This sort of thing has never gone down well with audiences who, shockingly, want to see pro wrestling, not a pretend version of UFC.

There was little flow to this contest and zero moments that deserved any sort of big pop. At least the fight pit has a big metal box to play with and sell toys of; this had none of that.

Shayna got absolutely nothing off the back of the biggest win of her career. So there’s that, too.

4. Bobby Lashley vs. Brock Lesnar - Elimination Chamber

Considering how long wrestling fans had been dreaming about a Brock Lesnar/Bobby Lashley programme, it’s staggering that WWE have managed to mess it up not once, but twice.

Following their bizarre mini-feud at the start of 2022, these two behemoths clashed again at Crown Jewel in November, in the 2023 Royal Rumble match, and then at the following month’s Elimination Chamber.

This was a chance for these two freaks of nature, these two athletic powerhouses that had been compared to each other for years to finally let loose. A chance not taken, sadly.

Both big lads spammed their finishers on each other, but not in a “Brock versus Goldberg from WrestleMania 33” way. More of a “two eight-year-olds playing 2K” way. To top this mess off, it ended when Lesnar couldn’t get out of the Hurt Lock, so just kicked Lashley in the nether regions instead.

Had this led to another, better match at the Showcase of the Immortals, then it may have been forgiven, but Lesnar decided he wanted to work with Omos instead, and that was that.

3. Pat McAfee vs. The Miz - WrestleMania 39 Night 1

For WrestleMania 39, hosting duties fell to The Miz and rap legend Snoop Dog, which led to some of the cringiest, most random moments the Grandaddy of Them All has seen in quite some time.

The Doggfather said he wanted to see Miz compete in a match, which brought out a returning Pat McAfee. After some typically cowardly protesting from The A-Lister, the contest was made official and, well, it was The Miz versus Pat McAfee.

The man who is a professional wrestler got the hell beaten out of him by the man who isn’t a professional wrestler, leading to McAfee kicking Miz in the face to get the win, but not before falling over whilst hitting his own move.

Also, McAfee got a huge assist from American football player George Kittle, who was sat at ringside, and nobody said a word!

2. Bray Wyatt vs. LA Knight - Royal Rumble

For obvious reasons, this is a very difficult match to write about now.

Windham Rotunda, the man behind the Bray Wyatt character, passed away in August after a heart attack, following an extended leave of absence from TV.

A bout of COVID-19 prior to his death scrapped proposed WrestleMania plans with Bobby Lashley, making his Pitch Black match with LA Knight at the 2023 Royal Rumble Wyatt’s final televised bout.

Unfortunately - and there’s no easy way to say this - it wasn’t very good.

First of all, it was sponsored by Mountain Dew, which is never a good sign. Secondly, it took place with the lights all dimmed to show off that Bray had raided a 90s raver’s house for all their glow-in-the-dark makeup.

This made it very hard to take anything here seriously and the actual wrestling wasn’t fantastic either - not to mention the nonsense with Uncle Howdy after the bell.

Fortunately, Wyatt left his fans with so many other wonderful memories, and those are the ones people choose to think of when they remember him.

1. Shane McMahon/Snoop Dogg vs. The Miz - WrestleMania 39 Night 2

Anyone who claims WrestleMania 39 was perfect clearly forgot that WWE made us sit through some Miz-centric nonsense not once, but twice.

One night removed from the McAfee fiasco, Snoop pulled the same trick again by announcing that Miz had yet another impromptu match. This time, it was against Shane McMahon!

It should have been clear that this segment was doomed when Shane-O-Mac got out of breath jogging down to the ring, but the bell rang anyway, and the match was on.

And then very quickly off.

Shane threw some of his awful punches, did a drop-down, and then a leapfrog, which blew out his quad and sent him down to the mat, just like his old man 18 years prior.

With McMahon out of action after doing a basic move, it fell to 51-year-old rapper Snoop Dogg to improvise. He punched Miz twice, then hit the Least Electrifying Move in Sports Entertainment to give himself the win.

This was a car wreck from start to finish and, even though it was perversely hilarious, it has to go down as the worst match of the whole year.