Sting vs. Lord Steven Regal, WCW Great American Bash 1996
The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family: Elimination Chamber 2014
Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson, Alley Fight at MSG, 1981
Absolutely brutal no-rules brawl between two certified legends at or near their peak. This is the match that created the blueprint for hardcore wrestling as we know it today and was undoubtedly a huge influence on Paul Heyman and ECW later on. And I will confess, near the end when Patterson pulls his boot off and just starts beating Slaughter with it, I laughed.
It seems to be largely forgotten today I think, mostly due to its age. It’s been topped in multiple ways in the ensuing decades of course, but anyone who considers themselves a hardcore wrestling fan needs to check this out. Don’t know if it’s available on DVD, but it’s on the network and easily found on YouTube as well.
Sting vs. Lord Steven Regal, WCW Great American Bash 1996
The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family: Elimination Chamber 2014
Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson, Alley Fight at MSG, 1981
Raven vs. Kane vs. The Big Show, WWF Hardcore Title, WrestleMania X-Seven
A fun match involving a golf cart, a throw through a window, a throw through a wall, a drop off the stage… One of the guys came very close to shutting down the show by running over the primary power cable to the Reliant Astrodome.
Sting vs. Lord Steven Regal, WCW Great American Bash 1996
The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family: Elimination Chamber 2014
Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson, Alley Fight at MSG, 1981
Raven vs. Kane vs. The Big Show, WWF Hardcore Title, WrestleMania X-Seven
Goldust & Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins, Battleground 2013
At the time, this match was just part of a B-plot in the larger Daniel Bryan vs. the Authority storyline that took up most of the year, but in retrospect this is where Cody really started to become the main eventer he is now. Roman & Seth suffered their first clean loss as a duo and Dusty Rhodes made what we didn’t know would be his final TV appearance dropping a Bionic Elbow on Dean Ambrose.
Sting vs. Lord Steven Regal, WCW Great American Bash 1996
The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family: Elimination Chamber 2014
Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson, Alley Fight at MSG, 1981
Raven vs. Kane vs. The Big Show, WWF Hardcore Title, WrestleMania X-Seven
Goldust & Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins, Battleground 2013
Taz vs. Bam Bam Bigelow, ECW Living Dangerously, 1998
Taz at his most vulnerable during his ECW title reign. Those two beat each other up big time, ECW-style. Bam Bam Bigelow sends both through the ring in order to break the Tazmission. Might have been the first time I saw that spot.
Sting vs. Lord Steven Regal, WCW Great American Bash 1996
The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family: Elimination Chamber 2014
Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson, Alley Fight at MSG, 1981
Raven vs. Kane vs. The Big Show, WWF Hardcore Title, WrestleMania X-Seven
Goldust & Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins, Battleground 2013
Taz vs. Bam Bam Bigelow, ECW Living Dangerously, 1998
John Cena vs. Umaga, Last Man Standing match, Royal Rumble 2007
This was right in the middle of Cena’s exactly 50/50 “let’s go Cena” “Cena sucks” audience chants phase. I was on the anti-cena side decidedly. And while it’s been 15 years since I’ve seen this match the ending shot alone of Cena choking Umaga out with the actual ring rope is very memorable. To put a metaphor on it, this would be when Cena went from being a “sports entertainer” to being a wrestler in my eyes.
Sting vs. Lord Steven Regal, WCW Great American Bash 1996
The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family: Elimination Chamber 2014
Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson, Alley Fight at MSG, 1981
Raven vs. Kane vs. The Big Show, WWF Hardcore Title, WrestleMania X-Seven
Goldust & Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins, Battleground 2013
Taz vs. Bam Bam Bigelow, ECW Living Dangerously, 1998
John Cena vs. Umaga, Last Man Standing match, Royal Rumble 2007
Kurt Angle’s run in ECW
Angle was sent to ECW in the draft that year, and he put a hard core edge to his gold medal style in the process. I felt like he really understood the ECW mindset, despite Paul Heyman’s absence. It turned out to be Angle’s last run with WWE before asking for his release.
Sting vs. Lord Steven Regal, WCW Great American Bash 1996
The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family: Elimination Chamber 2014
Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson, Alley Fight at MSG, 1981
Raven vs. Kane vs. The Big Show, WWF Hardcore Title, WrestleMania X-Seven
Goldust & Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins, Battleground 2013
Taz vs. Bam Bam Bigelow, ECW Living Dangerously, 1998
John Cena vs. Umaga, Last Man Standing match, Royal Rumble 2007
Kurt Angle’s run in ECW
United Empire vs. Bullet Club War Dogs, 5-on-5 timed-entry cage match, New Beginning at Sapporo 2024
New Japan pretty much never does stipulation or hardcore matches, so the announcement that they’d be doing what was a Wargames match in all but name to blow off the Will Ospreay/David Finlay feud was unexpected, and they definitely rose to the occasion. The match went over an hour long and was ridiculously brutal. By the time it was over the ring itself had been completely destroyed along with Ospreay’s team, and the final minutes of the match were like something out of an action movie where the mortally wounded hero has one chance left to make the villain bleed.
Sting vs. Lord Steven Regal, WCW Great American Bash 1996
The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family: Elimination Chamber 2014
Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson, Alley Fight at MSG, 1981
Raven vs. Kane vs. The Big Show, WWF Hardcore Title, WrestleMania X-Seven
Goldust & Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins, Battleground 2013
Taz vs. Bam Bam Bigelow, ECW Living Dangerously, 1998
John Cena vs. Umaga, Last Man Standing match, Royal Rumble 2007
Kurt Angle’s run in ECW
United Empire vs. Bullet Club War Dogs, 5-on-5 timed-entry cage match, New Beginning at Sapporo 2024
Goldberg vs. Diamond Dallas Page for the WCW Championship; Halloween Havoc 1998
Arguably the best match of Goldberg’s career. He gets injured when a spear hits the ring post and has trouble lifting Page up for the Jackhammer. DDP almost had everyone convinced he was ending the Streak.
Jinder went straight from being a jobber to WWE champion in like six weeks because Vince fell in love with his roided-up physique and was convinced he’d draw fans in India, despite his being 1) Canadian, 2) Sikh, and 3) a chickenshit heel who couldn’t win a match without the Great Khali cheating for him. As I quipped at the time, it was as if you wanted a patriotic American hero, and instead of a Hulk Hogan or John Cena you got a guy named Moshe Abramowitz who grew up in Crown Heights, speaks Yiddish at home, can only work Smackdown if his match is over before sunset, and cuts promos about how Gentiles suck and the Jews run the world. Thankfully they took the belt off him before the match with Lesnar they were planning.
The head booker of WCW, who wore a hockey mask whenever he “wrestled”, won the title in a cage match when he got put through the cage wall and landed on the floor behind it to “escape” the cage. He proceeded to immediately vacate the title at the next show.
The Fabulous Moolah; NWA/WWF Women’s World Championship
Vince McMahon didn’t become an abusive, egotistical sexual deviant on his own - he learned from the “best”. For 30 years Moolah monopolized the entire women’s wrestling industry as booker and champion, and had a level of control that any other promoter at the time could only dream of. She kept the business stuck in hair-pulling slapfights intended for sexual titillation, buried anyone who could actually wrestle better than her, refused to put anyone over, skimmed her wrestlers’ wages, and kept them indebted to her by getting them hooked on drugs which she pimped them out to audience members to pay for. Even when she was too old to maintain her stranglehold on the business she still managed to set women’s wrestling back by another decade by screwing Wendi Richter out of the title and driving her out of the WWF at a time when she was almost as big as Hulk Hogan. And Vince still tried to name a battle royal in her honor after she died and made the wrestlers do promos about how much she meant to wrestling before the fan backlash forced him to walk it back.
The Fabulous Moolah; NWA/WWF Women’s World Championship
David Arquette, WCW Championship
Nothing against the guy personally. It was the idea of #2 on this list to cross promote Arquette’s upcoming film Ready to Rumble. The movie still flopped and WCW went out of business 10 months later. At least Arquette donated his earnings to the families of deceased wrestlers.
Didn’t want the list finishing without putting him on here. To add to Russo and Arquette, there seems to have been a thing with giving non-wrestlers belts in the late 90s. On a September 1999 episode of SmackDown, Vince beat Triple H for the belt after interference from Austin. Can’t remember exactly what the storyline was, but I’m pretty sure he was required to relinquish it, in storyline, within 24 hours or something like that. He didn’t hold it very long.
Oh and while confirming the dates I was also reminded he also won the ECW championship in 2007. Fuck you Vince.
The Great Khali, WWE World Heavyweight Championship (2007)
Jack Swagger, WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Stan Stasiak, WWWF Championship (1973)
I think we’ve gotten all the low hanging fruit here. So let’s me throw out Stan “The Man” Stasiak who held the WWWF championship for 9 days in 1973. Everything ekedoplhin notes above about Jack swagger can equally be applied to stasiak. Perennial mid carder who won the belt from Pedro Morales, a fluke naturally, only to drop it to Bruno a week and a half later. I honestly know very little about him other than this otherwise interesting footnote in wrestling history.
I had to rack my brain for this one I have no idea who number 10 would be.
The Great Khali, WWE World Heavyweight Championship (2007)
Jack Swagger, WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Stan Stasiak, WWWF Championship (1973)
Hervina, WWF Women’s Championship
Played by Harvey Whippleman in drag. Yeah, a man won the Women’s Title. And he did it in a lumberjill snow bunny match, too.
New category:
The Match Makes the Man (or Woman)
Matches that made a wrestler’s career and turned them into a superstar
(Note: The person you’re talking about should be listed first)
Sting vs. Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, Clash of the Champions I
The 45-minute time-limit draw meant that Sting would not win his first world title on this day, but it put the Stinger on the map. Moreover, the show ran head-to-head with WrestleMania IV, and Sting vs. Flair was obviously a much better match than Savage vs. DiBiase for the WWF Championship, and its Hogan-centric booking.
The Match Makes the Man (or Woman)
Matches that made a wrestler’s career and turned them into a superstar
(Note: The person you’re talking about should be listed first)
Sting vs. Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, Clash of the Champions I
Darby Allin vs. Cody Rhodes, Fyter Fest 2019
AFAIK, this was Darby’s first time wrestling on TV after cutting his teeth on the Seattle indy scene and in EVOLVE. Cody took him to a time-limit draw that really showed off his talent and put a lot of shine on him, and of course he’s been a mainstay of AEW ever since.
The Match Makes the Man (or Woman)
Matches that made a wrestler’s career and turned them into a superstar
(Note: The person you’re talking about should be listed first)
Sting vs. Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, Clash of the Champions I
Darby Allin vs. Cody Rhodes, Fyter Fest 2019
Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart, Submission Match, WrestleMania 13
Austin had won titles before, of course, and had already given the Austin 3:16 speech after winning King of the Ring. But the visual of a defiant Austin refusing to tap out to the Sharpshooter as blood dripped down his face, and finally passing out from the pain, made him a legend and arguably jump-started the Attitude Era. The following year, he would win his first of six WWF Championships.