Worst AEW PPV Match Ever?
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The feud between Adam Cole and Chris Jericho leading into the AEW Double or Nothing PPV had been pretty good. Personal animosity had been built up amidst some fun matches and moments such as the debut of Roderick Strong, all opening the door for a big PPV bout. Cole and Jericho were to do battle in an Unsanctioned Match, which on paper promised brutality, violence, and more. With the event now over, some are looking at this match as among the very worst PPV bouts in AEW history. This poses the question of whether it really was bad enough to be considered the bottom of the barrel.
The Opening Few Minutes Of Adam Cole Vs. Chris Jericho Were A Mess
One issue that led to this match being less heated than it should have been was the go-home edition of Dynamite before this event. Due to Cole and Strong being outnumbered, Cole announced that he had enlisted the help of somebody. Fans thought it would be a returning Kyle O’Reilly, but in actual fact it was… Sabu? Sabu, despite having no affiliation to Cole, came out to the babyface team and was revealed to be the Special Guest Enforcer. Why an unsanctioned match needs an enforcer is anyone’s guess.
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At the beginning of the match, things got off to a very bad start. Despite this being a singles match, all members of the Jericho Appreciation Society came down to the ring, as did Sabu and Strong. This led to a multi-man brawl. To say the crowd was disinterested would be an understatement. For whatever reason, this chaos didn’t quite connect with the audience, especially when seeing Sabu (a man with a questionable history and far too old to be moving) brawling amongst all these much younger names. His splash through a table was hard to watch too.
This big brawl was done to get all the excess wrestlers out of the way, but to believe that four men could be sent away by Strong and aged Sabu was a little bit silly. Additionally, AEW only the other week proved that they could ban all the members from ringside during Jericho’s Falls Count Anywhere match with Strong, so why didn’t they just do it again? By the time the ringside area was cleared, things felt a bit awkward.
The Finish Of Adam Cole Vs. Chris Jericho Fell Flat
From there, Cole and Jericho had a match which plodded along without much animosity. For a feud that was supposed to be settled in an unsanctioned match, fans would have been forgiven if they thought that it was a comedy feud at times, especially with Jericho’s antics and comedic trash talk. There were some decent spots with a fire extinguisher (though it was used a bit too much) and the moment in which Britt Baker came out to beat Jericho with a kendo stick was a good moment too, but for the most part it didn’t reach the levels of violence many expected for the stipulation.
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AEW tried to pull off a finish for the match which saw Cole unable to stop beating down Jericho, becoming so incensed that he unlocked a whole new side to himself. On paper, this could have been good, but in execution it was flat. Cole wrapped his knee in a chain to deliver his finisher, but afterwards his leg got all caught up in the chain, making him unable to move properly at the end, which prevented his punches to Jericho from looking devastating. He delivered some weak blows which led to the referee calling for the bell… in an unsanctioned match where things shouldn’t really be stopped. It ended up feeling messy, and the crowd even booed the result. It wasn’t good, but was it the worst?
Is It Really The Worst AEW PPV Match Ever?
Although AEW’s PPVs have mostly been of a very high quality, with them often jam-packed to the brim with class matches up and down the card, there have been some certified stinkers now and again. For instance, Matt Hardy vs. Sammy Guevara, Britt Baker vs. Big Swole, Dustin Rhodes vs. Shawn Spears, and more have all been bad.
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It must be said that Cole and Jericho was arguably not quite as bad as those aforementioned bouts, but given who was involved and the expectations going in, it was far more of a let-down than any other match in AEW PPV history. It may not have been the absolute worst ever from bell to bell, but it is certainly still up there with the most underwhelming. Cole and Jericho are far better than this, with the stipulation, match production, and finish all letting them down.
