10 Worst WWE Matches Of 2025

All things considered, 2025 was a pretty good year for WWE inside the squared circle, although when WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H has a penchant for booking four or five match cards, the chances of getting a match that completely sucks decreases significantly.  

2025 might have had its share of bangers and a couple of genuine classics, there were also a few stinkers to be found, whether they were ruined by booking, botches or some other bad ideas.

These are the 10 Worst WWE Matches of 2025. 

10. Damian Priest & Rhea Ripley vs. Aleister Black & Zelina Vega - December 12 Episode Of SmackDown

The main event of the December 12, 2025 edition of SmackDown saw the Terror Twins taking on real-life husband and wife duo Aleister Black and Zelina Vega. 

A feud between the male contingent had been ongoing since the summer, but this was very far from a heated, hate-filled affair. Instead it was a very patchy effort that featured several noticeable botches and awkward moments, one of which looked like it could have ended Vega’s career. 

Zelina and Rhea were the focus of the match and worked the bulk of it. Despite Ripley having a very good year in the ring, she and Zelina could not get on the same page and things just seemed to get worse as they went on. 

The worst moment came when the two women made a mess of Vega countering a Riptide into a Code Red, resulting in a genuinely scary landing. 

When Black and Priest were in the ring, things were better, but even then there were a couple of sloppy moments, like the camera catching Black bumping well before being hit with a clothesline.  

The occasional cool spot – a stereo moonsault to the floor and stereo Razor’s Edges – weren’t enough to save this one. 

9. Becky Lynch vs. Nikki Bella - Clash In Paris

Wrestling fans love a good comeback story and, like her or not, it was heartening to see Nikki Bella return to WWE proper eight years after retiring due to neck issues. 

Even members of the so-called ‘Bella Army’ would probably be forced to admit that Nikki’s performance in her match with Women’s Intercontinental Champion Becky Lynch at Clash in Paris left a lot to be desired. 

Nikki was clearly rusty in her first major singles match since 2018, but nor did Lynch put forth a great effort on the night, as evidenced by her selling during the terrible announce table spot. 

Their worst offence, though, was Nikki’s attempted Disaster Kick which missed by a good two feet, as Wade Barrett on commentary did everything but use Jim Ross’s old ‘bowling shoe ugly’ line. 

After 13 long minutes, Lynch got the win with a backslide to mercifully end the contest.  

8. Tiffany Stratton vs. Nia Jax vs. Jade Cargill – September 26 episode of SmackDown

In the main event of the September 26, 2025 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany Stratton defended her WWE Women’s Title against Nia Jax and Jade Cargill in a triple threat match. 

The match they had laid out wasn’t bad, with some interesting spots and sequences designed to keep the audience guessing as to who would walk away with the belt. In practice, the match was noticeably sloppy in parts and completely fell apart, heading towards train wreck territory by the end.

While you could forgive some spots like Stratton whiffing on a dive, or them being a little slow in places, it was harder to look past Jade getting her face busted open after Nia forcefully threw her into the steel steps, or the total cluster that was the finish. 

In it, Tiffany broke up Cargill’s pin on Jax and then went for the cover herself, only for the referee to inexplicably stop counting the pin at two, claiming that Nia kicked out. Stratton improvised with the Prettiest Moonsault Ever to retain, but the match had already been ruined.

When WWE uploaded this match to their YouTube channel, they cleaned up the finish by removing the botched spot.

7. Solo Sikoa vs. Jacob Fatu - SummerSlam

On paper, a Steel Cage match for the United States Title between Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatu sounded like an appealing prospect of two meaty men beating the hell out of each other surrounded by steel. 

Rather than being heated and full of hatred and violence, this was just a slow, dull, plodding cage match that fans in the stadium didn’t really care much about until the overbooking really kicked in with all the interference.

The MFT run-ins were beyond played out at this point, and they only served to drag this match down further, especially when it was another example of how pointless a Steel Cage match is in WWE since they never seem to keep anybody out. 

There were some flashes of decent work on display but between the interference, the dumb handcuff spot immediately following a match where one of the participants was handcuffed for a chunk of it, and the lame ending, this was a huge disappointment.

6. Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena - Wrestlepalooza

WWE angered many fans by bringing Brock Lesnar back – two years after his last appearance – to attack John Cena after Big Match John had dropped the WWE Title to Cody Rhodes in the main event of SummerSlam.

With Cena running it back with some of his greatest rivals during his The Final Time is Now retirement tour, WWE booked the 17-time world champion against The Beast in the opener of Wrestlepalooza in their first pay-per-view on ESPN Unlimited. 

While Brock steamrolling and squashing Cena with suplexes and F5s might have been shocking when it happened at SummerSlam 2014, 11 years later there was a real case of we've seen it all before. 

This was a predicable and uninspired contest that felt like a total waste of one of Cena’s last matches ever. Brock didn’t need ‘the rub’ at this stage in the game, and Cena, a babyface once more, didn’t need to get battered like this a couple of months before hanging up the jorts for good. 

5. Karrion Kross vs. Sami Zayn - SummerSlam

There was a groundswell of support for Karrion Kross in 2025, with fans vocally getting behind a talent that they felt had not received the push his talent and efforts deserved. 

They may have liked the promos and the character work, but when the bell rang at SummerSlam 2025, Kross didn’t put together his finest in-ring work. Matched against Sami Zayn (who had a terrific 2025 in the ring), they didn’t display any chemistry inside the squared circle. Their storyline hadn’t been great either, and the drama of ‘will Sami use the steel pipe?’ did not make for a compelling thread at the pay-per-view.

Altogether, the match was boring and dragged, feeling as though it lasted double the eight minutes they were given, before Zayn cleanly pinned Kross in what ended up being Karrion's final match before his WWE contract expired.  

4. John Cena vs. R-Truth - June 20 episode of SmackDown

On June 1, 2025, R-Truth informed fans that WWE were not going to renew his contract and he would leave the company upon its expiry, bringing to an end his 17-year run. 

In that time, Truth had built up a lot of goodwill with WWE fans, who were angry to see the company unceremoniously get rid of him. Their voices were heard and Truth was quickly brought back, though not as the happy-go-lucky comedy character he had been before.

A motivated Ron Killings going up against a heel John Cena could have been something special, but their match on the June 20 edition of SmackDown was anything but. 

They did barely anything for the six minutes they were out there, their exchanges lacking any fire or intensity. It wasn't a match that was full of noticeable mistakes or anything like that, but it was just an arbitrary, go-through-the-motions TV affair that ended with a rotten disqualification and clearly served only as a pretext for the post-match angle with CM Punk and Cena's recreation of Punk's pipe bomb promo.

This was a major missed opportunity that felt like another waste of one of Cena’s limited dates.

3. Tiffany Stratton vs. Charlotte Flair - WrestleMania 41

The fact that Tiffany Stratton and Charlotte Flair’s WrestleMania WWE Women’s Title match took place at all is something of a minor miracle, given their promo segment that went completely off the rails and threatened to put WWE’s booking in danger. 

While they were able to put their personal feelings to one side and work together in the ring as scheduled, there was not to be a miracle when it came to the match fulfilling its promise, as it never threatened to get good. 

They had 20 minutes, but the two talents lacked chemistry, and the match was sloppy, with noticeably awkward exchanges and some instances of clear sandbagging.

They did some athletic stuff because they’re both very athletic, but the match fell way below what Flair and Stratton should be capable of producing together. 

2. Zelina Vega vs. Chelsea Green - May 24 episode of Saturday Night's Main Event

Chelsea Green and Zelina Vega’s series over the Women’s United States Championship failed to inspire in-ring classics. Their non-title match on the April 11 edition of SmackDown was a bad omen, as Chelsea was shoot counted out after only a minute when she didn’t return to the ring in time, putting a premature end to a bout that was planned to go longer. 

Their Saturday Night’s Main Event match, which did go longer, was particularly poor, however, as they had very little chemistry on an off-night, which resulted in some very sloppy and mistimed sequences. 

The worst of the botches came just before the finish, as Vega messed up a 619 and, in her attempt to salvage the spot, kicked Green in the nose, breaking it.

The top-rope Code Red looked nice, but it wasn’t enough to save what had been a poor outing overall.

1. John Cena vs. Cody Rhodes - WrestleMania 41

If there is one match you don’t want to get wrong, it’s the main event of WrestleMania, especially if this is John Cena’s last-ever WrestleMania and the match in which he breaks the record to win his 17th world title. 

Unfortunately, WWE got it all wrong and ruined what should have been an epic match and moment. 

Unlike the explosive battle they later had at SummerSlam, this one was slow, dull and felt like it would never end. Cena, working as a heel for the first time in forever, was on top for most of the match and dictated a glacial pace. This would have been fine, in theory, had Cody made a fiery comeback, but that isn't what we got.

Instead of The Rock making an appearance, fans were treated to Travis Scott, who WWE shoehorned into this whole storyline. His involvement then led to an awful finish which only worsened once Scott was down as Cody, inexplicably, declined to hit Cena with the WWE Title belt despite Cena being awful to him for a month and this being the same Cody who vowed to do whatever it took to beat Kevin Owens just months earlier. Cena, of course, seized his opportunity with a low blow and belt shot for the deflating win. 

An incredibly dumb finish to what had been one of the most disappointing WrestleMania main events ever.