I actually went back to the wheel for this one. Been a while since I touched the wheel, and it's shown me a match that I didn't know about! This is a match between Konnan and Ciber from AAA in 2010. Given that Konnan's bad ideas in AAA are particularly in the zeitgeist right now, there's surely no better time. This is a lumberjack match, where Konnan's got the Legion Extranjera on his side (basically whatever rudos/foreigners they could find) and Ciber's got Psycho Circus. Let's see what this is.

Gotta love the blatant disregard for copyright law that lets Konnan come out to Eye of the Tiger. The most unoriginal and egomaniac pick for an entrance theme ever. While they're clearing the goons out of the ring, Konnan tosses powder in Ciber's face which the camera mostly misses. Konnan just stands and punches, and then there's a clip, which basically tells me there was nothing of interest that happened in the intervening minutes. Konnan tosses Ciber out to the rudo lumberjacks. Then another clip. Then Ciber tosses Konnan to the clowns. Meanwhile, on the inside, the ref is totally ignoring the Legion attacking Ciber. He's looking everywhere but the ring. And then he's watching the interference happen. I think that may be Hijo del Tirantes, which would track.

Another clip, then Ciber's gently bashing Konnan's face on a baking tray on the apron. And another clip. Now Konnan's being laid out by the lesser Clowns while Psycho Clown goes up top for a Dudley-style cock headbutt. Ref sees this, by the way. Guess AAA rules are just "do whatever the hell you want". Konnan gives Ciber an unprotected chair to the head for a two count. Clip again. Of all the people, RAIN comes out and piggybacks Ciber to stop her attacking Konnan. In comes CHRISTINA VON EERIE, who gets a big boot (well a tiny boot) before Ciber lightly DDTs Rain. There was no impact in it at all. CIBER CHOKESLAMS THE REF which sets up a big old brawl. He then chokeslams Konnan (Konnan gets less height than a ref, which is shameful). Second ref comes in to count the pin, and give Ciber the win.

Post match the Legion attack again, and out comes El Mesias to make the save. A masked man comes out with a chair, and clips Mesias in the tailbone. He gently brushes Mesias with a chair, then reveals himself as L.A. PARK! THE ORIGINAL LA PARKA! The replacement Parka comes out and they scrap a bit. This is how they set up Parka vs. Parka for the name at TripleMania. Which, by the way, didn't matter because there was a fuck finish. This company.

Less "bad", more "bizarre". Konnan's definitely not a wrestler at this stage of his career, not being able to jump properly, but I think the match benefit from maybe 15 minutes of emptiness not being broadcast.

I'm very aware of the approaching death of the international WWE Network in favour of whatever the hell Netflix is going to do, so I'd better get a bit of a shift on, hadn't I? Time to look at this... which is the setup to a worse match later! Yoko is allegedly a dominant champion, and Taker is a babyface. They battled at the Survivor Series, where Taker was part of the All-American team. Death is American as apple pie apparently. And now they're doing this.

Champ out first, because Taker is the real star when it comes to casket matches. For all those subscribers to Taker Entrance Length Theory, time from first gong to bell is 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Seems legit. Even after that there's a good 30 seconds of time wasting as Taker stares at Bearer and the urn, which is then followed by a staredown. Taker brings some throat thrusts, clotheslines, then a jumping clothesline that downs Yokozuna. Yoko rolls out and is so dazed he runs into the ring post. Brawl on the outside, where Taker no-sells a stair bash. Taker goes Old School on the back of Yoko's neck, so Yoko sells... the front. Great stuff.

To the outside where Taker catches Yoko's chair shot and hits him on the top of the head unprotected. He then uses a non-folding chair. Yoko tosses salt in Taker's eyes to get the edge, and now Taker starts selling. "Neither one of them want to be buried" says DiBiase on commentary. I'm not sure that was intentional. Crowd's now chanting USA for an undead zombie. Yoko tries to roll Taker into the casket but he gets to his knees in time. He's up, and now it's a battle of throat thrusts vs. forearm clubs. Belly-to-belly by Yoko, but Taker sits up and gives an incredibly low-elevation chokeslam (somehow worse than Konnan's elevation) followed by a jumping DDT.

Yoko's rolled into the casket, but Taker doesn't manage to close the lid because Crush shows up! Crush gets beaten up pretty easily, though. That's not the end of the interference because the GREAT KABUKI runs in! I swear to fuck, I never expected that! And Genichiro Tenryu's here too! Both legit Japanese people get beaten off but before Taker can go to the casket Bam Bam Bigelow appears! It's now 4-on-1, and Fuji has stolen the urn! Yokozuna is getting up! Paul Bearer hits Fuji and Jim Cornette with the urn! Now that Bearer has the urn, Taker powers up! Kabuki briefly falls into the casket! Adam Bomb shows up somehow. Crush holds Taker back so Bigelow can hit him with the salt container but it's That Spot and Crush gets nailed instead.

Jeff Jarrett's here too! He gets plucked out of the sky by a throat thrust! Yokozuna has recovered, and now the Headshrinkers are out! Diesel's here too! Taker has now succumbed to an honest-to-goodness 10-on-1 assault, and is in the casket... no, he gets to his feet! He keeps fighting! Yoko steals the urn and hits Bearer, then Taker with that bit of gold. Yoko opens the urn to let all the magic smoke come out, so I guess this means Taker is just a regular man now? The entire heel roster of the WWF gathers to get Taker in the casket and lock it down once and for all. Post-match more magic smoke comes out of the casket, then Taker cuts a spoopy ghost promo on the tron before his spirit ascends to heaven/his body is lifted to the rafters (delete as appropriate).

Fucking hell that was weird wasn't it? About six minutes of generic big man stuff followed by about ten minutes of a cavalcade of interference! This was apparently a ploy to let the real Taker take a rest for a while... and his return would produce a steaming pile of match in the summer.

Okay, so. The Undertaker had disappeared, but there were reports he'd been sighted again. Not least Ted DiBiase, who took it upon himself to reveal Taker was under his employ. Though it seemed Taker had gotten shorter, and his face had morphed into that of SMW regular "Primetime" Brian Lee. Oh, and he was worse at wrestling. This was going to be solved at SummerSlam '94, in the BRAND NEW United Center in Chicago, in the main event. And also by Leslie Nielsen, who was appearing in a weird comedy tie-in to push the then-recent Naked Gun 33 1⁄3: The Final Insult. 1994 was not a good year. Let's watch what happens when real Taker meets less-real Taker.

DiBiase comes out to personally introduce his Taker. The fake Taker (henceforth Faker) seems to have gotten Taker's habit of stalling his entrances down, as we hear the shitty MIDI keyboard version of Taker's theme for about two minutes. Real Taker, however, gets TWO entrances: Paul Bearer coming down with a casket and a new-and-improved urn, and Bearer letting the light out of the urn to summon Taker. In total, it takes upwards of seven minutes.

The Takers are nose to nose, and real Taker does the throat-slit gesture. Very kind of Faker to wear grey gloves and boots so I can more easily tell them apart. Basic brawling until Taker hits a big boot and chop to send Faker out. Faker wants the urn, but Taker grabs him by the hair. Suplex over the ropes by Taker. He looks like he's going for a chokeslam, but he tosses Faker out. A bit of slow brawling on the outside. Taker goes for chest clubs but Faker snaps him against the ropes. Faker tries to go Old School, but Taker tosses him off the top rope, before doing that rope-walk chop successfully. Faker tries to flapjack Taker across the rope but just stumbles.

Brawling. Faker eventually drops Taker with a clothesline, but misses with the elbow because Taker sits up. Taker hits, allegedly a clothesline, but it looked like more of a shove. He tries to clothesline Faker out but Faker ducks. Vince on commentary draws attention to the quiet of the crowd as Faker bashes Taker against the furniture. Faker keeps hitting Taker, and he won't stay down, and Faker looks frustrated. He ducks a Taker clothesline and hits the chokeslam. He takes too long to pin, and Taker sits up again... into a Tombstone. Faker still sucks at pinning Taker in a timely manner, Taker sits up again... Tombstone attempt, reversed into the real Taker's Tombstone. And then two more. Rest. In. Peace.

Yeah that match was every bit as bad as I'd expected. These two guys just could not work together, surprising number of botches.

Oh yeah, it's May 19, isn't it? Which reminds me, there's another instance where a Brother of Destruction fought an impostor version of himself. May 19 is an important date for Kane, ostensibly as it was the release date of See No Evil, but officially the date his family got burned alive. And then a fake version of masked Kane showed up, played by Luke Gallows in a cheap costume and bad wig. And then they wrestled. Let's try to endure this.

According to JR, Kane knows who's behind the mask... so Festus is a figure from his past now? Fake Kane (henceforth Fane) comes out, appropriately, to the MIDI keyboard version of Kane's theme. Kane kicks off with THROAT THRUSTS, as if I hadn't seen enough of those already. Fane sits up but eats a bunch of more Kane offence. On the outside, Fane hits a clothesline, then they go inside and Fane goozles Kane (and threatens the referee). Kane tries to remove the mask, but turns his back for too long and eats a sidewalk slam. Fane goes for that classic Kane move, a BOOT CHOKE. And a ROPE CHOKE. "Exactly like Kane", says Lawler, after which Fane hits a chop drop.

Kane's back in with those thrusts. "Boring" chants start to ring out. I miss those. Why does nobody do those in modern WWE, when say, Karrion Kross shows up? Fane brings the slow slugs, and a chinlock, until Kane backs him into the corner. Fane teases the chokeslam but Kane thumbs him in the eyes. Fane sets up a back body drop but Kane DDTs him. So... many... corner charges. "Take the mask off" chants, but Kane ignores them and hits a sidewalk slam. Kane misses a chokeslam attempt, then counters another from Fane.

Fane hits a big boot, goes to the top rope, but Kane neutralises him and gives him... some sort of suplex or slam. Looked botched. Kane tries a chokeslam, but can't do it. He attempts a clothesline off the top, but Fane catches him with a chokeslam out of nowhere. To abject silence.

Yawn.

King of the Ring's fast approaching, and it's taking place in beautiful, progressive [REDACTED] again this year. So I'd be completely mental if I didn't take a look back at the worst King. Who is somehow not Billy Gunn. Or Baron Corbin. Or Bad News Barrett. There's been a shocking number of shit Kings, hasn't there? But no, it's Mabel. And we're going to look at this from the beginning, his first-round match against Taker. Minus one and a half stars from Dave. Let's see why.

Mid-entrance, Stephanie Wiand tries to interview Mabel, and I forgot about Stephanie Wiand. The answer to the rhetorical question "what could possibly be more annoying than one Todd Pettengill?". Mabel says he's going straight to the finals (the winner of this match was set to face Shawn Michaels or Kama but they went to a time limit draw). For all you Taker entrance clock-watchers, the length of the entrance this time around is just over 3 minutes.

Taker starting off with what else but THROAT THRUSTS! He needs two clotheslines and a shoulderblock to down Mabel, then he goes Old School. Mabel downs Taker with a... ripcord uranage? Whatever it is it looks awkward. Taker sits up though. He stays on his feet from a Mabel clothesline to the outside, but soon after Taker's foot gets tied in the rope. While he's hanging upside down Mabel gently nudges him with his knees. Taker gets a foot up, then the throat thrusts continue. Oh, and choke spots. I wasn't going to mention the choking in the corner, but there is a LOT of that. Mo distracts Taker so Mabel can hit a belly-to-belly suplex.

There then follows a minute-long camel clutch. Maybe it wasn't intended as such, but what is a camel clutch if not a chinlock while sitting on the other guy's back? Paul Bearer desperately tries to get the crowd interested. Mabel tosses Taker out and slowly follows him around the ring for a steel steps face-bash. Mo is nearly caught attacking Taker. As Taker tries to return to the ring, Mabel STEPS ON HIM. That's the level of wrestling acumen we're on. Mabel's vertical suplex gets two. He then slams Taker and sits down on him for another two. Taker gets a boot up for the world's slowest-moving corner splash and clotheslines Mabel down, but Mabel strolls into hitting Taker with a piledriver for a third two-count in quick succession.

Double down, which Michael Hayes on commentary assesses as "amazing". Taker's meant to roll away from a Mabel elbow drop but he's slightly late so the elbow visibly hits him anyway. Taker hits his own corner splash, then returns to choking. Mabel whips Taker into the ref, which bumps him. Taker hits the "you're too big for the Tombstone" flying clothesline and a low-elevation chokeslam (hey, at least it's better than Yoko's or Konnan's). But of course, there's no ref for the pin. Kama attacks Taker from behind, Mabel hits a leg drop, Mo wakes the ref, and Mabel is through.

That really was a load of shit, as expected from the immobile Mabel. Taker wasn't exactly on form either, though. And this is only the start of this horribleness.

So we go straight to the final, as Mabel faces a man who's wrestling for the fourth time this night. This would be a great underdog story, but we know the way this is going. Let's endure it.

Vega is out with Razor Ramon. A real Puerto Rican with a fake Puerto Rican. A few lock-ups where Mabel shoves Vega around, but Mabel misses a corner charge and Vega comes in with chops and fists. Mabel misses a corner clothesline because Vega ducks. He does, however, get the edge because of an eye rake. Vega rolls away from a Mabel elbow drop and clotheslines him out. Mabel yanks Vega out with him, and a bit of brawling on the outside ensues. Both men go into the steps. Rope choke by Mabel.

And then we get a bearhug! Because the New Generation is the 1970s! The bearhug lasts a full two minutes, and it's somehow even more boring than your average bearhug because (1) Mabel doesn't really sell that he's trying to hurt Vega and (2) Vega does very little to try and fight out of it until the last few seconds. Mabel whips Vega into the corner and puts him into ANOTHER BEARHUG! The crowd is turning ugly. Vega gets out but Mabel hits a jumping clothesline (for a certain value of "jumping"). As Mabel slaps on a minute-long chinlock, Razor is trying his utmost to keep the crowd invested. And they do... by chanting for ECW! Let's look at the most recent ECW card, shall we?

• Sandman (c) vs. Tommy Dreamer for the ECW World Heavyweight Title
• The Public Enemy (c) vs. Raven/Stevie Richards for the ECW World Tag Team Titles
• Axl Rotten vs. Ian Rotten in a Barbed Wire Baseball Bat Match

Yeah, even as someone who isn't a fan of the Public Enemy, I can see why that would inspire more than a Mabel rest hold festival. Speaking of Mabel, he misses a corner splash and Vega gets a surprise roll-up for two. Vega's spin kick knocks Mabel down for another two. Vega then tries to crossbody a larger man, gets slammed, and eats a splash to hand Mabel the Kingdom. Mabel and Mo beat on Razor (and the 1-2-3 Kid) after the bell, because making everyone miserable is apparently the goal here.

1995 was an awful year. I never want to think about Mabel again. But I have to. Ugh.

Of course, per tradition, King of the Ring builds up to the big title match at SummerSlam! And the champ at the time was Diesel, so we get this! I can't imagine this will creep into the positive stars (no matter what Dave and his half-star rating says). The question is, how low can we go?

Mabel is carried on one of those litters, by four of the world's strongest men apparently. He takes Diesel's belt off him and poses with it despite not, you know, having won yet. Diesel comes in with the brawling but Mabel shoulderblocks him down. He's gonna be the first black champion, apparently. He gets some chops in along with CORNER CHOKING (which he learned from Taker, of course). Diesel gets a corner clothesline or two and some elbows. He tries to slam Mabel, but Mabel's just too heavy. Diesel repeatedly tries to down Mabel, and manages to send him to the outside with a shoulderblock to the back. After a bit of standing around, Diesel does an honest to goodness PLANCHA over the ropes! Presumably deciding immediately after that he'll never do it again.

Mabel whips Diesel into the ring post, but Diesel gets a boot up before Mabel can splash him into it again. Diesel brawls a bit until Mabel whips him into an exposed turnbuckle. The problem is that the exposing of the turnbuckle happened off-screen. Maybe Mo did it, or maybe not, it will always be a mystery. Mabel side slams Diesel for two, then hits THAT butt splash. Dropping his entire weight on Diesel, crushing his lower spine. "GOD DAMMIT! FUCK! FUCK!" shouts Diesel into the canvas as he thinks of how best to use his backstage pull to kill Mabel's push. Justified, if you ask me. Mabel uses a nerve hold(?) and chinlock in that position, Diesel fights out, but gets rammed into the exposed buckle for two.

Mabel goes for the slam and elbow drop, but accidentally bumps the ref in the process. This lets Sir Mo come in for a Men on a Mission double-team. Lex Luger shows up for the save... oh, wait, no, Diesel decides he doesn't want another babyface helping him and beats Luger up. This is probably the point Luger makes plans to travel to the Mall of America for the first Nitro. Mabel proceeds to give Diesel a leg drop on the outside. Luger then shows up again and chase Mo to the back. Belly-to-belly by Mabel, slow count, Diesel kicks out! Diesel then narrowly avoids a second rope splash from Mabel, then hits the "you're too big for the Jackknife" flying clothesline to finish it.

Somehow even worse than Mabel vs. Vega. Mabel botching, legit injuring the champion, then that stupid finish with everyone hating Luger.

And so we come to the end of King Mabel's adventure. Or not, but we've seen the end already. And the Survivor Series match is apparently fine ignoring the fact that Mabel legit hurt Taker, second major guy he injured in the space of a few months. He's up against Yokozuna, in the ultimate in sphere-on-sphere action. It's rated 0.93 on Cagematch, and earned minus 2 Dave stars! Let's go.

Neckbeard Yoko looks so wrong. He's talking tactics with Cornette and Fuji for a while before the two big dudes start flailing away at each other. Mabel's forearms look so low impact. Yoko clotheslines Mabel out so he can stall for time and wander on the outside. Once he's in, Yoko starts stalling too, discussing with his seconds again! Mabel gets an eye rake, ducks Yoko's clothesline, and hits one of his own. Mabel clotheslines Yoko to the outside. Yoko looks exhausted already, and it's not been 2 minutes. Mabel brings the beatdown in the corner, jiving about afterward, goes for a corner splash, but Yoko hits a clothesline. Both men miss leg drops.

Yoko brings the forearms, which Mabel no-sells. Series of headbutts (I guess since Yoko's not a Samoan in kayfabe, headbutts work on him?) then Mabel tries a bulldog, which Yoko doesn't even bother taking. Guess he ate Jackie Gayda this morning. On the outside, Yoko sends Mabel into the ring post while Mo gives the business to Yoko's seconds. Yoko attacks Jim Cornette, and it's a double count-out. Back in the ring, they stare down as the seconds bicker... and hug it out! Heel unity! That was fucking stupid!

Zero action, fuck finish, who wins? No one. Especially not me.

I was going to watch New Blood Rising today (get a few of the worst shit of all time knocked out) but King and Queen of the Ring is today, so I have to take a look at another example of a failure King. In this case: King Corbin! We're going to be looking for the first time at the surreal Mania 36, where the Grandest Stage of Them All was an empty Performance Center building. Where King Corbin and Elias wrestled to silence. I've seen people call this the worst Mania. Not 2, not 4, not 9, or 11, or 15, or even 27. This one. I can never hate this Mania, though. It gave us the Firefly Funhouse Match. It did, however, give us this.

Clearly JBL was a huge fan of Corbin before he started that rubbish run managing him in about 2022. We get a clip of Corbin shoving Elias off the PC crows nest (thanks to camera tricks) and Corbin wants the ref to administer a count of ten. Somehow while being a worse promo than Robbie E when he did that at Against All Odds 2011. Elias shows up and smashes a guitar over him. One sequence of brawling on the outside later, Corbin's trying to stand up, and we have a match!

Corbin's fighting from underneath and Elias is going for boot chokes. I know there's no crowd and all, but that's no excuse to have Elias heeling against Corbin. Corbin tosses Elias outside, and there's another count. Corbin shoves Elias' shoulder into the post... the non-injured shoulder. Soon after, Elias fails to do the same, as Corbin slides around the post and comes back in with a big old lariat for two. Now, Corbin's targeting the injured shoulder, and getting into it with commentary. Elias again smashes the wrong shoulder into the post. Commentary tries to sell it as Corbin trying to injure both shoulders, but he's targeting the right shoulder exclusively so I'm considering it a botch.

Finally Elias gets to whip Corbin into the post, and there's a double down. "It's got to be difficult to rally yourself without the WWE Universe" -Cole. Also, it's difficult to watch rallying spots with only the sound of men grunting. Elias is laying in kicks, tearing the shirt off, going wild. He hits a Roll of the Dice but Corbin kicks out. Elias teases the elbow drop but Corbin dodges. Deep Six, Elias kicks out. Corbin tries to do the run-around-the-post lariat again but Elias gets a high knee. Corbin's too far away for an elbow drop attempt, and he's resisting Elias' attempts to drag him into position. Corbin gets the feet on the ropes, ref spots it... Elias rolls Corbin up with a handful of tights and wins it!

Really generic match, Elias sold the wrong shoulder the whole time, and then won like a heel.