Remember that time the Ultimate Warrior came back in 1996 and everything he did was terrible? Well, it happened...boy, did it happen. Warrior returned to the WWF at WrestleMania XII for the infamous match with Triple H (then Hunter Hearst Helmsley) where he no sold a Pedigree and beat him in under two minutes:
After that, Warrior proceeded to have only seven more matches, two of which weren't shown on TV or pay-per-view, and all of which were bad before being fired only four months after his return. It's a period of time I'm pretty sure everyone wants to forget. Aside from the aforementioned match with Triple H, arguably the worst match from this run was his match with Goldust at In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies, where he challenged for the Intercontinental Championship. Knowing what I know about Warrior's last WWF run, I have a feeling this won't be good. Let's get into this.
So before the match starts, a large man in a suit and fedora attempts to get in the ring and distracts the Warrior. Wikipedia lists him as "Bodyguard", but apparently he is actually the man behind one of the worst gimmicks in wrestling history...Mantaur!
Goldust, who has his leg bandaged up, tries to blindside him, but Warrior turns and points at Goldust, who flees the ring and he and his valet Marlena run up the ramp. Marlena drops her cigar and Warrior picks it up and smokes it before getting back in the ring. Warrior then takes Goldust's director's chair from ringside and brings it into the ring. He then takes Goldust's wig and robe and places them on the chair. How Goldust has not been counted out yet is beyond me. Warrior then sits in Goldust's chair, which makes Goldust yell "AHH, THAT'S TOO MUCH!" Where's the wrestling?
We then get the possibly the worst chant in wrestling history. You see, a big part of Goldust's original gimmick was how he play mind games through lewd acts towards other wrestlers. Naturally, people thought Goldust was gay. That being said, the crowd started chanting the F-slur at him. I get it, it was 1996 and people weren't as accepting of homosexuality as we are in 2016, but still, this is awful. Also, Warrior eggs on these chants. The Ultimate Warrior doesn't like gay people? Huh, never would have guessed.
So after over two minutes of teasing whether or not he's going to wrestle, he grabs the mic and threatens to come into the audience and kiss everyone if they don't stop yelling. It's weird, but funny. Goldust and Marlena both get in the ring to get their stuff back. Warrior personally puts Goldust's robe back on him and Goldust sits in his chair. He offers his hand for Warrior to kiss, so Warrior jabs the cigar into his hand and clotheslines him out of the chair. Goldust rolls out and he and Marlena run to the back, getting counted out in the process. Warrior never even took off his entrance jacket:
I'm not exactly sure why Goldust leaving the ring the second time constituted a countout and not the last two and a half minutes of Goldust walking up and down the ramp, but whatever. Also, HOW DOES THIS EVEN COUNT AS A MATCH! THEY NEVER WRESTLED! THEY DID ONE MOVE AND ENDED ON A COUNTOUT! HOW IS THIS A MATCH! And before anyone thinks "Well, maybe the match never actually started." NOPE! It's listed on both Wikipedia and The Internet Wrestling Database as going 7 minutes and 38 seconds. This counted as an actual match. Piss off.
After the "match", Warrior goes after and beats up the bodyguard, dropping him with a bodyslam. At this point, Howard Finkel announces Warrior as the winner by countout, which surprises Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler on commentary, who wonder if this was an actual match. We all do, guys. We all do.
The Verdict
What a load of sh*t. Whether Goldust was too hurt to actually wrestle or they had to work around Warrior's inability to work long match doesn't matter, there's no excuse for booking something like this. This was a waste of 8 minutes and there wasn't even any wrestling. How this can even count as a match makes zero sense. Forget Kevin Nash and his Wizard of Oz bullsh*t, at least that had an actual match. A short match, but a match. This was nothing but bullsh*t. The only reason this match isn't the worst is because I'd rather watch no wrestling then terrible wrestling.
Rankings (Best to Worst)
- Too Much vs Al Snow & Head-King of the Ring 1998
- Vampiro vs Sting-Great American Bash 2000
- T&A vs Head Cheese-WrestleMania 2000
- Konnan vs One Man Gang-SuperBrawl VI
- Ultimate Warrior vs Hercules-WrestleMania IV
- Rick Rude vs Hawk-Clash of the Champions XXV
- Shelton Benjamin vs Viscera-New Year's Revolution 2006
- The Chamber of Horrors-Halloween Havoc 1991
- The Natural Disasters vs Money Inc.-WrestleMania VIII
- ODB, Taylor Wilde, and Roxxi vs The Kongtourage-Genesis 2009
- Ivory vs Tori-SummerSlam 1999
- Nikita Koloff vs Bobby Eaton-Bunkhouse Stampede
- Total Divas vs Other Divas-Survivor Series 2013
- The Oddities vs Kaientai-SummerSlam 1998
- Hulk Hogan vs Sid Justice-WrestleMania VIII
- Dusty Rhodes vs Big Boss Man-Saturday Night's Main Event (10/31/1989)
- Hollywood Hogan vs The Giant-Hog Wild
- Hollywood Hogan vs The Giant-Souled Out 1997
- Dustin Rhodes & King Kong vs Awesome Kong & The Equalizer-Battlebowl
- Jake Roberts vs Andre the Giant-WrestleMania V
- Yokozuna vs King Mabel-In Your House 4
- Sting & Hawk vs Meng & Kurasawa-Clash of the Champions XXXI
- Hulk Hogan vs Randy Savage-Uncensored 1998
- Al Snow vs Big Boss Man-Unforgiven 1999
- Mickie James vs Ashley-Royal Rumble 2006
- Christy Hemme vs Big Fat Oily Guy-Against All Odds 2007
- Team WCW vs nWo Wolfpac vs nWo Hollywood-Fall Brawl 1998
- Vampiro vs Oklahoma-Starrcade 1999
- Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant-WrestleMania III
- Junkyard Dog vs Moondog Spot-Wrestling Classic
- Hiroshi Wajima vs Tom Magee-All Japan Pro Wrestling 1988
- Jim Steele vs The Equalizer-SuperBrawl IV
- Edge vs Triple H vs Vladimir Kozlov-Survivor Series 2008
- Kevin Sullivan vs Dave Sullivan-SuperBrawl V
- Steve McMichael vs Brian Adams-Road Wild 1998
- Scott Hall vs Roddy Piper-SuperBrawl IX
- PN News & Bobby Eaton vs Steve Austin & Terrance Taylor-Great American Bash 1991
- Scott Steiner vs Sid Vicious vs Jeff Jarrett vs Road Warrior Animal-Sin
- Hollywood Hogan vs Roddy Piper-SuperBrawl 1997
- Batista vs The Great Khali-SummerSlam 2007
- Sable vs Tori-WrestleMania XV
- Sid Vicious vs The Nightstalker-Clash of the Champions XIII
- The 8-Divas Tag Match-Survivor Series 1999
- Rick Rude vs Masahiro Chono-Halloween Havoc 1992
- Mike Awesome vs Vampiro-Halloween Havoc 2000
- Bray Wyatt vs John Cena-Extreme Rules 2014
- Mabel vs The Undertaker-King of the Ring 1995
- Wendi Richter vs The Fabulous Moolah-The Brawl to End it All
- Greg Valentine vs George Steele-Heroes of Wrestling
- Abdullah the Butcher vs One Man Gang-Heroes of Wrestling
- Hollywood Hogan vs The Warrior-Halloween Havoc 1998
- The Royal Family vs Clowns R' Us-Survivor Series 1994
- Sting vs Jeff Hardy-Victory Road 2011
- Oz vs Tim Parker-SuperBrawl
- Ultimate Warrior vs Andre the Giant-Saturday Night's Main Event (11/25/1989)
- The Doomsday Cage Match-Uncensored 1996
- Kaitlyn vs Maxine-NXT (10/19/10)
- Sabu vs The Sandman-November to Remember 1997
- James Storm vs Chris Harris-Lockdown 2007
- John Laurinaitis vs John Cena-Over the Limit 2012
- Ultimate Warrior vs Goldust-In Your House 7
- Los Villanos vs Los Psycho Circus-Triplemania XXIII
- Jenna Morasca vs Sharmell-Victory Road 2009
And up next is...
Oh great, now the managers are going to wrestle.
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I agree with you on how the crowd chanting USA at Kozlov was stupid. I remember they did the same thing to Muhammad Hassan even though he said he was an Arab-American.
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