Even before Vince Russo came to World Championship Wrestling, WCW had a habit of booking crazy, ridiculous gimmick matches. I've already taken a look at two of their most outrageous in the Chamber of Horrors, where the goal was to electrocute your opponent, and the Doomsday Cage match, where they made up the rules as they went along, but there other matches the company did that are almost as wacky. This is one of them. Infamously known as the match that cost both the competitors their jobs in WCW, it's the King of the Road match! Consisting of Dustin Rhodes, the future Goldust, and the Blacktop Bully, the former Demolition member Smash, the match pits the two not in a ring, but in a cage on a moving flatbed truck filled with hay, with the winner being the first to get to the top of the cage and sound a horn.
This match is infamous for its completely ridiculous concept and, like I said, was the reason both Rhodes & Blacktop Bully were fired from WCW. WCW had a strict "no blood policy" at the time and after both men bladed during the match, they were sacked. It would be for the best for Rhodes, as he'd become one of the most memorable characters of the Attitude Era. How bad is the King of the Road match? Let's get into it.
So because this is WCW, we join the match in progress, with Rhodes already at the horn. He has to pretend to struggle to reach it for ages to allow the Bully to catch up to him. Bully takes the Rhodes back to the other end of the cage and throws him down. He runs back over to the other side and also takes ages to get to the horn so Rhodes can catch up and hit him with a fence post. The two continue fighting and it's boring beyond belief.
There's pretty much nothing to even say, it's just two dudes hitting each other with bales of hay and other stuff and stumbling around because, like I said, they're on a moving flatbed truck because this match is unbelievably dumb. At one point the truck has to come to a complete stop because a bus is driving by. Right after that, the feed cuts out for a few seconds a few times. This is stupid.
So after more insanely clunky offense and more horrible pretending to not be able to get the horn, Bully eventually knocks Rhodes down and sounds the horn, ending the first and thankfully the last King of the Road match.
The Verdict
Well sh*t, that was absolutely terrible. It wasn't even a fun-terrible, it was just flat out awful. Every move looked clunky and uncoordinated...because it was. How could the bookers possibly think this was even remotely a good idea? Awful.
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
- Triple H vs Sgt. Slaughter-D-Generation X: In Your House
- 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
- Paul Ellering vs Teddy Long-Capital Combat
- 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
- Finlay & Little Bastard vs The Boogeyman & Little Boogeyman-No Way Out 2007
- 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
- The Fabulous Freebirds vs The Renegade Warriors-Halloween Havoc 1990
- 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
- David Flair vs Kimberly Page-Mayhem 1999
- The Truth Commission vs The Disciples of Apocolypse-Survivor Series 1997
- Teddy Long vs Eric Bischoff-Survivor Series 2005
- 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
- Mr. T vs Roddy Piper-WrestleMania 2
- The Royal Family vs Clowns R' Us-Survivor Series 1994
- The Blacktop Bully vs Dustin Rhodes-Uncensored 1995
- 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...this can't be that bad...right?
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Fun fact: Mike Graham was driving the truck.
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