10 Worst WWE Raw Main Events

WWE Raw is the longest-running weekly episodic TV show in history. With so many shows having been produced, it's hardly a surprise that the quality of Raw’s main events have fluctuated from all-time classics to irredeemable duds, and everything in-between. 

Whether it was due to dodgy booking, poor action or the sheer concept itself, you'll have a tough him finding worse than these.

These are the 10 Worst WWE Raw Main Events. 

10. Triple H vs. Curtis Axel - May 20, 2013

There was a time during his so-called Reign of Terror where Triple H would routinely bookend WWE Raw with a 20-minute promo and a main event match or segment, with some backstage segments sprinkled in throughout for good measure. 

The Game wasn’t quite so ubiquitous when he clashed with soon-to-be Intercontinental Champion Curtis Axel in the show-closer on May 20, 2013, but that doesn’t mean the match was good.

This was the first match for Axel under his new persona, the former Michael McGillicutty freshly repackaged as a Paul Heyman Guy and pushed as a potential headline star. Axel promptly failed to showcase any main event credentials, though, and the seven-and-a-half-minute match against Triple H was incredibly dull and showed Axel was not ready for the spot he’d been positioned in.

Then there was the terrible finish as Triple H sold like he was struggling, due to losing a Steel Cage Match to Brock Lesnar the night before at Extreme Rules, and was promptly counted out while WWE’s medical team checked on him. 

WWE probably thought they were creating a star with a win over Triple H, but they really just exposed someone they considered a hot prospect. 

9. Ahmed Johnson vs. Crush - April 14, 1997

WWE fans may have felt like the company was turning a creative corner in early 1997, but there was still a long way to go, as evidenced by the April 14 episode of Raw, which is one of the worst in history. 

A total and utter slog to sit through, the show was filled with bland, boring or otherwise bad matches featuring the likes of The Godwinns, The Sultan, Jesse James, and The Headbangers. The awful cherry on top was the main event between Ahmed Johnson and Crush, with the match mainly consisting of rest holds, choke holds, and a sleeper. Not even Jim Ross, doing his best to make the action sound interesting on commentary, could salvage things.

The poor match may have been affected by WWE's touring schedule, with the show being taped from South Africa. You can even hear at least one fan yelling racist comments at Johnson throughout the contest, which makes the whole spectacle even worse.  

8. The Bushwhackers vs. Barry Hardy & Bert Centeno - September 12, 1994

In the very early days of Raw, just about anyone could main event the show due to the thin talent roster and the way WWE taped television during marathon sessions.

Times were tough from the beginning as the premiere episode of Raw saw Damien Demento take on The Undertaker, but times were tougher on September 12, 1994 as WWE welcomed fans back to Raw after a few weeks off due to the US Open with a main event of The Bushwhackers vs. Barry Hardy and Bert Centeno. 

The match was a squash for The Bushwhackers and featured foot stomping, arm swinging, and face licking. The comedy match, fortunately, only went four minutes before The Bushwhackers won the match with a Battering Ram. 

People praise the New Generation Era for the influx of young and exciting talent that freshened up WWE’s roster, but Raw main events like this are a reminder that things were far from perfect.

7. Harvey Wippleman vs. Howard Finkel - January 9, 1995

WWE Raw is, in theory, a show for WWE fans. Very often, however, matches and segments on the show were clearly only done for an audience of one and that audience was Vince McMahon. 

Vince McMahon certainly had his tastes and one of the things he seemed to find entertaining was the ritual humiliation of beloved ring announcer Howard Finkel. On a show which opened with an Intercontinental Title match between Razor Ramon and Owen Hart, the episode was for some reason closed by The Fink vs. Harvey Wippleman in a Tuxedo Match. 

The 2 minutes and 40 seconds dragged and the match consisted of two non wrestlers trying to rip each other’s clothes off. Finkel ultimately won and danced around topless with The Bushwhackers to end the show. 

According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, WWE rushed through the rest of the live show in order to make sure there was enough time for all this. 

6. Triple H vs. Jim Ross - April 18, 2005

Next to Howard Finkel, there was nobody Vince McMahon and upper WWE management liked to see get embarrassed quite like Jim Ross. 

There was a belief that Ross – who was once Head of WWE Talent Relations in addition to his role as an announcer – took himself too seriously and ought to be taken down a peg or two. 

This led to the April 18, 2005 episode of Raw from Madison Square Garden where Ross was booked to headline the show against Triple H in a No DQ Match. The match went an obscenely long 11 and a half minutes and consisted of Triple H punching Ross, including one potato shot that caused JR some real vision issues afterwards.

JR ended up pouring with blood but he ultimately won the match after Batista interfered and took out Ric Flair and then Triple H with a huge steel chair shot to the head. Batista then draped a woozy Ross over Triple H for the pinfall win. 

Despite JR getting a slight measure of revenge, the whole thing was too long, incredibly cruel, and just served as a way for Vince McMahon to try and humiliate one of his employees. 

5. Triple H vs. Jeff Hardy - September 16, 2002

In April of 2001, Jeff Hardy and Triple H headlined back-to-back episodes of SmackDown and Raw, trading the Intercontinental Title. 

Those were two dynamic TV main events between a pair of talented performers near the peak of their powers. A little under 18 months later, things would look very, very different. 

On the September 16, 2002, episode of Raw, The Charismatic Enigma challenged The Game for the World Heavyweight Title. By this point, Triple H had added 40 pounds of extra muscle, which limited his mobility. Hardy, meanwhile, was burned out by this point and abusing drugs, which would lead to his WWE release in April 2003. 

Hardy spent much of the match on top with poor-looking offence, with his Railrunner Clotheslines, Arabian Press Moonsault, and standard Moonsault all barely connecting with Triple H. The Game also almost landed on the top of his head following a second-rope Frankensteiner. 

HHH was bleeding from a pre-match attack by Rob Van Dam, which in theory should have heightened the drama, but the result was a formality and it was no shock to see The Cerebral Assassin put the challenger away with a sleeper, a move he tried and failed to get over as a credible finisher at the time. 

4. Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell - July 2, 2001

When WWE bought WCW in March of 2001, the plan initially was to relaunch the brand months later, with Monday nights becoming a WCW show as part of a divorce angle between Vince McMahon and Linda McMahon. 

The main event of the July 2, 2001 edition of Raw was a WCW presentation, as Booker T defended his World Heavyweight Championship against Buff Bagwell. There were WCW graphics, a WCW referee, Stacy Keibler handling the ring announcing, and Scott Hudson & Arn Anderson on commentary for a match so bad it forced WWE to change course and stage the ill-fated invasion rather than a full-on revival. 

The match was a boring washout but WWE didn’t help the talents in the build-up. Bagwell, a career midcarder, was a full-on heel, but Booker had been attacking WWE wrestlers for weeks, making him a heel by default to the crowd in Tacoma, Washington. What makes the match even worse is WWE visited Atlanta, Georgia, very much the home of World Championship Wrestling, just one week later.  

With nobody to cheer and pedestrian action below the standard and intensity they were expecting from a Raw main event, fans turned on the bout and only seemed happy when the WWE crew ran in for the disqualification.

3. John Cena & Randy Orton vs. The Entire Raw Roster - March 17, 2008

Sometimes, it's the idea of the match itself, rather than the action within it, that just makes you want to look away as John Cena and Randy Orton teamed together to take on much of the Raw roster on the March 17, 2008 episode of WWE Raw, which was a collection of mid-carders as well as JBL and Umaga. 

The match ended up being a 17-on-2 handicap elimination match as Cena eliminated Santino Marella, Lance Cade, Trevor Murdoch, Robbie McCallister and David Hart Smith, while Randy Orton put away Super Crazy, Paul Burchill, Val Venis, and Cody Rhodes before the DQ finish. 

To make matters worse than burying much of your mid-card talent, Triple H hit Orton and Cena with Pedigrees, ensuring all the focus was on him as the show went off the air.

2. Diamond Dallas Page vs. Sara - August 20, 2001

Diamond Dallas Page could, like many of the main event WCW stars, have opted to collect on his guaranteed Time Warner contract rather than accept a buyout and join WWE. He didn’t, though, and DDP was treated as a joke from the very beginning in WWE when he debuted as part of a stalker storyline in a one-sided feud with The Undertaker.

The programme eventually led to a match between Page and Undertaker’s then-wife Sara Calaway on the August 20, 2001. Instead of a long encounter, DDP was defeated by Sara in six seconds as after shoving Sara down, Page was taken outside the ring, chokeslammed by The Undertaker, thrown back in the ring, and pinned by Sara, who did a press-up pin for some reason. 

Page disappeared for one month afterwards, reappearing with a comedy self-help gimmick. He was a mid-carder in WWE until his departure in the Summer of 2002. 

1. John Cena vs. Michael Cole - June 4, 2012

If you were watching WWE between the summer of 2005 and the summer of 2016, there was a very good chance you would see John Cena in Raw’s main event. Some of them were very good, some not so much. His match against Michael Cole was an abomination. 

The June 4, 2012 episode of Raw saw Cena dispatch of the previously undefeated Tensai before he went one-on-one with Michael Cole in a No DQ Match, looking to make Cole pay for his heelish antics on commentary for the previous two years.

The match consisted of Cena chopping Cole, stripping him down to his underwear, kicking him in the nether regions, hitting him with a microphone, forcing Cole to apologise to Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross while in a rear-naked choke, covering him in BBQ sauce, and spraying him with a fire extinguisher. 

Cole then almost won as Lord Tensai interfered, only for Cena to kick out. Big Match John then avoided a fire extinguisher shot and scooped up Cole for an AA and the win. Not only was it a woeful main event, it was also a terrible way to portray WWE’s top babyface.