Worst PPV match finish of all time? (Summerslam Orton vs Cena)

[Kesteral]

I'm sure all of you just saw what went down in the RAW main event and I'm still shocked at how shitty it is compared to Smackdown (See my other thread about RAW moving over). But enough about that, this is about the RAW main event and a debate whether it could be classed as the worst finish of all time on a major PPV.

Lets just go through the events shall we? First of all Cena and Orton have a slow mediocre 10 minute wrestling match. Then Orton doesn't get his way so he decides to push the ref to get himself qualified. He goes after the belt and then walks away until Lillian magically gets the call from Vince. She tells him that a) He's the new champion and b) that the match is restarted untill they get a clean winner.

So they restart the match and then Orton gets into a hissy fit and grabs the belt to walk off. Lillian again gets the call from Vince and tells them to restart it but now with no DQ allowed for Orton. So they wrestle again for a few minutes and then Orton gets the victory by using his feet on the ropes. A ref comes running out and tells the blind ref that he has his feet on the top rope so he won unfairly. (How many chances does Cena get to beat Orton considering last time they fueded like 3 matches ended in a dq).

So once again they restart it and now Cena's fine and he puts Orton in a STF. All of a sudden a fan jumps into the ring and lands on the ref. Everyone leaves the ring while the fan is escorted (forced) out. Cena/Orton/Cole/King/The Refs are all stunned and have no idea what to do so they restart the match without telling anyone and Orton hits two Rko's on Cena to win the match.

Right now that's out of the way we can go about describing this clusterfuck. First of all, Lillian fucked up horribly and I'm pretty sure she did it twice (Once saying Orton's the new champion and then saying he'd lose the title if he got DQed the first time even though Orton did get DQ and didn't lose anything).

Secondly, Vince is suddenly a babyface on RAW yet on Smackdown he's a heel pretty much. Maybe you can explain this but it seems a little odd to me.

Third of all, we have four restarts in the match, four! I can only imagine how confused the fans were in the arena. Why didn't they just have one and save everyone some trouble? Not only did it mean we had to watch Cena and Orton go at it for even longer it just got tiresome and ridiculous. How many different chances can Cena have? Oh no wait Orton's really smart so he'll just cheat.

Now lets get started onto the fan intervention. Boy that fucked up the match royally, I guess he thought like most of us how bad it was going and wanted to end it. I actually felt embarassed watching what went down after that because no one knew what to do. So I'm guessing Orton was booked to win otherwise Cena would of gotten the quick attitude adjustment like Orton did with the RKO but how did he get out of the STF in the planned finish? Did he tap and there was another restart somehow? Did Rhodes and DiBiase intervene? At least this mess up is hardly their fault but it just contributed to one of the worst ppv co-main events I've seen in years. How can they explain this tomorrow? They'll probably ignore it but every person saw that fan jump in.

So we witnessed some major mess ups by the announcing team, an utterly confusing booked finish that just about went okay but still was bad, two superstars who are clearly not the best wrestlers trying their best but really not having a good match, a huge fan intervention that ruins the ending and then a forced rushed finish. Sounds pretty bad to me, not many matches have this much crap in them.

Hey, at least Orton beat Cena clean. All I have to say is thank god Vince has got Smackdown to rely on.

P.S. If I've got anything wrong in my recap do tell because it's very late here and quite hard to remember what happened.

 

[SavageTaker]

I don’t think that it was the worst pay per view match ending of all time, as a matter of fact it could have been much worse.

Anyways, the problem I had with the ending is that it was overbooked. There wasn’t a need to do all of the things that they did. If they wanted for it to still have the same effect, I think they could have done less things or something else but still make it have the same or a greater effect, which was to cause some more drama in the match. I liked the match for the most part and thought it was very good but the finish is just something that I wasn’t a fan of. It also didn’t help that they had a couple of botches even though some of those botches weren’t really their fault. I just feel like the finish they had wasn’t necessary, they could have done something else or less things and still have the same results they might have wanted. That’s how I feel, but I wouldn’t call it the worst match finish on pay per view. Like I said, it could have been worse and there has been worse in the past.

 

[TheGreatSPAMbino]

I'll definitely agree that this match was mostly a clusterfuck, but i will add that its probably more memorable because of it. I think instead of doing all of those restarts that we have seen a hundred times before (the DQ and Countout) they should have had a regular match for about 15 minutes or so, then had the planted fan jump the guardrail and attack Cena or something causing a distraction allowing Orton to capitalize. I think they way the match went was too confusing and they could have simplified it and still created the desired outcome, with Orton keeping the title under controversial circumstances allowing for the feud to continue.

 

[The Doctor]

I thought it was great.

The crowd was into it. I was into it. It was so exciting. Had me on the edge of my couch. I was SURE Cena was going to win it My friends and I were all screaming at each other over MSN. I have never seen anything like it. The fan intervention was hilarious and unfortunate, and it's the only confusing thing about the match. Nothing was "overbooked". It was a great, exciting match with a DAMN fine ending. I have't been so into a match for a while now.

 

[rayisawesomeness]

I thought it was great.

The crowd was into it. I was into it. It was so exciting. Had me on the edge of my couch. I was SURE Cena was going to win it My friends and I were all screaming at each other over MSN. I have never seen anything like it. The fan intervention was hilarious and unfortunate, and it's the only confusing thing about the match. Nothing was "overbooked". It was a great, exciting match with a DAMN fine ending. I have't been so into a match for a while now.

I gotta agree with you here, I think the last time I was legitimately excited over a match was when Punk cashed in on Edge. I as well was on the edge of my seat because it was just so incredibly unpredictable. It's exactly what this stale match needed.

 

[SSJPhenom]

I honestly have to class this as one of the worst endings that I have ever seen.

BTW the match itself wasn't anything different than we have seen from Orton/Cena in the past, so I don't think that the match was any good at all. I will give it the second worse award, second only to Kane/Khali, but we all knew that one would suck.

But about the ending, it was a huge clusterfuck. First you have Lilian announce that John Cena was the new champ, then she says that the match would restart and so on and on. It was very confusing and kind of stupid, especially if Orton was going to win anyway. He should have won after the first restart and it would have had the same effect. I just hope to god that we are done with Cena/Orton or HHH/Orton, although, I know we aren't, so it looks like SD will be the better show for awhile now anyway.

 

[nuttyconnor]

Am I the only one that thinks that the fan intervention was scripted...?
Because seriously, what are the chances of that?
Also, I know this may sound stupid
But didn't they take the fan up the side of the aisle?
And wasn't that shown on TV?
I thought WWE NEVER did that on legit. fan run ins.

 

[Kliq]

I'm going to have to side with the people who've said the false endings made the match more memorable. As I said in the Summerslam thread, this would have been the bathroom break of the night had it not been for the repeated false endings. Though I disagree saying Lilian messed up twice. Orton would have lost the title if he had DQ'd himself a second time, otherwise what's the point, he could have just done it again. But the thing here is, the count out was looked at differently than a DQ, so it was 'okay' for Orton to do.

And I'm going to put this out there as some others have, and put my money on the fan was a plant. We would all like to believe that it could have really been some crazy fool who didn't want Orton to tap, but with the way things were going, this was just another way to prolong the ending. Overall, I personally loved the fact that Orton still held the title even after everything.

 

[Spaceman Spif]

Hmmmm, I don't really know where I stand on this. It was confusing to say the say the least. I mean it ended and Orton is still champ which is cool, but Vince wanting to do the whole screw Orton thing, kind of made it a major cluster. Poor Lillian couldn't keep up, neither could the ref really. It was odd. If this was pre-planned, it defintely didn't flow well, which I guess could be a plus as it made it look more legit, like Vince was really making these changes last minute, instead of them being pre-planned. As for the 'fan interference' I wonder if they will run with it more. I just don't know really. I guess it was entertaining, however I just get tired of all these screwjob finishes, then run-in finishes, these confusing finishes. I like great wrestling matches with clean finishes. This definitely wasn't one of them.

 

[JETER123]

This thread starter is really really really really gullible. The fan was definitely scripted. WWE.com said that's basically the reason Orton won the match. I don't get fans sometimes. A couple of months ago Orton had a staged altercation with an interviewer and everybody flipped out thinking it was real...I just don't get it.

 

[HartDynasty=Ratings]

I don't know, in a way I could have done without the match starting over 4 times, but in another way I DO think that the match may be more memorable because of it. The fan intervention was probably the most confusing part however. You could see the look on Cena's face, he didn't know what the fuck was going on. Then they showed Orton and he seemed to be yelling at the ref pretty much asking what the fuck was going on. The end of the match was all good until the fan jumped in the ring and put the ref in a choke hold. Poor fucker's probably in jail right now sobering up realizing that he's a ******. it just made for total confusion and made Cena and Orton have to change the very end of the match on the fly. Other than that I thought the match was pretty good and actually got a laugh when Orton got up from a back-body drop and just shoved the ref down to get dq'd. IMO they should have only restarted the match once, but that's not Orton or Cena's fault. But, the crowd was into it and I for one was entertained so it is what it is.

 

[Cakes151515]

Ok, I thought the finish was pretty good. I have been watching wrestling for almost 22 years now and my friend and i were predicting everything has it was going on. The one thing we did talk about was, was that really a fan. A) the fan attacking the ref come on, whenever there has been a fan who actually got in the ring when would they attack the ref. B) its a ppv come you know how many security is there C) they actually showed the fan getting walked to the back, they never do that. They never everrrrrrrrrr show that, they would just stay with the action in the ring no matter what. We talked about either that was just a local jobber or maybe the next member of legacy.

 

[baken1942]

Fan thing was scripted, it had to be or they wouldnt have mentioned it on WWE.com

I liked the way this finish ended, I thought the whole PPV was very well done!!

 

[Viola Moonlight]

I am going to say that this is a historic moment in the WWE. Never in the history of any WWE match has a title match been restarted due to DQ, count-out, interference & second referee's opinion due to cheating. It was a great ending to a match that I believe has set the feud up for another couple of PPV's, the crowd was into it & everyone was enjoying the restarting of the match... especially the Orton fans. Didn't you hear the screams of joy when Orton retained the first time, then the match restarted? The audience was just blown away.

I believe this was a great match overall, did what it meant to do concerning entertaining the audience & it kept people on the edge of there seats. Nothing wrong with the way this match finished, it was the best match finish of the night. I picked on two things though:

1) When that fan interfered with the match, it seems if Cena, the ref, the commentators & Orton where all stunned & it was not supposed to happen. They did not include this in the video package of the match ending & the commentators Cole & JR weren't allowed to make any reference to it all as they were silenced.

2) Does anyone see these match endings being flown out the door of all booking/creative drawing boards? When something of this proportion happens, that exact something isn't used for a while or is completely scrapped from existence. This is another subtle step into the companies tranisition into a new era.

 

[lenguy]

i thought the match to, was also great.it had so much suspence. the crowd was hot for this one. i thought it was great how it went out. how they played it out that orton wanted really nothing to do with cena and kept finding ways to keep the belt without having an altercation with cena.i thought it was well played out.when that guy jumped in haha the look on cenas face, they looked clueless for a good 10 seconds.great stuff!

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

Between Lilian botching her announcements and the fan botching the finish, the finish of this match was a clusterfuck. But I hardly think it was the worst of all time. I don't know why Orton spent so much time on the outside of the ring, after security clearly had the guy under control on the outside. But that wasted precious time from a show they were clearly already behind on.

Given the way the match was booked, it did have a "Beat the Clock" feel to it, with all the match stipulations changing. Unfortunately, that all was deflated when the fan got involved and you could clearly see Cena's frustration on his face. But it is what it is.

I still think it is a real stretch, though, to say this was the worst finish in history. Hell, Mickie James pinning Gail Kim just this week with a forearm was more lame than what happened here.

 

[RicSpade]

Ok here is what I have as an assessment on this situation...

In terms of worst pay per view finishes of all time I would say Jarretts laydown to Hogan was much worse in terms of finishes. There was also LT vs Bam Bam at WM 11.

But what you people fail to realize is we have seen this finish before the only part added was the fan interfering...don't believe me?

Watch I think it was either starrcade or greatest superstars of the 90's. Sting was wrestling Vader for the title, and you had Vader and Sting have a countout and disqualification and Vader said he didn't wanna win that way so after being seperated twice Vader asked to restart the match, twice they restarted the match twice and finally Sting beat Vader. So its not like this hasn't been done...

Yes Vince calling on the phone is an awkward pitch but without a GM to restart the match what can you do? Vince would look odd getting on screen and restarting the match twice cause he would fear a "you f*cked up chant" honestly if you were going to do something like that I would've had him tell in The kings or Coles' headset or even the refs little earpiece they get in WWE to restart the match,but thats my opinion...

The fan thing does seem pretty odd, but hey we had David Arquette as WCW champion, Drew Carey was in the Royal Rumble, Seth Green wrestled on Raw, Floyd Maywhether beat the Big Show, LT beat Bam Bam Bigelow, and Kevin Nash lost by a finger poke from Hogan, so anything can happen in wrestling.

 

[Klown_Karnage]

I'm going to give my two-cents on this one. This match isn't as bad as many have said it is (except for the fan interference, don't know about that one either way) but I wouldn't say it's a good match, either. It was an exercise in frustration and irritation rather than a build-up of intensity. Also, it didn't make sense for Vince to keep calling and re-starting. If he wanted to make sure Orton couldn't retain by DQ or Countout, he should have used the No Disqualifications stips. End of problem.

I think there are other ways to keep us on the edge of our seats and this one was done...rather sloppily.

 

[KingShaw3]

I thought this match ending was great as well as the entire ppv. Sure the actual match before all the craziness was what you would expect... Orton carrying the whole thing and Cena sprinkling in his five moves. Orton was seriously favored by the crowd which made it even more fun over the course of all the false finishes.

The fan coming into the ring was most definitely a part of the show. Let's look at what we saw. The fan comes into the ring and applies a rear naked choke or chin lock of some sort to the ref of all people. Obviously he was to appear to not want Cena to win because he had Orton in the STFU at the time, so why would he not go stomping on Cena instead of applying a wrestling move to the ref? No body could catch him as he was jumping the railing or running to the ring, but four dudes are on him right after he gets the choke applied. Then the camera follows him up the ramp as two security guards lead him away with one hand behind his back. They would have kept him on the ground off camera and waited for him to be put in cuffs. Then WWE.com has something put up on the homepage adding it into the story-line with a tag of "Randy 'fans' down Cena." Then goes on to say the fan gave Orton the opportune moment to beat Cena. No question it was scripted and it may not be the last time we see this 'fan'.

Great moment because a match has never ended in so many ways and been restarted so many times. Fans in the arena were certainly loving it and so was I. Made a great memory out of a match that would have otherwise been mediocre at best. Scripted fan was a great addition because it has fans like us talking about whether or not it was real. In my opinion, this was one great moment among many in this highly memorable ppv.

 

[BananaHeel]

What can I say that hasn't been said in this thread? At least I am looking forward to finding out who the plant in the crowd was. I knew something was going to pop up because the restarted the match a few times. I knew Orton would prevail. I knew this smiley face would bang his head against this wall repeatedly and unflinchingly

I love that icon.

 

[DXOWNZ]

Am I the only one that thought that was Cody Rhodes that came out at first? I then realized that it wasn't, but it looked like him from the back.

I do think that the ending was bad, but nothing can be worse than the Khali-Kane match. What the Fuck was that DDT that Kane did? Was that a finisher? That's a worse finisher than Big Show's right hand

idk. I hated that match. I loved the Hardy-Punk match though. I knew who would win and I PREDICTED that 'Taker would return that night. I'm sad to see Hardy leave though.

 

[ThAwRe$tLiNgGaWd]

The only thing I am confused about more than the 4 restarts is the "fan interference". Clearly by taking the topical approach it seems like it was a totally random act by a crazed drunken ******. Then again, I can see the point everyone makes about the fan being a 'plant'. In my assessment of the situation, I believe it was a real incident. I was texting my buddy during the show and he seemed to believe that the fan was a plant from FCW. The only thing about it is if it was a work than WWE would've been hyping the shit out of it the remainder of the match. I can hear Cole now..."That's vintage Mystery Man". He would've been busting nuts left and right if it was a work. The camera crew would've had every shot from every angle and they would've replayed it over and over again. The announcers made very little mention of it and when the replays showed it was left out. Everyone was stunned and I think you could tell as much. The shot of security taking him up the aisle could have been pure coincidence (an errant shot by a cameraman, but who knows?) The only thing that leaves me scratching my head was the mention on .com of the fan interference, that's typically a no-no. I guess we will find out here for sure on Raw tomorrow night (or tonight I suppose). I can never tell anymore!!

Edit: I guess reports are saying the "fan" was Brett DiBiase, son of the Million Dollar Man and Ted's brother. Geezus I guess I can be gullible sometimes... stupid sports entertainment!

 

[J-Dogg]

I was blown away by the match, i was on the edge of my seat most of the time....the match was good, reaction from the crowd was great, half and half for both Cena and Orton. When Orton hit the ref i thought "Oh he just fell into the ref after getting up" but when the bell rang i was like WTF Cena got screwed. When it restarted and if he got DQ'd he'd lose the title i was like "YOUR FUCKED ORTON", they still had me on the edge of my seat though.

And when it restarted because of the count out i was surprised but by the time Orton hung his feet up on the ropes, and the match restarted again for the final time i was annoyed by then. But when the fan interferred, i was stunned, Orton was pissed and Cena was frustrated, that last part with the fan was a WWE moment including the multiple restarts made it a entertaining ending but not the worst ending to a match.

Also the 'fan' part is hard to tell whether it was Cody or a legit fan, just have to wait and see.

 

[oldschool123]

I don't think the fan thing was scripted. You could tell that nobody knew what to do after it happened. When they recapped the match they didn't even mention the fan.

EDIT: Apparently it was Brett Debiase.

It would have been awesome if it was real though.

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

It was just posted on Wrestlezone and confirmed that the "fan" was Brett Dibiase. So, it was scripted. You could also see pictures of it and them selling the angle on WWE.com. So, it appears the only botch was actually Lilian Garcia botching the announcement.