It’s almost impossible to keep track of all the WWE & wrestling shows I’ve seen in my almost 2 decades watching wrestling to this point. The business is always active, always evolving & always throwing so much content at you that it’s next to impossible to ever think you’ve seen enough professional wrestling yet.

Considering the number of choices someone like WWE is giving us nowadays, I always find myself watching or wanting to talk about the greatest moments, matches, or things that most people already widely discuss, but what about the oddities? What about the bizarre?

I think at a time like this where there is so much of your day to fill due to all the blank space that I’ve actually had time to sit down and delve into the truly bizarre parts of the wrestling business, in particular, some shows that I’ve come across that are so bizarre I’d need a lot more time to properly talk about them in-depth, but I thought this article would be a solid start.

For this list, I chose to focus more on shows I’ve either seen or ones that have happened within my own time of watching professional wrestling rather than simply put a show on here that I don’t have full knowledge over. Each show here is ‘bizarre’ in its own unique way, whether than be the name, idea, matches, execution, or something totally out of the ordinary that we aren’t used to seeing normally. Here at 5 of the most bizarre WWE shows of all time.

Honorable Mentions:

• Backlash (2017)
• D-Generation X: In Your House (1997)
• Breaking Point (2009)
• Wrestlemania II (1986)
• Crown Jewel (2018)

Fatal-4-Way (2010)

WWE’s Fatal-4-Way is a show I’ve never quite understood, not because any of the matches on the card were outright dreadful in any way, but because the idea behind this show is so bizarre to me as a marketable idea. On paper, the very idea around a show based on the Fatal-4-Way match is acceptable enough, however, is it really a match type that’s marketable or actively popular within the wrestling community at all is the real question we need to ask. Unlike matches like Money in the Bank, Elimination Chamber, Hell in a Cell or the Royal Rumble, the idea of a Fatal-4-Way match possessed nothing spectacular about it, not a single selling point to paying customers to sink their teeth into beyond it being a match with four people wrestling in it. There have been countless great ones throughout WWE history, it just isn’t a match fans fawn over to see more of, let alone have a show based around it. While their strategy remains to be a confusing one, it’s a pretty obvious way for the company to test the waters at the time since they were transitioning into a new era of newer stars & a newer fanbase to cater to.

The show itself was nothing to be ashamed of though, in fact, I’d honestly say it was one of the strongest of 2010, a genuinely great show that outshined middling expectations going into it. Both the World title matches delivered the goods in their respective 4-Way matches while furthering the current storylines they were working around, Kofi Kingston & Drew McIntyre put on a stellar opening contest over the Intercontinental Championship, The Hart Dynasty beat The Usos in a fine encounter & Evan Bourne (the now Matt Sydal) pinned Chris Jericho in one of the more underrated PPV matches of that year. During a time where a lot of fans craved newer talent gaining a spotlight, this show did just that and highlighted the newer crop of their roster. It’s honestly a solid card that just seems forgotten because of how random the overall concept of the show was, utilizing a gimmick that doesn’t really have much of an ‘it’ factor to it.

Compared to my other selections, I’d say this was the strongest of the bunch. As odd of an idea as it is on paper, there’s still a lot to admire.

Great Balls of Fire (2017)

What I’d pay to be a fly on the wall of the board room meeting where the creative team & WWE management decided that a show called ‘Great Balls of Fire’ would be a good idea to market towards their audience.

This entire show, the build-up to it, the marketing campaign & even the show’s own hysterical production design all seem like one big rib to the WWE fanbase, the biggest troll that the company has ever delivered. It still amazes me to this very day that a show like this even exists, or was taken seriously at one point, even the fact that I woke up at 1 am to sit through this show baffles me when I reflect on it. WWE is an entertainment juggernaut, amongst the biggest in the entire world right now & I truly understand the need to try to innovate and constantly experiment with new ideas to potentially foster into something larger, but what was the endgame with this show?

As ridiculous as the show’s actual name is, the fact that Jerry Lee Lewis’ classic song of the same name as the show itself was used as the official theme song is extraordinary to me, simply extraordinary.

However, I’ll proudly admit that the show ended up being far above what I expected, in fact, it was a fairly loaded card that even featured a personal dream match of mine finally coming to fruition. Headlined by Brock Lesnar defending his Universal Championship against Samoa Joe, WWE did a pretty solid job in putting together a card that was more than just being represented by a show name so ridiculous you wouldn’t bother investing your time or interest in it. Lesnar vs Joe wasn’t necessarily a spectacular match but did its job in giving fans something on the show to truly take notice of. Alongside the main event, we had Roman Reigns attempt murder in a chaotic Ambulance Match against Braun Strowman, Alexa Bliss defend her title against Sasha Banks in a great little match, The Hardys face Cesaro & Sheamus in a slow-paced but really well executed 30-minute Iron Man Match, Neville battle Akira Tozawa over the Cruiserweight Championship & Big Cass mauled his former partner Enzo Amore in one of that year’s most effective angles up until that point.

It still stands as one of the most bizarre decisions WWE has ever made, but Great Balls of Fire is a show I’d highly recommend checking out if you have the time. At the very least you’ll laugh at how absurd the show looks every time the stage is in the background.

Wrestlemania 2000 (2000)

To this day, Wrestlemania 2000 stands as the only Wrestlemania in history to not feature one basic, straightforward, down the middle singles match on its card.

In the midst of a Hardcore Battle Royal, 4 Tag Team matches, a Triangle Ladder Match & a Fatal-4-Way main event the only thing closely resembling a singles match was a ‘Catfight’, which ranks amongst my least favorite ‘matches’ in Wrestlemania history. The issue with this card is that the overreliance on multip-person bouts can lead to show being far too overcrowded & active, resulting in a lack of storytelling a show as big as Wrestlemania needs to truly be memorable. There was just simply too much happening on this show at stages that exhausted me simply watching it on television, despite this being at one of the peak periods of WWE programming as the Monday Night Wars were still being waged on primetime television.

When looking at the actual card, the only real standout was the Triangle Ladder Match between The Dudleys, The Hardys & Edge and Christian which isn’t just a revolutionary match that changed the way the industry looked at gimmick matches, but the importance of tag team wrestling as an entire concept. It embodies what Wrestlemania is and what it should feel like to watch, on top of having phenomenal storytelling from everyone involved in it, as well as the right men coming out on top. WWE sadly crammed the rest of the card with too much dead weight to really discuss, particularly the remaining tag team contests which did nothing to excite me, although the Hardcore Battle Royal, while an incredible mess, is one of the few bright spots of the show due to how absurd the flow of the match is with its breakneck pacing.

Sadly the ultimate nail in the coffin for me was the show’s main event, a star-studded Fatal-4-Way match between Triple H, The Rock, Mick Foley & Big Show, each with a member of the McMahon family in their corner to battle over the WWE Championship. The match itself had pretty solid action, but as I mentioned earlier shoved far too much into the match itself to really land the ending it went for. Balancing not just the retirement of Mick Foley, the rise of Big Show, a plethora of McMahon family drama that just dragged on at points but it sadly sacrificed all of this in favor of having the company’s biggest star at the time, The Rock capture the WWE Championship in what should have been the conclusion to your biggest show of the calendar year.

Wrestlemania 2000 is a pretty solid example that signifies the importance of one-on-one contests, that allows for breaks in between matches with abundances of talent involved in them. As crazy as a show as this can be, it was just so much to digest at points that it becomes overwhelming to watch, with such an intense focus on the spectacle of Wrestlemania that it’s just absurd at times, especially considering that this show wasn’t even held in a larger venue than what we’re now accustomed to.

With Wrestlemania’s getting seemingly longer by the year & WWE seemingly always wanting to shove the maximum amount of talent possible onto a card, this show should be a bleak reminder that sometimes quantity just doesn’t equal quality.

December to Dismember (2006)

What hasn’t been said about ECW’s December to Dismember that hasn’t already been said by any living, breathing professional wrestling fan?

It’s highly regarded amongst the very worst shows in company history, stands as the show with the lowest buyrate in company history, lead to the creative departure of Paul Heyman, gave us changes to the ECW brand that no fan at the time wanted & put the nail in the coffin for the revival of one of wrestling’s most incredibly unique products back in the day. More than anything, it was a slap in the face to anyone who cherishes the world of Extreme Championship Wrestling, a brand pioneered by echoing the voices of its fans with its rowdy, violent, brutal & over-the-top product that to many was seen as a ‘rebellion’ against the norms we were so used to in the industry.

This show missed the mark on almost every beat. It succeeded at dismantling whatever integrity the ECW brand name had left under the WWE banner & killing what had the potential to be a pretty solid show if creative reigns had actually understood what made a product, a brand like ECW tick in the first place. None of the heart was there, the wrestling was watered down to the very thing it was designed not to be, not a single storytelling beat worked because of how absurd aspects of the product were & it just felt too corporate for the average fan, who craved something authentic considering what ECW represented.

Probably the most insulting thing was that prior to this actual show back in 2006, the company only announced 2 official matches, the opening & main event matches, both of which were fine enough but did nothing to satisfy what WWE marketed this brand as. In terms of highlights, the tag team contest between The Hardys and M&M worked, everything else, however, was just a joke in most people’s eyes, an insult almost. Littered with bizarre ideas that seemed like how someone like a Vince McMahon would interpret the ECW product in modern-day, most of this show was too cringe-worthy to take seriously and was met with either silence or boos from fans depending on where you look at on the show. Even the ‘Extreme’ Elimination Chamber that headlined the show was booked in a manner that was so backward to what ECW is at its core that you’d think whoever was in charge had no knowledge of the product whatsoever, and that may have been the case in reality.

I can probably say it’s a show you can watch to laugh at, however, if you’re an ECW fan like myself, this was such a frustratingly bizarre experience that it’s hard to think the WWE would follow through with something like this at a point in time.

Summerslam (2004)

There is no WWE show that will ever represent the notion of ‘bizarro world’ much like Summerslam 2004 did. Being held in Toronto, Canada this was a show unlike any other I’ve personally ever seen in my life so far, one of the craziest, strangest experiences this industry probably has to offer.

Going into this show there was nothing really controversial or out of the ordinary on the card, it was all pretty standard, well booked & carried a lot of potentially great wrestling to put on display with it being one of the companies ‘Big 4’ in their calendar year. It featured a loaded card headlined by Chris Benoit defending his title against Randy Orton & JBL defending his title against The Undertaker, both matches featuring newly bred main event stars taking on seasoned veterans. And while you’d expect the standard, solid show from a card like this, what played out on live television is something that has to be seen.

On that evening the crowd in Toronto lost their minds entirely. It’s a crowd that I can’t quite explain or understand since not only does what they did make no real sense but not being in the audience, is something I can’t make a fair judgment on myself. Rather than playing into the storylines that the company had built up heading into their summer season, the live crowd hijacked the show and almost every match on the card, particularly within the latter half of the show. The crowd booed whomever the company had built up to be cheered, harassed their hometown hero in Edge during his first title defense in his hometown, heckled referee Earl Hebner to no end, turned on stars halfway through their matches, did a Mexican wave during title matches & never really let the show foster into its own thing. While it did admittedly ruin some of the stories the stars tried to tell, it was ridiculously entertaining to watch as an experience.

Probably the saddest part was that the show did have some highlights outside of the rabid live audience, namely a superb Wrestlemania XX rematch between Eddie Guerrero & Kurt Angle, a really fun Six-Man tag team match, as well as a technically fabulous main event between Chris Benoit & Randy Orton. It was probably the remainder of the card that sinks this shows standing and resulted in what the crowd became since nothing else really stood out in my mind due to some really odd booking decisions, especially everything surrounding a Triple H & Eugene (yes, Eugene, of all people) which went well past its limits in terms of timing. And while the match itself is a bit of a snoozefest to get through, witnessing the crowds dissensions into madness during the WWE Championship match between JBL & Undertaker is one of the funniest things the company has put on to this day.