100 Worst WWE Matches Ever - 51 - Chris Jericho vs. Dean Ambrose
Asylum Match - Extreme Rules 2016
Far be it from me to talk about how stupid it is to have a feud surrounding a fake talk show, a potted plant called Mitch, and a destroyed $15,000 light-up jacket. But let’s face it, if you were presented with the premise of this feud, you would think this sounds like it came right out of 2000 WCW and probably featured The Maestro and Ernest The Cat Miller. But make no mistake this is 2016 WWE, and this feud features a man that defeated AJ Styles at Wrestlemania, and another that would in one month be WWE Champion. After the Highlight Reel was cancelled by Shane McMahon, it was replaced by “The Ambrose Asylum” - a brand new talk show for Raw, because in the annals of WWE history we just haven’t had enough talk show segments. Ambrose throughout 2016 went through a weird phase after WWE realised that his natural charisma extended to comedy. It quickly became the focus of his character and, honestly, the guy was really good at it but it also killed a lot of what makes Ambrose special.
It would be negligent of me not to talk about Ambrose’s plant called Mitch, which Jericho would break over Ambrose's head in one of the most vile heel acts of the year prior to this.
The Asylum is a standard cage match, but with a permanently locked door, and weapons hanging above the cage. These include a mop, a potted plant, nunchucks, a straight jacket, a fire extinguisher, kendo sticks (of course), and a barbed wire bat.
JBL sums up the absurdity of the weapon choice with the line: “It’s got a 2x4 wrapped in barbed wire next to a mop and a bucket?”
To which Byron Saxton happily proclaims: “And Ambrose is going for the mop!”
This is all to lead to a spot where … well … this happens …
I referred to this as the Cable Guy of professional wrestling matches. There’s many words to describe this. But much like that film the overwhelming one that springs to mind is weird. It’s a confused mess that feels tonally all over the place, made with no target audience in mind. Is this a grudge match? Is it supposed to be funny? Is it just a variation on your standard bland WWE cage match? I don’t understand what emotion they’re trying to get me to feel here. I don’t know who this is for. It seems like everyone involved had wildly different ideas of what this should be, and instead of settling on one, they meshed them together. This was poorly received at the time, much like the Cable Guy was when it was released. That film has since had a rising cult following in recent years, so maybe this match will enjoy the same fate?
Unlikely.
The most glaring red flag here is that the match is 27 minutes long. An obnoxious length of time for this type of match, and you can feel every minute of it. The rumour is that a segment featuring Shane and Stephanie McMahon got cut during the show, so they needed to fill an extra ten minutes at the last minute. While that explains why this goes as long as it does, it doesn’t excuse how bad it is. In a cruel twist of irony, just months after Ambrose had a bad short match with Lesnar where he wasn’t allowed to use any of the ideas he wanted, here he has an even worse match with Jericho which is too long and where they probably had way too much creative freedom.
The commentary team seems to think this is a comedy match because they’re cracking up at every move and weapon spot in the first half of the match. If the intention is to be a comedy match, which I guess it probably is, then it begs the question why is this 27 minutes long? Why give this the extra ten minutes you had to spare? That makes this contest longer than your average sitcom episode - and they’re trying to pad slapstick comedy into a wrestling match of that length and expect to maintain the attention of the fans. Comedy matches in wrestling historically only work at a much shorter length. In fact I can’t think of a single one that is anywhere near as close in length as this. Why are they getting a 2x4 wrapped in barbed wire, a weapon that has historically been used in WWE only for the most brutal of brawls, as a mid-match spot. Why, when Jericho gets this weapon, is he taunting and trying to make the audience laugh with his delusional character? Why is it being used for a joke standoff spot where Ambrose is swinging around nunchucks? As if to make matters even worse, when Jericho does actually use the 2x4 he throws the worst swing I’ve ever seen. Think Hulk Hogan wielding a steel chair.
Both these guys have historically had inconsistent looking offence, particularly when it comes to brawling within the saturated WWE environment. This is one of the worst efforts you’ll ever see from either man in that regard. All their strikes look so poor and unimpactful - even their weapon spots. Their selling and facial expressions border on parody at some points. Regardless of being an overly long match, this is a bad performance from both on every level. Particular spotlight should be on all of Ambrose’s offence, his goofy expressions, and Jericho constantly putting over his wacky character even when the violence is - in theory - escalating.
I’ve watched a match where Ambrose gets his head cut open with an electrical saw, and it was easier to watch than this. This is just sad.
Let’s just settle for a second that this is meant to be a comedy match. I’ll ignore all the other thematic pieces that don’t fit that, for the sake of example. Fundamentally, the most important part of comedy is that it is funny. This match didn’t once make me smile, or laugh, despite the fact that this was clearly the intention at times. The commentary, in classic WWE style, was treating this whole ordeal as something much funnier than it actually was, up until about the halfway point where they seemed to give up pretending.
These two were already fighting an uphill battle with the crowd who were exhausted after a wonderful fatal four way beforehand. They don’t do much to give them anything to be excited for, and they remain quiet for almost all of the match. There’s even a spot where Ambrose goes to the top of the cage and hits a standing elbow which gets what could only be generously described as a polite reaction. I think it’s the weakest response I’ve ever heard from a cage dive I’ve ever heard in my life.
In between sections of bad wrestling, they take the time going through each and every weapon above the cage like they had to fill the whole quota of them. In fact the only weapon they don’t use is the potted plant, which is the most thematically fitting for the entire feud! But gotta get those kendo stick spots in instead.
The only positive thing I’ve seen about this is the thumbtacks spot. Jericho takes the tacks spot, which was pretty shocking at the time and is a cool visual, but it’s entirely wasted on this boring match. The sequences of tack teases were admittedly well done so I’ll give them props for that at least. I compared this match to the Cable Guy, but possibly the more apt film comparison is Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. The thumbtack spot is the Darth Maul fight, and the rest of the match is Jar Jar Binks.
Up Next - Finally it’s time. The box-like structure.
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