100 Worst WWE Matches Ever - 8 - Edge vs. Randy Orton

Last Man Standing - Wrestlemania 36, Night 2

May 04, 2024

One of my great fears in life has always been the concept of sleep paralysis. To be in a helpless state trapped within your own existence, fully aware of the terrors before you but unable to do a single thing to free yourself from its clutches. The sheer thought of it sends chills down my spine.

While I have never physically felt sleep paralysis, nor do I ever desire to, I have however suffered this match - which may be an altogether similar yet far worse fate. This may be the longest match in wrestling history.

Of course, in a literal sense, there have been many longer. But no match has filled me with as much dread as the prospect of revisiting this never-ending nightmare. It is the only match on this entire list that I didn’t pre-watch in preparation for this process because I couldn’t bear the thought of subjecting myself to it three times in my life. So here I sit, having just watched it for only the second time, thankful that I didn’t end up making a massive mistake with its placement.

Its closest comparison would be some sort of twisted lovechild between Randy Orton vs Triple H from Wrestlemania 25, and Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa One Final Beat. Orton vs Triple H is a 25 minute match I described as lifeless and tedious. Now consider that what we are about to discuss is 12 minutes longer than that. It is the third longest match in Wrestlemania’s history, behind only the Ironman between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, and the Rock & Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes & Seth Rollins match from Wrestlemania 40.

After a 9 year absence, Edge made an unlikely, triumphant return at the 2020 Royal Rumble. On that night, the crowd were euphoric for his comeback from his forced retirement. Little did we all know that his - and indeed everyone’s - world was about to be turned upside down. 3 weeks before Wrestlemania 36, the Covid crisis had escalated to a point where it could no longer be ignored by the sports world. As various legitimate sports leagues shut down, the writing was on the wall for wrestling and Wrestlemania. WWE had two weeks to prepare for an unprecedented event where no fans would be allowed to attend. While WWE and AEW would eventually come to their own individual solutions regarding the lack of fans, neither were able to find an immediate solution.

I have repeated multiple times in the course of this process that evaluating the Covid era matches is especially difficult as they were placed in a shit situation that I have a lot of sympathy for. Wrestlers worldwide have always been trained to perform in front of a live audience, and perhaps never is this more apparent than with Edge and Orton - two men whose talents were moulded for the last 20 years in the WWE style. If I were ranking the list of matches I would least like to revisit, 2020 WWE would dominate. It may beg the question, if I am being overly harsh by having this match so high up given the unfortunate circumstances they found themselves in.

To those people, I would contest - I am not harsh. It was taken into consideration, which is why this ranks at the generous position of 8th, rather than the 2nd place it probably deserves.

Wrestlemania 36 Night 2 is the first - and to this date only - Wrestlemania of my adult life that I did not stay up for. Night 1 was fine, but I struggled to come to terms with fan-less wrestling. When I went to watch the replay of Night 2, all I had heard was that there was a certain match that had gone long. In a rare insight, this review will contain some real life as-it-happened Whatsapp commentary of this match from myself (in green) and other members of the Wrestlingclique forum.

After Edge returned at the Royal Rumble, they teased a reunion of Rated RKO. I remember thoroughly enjoying the story and promo work leading in to Wrestlemania. As Orton turned on Edge, he justified it by saying that he was trying to save Edge. Edge, in Orton’s words, had saved him when he was at his lowest. He was trying to protect Edge for Edge, and his family. To add to the heat, the feud also saw Orton hit an RKO on Edge’s wife, Beth Phoenix, in what was a shocking and rare example of male on female violence in modern WWE. Naturally that gives us a very personal, emotional feud, leading to the Last Man Standing match.

The WWE style Last Man Standing match is a very inconsistent stipulation. I preface this by saying that some of my favourite WWE matches ever are Last Man Standing matches, such as John Cena vs. Umaga, Chris Jericho vs. Triple H, and Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair. When the talent can circumvent the inherent stop-start nature and live up to the necessary brutality, magic can happen. Conversely, WWE history is littered with dull, monotonous Last Man Standing matches with a multitude of annoying tropes. As you might gather given where this has landed, we will be discussing many of these in this review.

Somewhat worryingly, the highlight of the match actually happens at the very beginning. Edge makes his entrance amidst the awkward empty performance centre atmosphere. When Orton’s music hits, he’s nowhere to be seen until - from out of nowhere - he jumps in the ring and hits an RKO. On replay, he’s shown hiding as a cameraman, before sneaking in for the attack. Tom Phillips claims that Randy Orton took advantage of the unique environment to sneak attack Edge. I’m not sure how much sense that makes - surely it’s easier to sneak up on a guy when there’s a crowd full of screaming people rather than nobody else around. This will not be the last dumb piece of commentary tonight. Edge also seems to have gone to the John Cena school of being a dumb motherfucker for not even once thinking to look around. Yes, this is the highlight of the whole match and it is still very stupid when you think about it.

While I enjoy the visual of seeing Orton disguised as a cameraman and the subsequent sneak attack, in hitting two RKOs that leaves the wrestlers with a tough situation. Edge is immediately down for a 9 count right at the very beginning before getting to his feet. By going straight to a 9 count, there’s now little room for escalation. What this match desperately needed after this was de-escalation. Take the match down a bit and don’t bother with the counts because after 2 RKOs there’s nowhere to go until you start hitting the big spots.

Instead, they fall into the criminal trap of the WWE Last Man Standing match, and all its horrible tropes. After every move, regardless whether it’s a big spot, or a basic punch, an irish whip, or a suplex they absolutely have to get the count in. The other wrestler stands around waiting for the other to get to their feet, creating a match with serious pacing issues. It also doesn’t fit into the story of the match. This is a bitter, personal match where both men want to kill the other, yet they’re just standing around after a mediocre move that they should know could not possibly end it.

This concept is annoyingly common in these kind of matches, but it is worse here than it has ever been because of how fucking long this goes on for. Praise for this match usually comes from the idea that it is good storytelling. But when you watch it, there’s a startlingly little amount of storytelling outside of “these two men do not like one other”. There’s no sense of escalation. Therefore the story that was established 1 minute into the match is simply elongated for a further 35 fucking minutes. For them to maintain this structure for the whole thing is such a mind bogglingly terrible match design. Stories need direction and change, otherwise you’re left with a regurgitation of the plot points you’ve already covered. What story are they trying to tell with this match? Even a match as putrid as Gargano and Ciampa had some attempt at telling a cohesive story. It failed, was horrible, and terribly executed, but they at least attempted to tell different things in the process of their 40 minute match. Edge and Orton is the equivalent of a comedian telling a joke, then continuing to repeat the same joke for the entire set.

To make matters worse, we also have to consider that this isn’t live. It’s not like they got carried away and just went a bit long and they were a victim of live TV. This is pre-recorded, and therefore they’ve had a week to look at this, review it, and perhaps question “does this work”? While I appreciate they had a short window to work with, they’re also a multi-billion dollar company with - in theory - many employees capable of basic editing work. The fact they didn’t even attempt to fix this and inflicted it to the world in its original form is perhaps the most insulting part of it all.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a WWE blood feud without some dramatic storytelling, starting from Orton telling everyone that he loves Edge like a brother. Surprisingly, they only do this at the start and end of the match, which is good that they had the sense to limit it, but bad in that the middle had nothing of note to talk about so they might as well have put anything in there. Some people may praise Edge’s acting throughout. I am not one of those people. I think he comes across as inauthentic and try-hard, like the man just took a single acting class and thought he was Daniel Day Lewis.

After the opening section, we are - for all intents and purposes - given a tour of the entire performance centre. Changing up the environments sounds like it would make for an interesting match, but in reality they only go to three places and spend entirely too long in each one. For example, the notorious gym section goes on for 10 full minutes. To make matters worse, there’s not even a lot going on here. They do some spots with some gym equipment, but other than that it still follows the same structure:

Person A does a basic move.
Person B lies down while the referee counts.
Person A does nothing until Person B stands up.
Repeat.

I am sure this spot sounded really cool on paper.

I started counting the number of times someone went down for at least an 8 count, but after the 12th time, I pretty much lost the will to live and gave up.

With so much dead air, this match was begging for something - anything - to keep it interesting. Instead what we get is the absolute worst commentary performance by anyone that we’ve seen, or anyone that we ever will see. Without a hint of hyperbole in my bones, gun to my head, this is the worst commentated match in the history of wrestling. Give me troll heel Michael Cole, 2000 Mark Madden, and Art Donovan over whatever the fuck this is by Tom Phillips and Byron Saxton. Even outside of wrestling, I would rather listen to Ray Hudson commentating a Lionel Messi highlight video on repeat, or the decrepit human corpse of 2020s Martin Tyler. Fuck it, I would argue the two matches on this list without commentary are better on the ears than this. They call this match in a style not too dissimilar to, say, David Attenborough and Peter Alliss, but even that feels like a terrible insult to those two men. It’s like they’re being asked to tell the world that Owen Hart has died for 36 fucking minutes. That is, of course, when they’re actually talking, because for a lot of this match they say absolutely nothing. Oftentimes we’re left with nothing but the sound of the referee’s count and uncomfortable guttural grunting of the competitors. In an environment where the audio side of wrestling needs more help than ever before, this is unforgivable. They are every bit as responsible for this mess as Edge and Orton.

After a long gym session, the two make their way through to a conference room for the sole purpose of doing one lone spot when Edge falls about three feet off a ceiling to do an elbow drop. Ignoring the obvious question of why there’s mesh above the table, the spot isn’t that impressive because it is about as effective as any other elbow drop. That doesn’t stop Phillips and Saxton pretending it’s the most barbaric thing they’ve ever seen.

I am sure this spot sounded really cool on paper.

The final act of the match takes place in a storage facility. I say the final act, but that doesn’t really do justice to what is about to happen. There is quite literally 20 more minutes for them to go through, and they fill this next section out with a lot more walking. Between the walking, there’s meandering brawling, often just a straight punch which inexplicably leads to yet another referee count. I suppose they’re selling exhaustion, which is all well and good but that doesn’t make for compelling television. They’re also surrounded by ladders, which to their credit they explain because Wrestlemania 36 did indeed have a ladder match. This all leads to the one big spot of the whole match (with 11 minutes to go) when Edge jumps off a ledge through Orton and through a conveniently placed table. It’s not too impressive, but compared to the rest of this it might as well be Foley at King of the Ring 1998.

This gets a 9 count, to which Tom Phillips says “somehow this match continues”.

More walking. If you are the sort of person that does play-by-play for their wrestling reviews, god bless you.

Eventually they make their way atop a production truck. To put in perspective how ludicrous this is, the match goes on for another 5 minutes after they reach the top of the truck. The amount of padding to this match honestly astounds me. I almost respect it. As if to tease something interesting, they walk past a gargantuan ladder in the process, by far the biggest you’ve ever seen on WWE television. But instead they decide to grab a pair of steel chairs instead. Thematically fitting, but again - they’re teasing something far more interesting than what they’re going to deliver.

As the match finally, mercifully readies itself to be put out of its misery, Orton goes to put Edge out of action for good with a conchairto. They start doing some “dramatic storytelling”, as the overly concerned referee trope finally makes its unwelcome appearance and tells Orton he’s gone too far. Anyone who has watched the match will probably wonder what on earth Orton has done that’s “too far”. He really hasn’t done anything dastardly, unless you count a DDT on top of a truck. I’m honestly shocked it took the referee trope 35 minutes to show up. When Orton’s conchairto fails, Edge grabs him in a dramatic chokehold (that he would eventually dub the “Anti-venom”). There’s dramatic screaming. Orton does some dramatic breathing. All of a sudden, the overly concerned referee isn’t as concerned anymore as Edge goes for a conchairto of his own. Edge does some dramatic crying, as his conchairto ends this madness.

I blame Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair for this.

I have no idea how this ever made the show. In preparation for this review, I watched The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever from Backlash 2020. And you know what? It is great. It’s 10 minutes longer than this gargantuan match, and yet the time flies by and never feels like they’re going long for the sake of it. They took the match and enhanced it - turning the inherent negative of the covid environment and using post-production to give a thoroughly entertaining wrestling match. Wrestlemania 36 is the complete opposite, and the fact they ever thought this was okay without even so much as trimming it down a bit is perplexing.