Ranking Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena and the 10 Worst WWE Matches of 2025
The core of professional wrestling is the work that happens between the ropes. Great athletes step into the squared circle looking to deliver the best matches possible each time.
It does not always work out, even though athleticism is at an all-time high in professional wrestling.
WWE is loaded with veterans who coach and stage great matches time and again, but everyone has a bad day.
It is easy to be negative, but these rankings are not truly a statement on the talent of anyone involved. This is a difficult sport, and no one is always perfect.
Still, these are the 10 worst matches of 2025 across all WWE products based on their technical delivery, impact on the business and emotional weight.
Dishonorable Mentions
1 of 11
Stephanie Vaquer and Lola Vice vs. Chik Tormenta and Dalys, AAA x WWE Worlds Collide
On a night that introduced many WWE fans to AAA for the first time, the women's division was given almost nothing in a contest where none of the competitors had real chemistry.
WWE Women's Championship: Tiffany Stratton (c) vs. Charlotte Flair, WrestleMania 41
Whether the heat between these women was legitimate or played up, this almost shoot style of wrestling did not work for fans and made both athletes look worse coming out.
Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso vs. John Cena and Logan Paul, Money in the Bank
Wasting one of Cena's last appearances on a tag team match with no stakes between two makeshift alliances made no sense, and the ultimate payoff of R-Truth returning amounted to nothing.
This does include Rhodes pinning Cena as revenge for WrestleMania 41, but he still needed to win King of the Ring to actually get his title rematch, only for their heat to be thrown out days before SummerSlam.
Women's Intercontinental Championship: Becky Lynch (c) vs. Maxxine Dupri, Raw August 11
This was the biggest match of Dupri's career to this point, and it was a complete dud. She looked like a rookie against one of the easiest competitors in wrestling to work with.
Luckily, this mention ends in a positive as the two put on three significantly better matches two months later that would finally make Dupri a star and ultimately showed she did have what it takes.
10. World Heavyweight Championship: Gunther vs. Jey Uso, WrestleMania 41
2 of 11This is the best technical match on our list, but it may be one of the most singularly infuriating and aged even more poorly over the course of the year.
When Jey Uso won the men's Royal Rumble, particularly eliminating John Cena in a true shocker, it was supposed to be the ultimate endorsement of Main Event's talent.
He was tasked with delivering a special match with one of the best active wrestlers in the world, Gunther.
Unfortunately, not only was Jey not entirely up to the task, but he had also shown that in the past.
The two men have never had a great match together despite major stakes behind every encounter.
The build was solid, but the two opened the show rather than main-evented it as is usual for a Rumble winner.
Jey wrestled this as he has most of his matches despite supposed serious heat with Gunther, leading to a surprise sleeper hold that forced an oddly fast tapout.
It was a feel-good moment on paper but made The Ring General look terrible, tapping out to his own move applied by a man who would never use it again in impressively quick fashion.
Gunther is followed by "you tapped out" chants to this day that are lessening his own heat in the wake of retiring John Cena.
Jey held the title just 51 days before losing it back to the Austrian on a random Raw and has ended the year returning to tag team action.
This was not a badly wrestled match, but it was ultimately one of the worst due to how badly the booking and delivery of it landed.
9. NXT Championship: Ricky Saints vs. Trick Williams, Halloween Havoc
3 of 11While NXT has had an up-and-down year creatively, the in-ring work of the talent was generally impressive, outshining the main roster at times through the year.
Ricky Saints vs. Trick Williams is the exception, though, and is the only NXT match to make this list.
While it is understandable that NXT will have short and uncoordinated contests on TV at times, those that make it onto the PLEs are held to a higher standard.
That standard is even greater when it is a match between NXT's standard bearer and the new star brought over from All Elite Wrestling to make an immediate impact.
Coming off an inspired contest and result where Tatum Paxley defeated Jacy Jayne to win the NXT Women's Championship, nothing about this match landed.
The fans were not interested in Saints as the veteran babyface. Trick was trying and failed to build heat.
Booker T on commentary seemed to take genuine offense to Saints doing just about anything while Vic Joseph had trouble navigating his reactions.
This was slow and lacked any sense of drama, ending Halloween Havoc on a sour note despite an otherwise great event.
8. Women's United States Championship: Giulia vs. Chelsea Green, SmackDown, Nov. 7
4 of 11
This is the first match on our list where no fault can be given to either performer. Both Giulia and Chelsea Green are good in-ring performers who could have delivered a solid match.
However, they were not given that chance when WWE threw together this Women's United States Championship match.
Over the course of just one minute and 35 seconds, most of which was interference rather than in-ring action, Green rolled up Giulia and took her Women's United States Championship.
This was as close to 2000s WWE booking as this modern era has come, showing no respect to either competitor to let them deliver in the ring.
Giulia was especially embarrassed but has had no chance to rebound since her loss while Green has been mostly utilized in NXT over SmackDown since.
The main takeaway from all of this is how little respect WWE has for the Women's United States Championship.
7. Women's World Championship: Stephanie Vaquer vs. Nikki Bella, Survivor Series
5 of 11
The return of Nikki Bella to WWE has been an unmitigated disaster so far, leading to multiple bad PLE matches and a complete lack of interesting storytelling.
It feels like WWE is relying upon Bella's name to prop up a women's division that she cannot keep up with in the ring.
The Total Diva is one of the biggest names in the history of women's wrestling, but she has not looked physically ready to compete when called upon.
Her match with Stephanie Vaquer was not even the worst bout of Nikki's year, though it was the most disappointing given how much time and attention the contest was given.
Nikki befriended Vaquer to set up a dramatic heel turn that should have set up a heated clash for the Women's World Championship.
Instead, this was a clunky clash of talent that never truly got rolling before La Primera took it to the finish.
This is the low point of Vaquer's still-new world title reign and does not seem to have deterred WWE from teasing a rematch going into the new year.
6. Sami Zayn vs. Karrion Kross, SummerSlam
6 of 11
What was the point? Months of teases and promised evolution led to nothing in SummerSlam's least interesting contest.
Sami Zayn has consistently delivered when called upon by WWE, even overdelivering when he wrestled Johnny Knoxville at WrestleMania 38.
He and Karrion Kross wrestled multiple times over the course of this feud, but none of them worked. Their final match was the worst due to its repetitive nature.
Despite a specified stipulation that the loser would have to admit their lie to the winner, Kross spent the whole time yelling at Zayn to "say it" before he was required to.
The two lacked chemistry and delivered a story without any real impact, except to maybe leave Zayn directionless at times in the final months of 2025.
It is a shame that stands as the final legacy of Kross, who departed WWE on August 10 to little fanfare.
5. WWE Women's Title: Tiffany Stratton vs. Jade Cargill vs. Nia Jax, SmackDown 9/26
7 of 11It has been a rough year for the WWE Women's Championship.
WWE put everything behind Tiffany Stratton due to her growing popularity, but she struggled to find dance partners who worked with her in the ring.
One of her consistent challengers was Nia Jax, playing on their 2024 partnership that led to a successful Stratton cash-in against The Irresistible Force.
She and Jax struggled to work together in matches, including their September 26 clash that also included Jade Cargill.
The Storm and The Buff Barbie also struggled to work together one-on-one, leading to a volatile Triple Threat of top women without chemistry.
Nothing worked well in this contest that mostly broke down into a series of one-on-one encounters with one competitor outside the ring recovering.
Still, nothing stood out worse on this night than the ending. Stratton was late to break up a Cargill pin on Jax, leading to an unplanned kick-out.
The referee did not count the follow-up pin by Stratton, forcing The Buff Barbie to improvise a Prettiest Moonsault Ever for the victory.
It was an ending emblematic of the whole contest, leading to further questions of why these three women kept fighting each other all year.
Cargill had multiple matches this year that could have made this list, but she was arguably the least at fault throughout this one.
The hope in 2026 is that the recently crowned WWE women's champion will have better opponents for her title reign.
4. Women's IC Championship: Becky Lynch vs. Nikki Bella, Clash in Paris
8 of 11
The worst women's match of the year should never have been this bad.
Nikki Bella returned to WWE to work with top names of the modern era, starting with Becky Lynch.
The Man had a mostly strong year, especially with her series of matches against Lyra Valkyria for the Women's Intercontinental Championship.
Lynch even helped along another returning Divas era star with better results in AJ Lee in the same year.
While Lee showed her own ring rust, nothing matched up to Nikki's at Clash in Paris.
This was sloppy from the outset. Bella missed Lynch on an especially egregious springboard enzuigiri, and the two struggled to get back on track after that.
While Nikki struggled the most in this match, The Man should have slowed down and helped her veteran opponent.
Instead, there was a long stretch of this contest that felt off time and rushed before a forgettable finish that luckily ended the match.
3. United States Championship: Solo Sikoa vs. Jacob Fatu, SummerSlam
9 of 11
The past year was a major fall from grace for Solo Sikoa, who started 2025 feuding with Roman Reigns and ended it barely finding TV time.
One of the biggest problem Sikoa faced was the rising popularity of Jacob Fatu, who overshadowed him especially by the summer.
Sikoa ended Fatu's United States Championship reign and then faced him in a steel cage match at SummerSlam that quickly went off the rails.
While the two had almost no chemistry one on one, it was hard to even keep track of the action.
The frequent interference from Tonga Loa, JC Mateo and Talla Tonga overshadowed everything else and built to a lackluster finisher where Talla saved Sikoa.
The attempt to get the crowd invested again was throwing Mateo and Loa to Fatu and Jimmy Uso, who beat them up post-match.
2. John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar, Wrestlepalooza
10 of 11As we look back upon the entirety of John Cena's final year, what was the point of Brock Lesnar squashing him one last time at Wrestlepalooza?
This was the supposed selling point for the PLE, yet it was an opening eight-minute squash match that gave fans nothing.
WWE had seemingly let The Beast Incarnate's contract expire before 2025, and few fans were clamoring to see him back.
Matches like this are exactly why Lesnar was not well liked in his time dominating television.
The only reason for pitting Cena against him in 2025 would be to finally give The GOAT a definitive victory against one of the few men in wrestling he struggled to beat.
Instead, Cena was jobbed out to a man who also likely does not have much time left in the business and distracted from the other strong matches Cena was having at the time against Cody Rhodes, Logan Paul and AJ Styles.
The GOAT did not have many dates left at this time, and this diversion only left fans with a sour taste in their mouth.
1. WWE Championship: Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena, WrestleMania 41
11 of 11Two things were clear going into 2025: John Cena was entering his final year in WWE and Cody Rhodes was the top star in WWE.
It was inevitable they would collide, though few could have imagined the exact way it would play out.
In the single most dramatic moment of the year, Cena turned heel for the first time in 20 years while seemingly aligning with The Rock and Travis Scott.
The brutal beatdown of The American Nightmare at Elimination Chamber in March set the stage for a dramatic WrestleMania 41 clash that would set the tone for the rest of the year.
A tone was set, but it was not for the better. Cena's first match as a heel was a calamity, moving slowly and lethargically through basic offense.
Multiple times, they teased pushing the pace, only for something to get in the way. Rhodes melodramatically struggled over cheating to win while Cena refused to do much of his signature offense.
Scott arrived late and slow-walked to the ring, only to be a distraction for The GOAT, who picked up the win after blasting The American Nightmare with his own Undisputed WWE Championship.
It set the tone for a heel turn that felt doomed already, and WWE proved that by not paying the angle off in any way, eventually writing it off before SummerSlam.
While this was the lowest moment of the year for WWE, Cena and Rhodes redeemed themselves in their SummerSlam rematch, one of the best WWE matches of the year.
This match still represents how much time was wasted with Cena playing the villain and cheating his way through each contest until his lackluster redemption.
