Top Ten WWE Hardcore Matches

4 – The Undertaker vs Mankind – King of the Ring 1998

I mean, we had to talk about this. We just had to.

If you follow wrestling, you know about this match. If you have ever followed wrestling, you know about this match. It’s the match that put the Hell in a Cell stipulation on the map. You could argue it’s the match that made Mick Foley. It is the stuff of legend.

Only the third cell match ever, the bout is almost exclusively remembered for just two moments and both of them involve Mick Foley falling from the top of the structure.

The match, which began on the top of the cell, gave us its first infamous moment when The Undertaker threw Foley from the top of the cell through the announce table. The estimated distance of Foley’s fall is between 16-22ft, or, in technical terms, a really frickin’ long way to fall.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Foley fell from the top of the Cell again after a Chokeslam on the top of the Cell caused the roof to collapse beneath him, sending Mick plummeting to the mat below. This wasn’t planned by the way, so Foley didn’t even have time to prepare himself for the fall. It could have, and perhaps should have, killed him.

This is one of the most famous wrestling matches of all time and is one of the most brutal things you will ever see. Love it or hate it, there’s no denying this match has a firm place in the history of WWE and the history of pro wrestling as a whole.

 

3 – JBL vs John Cena – Judgment Day 2005 (Warning – Graphic Content ahead)

This might sound like one of his goofy catchphrases, but John Cena has literally bled for the WWE.

Following his WWE Championship victory over JBL at WrestleMania 21, John Cena was forced to defend his title against the ‘Wrestling God’ again, this time in an I Quit match.

This match is so bloody, it can be classified as “rare.” Both Cena and JBL bleed profusely during this bout, so much so that the WWE Network has rated Judgment Day 2005 as “TV-MA”.

The two men beat the snot out of one another in as close to an actual Street Fight as WWE have ever shown on TV, outside of Goldust and Piper, or course. The match ends when Cena threatens to beat JBL with an exhaust pipe, wonderfully playing off Cena’s gritty street thug persona at the time.

The violence doesn’t even end when the bell rings. Cena puts JBL through a glass plane that was part of the set after the match, sending a message to all future challengers. The John Cena in this match is barely recognizable as the brightly-colored face of the company he is today, with the only colors on Cena’s face in this match being bright red.

• wrestlemania 22
• royal rumble 2000
• street fight
• king of the ring 2001
• Bubba Ray
• the dudley boyz
• Shane McMahon's Craziest Matches
• d-von dudley
• Shane McMahon
• The Hardy Boyz
• Hell In A Cell
• johnny gargano
• I Quit
• kane
• Kurt Angle
• Jeff Hardy
• Broken Matt Hardy
• Mankind
• Matt Hardy
• Mick Foley
• nxt takeover chicago ii
• king of the ring
• tomasso ciampa
• Triple H
• wrestlemania x-seven
• nxt takeover
• bubba ray dudley
• raven
• Extreme Rules
• TLC
• extreme rules 2018
• hardcore championship
• Big Show
• Cactus Jack
• The Rock
• shawn michaels
• Edge
• The Undertaker
• Royal Rumble
• nxt

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