NJPW Legend Furious Backstage After “Worst Match In History”
A former NJPW star wasn’t impressed with one match during WrestleMania weekend.
Butterbean has suffered health struggles in recent years, but has been back in the wrestling ring for the first time in 13 years on independent shows in Indiana after losing a significant amount of weight working with DDP.
The former boxer has become another success story for DDP, given that he was confined to a wheelchair, having, by his own admission, given up prior to working with the Hall of Famer.
During WrestleMania week, the veteran put that newfound mobility to the test in a match against Minoru Suzuki with Dan Severn serving as the special guest referee. However, the match couldn’t have gone off any worse.
NJPW Legend Minoru Suzuki “Very Upset”
Writing in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer gave his rundown of the WrestleCon Mark Hitchcock Memorial SuperShow 2025, including the bout between Suzuki and Butterbean. The match had already been criticised online, and Meltzer described it as the worst bout he’d ever seen, awarding it -459.7 stars.
Minoru Suzuki wrestled Butterbean do a double count out. This was, in fact, the worst pro wrestling match I’ve ever seen. Unlike the last match, at least this one the crowd was so sympathetic to Butterbean that they made a lot of noise, chanted “Fight Forever,” and after the double count out chanted “one more round.”
Dan Severn was referee. Severn, who is almost 67, was not moving well. Butterbean couldn’t move at all. There was a story that he was recovering from a broken leg. He had been wheelchair bound and terribly overweight, and worked with DDP to where he’s out of the wheelchair and can kind of move, but not move in the sense to do a pro wrestling match…
This was -459.7 stars, like the worst match ever (-273.15 if you live outside the U.S.). Worse that the Sheik & Volkoff match on Heroes of Wrestling.
Meltzer added that Suzuki was “very upset” backstage after the match bombed, but the reality was that its failure wasn’t his fault.
I was told Suzuki was very upset backstage because he had never had a match this bad. The reality is none of this was Suzuki’s fault. Butterbean had no business in the ring. The thing is, people were really into the idea of the match and thought it was awesome when it was announced, and nobody had any hopes for it to be good match. But I can’t imagine anyone expected anything this bad.
At the other end of the scale, Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Bianca Belair from WrestleMania night two was awarded five stars. In the process, it became the first women’s match in WWE history to be given five stars.