5 pairs of wrestlers with no in-ring chemistry
Look back through the pages of wrestling history and you’ll see all kinds of legendary stars. Stemming from them, you’ll see great rivalries for which the in-ring chemistry contributed towards a good storyline and made it into one of wrestling’s all-time great rivalries.
Consider Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat, Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels, or Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit. Not to take anything from any of these performers individually, or the stories that the creative powers concocted around them. The matches resulting from these particular pairings demonstrated legitimate chemistry.
There are other great pairs of wrestlers, however, who never quite gelled in the ring. It’s not that either one of them was necessary at fault. Despite their respective skills, the works out timings, and opportunities (sometimes multiple opportunities) they never had the chemistry to deliver the match we thought to have. Here’s a look at five of those pairs.
#5 AJ Styles and Kevin Owens
When you talk about the best all-around talents in WWE today, and particularly guys who have killed it in the ring with some notch matches, no can really match AJ Styles; Kevin Owens also makes it into the top 5 with ease. Put these two hard working indie-bred talents in the same ring, and the results ought to be magical, right?
Styles and Owens got a spotlight feud this past summer, warring over the United States Championship. The pair simply never clicked in their matchups. It’s telling that their best encounter was a SmackDown Triple Threat that also included Chris Jericho (who had proven chemistry with both men).
It’s also telling that the program included the biggest flub of Styles's WWE tenure (the finish to their Battleground match, widely theorized to have been botched when Styles was awkwardly pinned for a long three count) and that their highest profile blow off match at SummerSlam had much more to do with Shane McMahon than the men fighting.