Squash Match

"The WWE universe, they want legitimate competition, nobody wants to see mindless carnage."

— Matt Striker, Monday Night Raw

The time it would take for a normal person to read this entry is about six times as long as the match Hulk Hogan had with Yokozuna for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania IX. This is what is called a Squash Match.

The squash match is an extremely quick match, where one guy completely wrecks the other. These matches rarely last longer than a minute. Squash matches are usually used to portray the squasher as an unstoppable force. The Giant and the Wrestling Monster are the most common squashers, though it's not uncommon for a more average-sized wrestler to benefit from squashes.

There are many main tactics behind a squash match:

• First, it's a quick and simple way to get monster heels over (i.e. make them popular). By having them mercilessly destroy innocent and weak Face wrestlers, you create a formidable and threatening opponent for your star player to eventually defeat.
• On the other side of the spectrum, squash matches can be used to create a monster Face akin to a superhero who overcomes any and all odds set against him. Several of the most famous Face wrestlers have been created with this method, most notably Hulk Hogan (who was unstoppable once he Hulked Up, and the fans knew it) and Bill Goldberg (who accumulated a 173 match win streak, a number which was slightly inflated by WCW and consisted mostly of squash matches against low-card performers).
• Squash matches can also be used as a simple mechanic to establish fans' familiarity with newer wrestlers and their skillsets, particularly their Finishing Move. Ergo, a "nice guy" face wrestler simply shows off his moves and uses these matches to establish his personality, competitiveness and so forth, while a heel often might show disrespect to the referee for having to break an illegal hold.
• Squash matches can be used as a 'tune up' for a wrestler's presentation. If one of your big stars has been Out of Focus or has just suffered a necessary loss in a big match, having them quickly squash a wrestler or two is a good way of showing that they Still Got It.
• It can be used to set up a Wham Episode where a high-tier star gets absolutely Worfed when the audience was expecting a more even contest- see Cena vs Lesnar, Lesnar vs Goldberg, and Cody vs Lee below. When done properly, this can create some of the greatest and most shocking moments in wrestling history; when done badly it can badly derail a wrestler's career, but either way it's not something that can be done often.
• Likewise, an easy Meta Twist is to introduce a newbie wrestler that has all the makings of a jobber, but have them go on to score the quick upset (The 1-2-3 Kid vs Razor Ramon), or have them put on a far more competitive match than expected (John Cena's debut match against Kurt Angle), in both cases quickly making a star out of the rookie.

This tactic was most in vogue during the late Eighties and early Nineties, where top stars retained their star power by being fed a steady supply of rookies while their upcoming opponents were groomed in the short-term by the same method. A typical episode of Monday Night Raw during that time would consist of four to five short squash matches, and one main event that would usually be either a squash by a top-level star or end in a non-finish. The faceless losers that were on the receiving end of these matches were euphemistically referred to as "enhancement talent" (aka Jobbers, as in "doing the job", 'cuz someone has to lose), with a handful gaining cult fame or even making entire careers out of it.^note In professional wrestling, the majority of work is usually done by the person receiving the moves rather than the person performing them: setting up the move, executing the move in a safe fashion for both wrestlers and making it look like the move was effective. Because this skill set is so critically important, this can lead to a strange phenomenon where the perpetual losers are actually better at their jobs than the winners, and stay losers because they're so good at making others look better.

It's worth pointing out that squash matches alone are usually a very poor way of getting a wrestler over. While it is true that if a wrestler never loses, he will inevitably get over with the fans, it usually takes either incredible charisma or superior ring ability to make your mark on the average wrestling fan. Contrast Goldberg - whose sheer intensity during his matches was something truly special to behold - with "The Masterpiece" Chris Masters, who boasted a submission hold that was booked to be unbreakable yet was utterly unremarkable in every other area^note Another big factor in Goldberg's rise was that he wasn't just squashing underneath guys (though he was fed plenty of those in between more hearty meals) but working his way up the card, mowing down well known guys on his way to squashing Raven for the United States Championship roughly 4 months after his push started. He was also the only guy that could fight his way out of the usual New World Order beatdowns (since Sting got his balls cut off at Starrcade), and that eventually got him a pretty quick victory over Hulk Hogan for the world title in August 1998. And we all know how that ended....

An over-abundance of squash matches were also one of the reasons why WWE lost their lead in the ratings battle with WCW for over a year, as their predictable and boring squashes were forced to compete with Monday Nitro's packed card of quality, competitive matches every week. WWE was eventually forced to change their tactics and ditch their reliance on squashes for their main television programs, although their C-level shows (e.g. Superstars, Sunday Night Heat, Velocity) would continue the old ways.

Compare Begin with a Finisher, Curb-Stomp Battle, and The Worf Effect (given wrestling's nature, it's possible to pull off any of those tropes without the recipient losing a match). Not to be confused with the racket and ball sport known as squash, though Heather McKay did "squash" her competition for 19 years.

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Examples:

Professional Wrestling

• The first big squash match was at the first WrestleMania. King Kong Bundy defeated SD Jones in an announced 9 seconds (though the match was actually 24 seconds from bell to bell).
• The most notable subversion of a Squash match came from the May 17th, 1993 episode of Monday Night Raw. Razor Ramon fought The Lightning Kid and spent most of the match dominating and flat out embarassing him. The lightning kid countered Razor Ramon and then hit a fluke moonsault and got the pin. The Lightning Kid was then changed to the 1-2-3 Kid following this match
• Many of the matches in Goldberg's WCW undefeated streak were squash matches.
• Kevin Nash, as Diesel, needed only eight seconds to relieve Bob Backlund of the WWF Championship at a house show in 1994. This is an anomaly, because it was the last time the world title changed hands at a non-televised event (though there were cameras rolling, and thus the WWF's weekend recap shows were able to show highlights, which in this case consisted of the entire 8-second match).
• Yokozuna was fond of beating the tar out of two jobbers in a handicap match, then stacking the two jobbers on top of one another and hitting his Bonzai Drop finisher on both of them at once and pinning them, making these literal squash matches^note This wasn't actually a legal pin; but seeing as how the jobbers weren't getting back up without the aid of a spatula anyway, and Yoko's response to the ref if he complained would have been something like "Want to see if I can splatter three people at once?", people just ignored it.
• Takeshi Morishima's Ring of Honor debut both plays it straight and averts this, as his in-ring debut consisted of him running into the ring, slugging an unprepared Pelle Primeau (who'd issued an open challenge to start the show), and then dropping him with the Backdrop Driver (a high angle belly-to-back suplex) for the pin in less than ten seconds; this is, however, the exception, making him nowhere near certain other wrestlers in terms of squashing others, and in the semi-main event of the same show Morishima would be choked out by the outgoing Samoa Joe.
  • Ironically, his first match after winning the ROH World Championship belt in an extended squash (Homicide got some offense) was against B.J. Whitmer for a bit under fifteen minutes... the under-3-minutes squash rematch at the company's first PPV was more entertaining.
• The Ultimate Warrior has had some high-profile squashes. At SummerSlam in 1988, he beat the Honky Tonk Man in 30 seconds to end Honky's 454-day reign as Intercontinental Champion. On Saturday Night's Main Event, evil Japanese wrestler Mr. Fuji boasted that he had acquired an unbeatable martial arts master named "Super Ninja" and played it up as though it were to be a massive challenge, but the match ended up being a squash that ended in less than 2-1/2 minutes (No explanation was ever offered, but it was possible that the "Super Ninja" was a last minute substitution for a challenger who no-showed^note Or the WWF was trying to sign someone, probably The Great Muta, but wasn't able to close the deal). Then, at WrestleMania XII, he defeated a young Triple H in less than 2 minutes after being hit with a Pedigree and no-selling it.
  • Although in the Warrior's case, squashes were necessary: he was in such poor condition from steroid abuse that his ring entrance (a sprint to the ring) would leave him breathless and exhausted. There's a reason his generally-considered best match (against Randy Savage at WrestleMania VII, which went a shade over 20 minutes) had Warrior walk to the ring to start it.^note Also helping was the fact that they planned out the match move for move and spent the previous 2 months practicing, meaning that match was one of the few that actually was 100% choreographed. Savage's matches with Steamboat at Wrestlemania III and Hogan at Wrestlemania V were also planned out to the letter, as this was very much Savage's style.
  • He also had a very, very limited moveset (mostly clotheslines, tackles, and simple slams) and often didn't execute them properly. Thus, matches were short to not "stink up the joint" (as Ted DiBiase stated) and probably to limit the potentiality that he would injure his opponent with a poorly-performed slam. The aforementioned Honky Tonk Man squash was HTM's idea. At the time, he insisted it'd be highly satisfying to fans for him to lose that way after using every dirty trick in the book to keep the IC title for over a year (which was certainly true), but he later admitted he insisted on being squashed because he didn't want Warrior to injure him.
• A similar bit occurs in the Royal Rumble, where you lose by being tossed over the top rope. Some fans have fond memories of humorous 'runs' lasting under 10 seconds:
  • The record for the shortest Rumble time was held by The Warlord for twenty years: at Royal Rumble 1989, he lasted all of 2 seconds before being clotheslined over the top by Hulk Hogan. He stepped in the ring, and got knocked right back out again.
  • Santino Marella currently holds the prestigious record of quickest Royal Rumble elimination, as he was not done stepping through the ropes before being clotheslined promptly right back over them by Kane. The group of fans in the front row who spelled out "SANTINO" as he entered were likely unamused, however.
  • The 1995 edition saw Owen Hart charge in and immediately get backdropped out the other side of the ring. Total time: 3 seconds. Mo (of Men on a Mission) would do the same exact thing minutes later^note Owen at least had an excuse as he was a bit disoriented after getting the shit kicked out of him by his brother during his entrance, after Owen interfered in Bret's world title match against champion Diesel earlier that night (the match was ruled a draw due to interference from most of the heel locker room, Bret would also jump Bob Backlund during his entrance). Mo meanwhile just ran at King Kong Bundy full speed like an idiot and got dumped. In fact this Rumble was full of this trope, of the 30 entrants 7 were out in less than 30 seconds^note Thanks to this and the ridiculous 60 second timer (usually it's 2 minutes between entrants) the 1995 match has the honor of being the shortest Rumble match with 30 people. Shawn Michaels won from #1, but his time of 38:41 doesn't even put him in the top 20 of longest Rumble runs.
  • The funniest example had to be when Bushwhacker Luke came to the ring doing the Bushwhackers' signature Silly Walk. He was still doing it as he entered the ring, was immediately eliminated, and then walked right back up the ramp, never interrupting his stride.
• At WrestleMania XXIV, Kane defeated WWE ECW Heavyweight Champion Chavo Guerrero Jr. for the title in eight seconds. Ouch.
  • Similarly JBL lost the IC Title to Rey Mysterio Jr. in about 30 seconds at WrestleMania XXV, causing him to quit wrestling.
• Colin Delaney's purpose in life on WWE's ECW brand was being on the wrong end of squash matches, having been squashed by the likes of Kane, The Great Khali, Big Daddy V, Mark Henry and The Big Show. The squashes started being lampshaded with Delaney wearing progressively more bandages going into the next squash, but comeuppance came for his tormentor, the General Manager, when the guy was relieved of his post and his contract, squashed by the SmackDown! brand's U.S. Champion... and then immediately booked against a fresh Colin Delaney, who before long rolled him up for a pin. Delaney then had a meaningless Face–Heel Turn & was released from the company without fanfare.
  • Mikey Whipwreck was Old-School ECW's King of the Squashes. His theme was Beck's "Loser". Joey Styles lost it when Whipwreck got in an offensive move. When he lucked into getting a title, he constantly begged ECW to take the belt off him, even getting a note from his mother about it. He "won" his title defenses through a combination of run-ins, dumb luck and the occasional disqualification.
• Chris Benoit and Orlando Jordan had a hilarious storyline in 2005 where the former routinely embarrassed the latter in a series of squash matches, making him tap out progressively faster with every match. Benoit would frequently mock Jordan in backstage segments by indulging in mundane activities (like making a cup of coffee or taking a piss) just to show how much he can do in the same amount of time it took him to beat Jordan.
  • That storyline was a writers' saving throw. See, Benoit and Jordan had feuded over the US Title, and Jordan beat Benoit clean on PPV to the immense displeasure of fans who just weren't buying Jordan as being on Benoit's level.
• Beth Phoenix was relegated to these in the several weeks after her transfer to SmackDown, with her being put into squash matches with tiny, nondescript girls - who got little to no offence in as she bitchslaps them from pillar to post. How this was supposed to get her over as anything other than a vicious bully is beyond comprehension...
  • It's just how WWE gets debuting (or re-debuting) giants over. It's happened with Ezekiel Jackson, Vladimir Kozlov and Sheamus. She'll be built up to goddess-like status, and then have some real matches.
• Annoyingly, this is how Melina won the Divas Championship from Jillian Hall, cementing the latter's status as a joke as it happened in seconds after Jillian pulled an upset over Mickie James.
• When Big Daddy V (a.k.a. Mabel, King Mabel and Viscera) was being pushed in the In Name Only ECW, he once won a Three-on-One Squash Match. Said one reviewer, "Winner — Big Daddy V, via murder".
  • André the Giant used to do this routinely in the '70s and early '80s, as did some of the men the then-WWF brought in to feud with him.
• Bruiser Brody, who wrestled for the old WWWF in the 1970s, was also an old hand at destroying jobbers that got thrown at him back in his day.
• A most satisfying squash was Michelle McCool versus Mickie James for the Women's Championship at the 2010 Royal Rumble. Resident Bitch in Sheep's Clothing McCool had been taunting poor Mickie for weeks about being "fat" (calling her "Piggie James") and had her henchwomen douse Mickie with punch and smash her face into a heavily frosted cake, causing Mickie to burst into tears and run out of the arena. McCool kept ranting about how she had embarrassed James right out of WWE, and had her best friend Layla mock her by wearing a fat suit and a pig snout. At the Royal Rumble, McCool came out first and flat-out announced to the crowd that her opponent was too scared to show up. She and Layla were still gloating when a familiar musical theme hit and....MICKIE JAMES made an appearance on WWE programming for the first time in weeks! McCool's jaw was still on the floor from shock when James knocked her out and pinned her to win the title in less than half a minute. Michelle and Layla then were humiliated by Mickie and her friends with a big messy cake to the face in a splendid little Pay Evil unto Evil moment.
• Chyna vs. Ivory at WrestleMania X-Seven. Chyna just utterly destroyed Ivory, smiling the entire time like she was throwing around a doll, and then she finished her with a powerbomb. Chyna went for the pin, pulled Ivory up at the count of two, and then opted to gorilla press a defenseless Ivory to a cheering crowd. Then, without turning around to face her again, Chyna sat down and "pinned" Ivory simply by leaning back on her like Ivory was the back of a reclining chair, as the ref counted to 3.
• On an August 2010 episode of Raw, Sheamus used a loophole in the rules to avoid the risk of losing his title at an upcoming pay-per-view event. All he had to do was defend his title once, no matter who it was against. His opponent? Zack Ryder. It took ten seconds.
  • Of course, Sheamus was loopholed into defending his WWE championship at Night of Champions by the Anonymous General Manager through Wade Barrett's guaranteed title shot and turned it into a six-pack challenge.
• At Survivor Series 1998, The Rock's first round opponent was supposed to be Triple H (a no-show because of a knee injury), but he instead got Big Bossman by surprise. The moment Big Boss Man entered the ring, the bell rang, and The Rock put him in an inside cradle. The referee counted 1, 2, 3 and the match was over. It lasted three seconds. This would turn out to all be part of the plan, as The Rock would turn heel after winning the championship against Mankind later that night with Vince McMahon's help in a parody of the Montreal Screwjob; in a reference to how much The Rock was loathed early in his career, the people screwed the people. Needless to say, no one really saw that coming.
• Survivor Series 2006 saw Mike Knox get pinned by Shawn Michaels 17 seconds into a 5-on-5 tag match, after Knox was distracted by Triple H flirting with Knox's valet Kelly Kelly at ringside. To complete the burial Michaels walks over to the rest of his team and asks "Who was that?"
  Triple H: His name's Mike Knox.
  Michaels: But was he part of the match?
  Triple H: He was in the match, yeah.
  Michaels: So we're doing good then!
• TNA Victory Road 2011: In the main event, Sting defended the TNA World Heavyweight Championship against Jeff Hardy in ninety seconds. To put that in perspective, the introductions and announcements preceding the match lasted over eight minutes. Unfortunately, this was due to the worst of reasons: Hardy was "in no condition to perform"^note Reports vary on exactly when TNA officials noticed this—some reports suggest that it was noticed early but the officials decided that he could "shake it off" before the match; others suggest that it was only when Hardy was failing to ascend the entrance rampway that officials realised something was horribly wrong. and Sting was instructed to end it early to minimise the risk of injury to both performers. Despite being told he'd be taking a quick dive before the match started, Hardy inexplicably tried to kick out of Sting's initial pin, but Sting visibly held him down to force the issue. And Sting was righteously pissed about it^note As Sting is walking back up the ramp a fan near the stage yells "THAT WAS BULLSHIT!" Sting looks at the fan and shouts back "I agree!" On camera. (You can see it here, but it's not pretty.)
  • But then Hardy managed to redeem himself eight months later, at "Turning Point", by winning against Jeff Jarrett three times in a row. The first being from a single Twist of Fate. Total length: 5 seconds.
• In mid-2011, Brodus Clay had several matches like this on B-show WWE Superstars. He even pulled their heads up from his first attempt at a pinfall to beat on them some more. The jobbers could count themselves lucky if they managed to get a single offensive move (or even a dodge) in against him. Often a more literal example than usual, as Clay weighs in at 375 pounds and has used a leaping crossbody and a running splash as finishers, meaning they'd practically have to scrape his opponents off the mat.
• A June 11th 2011 Ice Ribbon show saw Emi Sakura on the mid card, looking to start evening the score against her former pupil Tsukushi, who had somehow or another beaten Sakura in their last four encounters. The bell rang and Tsukushi got her fastest win yet, pinning Sakura in four seconds (it'd take another five matches for Emi to finally get a win and even then it was a tag match).
• A particularly infamous example occurred at WrestleMania 28, when Sheamus squashed Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan in 18 seconds. The match was so anti-climatic and the result so detestable^note (At that time, Daniel Bryan was blazing hot as a self-obsessed Heel whose dorky, over-the-top celebrations sparked the "Yes! Yes! Yes!" phenomenon. Sheamus was less popular by comparison [although WWE was pushing him much harder than Bryan], but still regarded by many as a good worker and an excellent opponent for Bryan. They were expected to have a classic, well-fought match, with the anticipation heightened by the fact that the Bryan/Sheamus title match at the last Wrestlemania was unfairly bumped to "dark match" status.) that it severely deflated the audience for the next two matches. The worst part was that WWE was trying to create a "Wrestlemania Moment" by having Sheamus break the record for the shortest ever WrestleMania title match, and they failed to beat it, rendering the entire exercise a complete waste.
  • The fallout from the squash match, however, proved to have a much more positive impact than the actual match itself had a negative one, as Daniel Bryan and his "Yes!" catchphrase would ride the negative publicity to ever greater popularity. The very next night on Raw, the Miami crowd was chanting "Yes! Yes! Yes!" all night long, and Bryan even outpopped a returning Brock Lesnar. Bryan was quickly put in a feud with CM Punk for the WWE Title. A.J. Lee's involvement in the feud propelled her into becoming the most high-profile female performer in the company. Then Kane got involved, and that made him the most over he's been in years and led to the formation of the ultra-popular Team Hell No. Then AJ got involved with Dolph Ziggler, and her popularity helped his exponentially. As for Bryan? Nothing special; just two reigns as the WWE champion.
• Rick Cataldo has been on the receiving end of many in WSU. Alere Little Feather beat him one minute, Angel Orsini thirty seconds, Amy Lee beat him with Vinny G at the same time and Awesome Kong destroyed him and Roxie Cotton and would have done it again if he had not abandoned Cotton the second time.
• Skull Crusher Rasche Brown's 2010 run in Ring Of Honor consisted mostly of squash matches by way of burning hammer.
• During the debut of Ryback, there would be several squash matches against local jobbers to build him up as a monster in a similar vein to Goldberg, so much that the fans started chanting the name of the WCW legend during his matches. He was also pushed for the WWE Championship within a few months of his debut. This promptly killed his undefeated streak.
• Rusev has been like this since his January 2014 main roster debut.
• Brock Lesnar squashed John Cena clean at Summerslam 2014. There were no comebacks, no turns of momentum, and no CENAWINSLOL—only the Ultimate Underdog and the face of WWE getting demolished by the biggest overdog there is, the Beast who Broke the Streak. One other aspect that set this match apart from other squashes is that this was not a 30 second match, where the eventual winner so overwhelms his foe from the outset that he is able to go in for the kill almost immediately; rather, this was a 16-minute match where Lesnar was practically forcing Cena to concede defeat, and took sadistic pleasure in totally overwhelming him, using 16 German suplexes and two F-5 firemen's carries to finally defeat an exhausted Cena.
  • Lesnar ended up on the wrong side of a squash at Survivor Series 2016, courtesy of Goldberg.
• John Cena was also on the receiving end of a sub-3 minute squash at the hands of The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 34. This was a case of Real Life Writes the Plot, it was Undertaker's first match after having hip replacement surgery at the start of 2018, and there were doubts whether he could even wrestle at all, let alone have a marquee match at the biggest show of the year. Although he was cleared to wrestle, there was no way Taker could sustain a long match or bump much, so the decision was made for him to destroy Cena in quick and overwhelming fashion. To mitigate any potential blowback, the match was scheduled low on the card, WWE barely advertised the match and had the entire build be Cena calling out the Undertaker to no response, so they could have the Deadman snub him if necessary and the fans wouldn't feel too cheated.
• Sendai Girl's Pro Wrestling's 2015 celebration show for the 20 year career of Meiko Satomura, featured a glaring mismatch pitting Sakura Hirota against Jinsei Shinzaki, who outweighed her by about 39 kg(138lbs to 224lbs). Hirota was squashed in 11 seconds. However, she shook it off and took him on in an immediate rematch...which she also lost but at least managed to last more than five minutes in.
• Cody vs. Brodie Lee's first match in All Elite Wrestling is a good example of how to book a squash match in the long-term. Cody, as the inaugural TNT Champion, set out a challenge in which he would defend the belt every week on Dynamite. The commentary team made note throughout on how such a challenge is gradually wearing down Cody's physical ability, and that it cannot end well for him. When it was Brodie's turn to challenge for the belt, it was a three-minute squash in which he steamrolled over a physically drained Cody, putting Brodie over as a menacing Wrestling Monster while protecting Cody as he was clearly not at his peak.
• Kurt Angle's "Angle Invitational." Where he would offer up his Olympic gold medals to a new "enhancement talent" jobber every week, if they could last at least 3 minutes in the ring against him. Needless to say, most didn't even make it a minute.
• While co-hosting Wrestlemania 39, The Miz got squashed twice, once for each night. On Saturday, when lamenting that nobody had answered his challenge for a fight, Pat McAfee emerged from backstage and pinned him down in less than four minutes. His match on Sunday went even worse; fellow host Snoop Dogg, with help from Shane McMahon, took him down in less than three minutes.

Other Media

Anime & Manga

• These are often shown in tournament arcs, often to show how powerful the protagonists or antagonists are, or to show how much they've grown. For example, King Chappa in Dragon Ball is a former winner of the World Martial Arts Tournament, having won without even being touched. Master Roshi, Goku's martial arts master, believes that Goku's in for a rough fight but is quickly proven wrong when Goku completely outmatches King Chappa.
  • King Chappa makes a reappearance later, encountering a now adult Goku during another World Martial Arts Tournament. Goku defeats him even more handily this time around, showing how much stronger he's gotten since their last encounter.
• H2: Meiwa Daiichi High School's baseball team expects this when they accept an invitation to an exhibition match with Senkawa High School (which doesn't even have a formal baseball club). They even send out their second stringers, believing it a waste to send in their best players and planning to give said second stringers some experience. However, once Senkawa's team starts putting up a better fight than expected and the coach (and his players) recognise the name Hiro Kunimi among Senkawa's ranks, they stop playing around and send in the first stringers. This includes Hiro's best friend and friendly rival Hideo Tachibana, who admits to his coach that he's excited to have a chance to go all out against Hiro.
• One match in the Mahora Martial Arts Tournament in Negima! Magister Negi Magi pitted a random bit character against the supremely powerful Friendly Neighborhood Vampire Evangeline K McDowell. She won the match instantly, in a single blow, without even focusing on the fight.
• Samurai Deeper Kyo takes this trope to a whole other level when Kyo ends a Tournament Arc early by demanding that every remaining contestant (aside from his allies) fight him at once so he can get the tournament over with, ending in him killing them all in seconds.

Comic Books

• Spider-Man
  • In Amazing Fantasy #15, immediately after discovering he has super-powers, Peter Parker goes up against a pro wrestler (Bonesaw in the movie, "Crusher" Hogan in the comics), whose promoter is offering a cash prize to anyone who can stay in the ring with him for five minutes. Until Parker makes a fool of him, naturally no one can.
  • In an issue of Spider-Man's Tangled Web (written by ECW's Raven no less), it was a Worked Shoot by Crusher Hogan to help the struggling company attract more fans.
• Judge Dredd: In "The Wilderness Days", the corrupt Judges of post-apocalyptic Las Vegas use the promise of weapons of mass destruction to convince a wandering Judge Death to take part in a series of boxing matches. A group of increasingly suicidal contenders go up against the undead life-hating monster, with messy results.

Comic Strips

• Curtis: The title character's favorite athlete, a former world champion boxer named Percy Percy Coleman (meant to be a clear Expy of former Real Life champion Buster Douglas), often attempts comeback fights that always end with him being on the receiving end of one of these. The match is always described with these lines:
  Announcer: (DING!) There's the bell for round one!! (POW!) And the challenger is OUT!!!

Film

• In Unleashed, Danny's boss enters him into an underground fighting competition, and Danny is required to fight another applicant to prove he's a worthy contender. Which he does, by striking the man in the throat with a single blow in half a second.
• A non wrestling example is used in the The Longest Yard. After disgraced football player, Paul Crew, gets sentenced to prison following a drunken high speed chase, the warden asks Crew for a few pointers on how his team, comprised of the prison's guards can improve their abilities and win their league's championship. Crew recomends a "tune-up" game, which would consist of the guard's team playing, and beating, a much weaker opponent to improve the team's morale. The warden convinces Crew to train a team of convicts for the "tune-up" game with the possibility of shortening his sentence.
• In Idiocracy, when Joe convinces the government leaders to irrigate their crops with water, instead of Brawndo, a sports drink, the economy collapses, and he's arrested and tried. The trial ends with Joe being sentenced to one night in "rehab." "Rehab" being a televised execution, in Joe's case being chained to a large rock while driving a subcompact car in a demolition derby against two giant monster trucks, one armed with a giant jackhammer and another a giant drill.

Live-Action TV

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "The House of Quark", Quark finds himself on the wrong end when he is challenged by D'Ghor, a villainous Klingon, to an honor-bound duel to the death. In desperation, Quark throws down his weapon and declares that he does not intend to fight back, knowing that he didn't have a chance and that the duel was little more than a glorified execution. Thankfully, Chancellor Gowron realizes that is precisely what's happening and saves Quark's bacon. Later, in "Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places, he is once again challenged to a duel to the death by a less villainous, but no less hostile, Klingon, with no way to weasel his way out, save for Lt. Worf and a touch of Applied Phlebotinum.

Video Games

• The first match in the Arena sub-plot of Jade Empire is against an ogre, a slow-moving, slow-attacking enemy that wasn't all that big a threat two chapters previous. The promoter explains that, in addition to showing off for the crowd (the "big names" of the arena have particular stories about how they fought it, like The Ravager's Single-Stroke Battle), it's a test that you aren't completely hopeless. The entire provisional tier of competition is a series of less intentional squash matches because they're mostly for keeping the local dojo kids out of the "real" tiers and are in no way a threat to The Chosen One.
• The battle against Zote in the Colosseum of Fools in Hollow Knight plays out like this. It only takes about a dozen hits to lay him out, and in the meantime he's incapable of hurting the player, or even jumping without falling over himself, for that matter.
• The battle against the Electrocutioner in Batman: Arkham Origins also plays out like this. Batman is herded into an arena with a cheering crowd of gang members, with the Electrocutioner making a grand entrance and delivering a Badass Boast to the player. Cue Batman dropkicking him in the face and laying him out in a single blow.
• In LISA, the first and last matches you face in the EWC arena are set up as these, where Brad is meant to deliberately throw the fight to set up a rivalry between him and another wrestler. You’re also told to lose the final fight in the Eternal Championship Rumble, but unlike the first match you can actually defeat Death Queen instead, going Off the Rails and winning the title belt, before getting kicked out of the EWC.

Western Animation

• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies:
  • "Bunny Hugged," an early 1950s portrait of professional wrestling starring Bugs Bunny. Here, the short's main villain, the Crusher (a Monster Heel) pummels Gorgeous George-clone Ravishing Ronald into brutal submission; when Ronald's cries for help go unanswered, Ronald's "mascot" (Bugs) decides to step in. (Bugs, who initially steps in as "The Masked Terror," is knocked around early in the bout, but eventually gets the upper hand.)
  • Bully for Bugs. Although it has nothing to do with wrestling, the "squash" part comes early in the cartoon, where a magnificent bull is able to easily defeat a cowardly matador.
  • Count Me Out has Egghead go up against the world champion Biff Stew in a boxing match. Egghead was so clearly outmatched that the announcer was in hysterics while announcing him.
• In Celebrity Deathmatch, the Loch Ness Monster kills Bigfoot in six seconds, before the bell rang. The audience members hated the ending of the match, and commentator "Stone Cold" Steve Austin called that match "a six-second suckfest".
• Dennis the Menace: The 1986 animated series had an episode where Dennis discovers a medieval warrior named Thor in a block of ice, thaws him out, becomes friends with him and raises havoc all over town. The segment ends at a pro wrestling match, where a Monster Heel is making mincemeat out of a hapless challenger in a championship bout, after which he heckles the crowd and demands a real challenge. Thor immediately accepts, makes short work of the monster heel and wins the match … and shockingly the title (even though he was not a wrestler signed to the organization). (Perhaps this was a nod to the hype involving then-WWF newcomer Hulk Hogan challenging and ultimately beating champion The Iron Sheik for the title, just days after arriving in the WWF).

Sports

• Not uncommon in Mixed Martial Arts organizations that are trying to push the popularity of a fighter or "season" a rising star. The star is matched against an obviously inferior fighter, sometimes called a "tomato can" or "can," for an easy win. The Japanese promotion PRIDE FC was particularly fond of this trope, often padding out the resumes of its star fighters like Fedor Emelianenko with matches against popular but vastly outmatched Japanese professional wrestlers. The UFC is also not immune to this practice. For example, the 12-0 British rising star Michael Bisping was matched in his third UFC fight against 8-9-2 Elvis Sinosic.
• A pretty standard practice for up-and-coming boxers is to get ring experience and seasoning by fighting a spate of journeymen, club fighters and "tomato cans," typically squashing each one without much difficulty. This is why so many boxers have 20-0 records by the time they start fighting higher profile bouts.
• A type of "squash match" is very frequently seen in sports – most often, the high school and collegiate levels – although these aren't referred to as squash matches, although it is almost always an assured win for one of the teams by a sizable margin. Still, the resemblance is uncanny: A team – often in an early-season exhibition or non-conference game – will play against an overmatched opponent. These games often allow players to practice plays and skills in actual game situations and gain confidence, get fans to become familiar with whom the top players will be (and their attributes), plus help coaches to assess talent of both starters and reserves (frequently, a junior varsity player will see quite a bit of action) and determine regular-game rotations, things the team needs to work on and so forth prior to playing the "meat" – i.e., conference portion – of their schedule. This is pretty much the rule for homecoming games. Losing the game would dampen the celebration, so these matches are usually played against a weak opponent. Why does the overmatched opponent agree to this? At the college level, the answer is almost always money: the major-conference team will pay good money for that easy win.
  • In conference games where one team is expected to (and does) get a win by a large margin, coaches will often leave their starters and top substitutes in the game, or in the very least use their signature offensive and defensive plays, only long enough to gain command of the contest. Unlike professional wrestling, the coaches will often use reserves or, short of that, try out new offenses or work on skills they need to work on or fine tune before playing a better opponent.

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