{"id":146671,"date":"2025-11-21T07:00:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=146671"},"modified":"2025-11-21T00:31:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T05:31:11","slug":"biggest-wrestling-stars-who-lost-in-their-retirement-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/11\/21\/biggest-wrestling-stars-who-lost-in-their-retirement-match\/","title":{"rendered":"Biggest Wrestling Stars Who Lost In Their Retirement Match"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to wrestling, there is one common factor that wrestlers will never overcome. That one particular aspect is time. In wrestling, time is extremely valuable, especially for wrestlers who know that their in-ring career is coming to an end.<\/p>\n

Typically, wrestlers in their retirement matches often give their opponents the win for various reasons. Some include a part of the storyline or feature younger stars. Due to the latter, as a reason, veterans do it to give back to the business. Here are some wrestling stars who lost in their retirement match.<\/p>\n

Batista<\/h2>\n

Batista’s wrestling career was on and off as he sought other ventures. In his first run, he lasted eight years in the WWE before pursuing a career in MMA. Although he returned to WWE a few years later, he left again as his acting career began to take off. No matter how far away Batista is from wrestling, he still acknowledges his time there.<\/p>\n

Even with his acting career, Batista still showed interest in coming back to the place that put him on the map to become the household name that he is.<\/p>\n

When Batista came back to WWE one last time, he inserted himself in a storyline with someone instrumental behind his wrestling run: Triple H. Batista’s final match was a full-circle moment, as Triple H was around at the start and finish of his wrestling tenure.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that this was his retirement match, he went on to suffer a loss to Triple H at WrestleMania 35. Triple H also completed his own story as he never defeated Batista in a singles match until that night.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kurt Angle<\/h2>\n

Similar to Batista, Kurt Angle also had his retirement match at WrestleMania 35. His retirement was notable to fans as he was having a farewell tour where he competed against wrestlers who gave him his best matches, such as Rey Mysterio and AJ Styles. This wasn’t the first time he had a farewell tour in wrestling. His first farewell tour was in TNA, where his final match there was a loss to Bobby Roode.<\/p>\n

Angle’s final match involved wrestling a younger talent, Baron Corbin. Although Angle wanted to work with John Cena, Vince McMahon had other plans, as he was invested in making a star out of Corbin. It may have been something Angle didn’t want, but he understood the vision in pushing to elevate younger stars. Unfortunately for Angle, he suffered defeat, but he was able to put Corbin over and make him a star that WWE was pushing for.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Goldberg<\/h2>\n

When Goldberg returned to WWE this past summer, he intended to have one more match by challenging Gunther for the World Heavyweight Championship. This final match for Goldberg felt fitting for the man who became a star in WCW. His final bout was at Saturday Night’s Main Event in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia.<\/p>\n

\"match
Photo Credit: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Regardless of the finish, Goldberg was able to go out in front of his family and friends. Although he suffered a loss, which is already rare during his wrestling run, he gave his farewell speech to the fans. With Goldberg being vocal about retirement, he also hinted in interviews that he might go for another match. Currently, Goldberg’s match with Gunther is his retirement match, which he lost.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Dudley Boyz\/Team 3D<\/h2>\n

If there was a tag team that made history with table matches, it’s Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley of The Dudley Boyz, or Team 3D for the TNA Wrestling fans. Knowing that their time in wrestling had come to an end, they decided to have one more go. Both men wanted to go against a team they have a great history with, Matt and Jeff Hardy of The Hardys.<\/p>\n

When Team 3D challenged The Hardys to one more match, the decision was immediately made, going at it at TNA Bound For Glory in a Tables Match. This match was poetic for The Dudley Boyz, as Tables were their specialty weapon in major matches. After Bubba and D-Von fell short to Matt and Jeff, both teams embraced one another, acknowledging that their decades of legendary matches had concluded.<\/p>\n

Who else has lost in their retirement matches? Leave your comments below.<\/p>\n

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

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When it comes to wrestling, there is one common factor that wrestlers will never overcome. That one particular aspect is time. In wrestling, time is extremely valuable, especially for wrestlers who know that their in-ring career is coming to an end. Typically, wrestlers in their retirement matches often give their opponents the win for various […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5615,"featured_media":143519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7205,6,2192,8959,4,3],"tags":[1432,267,245,7085],"class_list":["post-146671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-north-america","category-wrestling","category-tna-wrestling","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-batista","tag-goldberg","tag-kurt-angle","tag-team-3d"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5615"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146671"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146694,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146671\/revisions\/146694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}