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RCC Spotlight: Heads or Tails: The New ECW TNA: Destination X 2007 Review MGN: Old School Reviews: The 1990 Royal Rumble OTC: Smackdown Grades 3/23/07 BTL: In Defence of...Vickie Guerrero
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The John Report: The Best and Worst of WrestleManias Past
by: John C. on: 3/28/2007 5:44 pm est  Can you believe that over the eight years I've been writing about wrestling online I haven't done a column about the history of WrestleMania? It seems like that's something every person that writes about wrestling has to do at some point. I don't know why I avoided doing it. I guess I thought it was just too cliché. As the countdown to WrestleMania 23 has continued I tried to think of a way to do something that hasn't been done a million times before. So here's what I've come up with: A bunch of short lists about the best and worst events that have happened at WrestleManias. They could be matches, moments, interviews or even the list of five Undertaker opponents who everybody knew had no chance of beating him. For each one there will be a brief intro the category and then for each choice a small writeup will follow. Some will be top five lists while some will be top ten (like best match for example). Before I begin, here's a little background on my history with WrestleMania. I've seen them all. Aside from the first two I've seen them all live. They're all on tape or DVD in my house somewhere. I've seen them all enough times to remember them off the top of my head and when a question arises I just pop it in to remind myself of it. I think it's incredibly hard to compare an event like WrestleMania 22 with WrestleMania 2 for example because a lot of things have changed in twenty years. We demand more from our wrestlers in terms of putting on better matches as well as better booking, production quality and overall show quality. If you see a lack of love for the early WrestleManias it's not because I'm hating on them. I love those shows as far as memories go because they happened during my youth, but from a comparison standpoint the quality of shows has definitely gone up in the last decade or so. That's my own opinion on it anyway. Now let's get to it. I've divided it all up into 15 different categories. There are ten best of's and five worst of's for categories. Enjoy. The Five Best WrestleManias The first four are easy because they're good shows from top to bottom filled with a lot of great, memorable matches. Finding the fifth one was kinda tough, but I'm happy with the list. 5. X in New York - Basically a two match show with Hart/Hart starting us off with the greatest opener in WrestleMania history and the Ramon/Michaels ladder match giving us a memorable match that won't ever be forgotten. The rest of the card was basic, but the two five star matches carried it. 4. XIX in Seattle - This one had two ****1/2 matches in Angle/Lesnar and Michaels/Jericho, which is more than enough to get it a spot in this list. Throw in a few other matches in the three star range like Rock/Austin (for the last time), HHH/Booker, the SD tag title match and the surprising Vince/Hogan match and you've got an all time great show right here. 3. XX in New York - Both title matches were great with Benoit/HBK/HHH being one of the best ever while Angle/Guerrero is an underrated match. The Rock/Foley vs. Evolution tag match was really good with lots of energy and Jericho/Christian had a tremendous storyline to go along with a three star match. It was memorable also for the Lesnar/Goldberg match and the crowd in NYC, but it wasn't a good match. There were some stinkers for matches here (7 matches that I'd rate under **), which is why it isn't higher. At 4.5 hours it was just too long. 2. 21 in Los Angeles - The reason this one beats XX is because there's more depth here even though the major title matches are inferior. You've got the classic dream match with Angle beating Michaels, a great new concept match as Edge wins the Money in the Bank match and some other solid matches on the card like Orton/Undertaker, Mysterio/Guerrero and HHH/Batista. Also unlike XX the show isn't super long although it's still nearly four hours. Plus, those Hollywood videos they did were awesome. 1. X7 in Houston - This is not just the greatest WrestleMania ever, but it's the greatest show that WWE has ever put on. Not only did it have arguably the best title match in company history as Austin beat Rock, but it also had a technical classic in Benoit/Angle, a lovely spotfest for the tag titles and the soap opera angle of Shane vs. Vince that culminated in one of the most memorable matches ever. It was four hours long, so there were some stinkers (Chyna vs. Ivory), but they were kept very short and were quickly forgotten. In other words, the great stuff was given the time it deserved and the bad stuff was discarded like rotten eggs. The sign of a great show is its ability to stand over time. Trust me, you can watch this show thirty years from now and still marvel at its impact on the business as well as the quality of it. The Five Worst WrestleManias These are the five WrestleMania's that you should avoid if you're ever in the mood to look back at past shows. 5. XIII in Chicago - If it wasn't for Austin/Hart having one of the best matches ever (hint!) this would be the worst Mania ever capped off by a horrendous main event, which isn't a surprise considering Sid was in it. Go watch Austin/Hart on one of the DVD's it's on and avoid the hell out of this show. 4. XV in Philadelphia - Ah, the height of Vince Russo's booking reign of terror. The problem with WWE in 1999 is they rarely gave the matches time to tell a story and there was always too much going on. This show is a perfect example with too many matches and not enough time given to the ones that deserved it. 3. IV in Atlantic City - Not a good show as far as memorable moments go save for Randy Savage winning the World Title. None of the matches were above average (save for maybe Steamboat/Valentine and Savage/Dibiase) and Hogan/Andre this time was really bad. 2. II in Long Island, Chicago and Los Angeles - Simply put, a bad idea. The show was in three different cities, it featured too many matches and had a boring main event as Hogan defeated King Kong Bundy. 1. IX in Las Vegas - Just a disaster of a show capped off by a horrible ending as a past his prime Hulk Hogan swoops in to steal the spotlight from Bret Hart and Yokozuna. They built Yoko as unbeatable, yet he lost the belt in about twenty seconds after "Fuji dust" (not sold in stores!) hit him in the eye and the big yellow guy hit a legdrop. The crowd hated it, as they should have. The rest of the show wasn't any good either. There were a lot of bad booking decisions on this show. Not a good time for WWE, or for us watching. The Five Best Crowds This is tough because there really have been a lot of great crowds. These are the ones that I'll remember best. 5. VI and X8 in Toronto (tie) - So I cheated to get both Toronto shows in here. Oh well. I was at VI when it was Hogan/Warrior and I wasn't there when Hogan/Rock stole the show, but I sure enjoyed watching it. A lot of people hate Toronto fans for going against the grain sometimes. You can't deny their passion, though. 4. III in Detroit - Some will probably argue with me for placing this so low. The image of the Silverdome with that many people is still very, very cool to see. While the 93,000 figure thrown out there by WWE is fabricated (it was probably closer to 83,000 or so - yes, they lie in wrestling! Shock!), it was still a massive audience and I'll never forget that pop when Andre hit the mat after the slam. 3. 22 in Chicago - Last year's crowd was awesome even if the show was just okay. The atmosphere for the Cena/HHH match was as good as any I've ever seen at a WrestleMania or any show for that matter. They were going nuts for punches as if it was a cheesy Rocky movie. It wasn't an all-time great show, but the crowd tried to make it one. 2. X7 in Houston - Massive crowd that was lucky enough to get the show that capped off the tremendous Attitude era that served as the best time in the history of this company. Some will probably complain because the crowd cheered Austin even though he turned heel at the end of the match against The Rock, but can you blame them? He's a Texan, so they were just cheering one of their own. Still was a tremendous crowd. 1. XX in New York - I loved this crowd for so many reasons. The chants they yelled during the Lesnar/Goldberg match, the way they were hot for everything that mattered and of course for the way they wanted Benoit to win the main event. There's something about WrestleManias and New York City. They just go together. The Five Worst Undertaker Opponents The Undertaker being 14-0 at WrestleMania is one of the biggest stories going into this year's show, as it should be. But how many of those 14 opponents stood absolutely no chance of beating him? Pretty much all of them, save for maybe Randy Orton and Triple H. This isn't a list to mock Undertaker. It's more about bad booking choices. Here is a list of his opponents that led to the most predictable Undertaker wins. 5. Jimmy Snuka @ VIII - I love Snuka, but he was jobber man here. 4. King Kong Bundy @ XI - Since Bundy's so fat Undertaker couldn't Tombstone him. The clothesline got the job done. The clothesline was not from hell, though. 3. A-Train & Big Show @ XIX - Funny story about this one is that Undertaker invited these two, plus his partner Nathan Jones to his ranch to practice the match in his ring. After a full week of practicing Jones still couldn't get it down. They ended up making it a handicap match that stunk up the joint big time. 2. Kane @ XX - They made a big deal about Undertaker returning as the "dead man" and all he got were pops for his signature moves. The match was horrible while the outcome of the match was just like it was six years prior. Why do it again? Can't wait for round three at WrestleMania 26. 1. Big Bossman @ XV - Not only was it a horrible match (hint!), but they decided to give it Hell in a Cell stipulations too. Nobody believed Bossman had a chance, nor should they have. The Five Best Uses of Celebrities Celebs have been a part of WrestleMania since its inception, so they deserve their own category. For what it's worth, I think the use of Donald Trump has been great. However, since his appearance hasn’t happened yet I am unable to include him in this list. If I did it next year I think he'd find a way to get in. 5. Pete Rose @ XIV & XV - The first appearance was in Boston when he ripped the crowd and ate a Tombstone from Kane. The second time around he got another Tombstone from Kane after being in disguise as the San Diego Chicken. Both were fun appearances. 4. Muhammad Ali @ I - Arguably the most famous athlete ever. Although he didn't do much, his presence alone gave WrestleMania instant credibility. 3. Mr. T. @ I - He did well in the first main event, teaming with Hogan against Piper and Orndorff. At the time he was a huge TV star with his work on the A-Team, so there's no denying his impact on that first show. His performance a year later wasn't so good. 2. Lawrence Taylor @ XI - For those that don't follow the NFL, Lawrence Taylor wasn't just a good player. He was one of the best ever, probably in the top ten of all time and the best at his position in my opinion. To have him at WrestleMania was pretty huge because it attracted sports fans to the show. Then, to see him do well against Bam Bam Bigelow was an even bigger treat. 1. Mike Tyson @ XIV - Tyson was at the height of his attraction at this point because it was after he bit Holyfield's ear. He was suspended from boxing, so WWE lured him in by paying something like $2 million to serve as the enforcer at WrestleMania. They got a lot of press on mainstream television as a result and business boomed soon after. My belief is people tuned in to see what Tyson would do, then stayed around because they liked the product at the time and he proved to be a very valuable investment. The Ten Best Moments The moments at WrestleMania make it a special show. There are so many. I could list 50 off the top of my head rather easily. For the sake of this column I'll stick to just ten. 10. Michaels wins @ XII - They sure hammered home that "boyhood dream becomes a reality" line for Shawn, didn't they? Very cool moment when he won. 9. Linda squares Vince @ X7 - I don't know why I love this so much. It was hilarious and I will always laugh my ass off at the sight of it. Linda gets up, Vince opens his legs and she delivers that kick to a huge ovation. What a thespian that Linda McMahon is! 8. Bret Hart on the shoulders of peers @ X - A cool visual like when a Super Bowl coach gets carried off the field. Adding to the coolness was Owen Hart sneering at his brother from the aisle. 7. Austin wins and Tyson knocks out Michaels @ XIV - After the ref got knocked out, Austin hit the Stunner, Tyson jumped in and counted the fall for a huge ovation. Michaels was pissed because Tyson had turned on him, so Mike decked him with one of the only right hands that knocked a guy out in a wrestling ring. 6. Rock and Hogan @ X8 - The image of these two together in the ring was awesome. I don't know if they expected the crowd to react the way they did. What a reaction. 5. Warrior saves Hogan @ VIII - The Ultimate Warrior is crazy, there's no doubt about that. Pop in a tape of WM8, though, and listen to the pop he gets after he saves Hogan from a bunch of horrible heels. The Hoosier Dome goes nuts. 4. Benoit and Guerrero hug @ XX - Two real life friends that had experienced so many hardships in a tough business sharing a very real moment in front of the world. Very touching. 3. Savage and Elizabeth reunite @ VII - When you can scan a crowd of wrestling fans to show people crying at how touching a moment you have all you can really do is say job well done. 2. Austin passing out to the pain @ XIII - This wasn't the "birth" of Stone Cold's run at the top because that started the previous summer. This was one of those moments where you just knew you saw something special. When he got out of the ring on his own power afterward it added to his legacy. This match defined the career of Steve Austin. 1. Hogan slams and pins Andre @ III - The reason you've seen this clip a million times is because it's the best. Nobody cares about the match. It's about the moment and what it meant for the business. The Five Worst Main Events For main events I'm only going to consider it if it was the last match on the card. 5. Yokozuna vs. Bret Hart @ IX - Technically it's the main event despite the Hogan/Yoko "match" that followed. You could see Bret didn't care about this one. He had the "I'm losing to Yoko and getting trumped by Hogan" look on his face. 4. Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna @ X - The match sucked because Yoko was so big at this point it was tough to do anything with him. The pop for Hart's win was huge. 3. Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy @ II - Very bad even though it was kept short at about ten minutes and it was in a cage. 2. Undertaker vs. Sid @ XIII - What a shitty match! And I mean that literally. Rumors are that Sid actually crapped in his tights during the match because he was so nervous. Gotta love wrestling sometimes. 1. Hulk Hogan vs. Sid @ VIII - What a mess this was. Sid kicked out of the legdrop, Papa Shango missed his cue and the match ended in a DQ even though I'm still not really sure why. The Five Best Main Events For main events I'm only going to consider it if it was the last match on the card. The first four came easy. The fifth one is a tossup, really. 5. John Cena vs. Triple H @ 22 - I re-watched it recently. I liked it more this time than I did live. The crowd helped a lot too. 4. Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle @ XIX - Very solid match although they would have a better match later in the year in an Ironman. 3. Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart @ XII - I never thought WWE would put an Ironman match in the main event of a WrestleMania. It worked. 2. Chris Benoit vs. Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels @ XX - The first ever triple threat match to main event a WrestleMania was an all-time classic and arguably the best triple threat match that WWE has ever had. 1. Steve Austin vs. The Rock @ X7 - What do you get when two of the three biggest stars in company history (Hogan is the other of course) main event a WrestleMania during the WWE's peak in front of nearly 70,000 people? A friggin' classic. The Five Most Surprisingly Good Matches At WrestleMania there are sometimes matches that surprise us because performers often try harder to make a good impression since it is the biggest show of the year. Can you blame them? Here's the top five. 5. Hogan vs. McMahon @ 19 - I thought it would be horrible. It wasn't. It was fine because they were able to do all the tricks to make it work. Vince's evil grin while peering over the apron is priceless. 4. Shane McMahon vs. X-Pac @ XV - One of the few bright spots at XV only because Shane-O-Mac proved he was a pretty good athlete in his first real match. 3. Undertaker vs. Diesel @ XII - Simply put this was one of the best big man matches you're ever going to see. Diesel aka Kevin Nash had his working boots on here as he went on to WCW soon after. 2. Bigelow vs. Taylor @ XI - A legit *** match by a professional football player in what turned out to be his only battle in the ring? Pretty surprising, I'd say. 1. Hogan vs. Warrior @ VI - To this day people are still surprised that these two had a good match together. As far as I know they worked out the match move by move with Pat Patterson and concocted a contest that I rate at ***1/4, which is definitely much higher than you'd suspect considering the competitors. The Five Best Moves Involving Ladders There have been five ladder matches at WrestleMania and all of them have been very good. In honor of that, here are five moments I'll never forget involving ladders. Painters beware. (Bad joke, I'm sorry.) 5. Matt & Bubba Getting Stacked @ X7 - With stacked tables on the floor, the interfering Rhyno shoves the ladder that Matt Hardy and Bubba Ray Dudley were on as the two men get destroyed by those tables on the way down. Ouch. 4. Edge Spears Jeff Hardy @ X7 - There's little Jeffrey hanging from the belt as Edge climbs a ladder from the corner, leaps off and absolutely crushes him with the most sickening spear I've ever seen. 3. Shelton Benjamin's Ladder Run @ 21 - You know what I'm talking about, hopefully. There's a ladder set up diagnolly, so the athletic freak Benjamin sprints across it to clothesline Chris Jericho. Awesome move. 2. Jeff Hardy Swantons Bubba @ XVI - This classic clip has been shown many times by WWE as Hardy comes off the humungous ladder to hit the Swanton on Bubba through the table. Crazy spot. 1. Michaels Splashes Ramon @ X - You have to understand that back in 1994 the idea of a guy jumping off a ladder for a splash was such a foreign concept to anybody watching that show. Truly one of those "did you see that?" type of moments. The Five Worst Happenings There are a lot of good things that have happened in the history of WrestleMania, but there's also been some bad. Here are five of the ones that stick out in my mind. 5. Lex Luger title match @ X - In the summer of 1993 the Lex Express was in full swing as Vinny Mac wanted him to be his new Hogan basically. Didn't work out. Lex flopped as the top guy that summer, but the push continued as he tied Bret Hart in winning the 1994 Royal Rumble and was still given this WrestleMania title match. The push died soon after and off he went back to WCW. 4. Mysterio's title win poorly booked @ 22 - Nine minutes for a World Title match at WrestleMania featuring all time great workers like Angle and Mysterio, plus a pretty good one like Orton? Horrible. Couldn't find time to give this match considering such crap like Boogeyman/Booker T. and the Candice/Torrie pillow fight? It's inexcusable. They spent an hour putting Rey over in the Rumble for his nine minutes of fame at Mania? Stupid booking. 3. Jericho the afterthought @ X8 - When HHH came back at WrestleMania in 2002 we all knew he was going to win. Problem was they made his match seem like it was against Stephanie McMahon rather than Chris Jericho, who they had put over guys like Steve Austin and The Rock. It also was a bad decision to expect them to follow the Hogan/Rock match that had everybody talking at that show. 2. Brock goes to the top @ XIX - The image of Brock Lesnar standing at the top rope ready to leap is still an awesome sight. The sight of Lesnar coming up short on his shooting star press is one of the most gruesome images I've seen in wrestling. I'm still amazed that he wasn't seriously hurt. 1. Hogan beats Yoko for the title @ IX - I already mentioned it before. To hotshot the title onto Hogan after Yokozuna and Bret Hart battled for it was really a stupid move. Especially because Hogan wasn't committed to the company full time. This was his last WrestleMania appearance for nine years. The Ten Best Built Matches With the Royal Rumble getting a shot at the champion at WrestleMania each year it allows WWE two whole months to build to the match. Sometimes they do a poor job of it, but most of the time they do it well. This year with Cena vs. Michaels has been very well done, for example, while Undertaker vs. Batista has been just okay. In this list I'll give you a look at the ten matches that I felt were built up (or promoted, if you want to get technical) the best. 10. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho @ XIX - It was the return to the WrestleMania ring for Michaels aka Mr. WrestleMania and it was handled beautifully as Jericho goaded him back into the ring. At this point we weren't sure how many matches Michaels had left in him. It was huge to see him back in the ring at the biggest show. 9. Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage @ III - The lines were clearly drawn when Savage took the ring bell to the throat of Steamboat, which made Steamer unable to speak. There was so much drama going into this one. I loved it. 8. Batista vs. Triple H @ 21 - It wasn't supposed to be this. Thank Randy Orton for not connecting with the fans enough, which allowed Batista to step into the spot. The outcome of the match was an afterthought. The build was one of the best. 7. Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart @ XII - I was a huge mark for the training footage they showed. Why don't they do that more often? Is it because some guys training consists of shoving needles in their body? Anyway the build for the hour was awesome. 6. Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair @ VIII - Classic heel Flair. He made up a story about how he had been with Elizabeth before Savage, brought out some doctored photos and made himself look like a complete jerk. The only bad thing was they didn't save this match for last on the card. It deserved it. 5. Hulk Hogan & Mr. T. vs. Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorff @ I - This is the one that set the wheels in motion. Without it who knows where WrestleMania would be today. You can't deny that sort of impact. 4. Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels @ XIV - The use of Mike Tyson made this one extra special. The moment on Raw when Austin had a shoving match with Michaels drew so much interest from the sports world. Michaels had a bad back that would prevent him from wrestling in the build to this one, but it didn't hurt it. 3. Hulk Hogan vs. Andre The Giant @ III - I'm not sure how many times they used the phrase "The Immovable Force vs. The Unmovable Object" for this, but it really worked. It sold people on the match. Nobody beat Andre before this especially by pinfall. I still remember how sad I was when Andre ripped Hogan's cross off of him. And I didn't even love Hogan as much as most. I just thought it was mean. Great build. 2. Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage @ V - One year. That's how long the build was for this match, basically. The year prior to this Savage won the title thanks to Hogan's help and then Randy went paranoid about Hogan's relationship with Elizabeth to the point that the Megapowers (Hogan and Savage as good guys) exploded. That led to this match, which was pretty good even though they could never live up to the huge hype. 1. Steve Austin vs. The Rock @ X7 - I don't even like that "My Way" song by Limp Bizkit, but every time I think about this match I think of that song. I can't re-watch it without thinking about that video package. The sit down interviews they had, the staredowns and the way they built up to this showdown were all reasons why these two are right there when you talk about the best ever. The Five Worst Matches I could probably list ten of these without much thought, but I'm going to limit the pain and just go with the worst five matches. I have a feeling Kane vs. Khali could earn a spot in this esteemed list after Sunday. 5. Roddy Piper vs. Mr. T @ II - A boxing match ended when Piper gave him a bodyslam. Yes, it was as bad as it sounds. 4. Crush vs. Doink @ IX - Two Doinks for the price of one! Bad idea. 3. Hulk Hogan vs. Sid @ VIII - You already read about this atrocity. The less said the better. 2. Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez @ IX - So many bad things here like everything Gonzalez does. Instead of giving Taker a clean win to end this mess they have Gonzalez knock him out with chloroform. Not exactly a technical classic. 1. Undertaker vs. Big Bossman @ XV - You know how whenever they show highlights of classic Hell in a Cell matches they omit this one? It's because it's really, really bad. The Ten Best Matches Simply put, the best matches in the history of WrestleMania. This is a lot harder to do than I had originally thought. I could have easily picked twenty matches to write about too. The top seven aren't going to change. After that it became quite hard. Ask me tomorrow and I may have three different matches from 8-10. These are just the ones I'm going with for now. You may have read some of them before because I've written about them in other columns. Here they are… 10. Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage @ VII - As emotional as any match in the history of WrestleMania. Savage walked in as one of the top heels of the company for a few years and he walked out as arguably the biggest babyface on the roster. Plus, he carried a blown up Warrior to one hell of a good match. 9. Edge & Christian vs. Hardy Boyz vs. Dudley Boyz @ X7 - The year prior to this they had a tables and ladders match that was damn good. The second time they got together at Summerslam they threw the chairs into the mix that was also very good. This time they perfected the TLC match and gave us what is arguably the greatest spotfest match in the history of WWE. 8. Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart @ XII - I can't imagine what it's like to wrestle that long. The first half was kinda slow, but the pace picked up and when it did so did the crowd. I think this match would have been better had they done at least two pinfalls. I don't mind overtime. I just think going an hour without a fall probably hurt it a bit. Still great, though. 7. Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat @ III - This was ahead of its time and its influence on the business can't be measured. Ask any wrestler in their late 20's or their early 30's and they'll tell you this match was a big reason why they got into wrestling. I love all the nearfalls in the match too. To this day it still works. 6. Owen Hart vs. Bret Hart @ X - Love the story going in about how Bret doesn't really want to fight him, but has to if he wants his title match later in the night. I don't know if many people thought Owen was going to win. I sure didn't. When he pulled it off I cheered even though he was a heel. It was such perfect booking. Bret could afford the loss because he was winning the belt later and now they had their feud to carry them through the summer. 5. Chris Benoit vs. Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels @ XX - The fans were really into Benoit here, booing Michaels a lot of the time and of course booing HHH as well. I think going into the match a lot of us had the feeling that Benoit was going to win, but for it to be in a clean match with no ref bumps and HHH tapping clean made it work all that much more. If this ended on a rollup or cradle or something then maybe it's not as good. The decisive ending helps make it legendary. 4. Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels @ X - Much like Steamboat/Savage, the impact this match has had on other wrestlers cannot be measured. Although this wasn't the first ladder match in WWF history (Michaels wrestled Hart in prior ones for smaller audiences), it was the first at WrestleMania and in front of the world. I like their Summerslam '95 match a bit more, but this one stands on its own for its impact on the business. Fun as hell. 3. Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels @ 21 - I believe it's a match you can look at as a reason to point out why you are a fan of this business. It wasn't a match that relied on high spots or crazy bumps to sink you in. It was a match that told a story. You saw Michaels try to ground Angle early on, slowing the pace down and keeping himself from being caught up in Angle's arsenal of moves. Then the pace picked up with Angle hitting Michaels with everything he had. They kicked out of finishers, they did some counter wrestling that was flawless and they built to a finish that, especially for the last ten minutes, was as good as any finish I could ever remember. Wrestling doesn't have to be about guys killing themselves going into tables and whatnot. Yeah, they did that one in this match, but it wasn't the story. The story was that neither guy would quit and the only reason Michaels quit at the end was because the pain was excruciating. It lived up to the hype. 2. Steve Austin vs. The Rock @ X7 - I think what's most impressive about the match to me was it never slowed down. Neither guy stopped. There wasn't a point in the match where you could say it lagged. It didn'tI don't know if Rock was ever better than what he did here. His chemistry with Austin was always amazing. They had several good matches before this, no doubt. It's just that this one went up another level. It's one thing to have a great brawl, which this was, but to have that plus each performer doing their job at such a high level makes this extra special. 1. Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin @ XIII - To me this isn't just the best WrestleMania match ever, but the best match in company history. I will never forget Bret using the figure four around the ring post. I will never forget when Austin cracked Bret in the back with a chair. I will never forget the sight of Austin's blood dripping into his mouth as he was passing out from the pain. I will never forget the pop Shamrock got for pulling Bret off Austin. I will never forget the standing ovation Austin received after delivering the performance of a lifetime. This match had everything that is good about the wrestling business. Two great competitors, a terrific storyline, an extremely high workrate, plenty of crowd heat, one of the greatest blade jobs ever and the greatest double turn in the history of the business. The Ten Best Performers The last and final category revolves around individual performers. Very tough list to compile, as you might suspect. Like a lot of categories there are a number of people that came close to making it. You can probably figure it out after you see who made it. (To the Undertaker fans that I know are going to write all I can say is just because you're at 14 Manias doesn't make you one of the best. He had far too many bad matches to make this list.) 10. Edge - One could argue that he deserves to be higher considering he's been a part of three different ****+ ladder matches at Mania's 16, 17 and 21, but because those matches featured six people in each one it's hard to point him out as the only star. He's here because of those ladder performances, but also because his match last year with Mick Foley was really good. 9. Chris Benoit - He's wrestled in six WrestleManias to this point. Three of them are ****+ matches, coming at 17, 20 and 21 while the other three are all solid. The only thing preventing him from having more great matches is being in relatively short matches. With Benoit you know the match is going to good. Just give him a chance. This man is a machine. 8. Hulk Hogan - Certainly not the best as far as quality matches go, but he was in more big matches than anybody and got people talking about WrestleMania unlike anybody else. Plus, the best matches of his career were typically at Mania, so he deserves credit for upping his game at the right time. 7. The Rock - If he never went off to become a movie star he might be at the top of this list. He definitely came a long way from being the guy that had a horrendous match against the Sultan @ 13. His three parter with Austin is legendary (especially @ 17), he had a classic showdown with Hogan @ 18, performed very well @ 20 with Foley against Evolution and really proved himself as a top guy by the way he always performed on the big stage. Now if only he'd come back to face Michaels just once please? 6. Kurt Angle - Don't know about you, but I'm going to miss him a lot at this year's show. There's no bad WrestleMania match on his resume. The best of his bunch came against Michaels @ 21 while his technical masterpiece against Benoit @ 17 is still remembered for the amazing mat wrestling. The match that I'll always remember for Angle is @ 19 against Lesnar when he was really hurt to the point where we thought he'd be retiring, yet he managed to pull off a really great match. That's why I love this guy even though he's going off into crazy land in every interview he does. 5. Triple H - You know what his win-loss record is at WrestleMania? 5-6. He's lost in the last three main events, putting over worthy opponents in the process. Aside from his quick loss to the Ultimate Warrior @ 12 and a bad match with Kane @ 15 his matches are usually above average. He was involved in a classic @ 20 as he put over Chris Benoit clean and last year put over John Cena in a memorable one. Too bad that his 11 year Mania streak is over this year. 4. Bret Hart - Lots of excellent work from him as a top guy while his tag work was just okay and then there are a couple of letdowns against Yokozuna, which isn't really his fault. Obviously he's got three classics under his belt against Austin @ 13, Michaels @ 12 and his brother Own @ 10. His match with Roddy Piper at 8 was really good and historical because it was the first time anybody pinned Piper. 3. Steve Austin - Every one of his six matches is over *** and two of them (vs. Hart @ 13 and vs. Rock @ 17) are all time classics that have had as much impact on this business as any matches ever. Throw in the fact that his last match came at WrestleMania XIX against Rock (his opponent three times at Mania) and it's only fitting that he get recognized as one of the best ever in Mania history. 2. Randy Savage - Some of the others have better matches on their resume, but Savage was WrestleMania in its first decade. Nobody else came close to having the quality of matches he had and that's why he's here. Want to see Savage at best? Check out WrestleMania VII when he carries the slug known as the Ultimate Warrior. That's why the Macho Man is here. Oh, and let's just forget about WrestleMania II against George Steele, alright? 1. Shawn Michaels - What's there to say really? The following matches were all above ****+ in my opinion: Razor Ramon @ X, Bret Hart @ XII, Jericho @ XIX, Benoit & HHH @ XX and Angle @ 21. Of all the other matches, even the bad ones like Tatanka @ WM9 are still pretty good. The dude does not have bad matches, especially at WrestleManias. He calls himself Mr. WrestleMania because he's earned that right. He is clearly the best performer in WrestleMania history. Final Thoughts As I said in the open the reason I did it was because I love WrestleMania. The point of this column is to tell you, the reader, that WrestleMania is more often than not the best WWE show you're going to see in the year. In recent years that's certainly been the case. You can tell that they've done a better job of putting together Mania's this decade especially. I wish it was always like that so I could forget about shows like WrestleMania IX in Vegas. I think this year's show will be one of the better ones. At least I hope so. This was a lot of fun to write. I hope you enjoyed reading it. It took a while to come up with the categories, but once I did that I was able to finish it off rather easily. I should be back hopefully on Friday with a WrestleMania preview column. I may throw in some emails from this column into that one too because I doubt I'm going to write that much. Then next week at some point I'll write some kind of WrestleMania recap although it won't be a running diary because I'll be away from the computer when I watch it. There also may be a return of For Love or Money in the future, so keep your eyes open for that too. If you want to get in touch with me about this column or anything else then email me at oratoryjohn@gmail.com with any comments or questions. I'll also go back to using oratoryjohn@hotmail.com as an MSN address. Don't email me there because I do not check it, but if you want to chat with me about wrestling then I should be there once in a while. I also use AOLIM although I'm not posting the name on here. Email me if you want that info. Smell ya later, John C. - oratoryjohn@gmail.com MSN: oratoryjohn@hotmail.com - Do not email me here! Will not be read! 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