The Magnificent Seven: The 7 Best Wrestlemania Title Changes

For all of the flack we critics tend to give WWE for not placing enough value on championships, WWE has had its moments of making titles feel like very big deals, and executing very important, career making title changes at its biggest show of the year—WrestleMania.

On the eve of a title and paradigm shift that many of us are expecting this weekend in favor of Roman Reigns, today, I’m looking at the seven best WrestleMania title changes. To be up front about my methodology, I considered how the title change paid off a storyline, its long-term implications, the quality of the match at hand, and, admittedly, a healthy dose of personal preference in developing this list.

#7. Bret Hart defeats Roddy Piper for the WWF Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania 8

Bret Hart spent a goodly portion of 1991 and early 1992 establishing himself as a mid-card singles performer who reigned over the Intercontinental Championship division. And while his initial IC title win over Mr. Perfect certainly did signify a push, I’d suggest that the start of his second reign was all the more impactful. After a kayfabe illness cost him a title match to The Mountie, Roddy Piper recovered the title for the forces of good and set up Piper-Hart title match at WrestleMania 8.

The resulting match may have been Piper’s single best WWF one-on-one outing, and it was a starmaking bout for Hart who looked as though he absolutely belonged with the legendary Hot Rod in a match that ranged from technical wrestling to brawling to a great bit of dramatic storytelling as Piper was tempted to revert to his old heelish ways when a ring bell came into play. The match closed perfectly—Piper had his signature sleeprhold locked onto Hart and in a counter that, to my knowledge, had never before been used in WWF, Hart pushed out of the corner to catch Piper an unbreakable pinning predicament.

This outing cemented Hart’s place as an upper mid-card talent and, paired with a classic main event opposite Davey Boy Smith four months later, set him on a course toward the main event by year’s end.

#6. Shawn Michaels defeats Bret Hart for the WWF World Championship at WrestleMania 12

WrestleMania has seen its share of watershed moments, from Hulk Hogan passing the torch to The Ultimate Warrior, to Triple H doing the honors for Batista. When Shawn Michaels took the world title from Bret Hart, it was no surprise, but it was a satisfying culmination of a story over a year in the making, during which time Michaels established himself as one of the WWF’s all-around top hands, turned face, and was properly groomed as the new face of the company.

In addition to Michaels’s coronation, on a meta-level, WrestleMania 12 was the show at which the WWF cemented a paradigm shift. Hulk Hogan, Yokozuna, and Kevin Nash were out of the world title picture and undersized Bret Hart headlined the biggest show of the year with Michaels, an even smaller talent, in a match that the WWF allowed to run over a full hour long. Sure, a year later The Undertaker and Sid headlined and the WWF may have seemed to have regressed, but the years to follow would reinforce that the WWF had changed courses to a greater focus on a quality in-ring product, as Steve Austin rose to the top, battling Michaels and then The Rock.

But putting all of the connotations for Michaels and the WWF on the whole aside, Michaels-Hart at ‘Mania was arguably the best pure, technical main event in ‘Mania history, and regardless of politics and complications to follow, the sight of Michaels on the mat, clutching his first world title in the center of the ring remains a truly classic WrestleMania moment.

#5. Bret Hart defeats Yokozuna for the WWF World Championship at WrestleMania 10

I’m not sure who first posed this thought, but I’ve always felt that the sentiment to best sum up Bret Hart’s second world title win was that this was the closest Vince McMahon had ever come to publicly admitting he had been wrong, and doing what he could to make things right.

At WrestleMania 9, Vince McMahon retreated from the fledgling New Generation to embrace a better known commodity when he took the strap off of Bret Hart and transferred it to Hulk Hogan. It turned out Hogan wasn’t particularly over any more (besides still aiming to focus on an acting career), so McMahon tried to replace him with Lex Luger.

By March 1994, McMahon seemed to have realized that his initial impulse toward a smaller, more technically proficient face of the company had been the right call in the first place. He not only put the title back on The Hitman, but set up his first major program as champ to be opposite his brother Owen.

It’s easy to praise the ending of WrestleMania 10 as an admitted mark for Bret Hart. But this title change objectively earns a top five spot because it was far from a foregone conclusion. It was possible, though admittedly unlikely, that Yokozuna would walk out of WrestleMania 10 as the world champ. Otherwise, the popular wisdom at the time was that Lex Luger and Hart had more or less equal odds at winning the strap. The WWF added an extra layer of intrigue in the master stroke of Hart losing the opening match of the show to his brother Owen—imposing doubts on his worthiness as a title contender and brilliantly laying the groundwork for the aforementioned brother-brother program.

Were the Hart-Yokozuna match better, I might have pushed this title change up into the top four, but it was what it was.

#4. Steve Austin defeats Shawn Michaels for the WWF World Championship at WrestleMania 14

On one hand, I can understand the argument that this title change should be number one on the countdown. After all, Steve Austin is arguably the most important WWF/E champ of the WrestleMania era (Hulk Hogan and John Cena are the only other two guys in the conversation), he and Cena were the top two faces to win their first world titles at WrestleMania, and Austin had the benefit of winning his over all-time great Shawn Michaels (not to mention the fact that he did so toward the start of the red hot Attitude Era).

If you want to talk about the moment of victory and the subsequent impact alone, you can make a very real argument for Austin at number one. Just the same, this title change does have its knocks against it that keep it relegated to number four for me. First of all, there’s the surprise factor. Simply put, Austin’s first title win was all but inevitable at this point, and it would have been more of a shocker for him to have lost the WrestleMania main event. In addition to that, there’s the matter of payoff. Yes, Austin and Michaels put together a compelling enough little program. Austin was hot. DX was hot. Just the same, when it came to the top storyline in the month leading up to WrestleMania 14, Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon was WWE’s top feud. Unlike The Rock, who essentially reperesented McMahon when he fought Austin at WrestleMania 15, Michaels was less a proxy than an adjacent act to the WWF’s biggest angle—not as electric of a heel as McMahon in that moment, and not even as attention-grabbing as guest enforcer Mike Tyson at ringside.

And then there’s the match itself. While not, by any means, a bad match, Austin-Michaels was a far cry from what it might have been were Michaels’s back not held together with bubble gum and duct tape by that night. What might have been a five-star all-time classic was more of an average WrestleMania main event—completely adequate, but just the same, not the kind of match that makes anyone’s shortlist for best ‘Mania encounters.

#3. Randy Savage defeats Ted Dibiase for the WWF World Championship at WrestleMania 4

Last week, I wrote about WrestleMania’s best surprises, and made mention of the shocking double elimination of main event mainstays Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant from the WrestleMania 4 tournament’s quarterfinals. The upshot of that moment was the unlikely rise of Randy Savage, topping Ted Dibiase in a showdown between their generation’s premier WWF technicians (albeit a showdown that didn’t result in quite as good of a match as you’d hope—but given it was Savage’s fourth outing that night and Dibiase’s third, we can cut it some slack).

The match marked a bend in the WWF’s narrative arc, promoting Savage to the main event and rather than, as popular rumor has it, entrenching Ted Dibiase as Hulk Hogan’s main event rival, setting up a two-on-two program between The Megapowers and the The Megabucks for the months ahead, before Savage went heel and warred with Hogan at the top of the card.

Most important in all of that, WrestleMania 4 marked the moment at which Savage as top technician, top high flyer, entertaining brawler, and skilled promo guy got his chance at his very first world title run. It was an infinitely satisfying moment that went a long way toward establishing one of wrestling’s great icons.

#2. Chris Benoit defeats Triple H (and Shawn Michaels) for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 20

Ten years ago, I don’t suspect that many hardcore fans would argue with this choice, but in the aftermath of the Benoit family tragedy, I get why so many folks want to make like WWE and pretend this moment never happened.

But it did happen.

No, this match didn’t result in Benoit becoming a long-term main event fixture and, of course, his legacy would only head down the toilet from there. Nonethless, the match itself is an all-time WrestleMania classic and quite arguably the greatest triple threat match of all time (I’d say only TNA’s first AJ Styles-Samoa Joe-Christopher Daniels match rivals it). Better yet, it came as the capper to a long road of Benoit moving from territory to territory and country to country, out of the WCW cruiserweight ranks, out of the WWF mid-card and tag division, to the place he objectively belonged at the time, at the tip-top of the card. The program leading up to this match, that saw him going coast to coast to win the Royal Rumble, and then have the gall to challenge main event mainstays Triple H and Shawn Michaels, was like a microcosm for his career up to that point, scratching and clawing his way to the top of the mountain. That the story ended with Benoit making Triple H tap clean in the middle of Madison Square Garden, then celebrating with Eddie Guerrero as world champions. It was an iconic moment, not to mention the fact that it had a near-perfect coda in the form of Benoit making Shawn Michaels tap out clean to the sharpshooter in a triple threat rematch one month later.

#1. Daniel Bryan defeats Randy Orton (and Batista) for the Undisputed World Championship at WrestleMania 30

Like awarding Benoit the number two WrestleMania title change, I’ll acknowledge that it is, at best, premature to say that Bryan had the best title win when long-term impact comes into play. Just the same, when other major factors include paying off a storyline, delivering a great match, and making a memorable WrestleMania moment, I can’t help awarding Bryan the top spot in this countdown.

The thing is that, since Bryan’s rise to legit, full-on main event status in the summer of 2013, it never looked like a sure thing that WWE would go all the way with him as the face of the company. I’d argue that it seemed just as likely his push would go the way of Lex Luger’s 1993-1994 run (fizzled into oblivion) as it would ever get paid off along the lines of Bret Hart getting a crowning moment at WrestleMania 10 or Randy Orton rebounding from losing his first world title to Triple H in 2004 to become a perennial main eventer over the decade to follow.

But whether it were the plan all along or a matter of WWE listening to the people, things did turn around and WWE’s top in-ring talent of his day got a moment to celebrate, after single-handledly dispatching of Triple H and beating arch-rival Randy Orton and Batista (the man who looked to have stolen Bryan’s push when he won the Royal Rumble). He ended up “Yes”-ing the night away amidst a shower of confetti alongside his sister and niece. It was a magnificent WrestleMania moment to cap a very good WrestleMania, and mark the pinnacle for a great underdog’s career.

What were your favorite WrestleMania title changes? The first world title wins for The Ultimate Warrior, John Cena, Batista, and Rey Mysterio as well as Intercontintal Championship wins for Ricky Steamboat and The Big Show were among my top runners up. Let us know what you think in the comments section. See you in seven.

Read more from Mike Chin at his website. Follow him on Twitter @miketchin.