The Magnificent Seven: The Top 7 WWE Rivalries of the Last Twenty Years

Rivalries sell wrestling. Sure, we fans enjoy a good athletic exhibition, and the occasional face vs. face story of two performers competing for respect in a one-off championship match works just fine. But I would argue that the lifeblood of wrestling—what makes it work as an athletic endeavor with predetermined outcomes—is the feud. That two performers have a beef that a story builds around via each match between them, each promo segment, each sneak attack.

When I conceived of this article, I thought I might take a stab at ranking the top seven rivalries in wresting history, but the task proved too difficult moving between eras and promotions. So I narrowed to just the WWF/E and still found it daunting to compare Bruno Sammartino vs. Larry Zbyszko, Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant, and John Cena vs. Edge (though, rest assured, out of those three, the last one would have wound up last on that list).

I wanted to keep the scope wide and meaningful without approaching an impossible task in which so many legitimately great rivalries couldn’t make the cut. I arbitrarily settled on the last twenty years of WWE.

The primary considerations for this countdown were heat, drawing power, and quality of storyline(s). Long-term influence on both the careers of the people involved and the WWE product at large, plus resulting match quality were secondary concerns. All things being equal, I also privileged longevity, because it’s harder to maintain a great storyline over months (or years) than mere weeks. As always, my personal opinion weighs heavily.

#7. The Undertaker vs. Edge

I remember watching WrestleMania 23 with a friend and discussing The Undertaker vs. Edge as something of a dream match. Here you had two top-tier guys who had coexisted on the WWE landscape for over seven years without meaningfully crossing paths as adversaries (or at least not since Edge had arrived at a level that he could be considered a serious threat to The Dead Man).

Little could we have known that ‘Taker and Edge would main event WrestleMania the next year.

Also, little could we know that their too-often-forgotten classic of a ‘Mania main event would be neither the start, nor the end of their rivalry, but more of a mid-point in a truly exceptional feud.

Edge-Undertaker started in earnest at Survivor Series 2007 when Edge made his surprise return from injury to get heavily involved in the Batista vs. Undertaker Hell in a Cell, Heavyweight Championship main event. Toward the end of a bruising affair, Edge, dressed as a camera man, took out the referee to cost ‘Taker the win, and proceeded to incapacitate the Dead Man with shots from a video camera and a steel chair. The following month, Edge would get the best of both The Undertaker and Batista in a Triple Threat Match in which The Edgeheads debuted to create mass confusion give The Rated R Superstar the title victory. The two would mostly stay apart for the months to immediately follow, before ‘Taker won his way into another title shot at ‘Mania via victory in the Elimination Chamber.

Their WrestleMania 24 bout was not only an excellent professional wrestling match, but featured the sound psychology of Edge having so clearly scouted and having a counter for all of The Phenom’s big spots, and so much of the men’s history coming to play including another video camera spot and The Edgeheads trying to get involved. The Undertaker won out in the end to keep his undefeated streak alive, and then won the rematch, too—a less epic, but nonetheless solid bout. They’d clash again at Judgment Day, then go all out in a gem of a TLC match at One Night Stand in which it was ‘Taker who took the big bump, off a ladder and through a structure of tables, for Edge to pick up the win.

Edge and The Undertaker would blow off their feud at SummerSlam—their sixth PPV match in nine months, though the first time the World Heavyweight Championship was not at stake. Nonetheless, the guys got the main event spot, and duked it out in what was arguably the best ever blood-less, no-leaving-the-cage Hell in a Cell Match.

The Undertaker is a wrestling icon, and Edge proved a pitch-perfect foil who used his cunning and machinations to overcome The Dead Man’s otherwise overwhelming power.

#6. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho

For as much as we critics tend to give the PG Era a hard time, it’s too often overlooked that not one, but two legit all-time great rivalries happened amidst this period. ‘Taker and Edge put on a nine-month clinic on Smackdown. And, during an overlapping period, Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho created magic together on Raw.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself, though, because if we’re going to evaluate a twenty-year period, Michaels-Jericho gets extra credit for their 2003 program heading into WrestleMania 18—a brilliant little generational clash in which Jericho, who had both legit and kayfabe looked up to Michaels, set out to prove that he was the better man, and Michaels intended to prove that he could still go at the highest of levels. The two did battle as the number one and two entrants in the Royal Rumble, and Jericho battered Michaels with a chair to injure him and eliminate him early, only for Michaels to return and facilitate Jericho getting eliminated in the late stages of the match. They went on to have arguably the best in-ring match of WrestleMania 19, capped with Jericho feigning a show of respect only to low blow Michaels after the final bell had rung. The two would clash again on opposite sides of a star-studded six-man the following month.

HBK and Y2J had little interaction for the five years to follow, though, until Jericho inserted himself in a beef between Michaels and Batista, after Michaels defeated and retired Ric Flair. Jericho needled Michaels about having bad intentions and about playing hurt when he wasn’t really injured in a slow, background build that added extra fuel to the fire for Michaels and Batista’s two PPV matches.

From there, Michaels and Jericho were off to the races. Jericho threw Michaels through the screen of the Jeritron 6000, then got the best of a violent brawl of a match at the Great American Bash. At SummerSlam, Michaels teased retirement only to feed into one of the all-time great PPV promo segments between Michaels and Jericho culminating in Jericho accidentally punching out HBK’s wife. This led to an unsanctioned bout between the two at Unforgiven in which Michaels won by referee stoppage. The World Heavyweight Championship worked its way into play and became the subject of their final one-on-one PPV confrontation—a superb ladder match at No Mercy, before the rivalry more or less officially ended in a Last Man Standing Match on Raw that November. You can, however, tack onto all of that a brief DX-Jerishow tag feud the following winter (including their very good TLC main event).

Michaels and Jericho are each on the short-short-short list for WWE’s best in-ring performers of the last twenty years, and are among the very few guys who paired that level of in-ring ability with terrific promos and character work. All of these factors contributed to their great rivalry, but I’d argue that what pushed it over the edge to truly top-tier is that two guys better known as arrogant, more light-hearted performers engaged in a legit blood feud (particularly in 2008) that set Raw on fire during that time.

#5. The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels

Recognize these names? It’s little wonder that two of the best ever would not only engage in some of WWE’s best rivalries concurrently, but also with each other.

To properly recount the Michaels-‘Taker issue, we’ve got to flip back to the outer limits of this countdown, nineteen years ago when special guest referee Michaels took a steel-chair swing at nemesis Bret Hart, only to accidently waffle The Undertaker, and in so doing, accidentally cost ‘Taker the WWF Championship.

In the weeks to follow, The Dead Man was righteously pissed to the point that Michaels needed back up and assembled the very first incarnation of DX around himself to fend him off. Michaels and ‘Taker brawled to a no-contest at In Your House: Ground Zero, only to blow off their feud at the following month’s In Your House: Badd Blood in the very first Hell in a Cell match in which Michaels endured an ass-whooping, but got the win when Kane debuted and assaulted his big brother.

Between moving on to different rivalries, HBK temporarily retiring for four years, The Undertaker’s occasional sabbaticals, and the brand split, these two wouldn’t clash again for nearly a decade, until they became first Royal Rumble rivals (the final two in 2007, the first two in 2008), and then WrestleMania rivals at ‘Manias 25 and 26. At 25, it was a battle for respect, highlighted by Michaels memorably out-mind-gaming The Phenom in the build, culminating in one of the top five WrestleMania matches of all time. The following year, Michaels was thirsty for revenge and to prove himself, and engaged in heated pursuit of The Dead Man, first desperately trying to win the Royal Rumble to challenge Undertaker for the World Heavyweight Championship, then costing ‘Taker the title at the Elimination Chamber to provoke him into a match. ‘Taker finally accepted, on the condition that if he won, Michaels would retire. So, though there was no title on the line, the stakes were as high as could be for their main event clash. While I’m in the camp that doesn’t feel the ‘Mania reprise was as good as the original, it was nonetheless in the upper-tier of ‘Mania main events, and a fitting cap to a sensational rivalry that had spanned years and eras to deliver some truly phenomenal bouts.

#4. Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin

As we’ll see a lot toward the top of this countdown, some of the very best rivalries in wrestling transcend one competitor going against another, but are rather about two different ideologies that the respective performers represent going head-to-head. That’s the case here as Bret Hart represented old-school traditionalism—a conventional good guy who wrestled a technically based style. In contrast, there was the surging Stone Cold Steve Austin, a foul-mouthed brawler who in any other era probably would have gotten booed out of the building but, on the cusp of the Attitude Era, was rapidly becoming the most popular act in the WWF months before he officially made his face turn.

Hart returned from sabbatical and the two were immediately at odds with each other in kayfabe, and immediately gelled as in-ring workers. Their first PPV bout went down at Survivor Series 1996, and very much told the story of Hart surviving Austin. Yes, The Hitman picked up the win, but only by turning Stone Cold’s Million Dollar Dream variant into a pinning predicament, not by actually escaping the hold. So, while Hart maintained his cred as the best technician of his day. Austin’s reputation as a pugnacious aggressor only grew.

After a series of both backstage and on-screen twists and turns, the two wound up paired up again for WrestleMania 13 in their best remembered match. It was largely a continuation of the same rivalry on the same premises, but intensified via I Quit Match rules, newly arrived Ken Shamrock as the ref, and the crowd having all the more strongly turned against Hart, in favor of Austin. What followed was probably one of the WWF’s top five matches ever, culminating in the greatest double-turn in wrestling history as Austin, though beaten, refused to surrender, and Hart, already the winner, dickishly held onto the hold, kicked Austin when he was down, and powdered out of a confrontation with Shamrock.

All of this might have been enough to consider Hart-Austin for this countdown, but the two just kept going as Hart surrounded himself with the Hart Foundation stable—uber-faces in Canada and top heels everywhere else. While DX rose up only shortly thereafter, Austin emerged as the lone wolf who didn’t trust anyone and got progressively more over stunning faces, heels, Vince McMahon, and anything else that moved. While Austin never overtly played the All-American hero, I’d argue the character was subversively more patriotic than meets the eye as he represented the blue-collar, beer- drinking angry young man who didn’t give a second thought to flipping off Canadian crowds and wailing on Hart and company every chance he got, culminating in a sensational ten-man tag at In Your House: Canadian Stampede.

While Austin would go on to arguably greater rivalries after this point, in so many ways his issue with Hart established a foundation of great wrestling, ideological differences, and off-the-charts heat—the recipe for an all-time great rivalry.

#3. Steve Austin vs. The Rock

Steve Austin and The Rock are two out of the top five biggest stars WWE ever had. Two of the few to crossover to mainstream consciousness. Two all-time great talkers. Two (at times deceptively) great in-ring workers. Two men who moved merchandise like none other.

For all of the similarities between Austin and Rock, including their tendency to wear basic black trunks, the fact that they largely feuded with the same people (when they were weren’t feuding with each other) at their peak popularity, the way they each thrived on foul-mouthed language that worked perfectly in the Attitude Era—there were also fundamental differences. Austin was a redneck every man. Even before he went to Hollywood, Rock thrived as a cool, smooth, affluent man. Austin played the character the fans saw themselves in. Rock played the character the fans wished they could be.

And so, they were destined to tangle.

Austin and The Rock first engaged in the mid-card during their mutual ascent, while Austin was on the cusp of main eventing, and The Rock looked like he would eventually follow suit but wasn’t quite there yet. Austin got the better of The Rock in this feud—winning the blow off match at In Your House: D-Generation X, and subsequently throwing Rock’s Intercontinental Championship into a river (as a coda to this issue, Austin last eliminated Rock to win the Royal Rumble and move on to his first world title win at WrestleMania).

A year later, Rock was more ready for primetime, as he turned heel and became Vince McMahon’s corporate champion and proxy, leading to the first Rock-Austin WrestleMania main event. Good build, good match, but in the larger scheme of WWF history, this rivalry probably wouldn’t crack the top twenty-five of the last twenty years at that point.

The Rock and Austin were far from through, though.

Two years later, after Austin missed a year of in-ring performance and The Rock supplanted him as the top face in his absence, Austin was back and the two geared up for the ultimate battle for respect and title glory at WrestleMania 17. The event was the crown jewel and capstone to the Attitude Era, and there was no better showdown to move on with than these two going one-on-one, by that point stars on essentially equal footing.

Aside from the goofiness of interjecting Austin’s wife Deborah into the mix as Rock’s manager, the WrestleMania 17 build was heated and excellent, and the match was the best the two put together, not to mention very arguably one of the ten best WrestleMania matches of all time. While you can question the finish—Austin turning heel and joining Vince McMahon—it was sensible enough at the time and provided a reason for Austin and The Rock to continue feuding months later, when Rock returned from an early tour of Hollywood, and then came back to front the WWF opposite Austin and The Alliance. Though the two didn’t go one-on-one during this era, they nonetheless were fitting de facto leaders for this epic (albeit unsatisfying) feud, culminating in captaining their respective teams to blow off the the rivalry at Survivor Series.

Austin and The Rock would go at it one last time at WrestleMania 19, an epilogue to their more explosive collisions earlier in their careers, an epilogue to the Attitude Era as WWE had more substantively moved on to Brock Lesnar as top dog, and guys like John Cena and Randy Orton would begin their ascensions only shortly thereafter. The match broached four-star territory, of similar caliber to their first ‘Mania outing, and was a fitting send off for Austin in his final official match, and The Rock who would shortly thereafter go from full-timer who took some lengthy breaks to part-timer who could months and then years without an appearance.

#2. Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels

The rivalry between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels was, in so many ways, transcendent.

It transcended different placements on the card, from tag team curtain jerkers, to mid-carders overachieving in their wars over the Intercontinental Championship, to main eventers who headline multiple PPVs opposite one another, not least of all WrestleMania 12 when they had over an hour dedicated to their in-ring magic.

It transcended eras, stretching past the bounds of this countdown into the late 1980s and early 1990s during the Hulk Hogan era, peaking in the New Generation period during which each man won the wolrd title, and even broaching the Attitude Era as the Hart Foundation and DX feuded and the Montreal Screwjob brought the kayfabe feud between The Hitman and HBK to an end.

It transcended kayfabe, into real life. There are plenty of stories of friendly rivalries between talents like The Rock and Triple H who each vied to be the best of their era, and there are largely unspoken rivalries between the likes of guys like John Cena and Batista over who would be the face of the company coming in 2005. But for a four-to-five year period, Hart and Michaels were both in contention for the same top spot and evolved into bitter real-life rivals based on a series of perceived slights and professional jealousies that never really resolved themselves, only were mutually forgiven when Hart returned the WWE fold in 2010.

Michaels and Hart were largely the same, and yet also so different. Each were undersized talents who earlier in their careers seemed unlikely to ever so much as sniff the main event. But after the steroid trial, the WWF became open to smaller sized champions, and these two were the cream of the crop when it came to work rate. But then, Hart fancied himself a traditionalist who worked a realistic style and didn’t politick much, while Michaels was more prone to hot-dogging and assembled The Kliq to watch his back both physically and politically while working his way into Vince McMahon’s ear. Furthermore, Hart was always a more natural face (his strong work as the head of the Hart Foundation not withstanding), while HBK was a natural heel (despite his legendary status rendering him a face for nearly the entirety of his awesome come back run in the 2000s).

Hart-Michaels gets the nod for the number two spot on this countdown for its heat, its great matches, and for working across so many years (albeit only two for the purposes of this countdown), and in so many different contexts. Moreover in its resolution, The Montreal Screw Job, it set up so much of the promotion’s future direction, with the dawn of Vince McMahon as heel authority figure, with the screw job becoming a(n admittledly too-oft-used) booking device, with Hart exiting the WWF to officially leave a vacancy at the top of the card for Steve Austin, with a further breakdown of the walls between kayfabe and reality that set us up for the contemporary post-modern wrestling fan, and a key moment in moving full-tilt into the Attitude Era.

#1. Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon

While in 2016, many of us groan at the thought of another heel authority figure making life difficult for another rebellious face, there’s a reason why not only WWE, but so many smaller companies keep going back to the well. Not unlike the trope of Hulk Hogan-esque super heroes running wild, the rebel vs. boss dynamic was a game changer. It was a set of circumstances, series of booking decisions, and collection performances that set the wrestling world on fire. It’s all rooted in Austin vs. McMahon.

In the mid-1990s, Austin looked to be going nowhere as a mid-card heel who traded wins and losses with Savio Vega while his manager, Ted Dibiase, did most of his talking for him. But then things changed. Austin lost the mouth piece and took ownership over his character as Stone Cold—a cold-blooded killer who morphed into a beer-chugging redneck rebel with a cause who not only spat in the face of authority, but stomped a mud hole in it and walked it dry.

McMahon wasn’t the first heel authority figure—at the least, Eric Bischoff did beat him to that by nearly a year—but he was the best. A man who walked with all of the confidence of a self-made billionaire who had already changed the wrestling world, besides having the frame of a bodybuilder. If Stone Cold’s redneck anti-authority figure was the man himself with the volume cranked up, McMahon was certainly the same—the loudest, most obnoxious, antagonistic version of himself as a titan of industry who drew positively nuclear heat from the fans as a hybrid authority figure-manager who slowly grew into an in-ring performer too across the gradual process of eating his first stunner, wrestling his first matches, and finally becoming not only a great heel mastermind but an exceptional punching bag to absorb all of Austin’s offense.

The glory years of this angle—more or less spanning the Attitude Era—would be enough to place it in the number one spot as far as I’m concerned. I’ll give it an extra little boost, too, for reprises as Austin led the Alliance against McMahon’s WWF, and for each of Austin’s nostalgia reappearances in which he interacts with McMahon, which more often than not promise one more Stunner. I understand why contemporary fans tire of this dynamic. Why we say enough is enough. Just the same, I suspect that those of us who lived through the original iteration of Austin vs. McMahon will always have a soft spot for this pairing.

Which rivalries would you add to the list? Some of my top honorable mentions included John Cena vs. Edge, Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle, Steve Austin vs. Triple H, John Cena vs. CM Punk, The Rock vs. Triple H, The Undertaker vs. Mankind, The Undertaker vs. Kane, and Triple H vs. Randy Orton. Let us know what you think in the comments.

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