wrestling / Columns
411’s Countdown To WrestleMania 29 – The Top 10 WrestleMania Main Events
I’m Scott Rutherford and welcome to 411mania’s Countdown To WrestleMania 29.
Just recently I was forced to undergo shoulder surgery and have been on strict instruction to basically sit still for 6 weeks as my muscles knit themselves back together. So since the wife and kids are out of the house all day I have indulged in two of my great passions, watching Star Trek and wrestling. Specifically I have been watching WM’s leading up to this years card. So the idea to rank my top main events seemed like a natural.
Whenever I do lists I never put too much though into why I rank a certain match or wrestler over another. I’m a believer in trusting gut reactions and when you start to analyse something too much you will invariably get bogged down and make things harder as you go along. Initially I tried a points system to focusing on different elements of the matches like build-up, storytelling, workrate, historical impact and crowd reaction and not surprisingly I was treading in place and over thinking the most simple things. Then I hit upon a simpler idea…
What I did was get a still picture of every WM main event, stuck them in a folder on my desktop and literally ignored it for two weeks. Then I came back and looked through the 28 images and based on my gut reaction pulled out 10 top matches. However, I didn’t want to be completely arbitrary so then I looked at the ten selected and asked myself why? Why is it this match sticks in my mind. I realised some were there based on historical value, some and sheer quality, some on personal taste and others just on hype.
So in realising what matches went in and what didn’t, a couple were subbed out and others I felt more deserving were brought in. So this is hardly a scientific way of selecting matches and honestly, if I don’t draw some some reactions to my selections and just as importantly omissions I will be sorely disappointed. As a bonus I will attach at the end a Top 5 Worst Main Events as well for shits and giggles.
I will also note the recent trend of multiple main events at WM’s is not being factored in here. I’m keeping strictly to the letter of what the main event is…the match that goes on last.
Enjoy.
Considering you had the Ric Flair retirement match and the three-way WWE Title match of Randy Orton vs. HHH vs. John Cena go on before this match you would have to say that putting Edge/UT on last was a big gamble. While Edge had been a main event player for a couple of years did anyone really see him as a WM main eventer? Even the Undertaker who was in the midst of an insane revival as a worker was mainly kept on Smackdown. Clearly the WWE title match had more exposure and when you consider that after WM19 every ‘Mania was headlines by a RAW main event. Looking at the star power of the RAW match, I was astounded the Smackdown match went last.
So while it didn’t have the emotion of the Ric Flair match or the wattage that the stars brought to the RAW match, it did feature two great workers who had been building a great feud. Edge was really on a roll as champion and had comfortably slipped into his “Ultimate Opportunist” character and as noted, The Undertaker had risen from the ashes and was on a career hot-streak of great matches. The one thing that drags it down however was the fact there was little doubt UT was going to win. Post WM23 he was set for a lengthy reign but got injured and Edge was given the title. This match was done for the purpose of putting the title back on UT in the biggest way possible.
Conventional wisdom usually places this match higher but truth be told it only made it this high due to the sheer historical significance this match carries. The idea behind Hulk and Andre was to solidify Hogan “The Man” by slamming and pinning the undefeated Giant. The build and booking of the storyline leading up was so effective it put nearly 80,000 people into the Pontiac Silverdome to see the spectacle. Clever booking protected Andre as his bad back made it near impossible for him to work. So for the most part Andre was kept of TV and if he was made to step in the ring it was likely to be a battle royal or tag match to avoid exposing his deteriorated condition.
Does that really matter? In some part, yes.
While the heat for the match was off the charts the crowd for large parts were just there waiting for the Hogan bodyslam and when it came the place came unglued and when the pinfall happened it was hysteria. Back then we all were drinking the Hogan Cool Aid and the fact this match basically sucked made no difference. We were all happy that the backstabber Andre had finally been beaten after so long.
Here is proof that Hulk Hogan tried to pass the torch once in his career. Vince McMahon was trying to move Hogan into pasture and give special status as a Babe Ruth type-legend for the WWF. Hogan obviously had other ideas but we are getting ahead of ourselves here. The Ultimate Warrior was getting unbelievable traction as the #2 babyface in the later half of 1989 thanks to a great feud with Rick Rude and being put over Andre The Giant in 30-second squashes. He was already the Intercontinental Champion which meant that if was to be pushed any harder he could only go for the WWF Title.
The was set-up with a small taster confrontation at the Royal Rumble where neither man got the upper hand. However, intrigue was added when Hogan possibly aided in Warrior’s elimination after Warrior had stopped Hogan from being thrown out earlier. Fairly simple but highly effective and once McMahon convinced Hogan that Warrior was going over, Pat Patterson set about creating what may be his masterpiece match. Literally planed down to the punch this was epic in all parts and more than lived up to the hype. While the aftermath showed that Vince wasn’t totally able to trust Warrior in the role as the future of the WWF and Hogan was still positioned as the star of the promotion, it became a self fulfilling prophecy that Warrior bombed as champion and didn’t even make it to the logical rematch with Hogan at WM7.
For the most part this match rose above any and all expectations and showed, with a detailed road map that The Ultimate Warrior could actually work a good match and that Hogan for all of his failings to refuse to let go of his position was a masterful worker and made Warrior look like a million bucks on this night.
The day the very landscape of professional wrestling changed. Hubris? Unlikely!
Shawn Michaels represented the last link back to the largely forgettable New Generation-era of the WWF where Vince nearly went out of business after being punked by WCW and the white-hot nWo angle. Steve Austin represented the future thanks to connecting with the growing audience of young males who cathartically lived through Austin and his defiance of authority especially his flipping off of boss Vince McMahon. It was obvious that Austin was reaching molten proportions of being over the likes had only been seen with Hulk Hogan.
Shawn for his part was not going quietly but fate stepped in and thanks to an unfortunate tumble over a coffin was about to be put on the shelf for a long time. Even knowing he was not going to be wrestling again for the foreseeable future (if ever) Shawn was still trying to politic his way out of losing the title. The Undertaker was having none of this and threatened to beat the shit out of Michaels if he didn’t lay down and legend has it after his match with Kane, UT went to the dressing room, taped his fists and sat in the gorilla position for the whole match until Shawn lost. Upon this he untapped his fist and went home.
Looking at the match now you can see the obvious discomfort that Shawn was in and truth be told Austin still wasn’t 100% himself after coming back from his broken neck. For all that it had going against it, it still was an easy ***1 /2 match with the added intrigue of Mike Tyson being in the mix. Ultimately Austin went over and brought about the next boom for professional wrestling while Shawn went home to bottom out and then come back and cement his place as perhaps the greatest performer of them all.
This is the pro-wrestling visualization of Vince McMahon putting all his eggs in one basket. It was all or nothing as McMahon used every last cent he had into WM1 and probably a few bucks he didn’t if we’re being honest. A large part of it hinged on whether the public would buy Mr T. as a legit badass, ass-kicker that could match it with “actual” fighters. The answer was an astounding yes.
Helped tremendously by the fact that the undercard was nothing special outside of a hot Cyndi Lauper-led woman’s title match, it resembled nothing more than a regular house show. But the main event was global news as Mr T. was pulling on the tights and stepping in the ring. It may be hard to imaging now since T has become something of a kitsch icon but back in the mid-80’s he was Clubber Lang from the Rocky III and B.A Barrachus from “The A Team”. He was an international icon and a cultural event all by himself. For someone that mainstream to slum it in “pro wrestling” was a big deal.
Rowdy Piper was no idiot and he realised they had to restrict what T would do in the ring and limited him to basic mat wrestling and importantly NO PUNCHING. He knew that they couldn’t take a chance on T throwing weak looking swings and everyone instructed him let Hogan take care of the heavy lifting. It worked a treat. Everyone played their role (Orndorff may as well been wearing a J.O.B Squad t-shirt) and when the babyfaces won the place went crazy. The match itself was only average but as with most things involving Hogan it was worked perfectly and EVERYONE ate it up with a spoon.
Oh, and it would be remiss of me to mention that without the spectacular success of this main event the WWF was likely dead in the water as a major promotion.
Two things that usually piss off wrestling fans these days is John Cena and Triple H. The hate and bile for these men is massive, mainly because one gets portrayed as a superhero and has stayed much the same for the last 10 years and the other for being a master politician who married into THE wrestling family and is soon set to take over the whole of the WWE.
Guess what…I like both of ’em.I will be damned if I will let the mob dictate or detract from good wrestlers just because it’s the thing you do. Sort of like shouting “What?” when someone is doing a promo.
The Cena hate amuses me because he just goes out there and tries to entertain the people in the building and at home. What’s more he is the personification of a “company” guy that bleeds WWE and even more he’s a nice guy. I mean, a really nice guy. So nice he’s the #1 wish granter for Make A Wish. You never hear about him using his position to alter finishes or politicking to bury people. The only negatives you hear about him come from a guy that lost his girlfriend to him. Which in professional wrestling is par for the course.
Triple H hate I get. The guy has gone out of his way to bury talent that he feels threatens his position and post his return from his first torn quad in 2002 right up until about 2010 everything about the WWE main event revolved around him. Guess what? I don’t blame him. Anyone that bags Trips for doing this seriously has no concept of how the wrestling business has always been. Top guys ALWAYS protect their spot because that’s where you make the most money. I call Triple H the smartest wrestler of the last 25 years because he will be running wrestling soon enough.
Which leads me to this ‘Mania main event. I LOVE this match and not because of the two men competing. I think you could have put Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels in the ring, have them work the exact same match and people would be peeing their pants. Blind hatred of Cena and Hunter blinded people to the quality of this match then and has only further been clouded as the hate has increased. More fool you.
Funnily I get as much pleasure out of the crowds anti-reactions to each wrestler and it only adds to the richness of the contest. The match itself is a solid main-event style match that HHH loved to do (before they got old and stale) and Cena is always a willing passenger in these situations and went for the ride. The crowds almost obsessive Cena hate was remarkable and I’m surprised HHH didn’t call an audible and worked face for the bulk of the match. The ending came when Trips tapped to the STFU to the surprise of just about everyone in the universe and helped cement Cena as the new player for the WWE.
I’m going to leave the obvious emotion out of this match. We’ll all never agree on how Benoit should be remembered but we can never pretend he didn’t exist. So I’m hitching a ride in my way back machine and looking at the match as if it just happened.
Triple H was DEEP into his “bury all talent at any cost” phase and Shawn Michaels was really rolling after recently coming back as a full-time performer. Benoit was possibly the most respected talent in wrestling at the time but we all thought the likelihood of a Benoit championship run in the WWE was a pipedream. Then he won an epic Royal Rumble match to earn a title shot. Then he was slotted into the RAW main event as he was a Smackdown talent at the time, which meant he was to be the headliner at the 20th anniversary of WrestleMania. Dare we dream?
The match itself was full of drama as the New York smarky crowd were firmly in Benoit’s corner, re-ignited their longstanding hate of Shawn Michaels and plainly spited Triple H. They worked the story the HHH was desperate to hold his title, Shawn didn’t care if he won it or not but just wanted to make sure Trips didn’t leave champion and Benoit was flying under the radar hoping that the hatred of the other two would sidetrack them allow him the chance to slid in and win. Thanks to an epically bloody battle, Benoit got the cross-face crippler on Trips and doggedly kept the hold applied forcing Triple H to tap. What followed was real emotion and Benoit, his family, the crowd and Eddie Guerrero all helped to mark one of the greatest WM main events ever.
This was the culmination of the Attitude-era. The crown jewel of wrestlings resurgence that started in the late 90’s that brought incredible popularity to Steve Austin and The Rock and them breaking into the mainstream like no other…including Hogan. While these two had met previously at WM15, two years had past and The Rock had developed into nearly Austin’s equal. Even with a rushed and shitty build-up, this was one of the most anticipated matches ever.
Even though most assumed Austin was walking out champion, the intrigue was how they were going to do it. Rocky has always been willing to lay down and since both men were faces it indicated that it would be a clean match. How wrong we were. Vince McMahon comes out and Austin proceeds to sell his soul to the devil and joins McMahon. Tension builds to breaking point when Rock keeps kicking out of a multitude of chairshots (Austin to Vince: “What’s keeping that motherfucker alive?”) Austin goes medieval and plasters Rocky over the back with a million chairshots and gets the pin. Crowd goes wild.
While this match kicks all types of ass I cannot rate it any higher even though it’s one of the most iconic matches in wrestling history. Why? The ending is all wrong.
I get that Stone Cold wanted to freshen up and have a heel run. However turning heel in front of a Texas crowd was never going to happen and most in attendance likely thought Vince turned face rather than Austin turned heel. The crowd for the majority of the match was firmly behind Austin and Rocky was getting a mixed reaction at best. If you really wanted someone to turn during the match then having Rock go heel would have been a smarter option as the crowd would have gone with that. Or better yet, have no one turn and have Austin win in an epic battle and then have him turn the next night on RAW.
This match was heading right to the magical ***** but the ending deducts at least ¾ of a star. It’s a great pity as this could have been the defining match of the Attitude Era.
For years after Shawn Michaels returned to the ring everyone wanted a match between him and The Undertaker. Almost every match these two had before Shawn’s layoff was at least really awesome going right up to amazing with the inaugural Hell in a Cell match their crown jewel. What cast a pall over these matches was the bad attitude of Shawn Michaels and the fact these two never went out to just raise the roof off the place without some backstage drama muddying the water.
Thanks to some patience and an excellent build-up focusing on the dark soul of UT versus the white knight ethos of Michaels and how underneath each man was really the opposite of what they portrayed, they pulled out what many have called one of the greatest matches of all time at WM25. Of course this lead to Shawm Michaels wanting redemption for his loss and these two squared off once more a year later but this time the good/evil stuff was left to the side and the focus was put on the fact if Shawn didn’t win he would retire.
What followed was a match that was even better. Why? It was built on raw emotion and when you get the crowd emotionally involved to this extent you can take them anywhere. The most nakedly emotional hook of this match was UT beating the crap out of Shawn but Michaels refused to stay down and UT getting progressively more annoyed at each failed pinfall. Eventually after a kicking out of a chokeslam and then kicking out of a Tombstone, UT begged Shawn to stay down as if to say that while he may eventually pin Shawn he will never truly beat him, Michaels slaps UT and slits his own through to goad UT into finishing him off.
In terms of in-ring quality, storytelling, emotion and just the sheer scale of how this match came off it is easily the best-worked WM main event of all time. It’s an instant ***** without even thinking , easily the match of the decade and likely a top ten best match of all time. But why have I only ranked this at #2…
True, this match comes nowhere near the quality of Michaels/UT. This match was done in front of a largely indifferent crowd that was comped in thanks to the fact it took place in a casino. This match is mostly smoke and mirrors and carried by the phenomenal Randy Savage with Hogan using every single trick in his bag.
So why so high? History.
While it’s hard to peg down an exact number, from most informed sources the number of PPV buys for this show was around 760,000. That number doesn’t sound impressive in the age of WM’s routinely going over the 1,000,00 mark but context shows just what this means.
Back in 1989 less than 15,000,000 homes were wired for PPV. Again the exact number is hard to pin down put most research claims that about 1-in-15 homes purchased this show solely for the Savage/Hogan match. This is an astonishing number. More astonishing when you think the WWF would not break 760,000 buys again until SummerSlam 1998!
This match was an event much like Hogan/Andre was but you had a far more effective heel in Randy Savage to play off and you had one more important fact, you have a challenger Hogan chasing the title and if there’s one thing a crowd loves is when it appears all but certain the virtuous babyface will finally dethroned the heel.
In terms of match quality you could make a case for this being Hogan’s best North American match ever. Certainly it’s his best WWE match (yup, I put this ahead of the Rock WM18 match) and the slow build storyline of Savage becoming increasingly paranoid and jealous of how Hogan and Miss Elizabeth had become resonated with audiences around the world.
Sheer weight of numbers makes this the biggest and greatest ‘Mania main event. No other match managed to attract such interest thanks to the perfect year-long build-up and the match itself delivered in the drama and quality stakes. While you can talk about better wrestled matches, in front of bigger crowds that more people bought on PPV…when you look at the numbers in their proper historical contact you cannot find a greater example of a big time main event than this.
On a card that had two stellar ****+ matches already that showcased superior in-ring ability and storytelling, this was the wrong choice for a WM main event. Hogan was planning a long vacation but refused to lay down. Sid was planned to be the future and was never going to be pinned. So we get a slow, plodding, shitty match and when you add in a botched finish (thanks to mistimed interference from Pap Shongo) and the fact WE DID NOT CARE and you have an instant anti-classic.
To give the devil his due, L.T. worked hard to make this match decent but nothing can prepare any person for a wrestling match. Damn, even pro-basketball players in their prime that had amazing cardio have trouble keeping pace. However, this gets up there in the crappy stakes because in one night you ruin the career fof Bam Bam. Sure the ship may have sailed on him being a monster main eventer but he was a guy you could bring back time and again when you needed a monster to feed your champion. Weirdly this match is the perfect epitaph for Bigelow’s talent but a tombstone for his credibility.
Sure this match was never going to be any great shakes. You had Bret and Yoko doing the honours for the second time in the evening and you just knew the Yoko was not going to be able to do that much. As much as I’m a booster for Bret Hart I don’t think he even tried to do that much and settled on surviving the match until he got the pinfall win. More dull than anything else, this match was a lame way to end a big night in wrestling history. Luckily people mostly forget it thanks to the wonderful celebration of Bret’s win and regained the WWF Title.
In the age of the internet and super smarky fans, it can be tough to get a real blood feud happening that people will by into. So when Randy Orton started going through and injuring the McMahon family and Trips finally acknowledged in storyline terms he was married to Stephanie in real life. Finally there was something tangible and seemingly legitimate that the fans could latch onto. So why did the match suck? Principle reason was this was a typical Attitude-era “main event style” match but coming after Michaels/Undertaker 1 it fell flat and the fans tuned out. This was the same old tired match that had been left behind a couple of years ago. As I said above, I’m a Triple H fan and defend him in most instances but when it comes to this match…it’s the shits.
The Bret/Yoko portion of this mess is actually better than the match that came in at #3 but as I’m certain that everyone reading this knows why this match is #1 with a bullet thanks to what happened post-match. If you don’t…Bret loses the title thanks to Mr. Fuji interference. Out waddles Hulk Hogan, he gets challenged to a title match RIGHT THERE and beats Yoko in a matter of seconds. It was the same shitty ego-pull Hogan has always done but to do it so plainly it came as a shock even moreso the public burial of two main eventers. History has had the last laugh on Hogan and if we forget just what he’s like, we can always refer to this little ditty to remind us.
More Trending Stories
- Kevin Nash Comments On ‘Antiquated’ Oklahoma State Athletic Commission, Thinks Recent Nyla Rose Ruling Was Political
- Eric Bischoff Thinks Tony Khan Should Bring In Jinder Mahal To AEW
- Booker T On Swerve Strickland’s AEW Title Win, Says Goldberg Wouldn’t Fit There
- The Undertaker on Why Triple H Was Right About Outside Stars Struggling in WWE
