wrestling / Columns
The Magnificent Seven: The Top 7 Career Progressions Between WrestleManias
Image Credit: WWE
For at least the world of WWE, WrestleMania marks the unofficial end of each year. Top rivalries reach their climax, new world champions are crowned, and short-term storylines centered on part-timers get blown off. New talents also tend to debut or return the following night, making it feel more like the start of a new chapter for the company.
As such, and given that WrestleMania is the most watched show of the year—the only show fan some casual fans might tune into—it can be pretty interesting to track where a performer winds up one year at ‘Mania relative to his position the year before. There are those times when guys stay in essentially the same place, like AJ Styles going from Chris Jericho at WrestleMania 32 to Shane McMahon at 33 (albeit with a world title reign in between). In other cases, a mid-carder or tag guy moves up to the main event, and sometimes an established top tier star slides down the card.
So this week’s column looks at seven guys who bettered their place in the company from one WrestleMania to the next. The conditions include that we’re looking from just one year to the next (not, for example, Seth Rollins’s progress from WrestleMania 31 to 33 after missing 32 in between, let alone The Rock going from wrestling legend to worldwide movie star from WrestleMania 20 to 28), and that the performer must have wrestled at both of the WrestleManias. (so, for example, going from not being on the card to being featured the next year like Diesel from ‘Mania 10 to 11 doesn’t count, and I more arbitrarily decided not to count pre-show matches). As always, my personal opinion factors in heavily.
#7. John Cena from WrestleMania 20 to 21
At WrestleMania 20, John Cena worked the first match on the show, and in the process won his first singles championship—the US title—from The Big Show (not to mention that he cheated to pick up the win. At WrestleMania 21, he defeated JBL clean as a sheet to take home the WWE Championship and be coronated as one of the top stars in the company, en route to more officially becoming the guy over the course of the year to follow.
Going from his first US title to his first world title in a year would put Cena in contention for this countdown to begin with, particularly considering that he stayed at or around the main event level pretty continuously thereafter. The main factor that kept Cena down at the number seven spot here was that there was a sense already at WrestleMania 20 that he was on his way up and would likely be moving up to the main event, with this mid-card championship as a traditional step in that progression. Sure, that’s been the story for plenty of wrestlers, but the steps felt a little telegraphed, and thus the career progression feels a little less pronounced than the transitions ranked higher on this list.
#6. Steve Austin from WrestleMania 13 to 14
Going into WrestleMania 13, Steve Austin had caught fire. He went from being a largely interchangeable mid-card mechanic heel to emerging on the short list of the most over performers in the company. So, at WrestleMania 13, he worked a match with Bret Hart—a match many consider to be the single best in ‘Mania history.
A year later, Stone Cold won his first world championship, cemented as the man when he beat Shawn Michaels in the main event.
To be fair, Stone Cold’s position move from fringe main event guy to the main event guy may not seem monumental, but more than a literal change in position with company, Austin was going from top emerging talent to one of the company’s all-time Mount Rushmore greats—not altogether different from The Rock being a top player (and even reigning champ) at WrestleMania 15 to the top guy and knocking on Austin’s door for status as icon of the Attitude Era at 16 (that transition was among the top honorable mentions).
#5. Roman Reigns from WrestleMania 30 to 31
Prior to WrestleMania 31, Roman Reigns had only worked six-man tag team matches at WrestleMania, never in a match that could be considered a main attraction. And yet there he was at WrestleMania 31, standing tall as the face winner of the Royal Rumble, and challenger to Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship in the main event. This was not only kayfabe promotion, but a testament to WWE’s faith that they were trusting him as a still relatively unproven talent to carry arguably the most important match of the year. While the moment may lose a little luster for Seth Rollins usurping his spot in the closing stages of the match, let’s give the devil his due—Reigns more than carried his weight for an above average WrestleMania main event performance (and certainly his best performance in that role) when given the chance in 2015.
Not so different from the guys ranked below him, this progression loses a little of its standing in the rankings for the degree to which it seemed pre-ordained. The writing had been in the wall since Reigns debuted that he was earmarked as the next John Cena, and main eventing WrestleMania 31 was less a testament to a performer coming a long way than a fulfillment of that particular destiny. Still, to honor the largely kayfabe spirit of this countdown, we’ve got to give it to Reigns for coming a long way from The Shield largelyy carrying him in his first two WrestleMania matches, to holding down the fort at the top of the card here.
(For those wondering, I had Rollins just missing the countdown because, despite closing the show as champion, that was a Money in the Bank cash-in, and I’d assess that he hadn’t really been booked all the way to main event star leading up to this show.)
#4. Bret Hart from WrestleMania 8 to 9
Bret Hart may have made more consistent leaps in his standing in the WWF than any other performer from WrestleMania 7 to WrestleMania 8 to WrestleMania 9 to WrestleMania 10. At WrestleMania 7, he was a celebrated tag team performer, but it was unclear what, if any accomplishments he might attain as a singles wrestler. By WrestleMania 8, The Hitman had come into his own as a top mid-card performer and fixture in the In Intercontinental Championship scene. For a man of his size and style, defeating Roddy Piper at that show was, quite reasonably, as high as even the most fervent Hitman fans reaslistically might have expected him to reach.
Come WrestleMania 9, he was defending the WWF Championship in the main event.
After Hulk Hogan departed for Hollywood, the WWF was grasping for its identity. In the wake of the steroid trial, the company aimed to celebrate smaller stars who looked more like normal people than super heroes—not to mention ones who could deliver in the ring. Hart fit the bill perfectly and was reasonably successful in his first world title reign. WrestleMania 9 was the culmination of that run. Hart has claimed that he was supposed to go over The Ultimate Warior at the event to more firmly put the old generation in the rear view mirror and move ahead with The Excellence of Execution at the fore. Everything changed when Warrior left the company in the fall and then Hogan decided to come back.
While WrestleMania 9 actually marks one of Hart’s worst one-on-one matches at a WrestleMania (not to his fault—in his book he particularly cites that Yokozuna got blown up and skipped much of what they planned for the match to go home early), it was nonetheless the first of three times he main evented the biggest show of the year and shored up his spot as not just another guy on the WWF landscape, but a top talent and eventual Hall of Fame headliner. (For those curious about my earlier claim about his progression from WrestleMania 9 to 10, I consider that the point when he went from experimental main eventer to rock solid main event go-to guy—the kind of transition that guys like Diesel, The Miz, and plenty of others never succeeded in making after their ‘Mania main event debuts.)
#3. Batista from WrestleMania 20 to 21
Not unlike Roman Reigns’ movement a decade later from WrestleMania 30 to 31, Batista went from geing arguably the least accomplished member of a three-man team at WrestleMania 20 to the challenger for the company’s top prize in the main event match of WrestleMania 21. The points that make Batista’s *ahem* evolution even more impressive? First of all, he won the title in the main event berth. Additionally, he wasn’t necessarily earmarked to be the top guy a year out.
Mind you, when Randy Orton and Batista were each tapped to be a part of Evolution, the prevailing logic was that management recognized main event potential in both men. Orton was the sure bet, though, for his lineage and his charisma, while Batista had more to prove to advance to true upper card, let alone main event status.
The general consensus is that Randy Orton was supposed to pay off the storyline of Evolution betraying him at WrestleMania 21, by finally getting the better of his mentor, Triple H, after chasing him since previous fall. Orton’s face run largely fell flat, though, as he was both a much more natural heel and struggled to get much of a reaction from fans in his white meat babyface role. The miscalculation led to WWE rebooting his heel character to go hunting for The Undertaker’s undefeated streak that year, while Batista realized the potential laid out for Orton by turning face and cashing in his Royal Rumble victory for a title shot.
Sure, Batista had his detractors, and John Cena would soon surpass him as the true face of the company. Nonetheless, The Animal went from big heater to bona fide main event star in this year’s span.
Randy Savage was one of those force-of-nature style performers who was simply too great to be denied. So, smack dab in the middle of the original Hulkamania run, with the knowledge Hogan both needed a fresh arch-rival and would need time away to film No Holds Barred, Randy Savage got the nod to head up the company as its world champion for a year, starting at WrestleMania 4.
No one could have called this outcome a year out, when Savage was the top mid-card heel, defending his Intercontinental Championship against Ricky Steamboat. The two, of course, put on a classic, and arguably the first truly great PPV match in WWF history. That performance, alongside The Macho Man’s steady body of work proved him as a main event prospect, and it was a testament to management’s faith in him as a performer and how over he was with the crowd that would be booked the following year to work no fewer than four matches in one night, to emerge WWF Champion out of a tournament victory.
I would argue there was only WrestlMania-to-WrestleMania rise more meteoric, less foreseen, and more gratifying for the fans.
#1. Daniel Bryan from WrestleMania 29 to 30
Daniel Bryan’s trajectory was a strange one. Sure, at WrestleMania 28 he walked into Miami a reigning world champion. I don’t know that any world champion has walked into a ‘Mania with less respect from the company and its booking, however, as Bryan worked the first match of the night and dropped the title to Sheamus in a farce that lasted eighteen seconds. Best case scenario, you could say that WWE felt Bryan had generated Honky Tonk Man like heat, to the point that fans would love to see him crushed and humiliated by an overwhelming face rival. I’d suggest the reality was that WWE didn’t really take him seriously as champ at all, and was brushing him off in a scenario when there were two world titles in play besides a collision between The Rock and John Cena to sell that ‘Mania on.
The two years to follow saw Bryan get over, though, as if through sheer power of his and his fans’ will. His “Yes!” chant caught on like wildfire as a protest to how he’d been wronged by the booking at ‘Mania, and then as a confirmation of how wildly Bryan’s Team Hell No tag team with Kane was overachieving, and then as a rallying cry for him to do the unthinkable, and beat Cena clean at SummerSlam. Bryan was established as the top face, if only for the short term, as he chased Randy Orton for the WWE Championship through the fall, before getting shuffled down the card to mostly engage with the Wyatts (and even lose to Bray at the Royal Rumble).
A vocal audience rejected Batista being cast as Orton’s face challenger at ‘Mania to the point that the company shifted directions. While some apologists will claim that WWE always intended to pay off the Bryan storyline, even Triple H himself has conceded in interviews that Bryan and his fans inspired at least some change in direction to slot the bearded Superstar in the main event mix for WrestleMania 30.
And at ‘Mania 30, Bryan had a legendary night. Yes, Chris Jericho can crow about once beating The Rock and Steve Austin in the same night, and there’s little topping that mark. But beating Triple H, Batista, and Randy Orton in the same night, and doing it clean as a sheet at WrestleMania? That honor belongs uniquely to Bryan who delivered the two best matches of the night to arrive at the tip-top of the wrestling world.
WrestleMania 29 gave Team Hell No its just due as Bryan and Kane fended off a challenge from Dolph Ziggler and Big E. WrestleMania 30, though? For at least that one night, Bryan owned the WWE Universe.
Which transitions would you add to the list? Seth Rollins from WrestleMania 30 to 31, Steve Austin from WrestleMania 12 to 13, The Miz from WrestleMania 26 to 27, The Rock from WrestleMania 14 to 15, The Rock form WrestleMania 15 to 16, The Ultimate Warrior from WrestleMania 5 to 6, CM Punk from WrestleMania 27 to 28were among my top runners up. Let us know what you think in the comments.
Read more from Mike Chin at his website and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.
