The Magnificent Seven: The Top 7 WWE Non-Title, One-On-One PPV Main Events

Pro wrestling tradition dictates that world championship matches close out big shows. This dynamic makes sense, because the world title is typically the most important prize a company has to offer, and, at least in kayfabe, ought to feature the best performer in the company squaring of with someone aiming to unseat him as the new best performer.

There have been those times, however, when a match without a championship at stake has gotten the main event nod. Sometimes it’s a retirement match, or the blow off from a white-hot storyline. Sometimes it’s a special gimmick match that will be difficult to follow or requires an elaborate enough set up to be logistically difficult to put another match after. Whatever the case, these main events get special attention. Some crumble under scrutiny, like Hulk Hogan vs. Sid Justice at WrestleMania 8, or The Undertaker vs. Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 33. There are certainly times when they have delivered, though, and this countdown looks at seven of the very best examples.

I opted to only rank one-on-one matches for this countdown. This avoided Royal Rumble, Money in the Bank, and Survivor Series domination, and moved from matches all but set up to be great, to ones more attributable to the individual efforts of two performers. While it did close out some tag team and six-man bouts I’d have liked to have honored (DX vs. Legacy and The Shield vs. Evolution in particular), I nonetheless found no shortage of suitable one-on-one bouts, particularly from recent years, to fill the countdown.

#7. Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam 2012

While Brock Lesnar’s current run as a dominant monster, which unofficially started at WrestleMania 30, tends to get more attention, there’s something to be said for his 2012-2013 work as an extraordinary powerhouse who was nonetheless mortal and had more of a .500 winning percentage in special attraction matches and main events. In this period he worked great matches with John Cena and CM Punk, not to mention this one—an oddly forgotten gem of a SummerSlam main event, featuring two marquee stars.

The first iteration of Triple H vs. Lesnar was a fun summer feud in which Lesnar got heat by kayfabe breaking Helmesley’s arm over contract negotiations gone bad, and later breaking his buddy Shawn Michaels’s arm right before SummerSlam to send The Game into this bout with a thirst for blood.

The result was a very good match in the WWE main event style, with the two trading big moves, only to culminate in the story that Lesnar was just too much for The Cerebral Assassin to overcome. It was a surprise for a heel to go over in the main event (particularly after heel world champ CM Punk retained his title earlier in the show), but satisfying on the meta-level of WWE taking Lesnar seriously and the perverse pleasure of seeing Helmesley forced to tap out. It’s unfortunate that we’d have two rematches—WrestleMania 29 saw The Game get his win back, and a Steel Cage Match finished things off at Extreme Rules—which lessened the legacy of this engaging summer program, and the best match the two put together.

#6. Bret Hart vs. Bam Bam Bigelow at King of the Ring 1993

In 1993, the WWF was undergoing an identity crisis. The powers that be gave up on the Bret Hart experiment when Hulk Hogan returned to the fold. Hogan wasn’t nearly as over with the crowd as Vince McMahon would have hoped, though, leaving the company in the awkward spot of either back pedaling to put Hart back on top or trying out someone else in the lead face role. Lex Luger would wind up getting the nod, before the WWF retreated to The Hitman after all. King of the Ring marked an in-between spot. Hogan dropped the world title to Yokozuna on his way out of the company, while Hart was kept strong with a triumphant run through the first PPV King of the Ring bracket.

Hart defeated Razor Ramon in a solid first-round match, then put on a classic with Mr. Perfect in the semifinals. Meanwhile, Bam Bam Bigelow got bye to the final round and walked in with not just the size advantage, but the kayfabe upper hand of being fresher. Bigelow was always a great athlete and performer—much more than just a big body with an imposing look—and this collision with Hart marked one of his few opportunities to really demonstrate that in a WWF ring. The two assembled a nice match with Bigelow largely dominating, Hart playing the underdog brilliantly, and finally scoring with a beautiful victory roll to pick up the inspirational win, and suggest the WWF hadn’t written him off as a main event level star just yet.

#5. The Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam 2015

Brock Lesnar’s original matches with The Undertaker, back in his first run with the company, were solid bouts that helped cement Lesnar as the next top star in WWE. The reprisal of the feud for WrestleMania 30 was severely lacking. The build was largely heatless, stock Undertaker WrestleMania season stuff, culminating a lackluster match with an admittedly shocking ending—but not an ending that there was much consensus was a good thing, when Lesnar ended The Phenom’s two-decade-plus undefeated streak at the biggest show of the year.

I didn’t get to watch Battleground 2015 live, but when I read The Dead Man was back and had rekindled his issue with The Beast Incarnate, I wasn’t particularly thrilled. Lesnar had moved on to bigger and better things and The Undertaker looked as though he might be past the point of putting on great matches and waswinding down for retirement.

When I actually got to watch Battleground a few days later, though, and all the more so the Raw to follow, I was sold on The Undertaker vs. Lesnar based on the sheer heat of the brawling between these two ultra-credible monsters.

That the pair got the SummerSlam 2015 main event slot was fair enough given their level of stardom and given how hot the program was. They didn’t disappoint. No, it wasn’t a five-star classic, but it was certainly best encounter between the two since Lesnar came back from MMA, and stood up well to their bouts from Lesnar’s first WWE stint. Sure, The Undertaker was a little slower, but Lesnar had grown both in skill and mystique, and it felt like a special collision between monsters. Even the finish, which involved The Phenom flat out cheating and manipulating the referee felt true to the story as The Dead Man would do anything to exact his revenge against this indomitable force.

I was lukewarm on the blow off match between these two at Hell in a Cell two months later, which I felt dragged, but their SummerSlam 2015 main event told a unique story, and blurred face-heel lines in fun ways between a pair of icons.

#4. John Cena vs. Dolph Ziggler at TLC 2012

This match felt something like a title match for the Money in the Bank briefcase being on the line, and the likelihood that it would lead to the victor winning a world title. There was no actual title at stake, though, and earlier that year, Raw had seen the first unsuccessful cash-in, making this one all the less certain to entail a championship reign.

This bout came across something like Dolph Ziggler’s true graduation to the main event scene. He’d flirted with the upper tier of the card over the years, and wouldn’t stick as a main eventer, but for one night, he looked as though he could hang, working an exciting back and forth Ladder Match with Cena. The match underscored both Ziggler’s workhorse tendencies, and Cena’s ability to meet an opponent where he was and willingness to put over other talents who earned the opportunity.

While this match didn’t end cleanly, there’s a fair argument that the finish that finish was more effective for that result. AJ Lee turned heel on John Cena to team up with Ziggler, and in so doing helped elevate his act one step further as a femme fatale sidekick. Ziggler would go on to famously cash-in his briefcase the night after WrestleMania to reach the peak of his WWE career.

#3. The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 26

We’re entering the upper tier of this countdown where I can understand an argument for any of the top three landing in the number one spot. Here we had The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels in a rematch of one of the greatest matches of all time from the year before. There was no title at stake, but The Undertaker’s WrestleMania undefeated streak was on the line and, in return, HBK had put up his career.

While, in my estimation, this bout fell short of their match from the year earlier, it was nonetheless a rock solid ‘Mania main event, with a back and forth match between The Undertaker nearing the end of his prime, and Michaels proving he was still among the best in ring performers alive. The Dead Man had the size advantage, while Michaels worked a relentless style, never giving up. As an added bonus, this match offered closure to what could be read as a three year WrestleMania voyage for The Showstopper. At WrestleMania 24 he finished Ric Flair’s career, superkicking him after he told him he loved him. The following year, he put on the match of a lifetime with The Phenom. Here, he put on one last classic, brilliantly defiant to the end as he made a cutthroat gesture before daring The Undertaker to finish him off once and for all.

#2. John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar at Extreme Rules 2012

It’s remarkable to think of the number of times and different circumstances under which John Cena and Brock Lesnar have locked horns. Most of those matchups have occurred with the WWE Championship on the line, first with Lesnar as the reigning champ and Cena as a fellow young buck trying to unseat him, later with Lesnar as the dominant monster who by and large got the better of Cena despite his best efforts.

This match in 2012 marked a unique spectacle and arguably the lone time that this collision of top stars from the same generation could really be called a dream match because, despite having happened before and happening again later, no one really expected this one to go down. Brock Lesnar had left WWE eight years earlier and had since become an elite mixed martial artist. It was surreal for him to be back in a WWE ring, and standing opposite the man who most directly benefited from his absence and arguably usurped his spot as the face of the company (I tend to agree with the argument that Cena would have risen to the top anyway, but there is a legitimate argument there).

The match was a uniquely brutal spectacle, as Lesnar and WWE figured out how they ought to work together again. Lesnar was largely dominant, debuting his now signature kimura lock, and brutalizing Cena with thoroughly realistic offense. Cena played the plucky, never-say-die face with the added impact that he looked absolutely horrible as he absorbed a bloody beating that was unconventional by WWE standards.

While Lesnar’s dominating performance over Cena at SummerSlam 2014 was arguably even more special for The Beast Incarnate’s sheer and unexpected dominance, this Extreme Rules bout was, in my estimation, the more entertaining of the two for the degree to which it was competitive. While it’s questionable that Cena would go over in this match, Lesnar would recover and more than get his win back in the years to follow.

#1. The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels at Badd Blood 1997

Hell in a Cell is now a signature gimmick match for WWE, but in 1997 it was an untested concept, used in to serve the story of The Undertaker wanting revenge at any cost, and needing Shawn Michaels’s newly formed DX squad locked out of the proceedings. It was a brilliant follow up to the SummerSlam story of HBK accidentally costing The Phenom the WWF Championship, and thus incurring his unholy outrage.

The WWF probably couldn’t have selected two better stars to establish a new match type than these main event mainstays who could tell a classic big man-little man story, and even make it work with the big man as the face and the smaller star playing heel in a game of cat-and-mouse, and more than its share of brutality.

This match, in many ways, established a template for what Hell in a Cell might be. It was brutal and bloody, and thus fitting with the Attitude Era. Moreover, it saw the Cell’s first big bump, with Michaels reeling from high up on the side of the cage and through an announce table.

And then there was the finish. Conventional logic would tell us that a third man interrupting steel cage proceedings undermines what a cage match is supposed to be about, besides robbing the fans of a clean finish. In this case, the debut of Kane to segue The Dead Man into his next major storyline marked a key strength of WWE storytelling at that time—fluidly keeping everyone occupied in fresh and engaging ways. While I can certainly see an argument for the number two or number three match on this countdown outranking this number one choice, for me, it gets the nod based on stand-alone match quality, plus its importance in storytelling for the parties immediately involved, and the long-term implications of launching The Undertaker and Kane’s long and iconic rivalry, laying a foundation for The Undertaker and HBK to build from over a decade later, and introducing Hell in a Cell.

Which matches would you add to the list? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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