Twice in a Lifetime: The best and worst WrestleMania rematchesBy John Hancock| April 6, 2013 WWE Blogs Previous Page The Worst Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna WrestleMania IX In the early 1990’s, Yokozuna was professional wrestling’s biggest monster heel. By winning the 1993 Royal Rumble, he had earned himself a title shot against the WWF Champion at the time, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, which was scheduled to take place at WrestleMania IX. The match was a classic David vs. Goliath set up, with Hart using his speed, intelligence and technical ability to counter-act Yokozuna’s size and strength. Using an exposed turnbuckle to his advantage, Hart was able to lock his opponent in his signature hold, the Sharpshooter, but the challengers’ manager, Mr. Fuji, interfered on his client’s behalf, hurling a handful of traditional sumo wrestling lucky salt into Hart’s eyes, allowing Yokozune to roll him up for the victory and for the title. As a whole, WrestleMania IX was received negatively. After the match, Hulk Hogan arrived, slotting himself into a last minute title main event against Yokozuna, which he won in 22 seconds, an act many saw as just another chapter in the long line of ego-moves pulled by Hogan toward the end of his WWF career. Despite the negative critical reaction, WWE listed Hogan’s last minute arrival as one of it’s 50 best WrestleMania moments. As a match itself, without taking Hogan’s involvement into consideration, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter gave Hart vs. Yokozuna a rating of 3 out of 5, compared to the 0 out of 5 they gave Hogan vs. Yokozuna seconds later. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content WrestleMania X The end of the 1994 Royal Rumble was an unclear one. At the exact same moment, the final two competitors, Bret Hart and Lex Luger, eliminated each other. Eventually, they would be declared co-winners, and it was decided that both men would receive title shots at WrestleMania. They would both wrestle twice over the course of the night, with each man receiving a separate shot against Champion Yokozuna. Luger won a coin toss, meaning that he would wrestle Yokozuna first, whilst Hart would wrestle his brother Owen, and then wait for the main event to fight the winner of Luger vs. Yokozuna. At the show itself, both Luger and Hart lost their first matches. Hart was pinned by his own brother, whilst Luger lost his title shot via disqualification after he attacked the special guest referee, Mr. Perfect. This set up the main event for the evening, WWF Champion Yokozuna against Bret Hart, a rematch of the last WrestleMania’s main event which had ended in a controversial Yokozuna victory. The match was full of bizarre celebrity appearances. Along with special guest referee Roddy Piper, Burt Reynolds was guest announcer, and Jennie Garth (of Beverly Hills 90210 fame) was guest time keeper. Yokozuna came to the ring with two managers, with Mr. Fuji now being joined by Jim Cornette. Cornette attempted to interfere on Yokozuna’s behalf, but was cut off by baby face referee Piper, who knocked him out. Yokozuna attempted his signature move, the Banzai Drop, but Hart counted, rolling the champion up for the victory. Whilst the early Hart vs. Hart match was greeted by almost universal praise, the main event was not so well received, with the Wrestling Observer Newsletter giving it a rating of 2.25 out of 5, 0.75 points less than their previous meeting. Hulk Hogan vs. Andre The Giant WrestleMania III In 1986, Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan had been the best of friends, but the growing star power of Hogan, along with the mainstream’s perceived failure to appreciate Andre’s 15 year winning streak ended the alliance when the French giant attacked his former partner, and sided with evil genius Bobby “The Brain” Heenan. Andre challenged Hogan to put his WWF Championship on the line against the Giant’s undefeated streak, and Hogan accepted. Arguably the biggest match in pro-wrestling history, the match came with all the celebrity add ons expected of an early WrestleMania. Baseball commentator Bob Uecker was guest ring announcer, and Entertainment Tonight hostess Mary Hart was guest time keeper. The main story of the match revolved around Hogan’s failed attempts to lift his 520lb opponent for a body slam. Again and again, Andre’s shear size and weight blocked Hogan from achieving his goal, until, finally, Hulk was able to summon up the strength to pick up and slam down his giant adversary in one of the most iconic moments in the sport’s history. Hulk Hogan followed up with a leg drop to pin Andre the Giant, defend the WWF Championship and end Andre’s 15 year winning streak. It would be 20 years until any wrestling company could hold an event as successful as WrestleMania III in terms of pay-per-view buys. The match itself is a truly iconic and instantly recognisable moment, not just in wrestling history, but in the history of American 20th century pop-culture. A rematch between the two, just under a year later, on an edition of WWF Main Event drew an unprecedented 33 million viewers, a number still unmatched by any other televised wrestling event. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter gave the match 4 out of 5. WrestleMania IV Andre finally won the title from Hogan at the first ever WWF Main Event, but WWF President Jack Tunney intervened, vacating the title as a last ditch measure to stop Andre from selling it to “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase. As a result, a 14 man tournament was set up to take place over the course of one night, at WrestleMania IV. Hogan and Andre met in the quarterfinals of the tournament, half way through the show. The match was short, barely lasting five minutes, and ending in an unpopular double disqualification after both men hit each other with chairs. Hogan and Andre would reemerge in the final later that night, each interfering on behalf of different finalists, with Hogan supporting “Macho Man” Randy Savage, and Andre supporting Ted DiBiase. The rematch itself was little more than a segment that played into the main event, eventually leading to the formation of the The Mega-Powers tag team, an alliance between Hogan and Savage. The match was not only the first WrestleMania rematch, but also Hogan’s only WrestleMania draw, and his only WrestleMania match to end in a disqualification. The match received a pitiful 0.25 out of 5 from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, a whole 3.75 stars less than their original meeting. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content The Undertaker vs. Kane WrestleMania XIV Kane debuted in 1997 after a long tease as The Undertaker’s long rumoured brother. The brother’s feud took multiple twists and turns as the two big men feuded, joined together, and generally tore apart the WWF, with Kane protecting his brother from outside attack, yet also doing his best to destroy him personally. Undertaker refused to fight back, referencing a promise he made to his dead parents, but, after Kane set him on fire, the deadman returned, claiming to have visited his parents in hell and taken back the promise, setting up the first match between the two at WrestleMania. Like so many matches on this list before it, the contest contained a special guest ring announcer, baseball player Pete Rose. For the first time in what would become a three year tradition, Rose was the victim of Kane’s relentless aggression, receiving a Tombstone Piledriver after angering the fans by insulting the local Boston Red Sox baseball team. Kane and the Undertaker exchanged command of the match throughout, with ‘Taker in charge at first, but eventually giving over the advantage to his brother thanks to constant referee distractions by Kane’s manager and father, Paul Bearer. Kane hit ‘Taker with the Tombstone Piledriver, but the Undertaker kicked out, leading to his comeback, which involved hitting Kane with three Tombstone Piledrivers, before finally being able to make the cover and the win the match. Their meeting set up and began the now uncountable series of Kane vs. The Undertaker matches. Their next pay-per-view meeting, at the first Unforgiven, invented a new, but rarely repeated, match type,;the Inferno Match. As a show, WrestleMania XIV was pivotal, and, in the eyes of many, it kick started the WWF’s attitude era, with WWF RAW over taking WCW Nitro a month later for the first time in over eighty weeks. Importance aside, the match itself received a poor 1.5 out of 5 rating from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, making it the joint second worst match of the night. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content WrestleMania XX In the build up to WrestleMania, Kane once again turned on his brother, angered by ‘Taker’s new biker gimmick, believing that it was making a mockery of their supernatural roots. Kane also believed that The Undertaker was beginning to express weakness and emotion, sacrificing the WWE Championship to Brock Lesnar to save Stephanie McMahon. Finally, Kane proclaimed that the real Undertaker was dead, and was no longer his brother or a true monster. The Undertaker, who was taking time off having been buried alive by Vince McMahon at SummerSlam, replied with supernatural attacks hinting at his old horror movie influenced personality, moving the ring whilst Kane was in it, making his urn appear out of nowhere, and haunting Kane with ghostly death knells. In the match itself, The Undertaker returned in his old “deadman” persona alongside old manager Paul Bear, ending the biker gimmick. The contest was a short one, lasting just over six minutes. Kane and The Undertaker exchanged chokeslams until ‘Taker was able to hit the Tombstone Piledriver and make the pin, taking his record to 12-0. Whilst the show received slightly positive reviews, the match was panned by critics. The Canadian Online Explorer gave the match 4 out of 10, high praise compared to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s 1.25 out of 5, labelling it the joint third worst match of the show. Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan WrestleMania XXVII Originally scheduled as the show’s opening dark match, this hastily put together excuse to get the entire roster onto the show as lumberjacks resulted in a no contest, eventually being restarted as a Battle Royal that The Great Khali won. As a whole, WrestleMania XXVII received incredibly bad reviews from almost the entire wrestling press. In such a climate of negativity, some people pointed to the fact that Sheamus and Bryan could easily have had an entertaining match on the main card, given the chance, in the place of one of the other pieces of filler. WrestleMania XXVIII Those critics got what they asked for a year later, but not in the way they wanted. In the shortest match of the night, Sheamus won in just 18 seconds to become World Heavyweight Champion. In one of the beautiful and unintentional ironies of professional wrestling, the match made Bryan a mega-star. The notoriously smark-ier than usual crowds of the WrestleMania weekend reacted negatively to both the treatment of Bryan and WrestleMania as a show in general by repeatedly chanting and singing about the supposed heel not only for the rest for the show, but for almost the entirety of the following night’s RAW. The WWE did it’s best to try and turn the crowd’s love for Bryan around, by making him openly reject their cheers, but, eventually, Bryan’s heel run was finally written off, and the WWE begrudgingly accepted the crowd’s love for him, a love created almost entirely out of a rebellion against WWE booking. As for the match itself, the general reaction was overwhelmingly negative. IGN labeled it the worst match of the night, the Canadian Online Explorer was so disappointed that they refused to rate it, claiming that it shouldn’t even count as a match, and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter gave it a rating of 0 out of 5, also calling it the worst match of the show. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content What are your favourite, least favourite or simply most memorable WrestleMania rematches, and which one-off matches do you think deserve a second outing? Use the comments section below to let us know.
