Every WrestleMania main-event in the last ten years, rankedBy Matthew Martin| April 2, 2020 WWE Blogs Previous Page #5 – JOHN CENA vs THE ROCK (WRESTLEMANIA 28) 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 This is where the list turns from bad to good. Cena vs Rock was a legitimate ICON vs ICON match and one of the very last fights WWE had in its arsenal that could gin up genuine mainstream buzz. After a year-long build-up, the match in Rock’s hometown met every possible expectation. It wasn’t a technical masterpiece but it made up for that in the spectacle, crowd excitement, and that special “Showcase of the Immortals” feel that only happens every now and then at this show. Rewatchability /10 = 9 Workrate = /10 = 4 Storyline = /10 = 8 Crowd Heat = /10 = 9 #4 – BECKY LYNCH vs RONDA ROUSEY vs CHARLOTTE FLAIR (WRESTLEMANIA 35) 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 Others might rate this lower, criticizing it for its sloppy action and slightly botched finish, but I loved it. Ronda Rousey and Becky Lynch were perfect foils for each other, complementing and contrasting the other in all the right ways. Charlotte was there to give the match more to work with considering Ronda’s limited experience, but the overall production was top notch. Everything from the entrances, to the crowd’s excitement, to the perfect ending (messed up pin notwithstanding) made for a classic Mania main-event. Rewatchability /10 = 8 Workrate = /10 = 7 Storyline = /10 = 8 Crowd Heat = /10 = 8 #3 – ROMAN REIGNS vs BROCK LESNAR, vs SETH ROLLINS (WRESTLEMANIA 31) 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 I admit that I’m probably biased about this since this was the first WrestleMania I ever saw live, but everything about this worked like magic. I’ll never forget how the California sky was a dark red and black, mirroring the sparse WrestleMania stage set-up that year. The phrase “big fight feel” is often overused but here it is perfectly applied. Brock Lesnar was still in the middle of his most dominant run, having defeated Undertaker the year before and completely pantsed John Cena at SummerSlam to win the title. Roman Reigns was hardly the people’s favorite to challenge him, but that only added to the crowd’s buzz. By the time Seth Rollins’ music hit and the cash-in occurred, there was a joygasm throughout the crowd the likes of which I’d never experienced before or since. Rewatchability /10 = 9 Workrate = /10 = 8 Storyline = /10 = 8 Crowd Heat = /10 = 9 #2 – SHAWN MICHAELS vs UNDERTAKER (WRESTLEMANIA 26) 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 can be said about this match? It hardly seems like it belongs in this list; Phoenix feels like forever ago. The match has everything. It has the spectacle and pizzazz you want in a Mania show-closer. It has the work-rate you’d expect from Shawn Michaels and Undertaker, circa 2010s, it had a special, intangible quality that can’t be replicated, with everyone knowing this was to be HBK’s final match. What really set it apart, however, was the storyline, which arguably goes back three years to 2007, when these two locked horns as the final two of the Royal Rumble. Undertaker won, though both went on to challenge for the title. A year later, they opened the Rumble and again put on a clinic, though that WrestleMania featured HBK putting Ric Flair into retirement. The subsequent crisis of conscience that followed culminated in HBK vs Undertaker I at WrestleMania 25. Billed merely as “the best of Raw vs the best of SmackDown” is soon became a personal quest for HBK to prove he could prevail over the deadman when no one else before ever had. Spoiler alert: He lost. After taking several months off, HBK returned and, when Mania 26 came around, he became obsessed with doing what he failed to do the year before. Taker initially refused to wrestle him again but, after repeated antagonizing, he agreed on the condition that Michaels put his career on the line. What followed was WrestleMania 24 all over again, with HBK playing the role of Ric Flair. One jumping tombstone later and fans—with tears of sadness and wonder in their eyes—gave both men a standing ovation to close the show. Rewatchability /10 = 10 Workrate = /10 = 10 Storyline = /10 = 10 Crowd Heat = /10 = 10 #1 – DANIEL BRYAN vs BATISTA vs RANDY ORTON (WRESTLEMANIA XXX) You might think this should be flipped with the #2 entry, and that’s fair. For me, this belongs on top because it had a happy ending, something we rarely get at WrestleMania anymore. Despite knowing everything that would happen in the months to come, I can still come back to this WrestleMania and enjoy it for the story it told and the wrestling it used to tell it. Watching Bryan go from the ultimate underdog, climaxing a story that had been brewing both in kayfabe and reality over the past several months, beating Triple H in match one (in one of The Game’s greatest single’s matches ever, if not his greatest), then ending the night with a victory over the rest of Evolution gave me so much pure and unbridled joy as a wrestling fan, I was tempted to turn off the TV and never watch WWE again. If I’d known how Bryan’s title run would end I probably would have; there’s no touching the happiness I felt watching him hoist those two titles over his head. Wrestling fans live for those brief flashes of delight, like islands on a sea of crap we wade through all year long. People see us watching the weekly programs and they wonder “why do you put up with it if you hate it so much?” This is the reason. WrestleMania XXX, Bryan wins it all. That’s worth all the rest of the crap. If you don’t get that, I can’t help you. If you do, then you know why this is the greatest WrestleMania main-event of the last ten years. Rewatchability /10 = 10 Workrate = /10 = 10 Storyline = /10 = 10 Crowd Heat = /10 = 10 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 That’s my ranking. What’s yours? Let us know in the comments below!
