The "Hit Man" shook the No. Yet Vince McMahon had other plans in 2014, specifically an ill-conceived bout between former Evolution teammates Randy Orton and Dave Batista. "The physicality and our different styles have created a great chemistry. How do you possibly top one of the greatest matches of all time, The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels match at WrestleMania 25? It made me feel like we had seen the last of Shawn Michaels, and it was very sad. But compared to what you see on TV today, The Southern Boys versus The Midnight Express is advanced trigonometry." and he said, 'He's halfway to 18. Hes so obnoxious and youre able to root against him. While Bryan was the world's best wrestler since Day 1, his character work elevated him to WrestleMania main event-level status, especially his super sticky "Yes!" But the bout stands as an essential piece of history, one of the few times you felt the Earth move on its axis and suddenly realized that things would never, ever be the same. Perhaps the biggest testament to that fierce conflict was their WWE Iron Man Match for the WWE Title at The Showcase of the Immortals. MICHAEL BURDICK. No matter how many stars other matches have gotten before and since, Bret Hart vs. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin remains Hart's best, Austin's best, the greatest WrestleMania bout ever, and the best WWE match of all time. Two major betrayals, the constant bickering on commentary between Jim Ross and Paul Heyman, and an epic final showdown between Rock and Austin brought a fitting end to the war for sports-entertainment domination. "My statement for this match was, 'I want to retire, and I want to go out the way I came in, as Cactus Jack having the type of matches that I made my name doing.' You truly believed Steve Austin would do anything to beat The Rock. Not only was this bout in Edge's backyard of Toronto, but it was also Cena's first foray into theunforgivingrealm of TLC Matches. Brock Lesnar defeated CM Punk in a blistering battle, which was one of the finest match-ups of either man's career. Welp, fans certainly swallowed their words a month later when the three put on one of the greatest WrestleMania main events ever and the best triple threat match of all time. I was in my 40s and he was knocking on the door. "I really thought it was going to be the last move I ever did in wrestling," Foley told WWE.com. That nerve-wracking tension ran throughout the match, which kept the thousands fans in attendance, and the millions watching around the world, on the edge of their seats. Go in there, do your thing and feel it.' But the gimmick earned its reputation as "The Devil's Playground" due to what went down in this match (and to be fair, the infamous Undertaker-Mankind match at King of the Ring 1998). Triple H gets the win, but you dont have a second to catch your breath as a viewer, because you just saw this crazy Street Fight and youre like, These guys have taken everything they can out of each other, and then the cage starts lowering and youre going What?! Despite the fact that both Superstars were (and are) better known for their explosive, OMG-inducing acrobatics, the match quickly turned into a gritty battle of wills, wherein Zayn seemed to correct, one by one, the mistakes that had previously kept him from the title. WWE SmackDown Results - 2/24/23 (Firefly . Namely, Guerrero's nuanced character work, which elevated everyone around him, and Lesnar's selling, which managed to make him look vulnerable, even when wrestling a man half his size. Despite being nearly four years removed from their last one-on-one encounter, Steamboat and Flair displayed a unique familiarity with one another. "I wouldn't have necessarily predicted beforehand that Orton and Christian would have been so great together. He later requested the match be restarted after the referee missed The Kid's foot on a rope during a pinfall. It was a great Vengeance in July 2002 and an unbelievable Triple Threat main event that saw WWE Undisputed Champion Undertaker, The Rock and Kurt Angle strike down upon each other with furious anger and with one anothers signature moves, including a Rock-charged chokeslam, an Angle-executed Rock Bottom and an Undertaker-driven Angle Slam. Subscribe and watch all 100 matches right now. If youre a fan of tag team wrestling then you must watch The Steiner Brothers World Tag Team Championship Match against Sting & Lex Luger at SuperBrawl I. I didnt come around to respecting him until 2000 or 2001. There are some legendary matches on that list. Flair even went so far as to provide altered photos to WWE Magazine long before the advent of Photoshop or TMZ. and seemed almost disinterested in the action. Still, Michaels went down swinging (literally slapping 'Taker), but lost the match and his career, in an emotional finale for one of the greatest in-ring workers ever. But he, and we, will always have New Orleans. Smith was "high as a kite" on the plane flight, so fearing disaster, Hart meticulously prepped the match and had Smith recite it back to him. This match was iconic before the bell even rang, because on a deeper level it represented two schools of pro wrestling. Their rivalry culminated in a Ladder Match on the Nov. 20, 2006, edition of Raw. It was about which way the pendulum happened to swing on that particular day." Once hes 18, hell be out the door,' and I said. Its just one of those things that not a lot needs to be said. Steve Austin. Watch every Premium Live Event and enjoy some of your favorite WWE content on Disney + HotStar. ", Van Dam and Lynn first stole the show at Living Dangerously, but they upstaged that encounter with this back-and-forth Hardcore Heaven 1999 tour de force. The challenger ruled the day, but the methods making that result possible set the bar for all of the Cruiserweight competitors who would follow in the footsteps of these larger-than-life fighters. injury time. Purists balk at the role George "The Animal" Steele played in the final outcome, claiming it denied the WWE Universe a truly decisive victory. And it has rarely ever worked better than Eddie Guerrero vs. Brock Lesnar at No Way Out in 2004. GOLDUST, AS TOLD TO ZACH LINDER AND NICKY SAMPOGNA. All of it. Add a Hart Family conflicted in support of two universally beloved Superstars and this unparalleled mat classic became an emotional showdown that made WWEs "No. We definitely did our job that night. I said, 'I dont want to miss my kids growing up.' But at Survivor Series 2001, the war finally hit the ring when 10 of the biggest, baddest Superstars came to fight for their respective companies. The match was grueling, with Race targeting Flairs injured neck and Flair battling back valiantly. Whenever Sting and Ric Flair are together in any kind of match, they attract eyes, but to me, this entire match was just a story about Brian Pillman. I put enormous pressure on myself to come through, and I thought I had the best all-around performer in the business in Edge to try to do that with. There are matches I look back on and think, 'Maybe I shouldnt have gone to that extreme. Fans weren't too pleased when Shawn Michaels was shoe-horned into the main event of WrestleMania XX, turning a World Championship bout between Triple H and Chris Benoit into the first triple threat main event in WrestleMania history. "What they do in the ring is so good, it doesn't even matter how their rivalry got started. Several months later, people started talking WrestleMania, and the realization of really ending it on a high point was there, and nobody does that. In many ways it was a simple match in a relatively humble setting, but inside the ring, this was an epic. Its hard to tell where one teams madness began and the others ended in this frankly ludicrous, 10-car pileup of a match that saw Edge & Christian retain their World Tag Team Championship against The Dudley Boyz and The Hardy Boyz on The Grandest Stage of Them All. That was the same move that actually dislocated John Laurinaitis elbow in Japan in '91, and now [I had] to trust that this is going to work out fine from greater heights. It was a 20 minute masterpiece of mayhem, telling a story about how Triple H had to reach new levels of evil in order to defeat the Hardcore Legend. Ironically, after a wooden chair was tossed into the unforgiving steel confines, T.A. The double-cross that led to "The Nature Boy's" victory was bound to leave the Dallas crowd unhappy. What if we had gotten a bigger platform? Put him against The Excellence of Execution and you get one of the top 30 matches in WWE history. At the risk of being interrupted by The Brahma Bull, does it matter? But what better way to go out than one of the greatest tag team matches in WWE history, and the greatest "Monday Night Raw" match, period? Ricky Steamboat and "Ravishing" Rick Rude showed that at Beach Blast 1992. If they still don't get it, pro wrestling isn't for them. Triple H's Hell In A Cell match at WrestleMania XVIII may vary. What resulted was 15 minutes of nonstop, rapid-fire collisions, dives and triple-team maneuvers that simply havent been duplicated on pay-per-view since. Well, one veteran, as technically Kurt Angle had debuted only five years earlier, but by then had already established himself as one of the best ever. It was, quite literally, the WrestleMania main event that shook the world. Smackdown - 4 Matches Most frequent ratings: 4.5 Stars - 88 Matches 4.75 Stars - 23 Matches 5 Stars - 8 Matches Highest Rated Years: 1987: 1 Match 1992: 2 Matches 1993: 1 Match 1994: 5 Matches 1995: 3 Matches 1996: 3 Matches 1997: 3 Matches 1998: 2 Matches 1999: 1 Match 2000: 5 Matches 2001: 9 Matches 2002: 6 Matches 2003: 1 Match 2004: 3 Matches It's brief, but the actions and decisions really hit the right notes for . @JOEYSTYLES, In front of more than 70,000 fans in the Georgia Dome, two Superstars who defined an era clashed in an epic No Holds Barred Match. In the end, though, it was Mr. Pay-Per-View who dealt the final blow with a soaring Five-Star Frog Splash. Instead, it defined the enduring legacy of "The Dragon," "Macho Man" Randy Savage, the Intercontinental Championship that passed from the latter to the former, and some would say WrestleMania (if not wrestling) itself. Dont blink. The match was a clash of styles, but in a good way. While Edge would prevail, all 29 men and one woman (Beth Phoenix) got over. When people talk about Randy Orton, it's usually not as a hero, but he was perfect for the kind of opportunistic scoundrel villain that Christian was. MATTHEW ARTUS, Fifteen years before the advent of WWEs Attitude Era, the sports-entertainment world witnessed true mayhem at the National Wrestling Alliances first Starrcade event. Alas, while this match does hold up, it is also hampered by its stipulation. The backstory is that Flair was on his way out the door to return to WCW, and so this match was slapped onto Raw without a ton of promotion, but that hardly mattered: These two guys told a complete story in the ring (with the aid of Flairs manager, Bobby Heenan, who was on commentary) that somehow elevated these unusually legitimate stakes. Bray Wyatt vs. John. "It was an incredible match, and if you watch it back now, it still holds up like a great movie. BOBBY MELOK. But the biggest winners would be the fans. Throughout the bout, The Undertaker relished the opportunity to punish the degenerate inside the steel payback for Michaels costing The Deadman the WWE Title at SummerSlam that year. Despite never having held the WWETitle, the crowd favorite exuded confidence as he stood toe-to-toe with 15-time World Champion John Cena. Or should we say, Cactus Jack. The gimmick was clever, a Three Stages of Hell match, a modified 2 out of 3 Falls match. Only in pro wrestling is a groin shot a thing of beauty. Fans were rabid for this match, creating an absolutely electric environment. 2K has been revealing ratings a few at a time on Twitter over the past week, and a load of . We were having a blast and the crowd was electric. Both would have better bouts against others, but for two of the greatest, this was their best ever against each other. It goes without saying that Flair, knowing he was on his way out, could have sandbagged this match, but he was an absolute pro in competing against Perfect. It was Mr. McMahon's idea to let me become these characters, because they all had unique stories and they kind of worked in conjunction with Mankind. It also featured an ending every bit as iconic as Hogan slamming Andre, with Austin's screaming in pain, his face a bloody mess, yet refusing to submit to Hart's Sharpshooter. Now that you have the backstory, just go watch this match. DEAN AMBROSE, AS TOLD TO ZACH LINDER, As the old adage goes: "Its not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.". Who was Bret's handpicked opponent? That brought a lot more to the match on a technical level. "Being inside WarGames is intimidating. Not to mention, the huge crowd in Seattle looked so amazing the whole show and were loud the entire night. Whether any of these matches are your favorites, or you're discovering them for the first time, put the 30 best WWE matches of all time on your "must-watch" bucket list. One of the reasons was his match at WrestleMania XIX against another G.O.A.T. This was about as pure a tag team match as youre going to find. But this wasn't a tag team match. This match, though. 2 title" feel like its most coveted. KEVIN POWERS, The managerial services of Terri Runnels and $100,000 were on the line when The Hardy Boyz went to war with archrivals Edge and Christian in the deciding match of the Terri Invitational Tournament. If you are fortunate enough, work hard enough, hit all your marks, dont make any mistakes, you hold up your end, your guy holds up his end, and the situation, aura, awe, mystique and everything else falls into place, you get that match. "From the beginning, the way Pillman dominated Barry Windham for the first full five-minute section of the match was sort of unexpected, because Windham was a lot bigger than Pillman, and at that point at least, a lot more established than Pillman was. Cena put Bryan over clean as a sheet, succumbing to the "Yes Kick," kicking off Bryan's short-lived (almost literally three minutes) title reign. I suplexed Shawn from the turnbuckles into the announce table, and he turned it into a crossbody. The two Intercontinental Titles were hanging above the ring, and Razor Ramon was my favorite at the time. 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