Top 10 Best WrestleMania Main Events Of All Time

WrestleTalk

With WrestleMania right around the corner, Adam Blampied counts down the Top 10 WrestleMania main event matches of all time! Where does the legendary matchup of John Cena vs The Rock rank? And who can forget Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle at WrestleMania 19? We've got all the best matches covered!  Which WrestleMania main event is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!  0:00 - Introduction 0:58 - Honorable Mention 1:29 - #10 2:28 - #9 3:28 - #8 4:43 - #7 5:52 - #6 6:58 - #5 8:04 - #4 9:09 - #3 10:09 - #2 11:01 - #1 #WWE #WrestlingNews #WrestleTalk #WWETop10 #WrestleMania  WrestleTalk Podcasts are moving here   https://bit.ly/3pEAEIu Adam Blampied's lists are moving here  https://bit.ly/32JJsCv Wrestling Daily has moved here  https://bit.ly/3j3BXOZ WrestleTalk stays here  https://goo.gl/WfYA12 | SUBSCRIBE TO THEM ALL! Make sure to enable ALL push notifications!  TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/

Transcript

00:00 Ladies and gentlemen, this is your main event. In a calendar year, there is no single match

00:05 more important in the wrestling industry than the main event of WrestleMania. No other match

00:10 has more pressure on its shoulders to be the biggest draw of the year, to expand wrestling's

00:14 mainstream influence, to blow the conch and assemble the biggest crowd of the year from

00:18 every corner of the globe, and to be the exclamation point on a week-long celebration of the sport.

00:23 Of course, when the match bombs, there's no bigger disappointment, no greater betrayal.

00:27 Reigns vs. Triple H, Cena vs. Miz, Reigns vs. Brock too, but that's not what this

00:31 list is about. There's enough room for me to make my grumpy face and be a sarcastic

00:35 b-hole every other month of the year, and don't worry, I will, but it's the road

00:39 to WrestleMania, so let's celebrate by remembering those times the biggest match of the year

00:43 lived up to the hype. I'm Adam, hailing from partsFUNknown, and these are the 10 greatest

00:48 WrestleMania main events ever.

00:59 Honourable Mention - Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage, WrestleMania 5

01:02 Just wanted to mention this because it's an all-time great heel performance from Savage,

01:06 teaching Kevin Owens how to do it with early match stalling, hiding behind Miss Elizabeth,

01:10 crushing Hogan's throat with an axe handle from a top rope, and possibly the greatest

01:14 elbow drop Savage has ever hit, which is saying something. Your appreciation for this one

01:19 will vary depending on your tolerance for the Hulk-up shtick, but it's everything

01:22 a classic wrestling main event should be. The biggest hero vs. the biggest villain,

01:26 an uncomplicated story, very well told.

01:30 Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle, WrestleMania 19

01:33 This might be a little low for some fans, specifically the kind that argue they actually

01:36 prefer movies with subtitles because it makes the acting more raw. It's fine, you can

01:40 head to the comments and tell me that WrestleMania 19 is better than X7, I respect your right

01:44 to be wrong. To be clear, Mania 19 is very good, but it was a bit like an arthouse mania

01:49 before the fans were really ready for it. The main event is very indicative of that,

01:52 objectively very good in places, but with a bit of disconnect from the fans throughout,

01:56 giving it a sense that something was missing. Brock and Kirk would go on to have better

02:01 matches, but there's definitely a lot of capital letters 'GOOD WRESTLING' here.

02:05 Chain wrestling with accurate commentary from Taz is always fun, the German suplex

02:08 into the turnbuckle is a juicy spot, Ditto Angle being backdropped into space over the

02:13 top rope, and Adam loves a belly to belly overhead suplex, it makes his Percy Pringle

02:17 tingle. The closing stretch is fun, especially with both men being exceptional near fall

02:21 kick out artists. Just a shame that the biggest memory from this match is still Lesnar almost

02:25 breaking his neck with a bot shooting star press.

02:28 Edge vs The Undertaker, WrestleMania 24 Edge's upcoming triple threat with Jeff Farmer

02:33 and Samoan Colgate will be the first time that Edge has main evented WrestleMania in

02:36 13 years, and if it's anything as good as the last time, we're in for a treat. In

02:41 the main event of WrestleMania 24, the rated R Suu-Uuu-Uuu-Uuu-Per-Star wrestled Pyromania

02:47 24 for the World Heavyweight title, in a wonderful showcase of steadily increasing wrestling

02:52 silliness. Hello Charles Robinson diddly diddly dee.

02:55 The match isn't perfect, it starts off quite slowly with some not very believable submission

02:59 wrestling from Edge, but once it kicks up a gear, it stays there. Undertaker hits one

03:03 of his only suicide dives that didn't make you want to eat your entire fist in anxiety,

03:08 Edge repeatedly sneaks his way out of all of Taker's big moves, kicks out the tombstone,

03:12 and pulls off a legitimate streak-breaking false finish after spearing the dead man after

03:16 a distraction from his disappointing sons. Also that final spot is a beauty, Edge hitting

03:21 one more spear but the Phenom snatches him up in a hell's gate. It takes some time

03:25 getting there, but the closing stretch is well worth the wait.

03:28 Hulk Hogan vs The Ultimate Warrior, WrestleMania 6

03:32 Some matches aren't very good, but become very good because everyone is having a nice

03:37 time and that becomes compelling in and of itself. Hulk Hogan was a professor of these

03:41 kinds of matches, his match with Andre, his match with Rock, his match with Vince. All

03:45 three probably had about 10 moves between them and most of them were shoving, but all

03:49 are fondly remembered. In that regard, the main event of Mania 6 against Ultimate Warrior

03:53 is his masterpiece. There's almost nothing to it, Warrior does a thing, then Hogan does

03:57 that same thing, then Hogan does a thing, then Warrior does that same thing, it's

04:01 like if that mirror skip from Duck Soup was being performed by Ents, but everyone in Toronto

04:05 f***ing loved it, so much that it's a really fun watch. Genuinely, Hogan getting out of

04:11 a bear hug gets one of the biggest pops I've ever heard what is going on. Also, huge personal

04:17 pop for Earl Hebner eating s*** from a Warrior shoulder tackle, look at him fly. Born off

04:21 the back of fan reaction alone, it genuinely feels like the Titanic clash of two gods,

04:26 albeit gods that do very silly criss-cross spots. As much as it's fun to be contrary

04:30 to WWE, it's actually way more fun to watch a match where WWE says "you both like these

04:35 guys" and people do, WWE says "you're gonna be very excited about this" and people

04:40 are, and WWE says "this is monumental" and it is.

04:43 Number 7, The Rock vs John Cena WrestleMania 28, aka the DVD version of Hogan Warrior's

04:50 VHS. At Mania 18, Hogan evidently taught Rock everything he knew, because this is shoving

04:55 in Bear Hugs the musical, but the fans said "yes please, I'll take 10". It's Hogan

04:59 Warrior down to its f***ing bone marrow, except with more pomp and better close-ups of faces.

05:04 I can understand people not liking this match, from an in-ring standpoint it doesn't really

05:07 hang together, it's great in bursts but then the match pauses so that gassed off as

05:11 being Rock can get his breath back, but again it doesn't matter. For one night only, WWE

05:16 transported Golden Era spectacle into the modern day and the fans played along. They

05:21 are thunderous throughout the Rock's You Still Got It sequence, Cena plays a bit more

05:25 of a heel game, taking a breather to huge boos, playing up his frustration with amazing

05:30 facials, The Rock going for the People's Elbow but being snatched into an STF attempt

05:34 in the middle of a hard cam zooming out, that's a really nice touch, then yeah, huge stars

05:38 hitting huge moves, AA kick out, Rock bottom, leg drop, People's Elbow, another AA and

05:44 finally the really fun closing spot. It's basic stuff but the hype carries it. The hype

05:49 did not carry it a year later though, oh goodness me.

05:52 6. Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar vs Seth Rollins - WrestleMania 31

05:57 WrestleMania 31 does not really make sense. It shouldn't have worked, it should have

06:00 absolutely crashed and burned considering the toxic road to WrestleMania which began

06:04 in middle finger flipping earnest at the Royal Rumble, sad trombone sound. Despite one of

06:09 the worst builds of all time, Mania 31 turned out to be a legitimate top 3 all time mania,

06:14 and nowhere was that more exemplified than in the main event. A lot of praise for this

06:17 match rightfully spotlights the Heist of the Century, a piece of Hail Mary booking that

06:22 turned a no win situation into the hottest angle of the year, but the match ruled before

06:27 the cash-in.

06:28 In the build to the show, Brock Lesnar hadn't re-signed with WWE, so Roman being crowned

06:32 King Sh*t was seemingly inevitable. However, mere days before WrestleMania weekend, Brock

06:38 re-signed, which made the possibility of him retaining a sudden escape route which had

06:42 the knock on effect of turbo charging the Mania crowd into a pro-Brock, anti-Roman fervour,

06:47 which made the match super compelling and super stressful to watch, made all the more

06:51 exciting by the fact that the two men beat the paint off each other. Physical, insanely

06:56 exciting with a genius twist in the tale.

06:58 5. Daniel Bryan vs Randy Orton vs Batista, WrestleMania 30

07:03 Sometimes the match doesn't matter. Sometimes all that matters is the result, and the match

07:07 is all about killing time trying to convince us the result won't happen. After everything

07:10 that Daniel Bryan and his fans had gone through on the road to WrestleMania 30, all that mattered

07:14 was Bryan winning the belts, but god damn did WWE have some fun in trying to convince

07:19 us it wouldn't happen, leading to one of the most hand-wringingly, anxiety-inducing,

07:23 air-punching matches in Mania history. It is all the fun of the fair, Bryan, whose idea

07:27 of dressing fancy for Mania is sticking washing machine lint to his boots, he kicks Randle

07:33 and Dave, sticks a hammer up the nose at Triple H cosplaying as the Revival's dad, before

07:37 the wonderful spot of the Batista Bomb into the RKO that definitely hurts Randy more because

07:41 he landed on a monitor, except he's not allowed to sell it, sorry mate, and then two

07:45 beautifully cruel near-falls where WWE fully hook you into thinking that Bryan's dreams

07:50 are about to be McMahon-handled, Batista kicks out of the RKO and then almost steals Bryan's

07:55 pin after a running knee. Finally, Bryan wins, and not even Michael Cole can ruin the heart-burstingly

08:02 wonderful moment, though he did his best.

08:04 4. John Cena vs Shawn Michaels, WrestleMania 23

08:08 Some people write this match off because it exists right at the height of the anti-Cena

08:12 backlash, and may not have rewatched it much, since knowing the outcome might dull that

08:16 enthusiasm, this is a mistake. This match f***ing bangs. Shawn Michaels has put together

08:21 a Criterion collection of stunning Mania matches, and this is right up there with his best.

08:25 He is an absolute savage in this match, the springboard moonsault onto the table, killing

08:30 Mike Chioda stone dead with a superkick, sorry Michael, pile-driving Cena onto the ring steps,

08:35 he's amazing, which isn't to do big match John down, he more than holds his own here,

08:39 decapitating Michaels with clotheslines, the two men have insane chemistry together, and

08:44 later in the match is probably one of my favourite sequences in all of Mania history, Cena repeatedly

08:49 tries to get Michaels in the STFU, but on the last attempt, Michaels switches it into

08:53 an inside cradle smooth as f***ing butter. It's such an intense match, heck even Jack

08:58 Doan gets in on the action, near-rugby tackling Cena out of the STFU, you go little man, probably

09:04 helps that the crowd were pretty much insane all the way throughout as well, it's an

09:07 underrated classic.

09:09 Chris Benoit vs Triple H vs Shawn Michaels, WrestleMania 20

09:13 Still one of the greatest triple threats in the history of wrestling, up there with Rollins,

09:17 Cena and Lesnar at a 2015 Rumble. Like that match, one of the reasons this match goes

09:21 as hard as it does is all three men have completely different styles, Benoit's speed and focused

09:26 gunshot viciousness, mixed with HBK's acrobatic movement, mixed with Triple H's raw power.

09:32 Throughout the contest you often get two guys, wrestler style of match, before they're

09:36 interrupted by the third guy booming into frame to switch up the entire dynamic. That

09:41 stretch of the match where it's just Michaels vs Benoit, tie your mother down.

09:45 Trips and Shawn's endless blood-drenched odyssey that had stretched on and off for

09:49 nearly two years had gotten a little stale, yes of course both men bladed during this

09:53 match 2DX boys will be boys, but Benoit's inclusion was a bolt of lightning, creating

09:57 a wild, fresh matchup where everyone shined. That switch in music to Benoit while he's

10:02 sucking in the sharpshooter, bang, an exciting match that flies by with an emotional, if

10:07 haunting conclusion.

10:09 2. Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker - WrestleMania 26

10:13 Oh man, it's tough to pick between the top two. In the end I let crowd reaction decide

10:17 the order, which isn't to say that fans weren't very appreciative for HBK taker

10:21 two, but you'll understand when we get to number one.

10:23 Honestly, this match has it all. Star power out the bum, heartfelt emotional set pieces,

10:28 HBK's defiant last stand especially, insane action, moonsault from the turnbuckle to the

10:33 announce table is one of the top ten mania spots ever, crazy high stakes, consistent

10:37 limb work with Michaels targeting Taker's leg throughout, yeah it's really great

10:41 stuff. It's not my favourite announce team in the world, Cole, Lawler and Stryker never

10:45 really got along and that hurt some moments, but otherwise it is the best and most important

10:50 feeling wrestling can get. That finish is so great.

10:54 3. Shawn slapping Taker who scoops him up for an ultimate mega death variant of the

10:58 tombstone to finally put HBK's career to rest.

11:02 1. Steve Austin vs The Rock - WrestleMania X-7

11:05 On paper it is the epitome of the perfect wrestling main event. Proven draw vs proven

11:11 draw with the most important and best looking title in the business on the line. Austin

11:15 Rock at Mania X-7 is the perfect hybrid of golden era booking, smashing two unbeatable

11:20 titans against each other with attitude era savagery and shock tactics. Everyone remembers

11:25 the ending, beautifully sold on commentary by an all time great announcement duo of JR

11:29 and Heyman, but the match itself is unrelenting excitement from the bell. Both men bleed,

11:34 both men clobber the hog mess off each other and while Rock sells like a champ, this is

11:38 Austin's story. And it's very cleverly seeded throughout. The look in Austin's

11:42 eyes at the start, glimpsing the title like a red flag to a bull, immediately grabbing

11:46 the belt and trying to cheat. It's right there, the first set piece. Attempt at the

11:50 Rock bottom, attempt at the Stunner, then Austin takes us through a career retrospective,

11:54 bleeding while in the sharpshooter, taking us back to his classic against Bret Hart at

11:57 Mania XIII. He locks in the Million Dollar Dream, his original finish as the Ringmaster,

12:01 a callback reference to the finish of Austin's Survivor Series 96 match with Bret, Mr McMahon

12:06 and his industry defining relationship with Austin. Finally, finally, after so many attempts,

12:11 Austin gets the Stunner which gets an electrifying two count which breaks Austin's mind, leading

12:16 him to abandon everything and everyone who got him there using endless frenzied chair

12:21 shots to finally pick up the 1, 2, 3. Amazing storytelling, performed in front of a rabid

12:27 crowd that went nuts for every single move. What a match.

12:31 And that's our list. What's your favourite WrestleMania main event? Let us know below.

12:35 If you enjoyed the video, please click like and subscribe to PartsFunKnown for more great

12:39 and silly wrestling content. Jam that jam.

12:42 (Outro)

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