Insert obligatory list of sequels better than the originals. These are the 11 times the WrestleMania rematch was better than the originals.
0:00 - Intro
0:56 - 11
1:47 - 10
2:37 - 9
3:21 - 8
4:15 - 7
5:34 - 6
6:23 - 5
7:18 - 4
8:12 - 3
9:01 - 2
10:07 - 1
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0:00 - Intro
0:56 - 11
1:47 - 10
2:37 - 9
3:21 - 8
4:15 - 7
5:34 - 6
6:23 - 5
7:18 - 4
8:12 - 3
9:01 - 2
10:07 - 1
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
Buy wrestling merchandise here: https://www.wrestleshop.com/
Unlock the secrets to working in professional wrestling, sign up to https://www.wrestlingmasterclass.com/
Read more Feature content here on WrestleTalk.com: https://wrestletalk.com/features/
Youtube Channel Comments Policy
We appreciate the comments and opinions our viewers provide. Do note that all comments are subject to YouTube auto-moderation and manual moderation review. We encourage opinions and discussion, but harassment, hate speech, bullying and other abusive posts will not be tolerated. Decisions on comment removal are made by the Community Manager. Please email us at support@wrestletalk.com with any questions or concerns.
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SportsTranscript
00:00 Insert obligatory list of sequels better than the originals.
00:03 WrestleMania is where every member of the WWE roster hopes to have their best match
00:07 of the year, but sometimes that just doesn't happen.
00:10 Maybe they need another shot to get it just right, or maybe the hustle and bustle of WrestleMania
00:15 simply doesn't give them the best opportunity to blow us all away.
00:18 Regardless of the reason, there have been many cases of WrestleMania rematches actually
00:22 outshining the originals, 11 of them in fact, and thus we shall discuss.
00:26 The only criteria here is that the match in question has to be composed of the exact same
00:31 wrestlers so no adding of a third or fourth dude, and these matches have to take place
00:36 on the pay-per-view immediately following WrestleMania.
00:39 I'm Tempest Hailing from PartsFunKnown, and these are the 11 times the WrestleMania
00:43 rematch was better than the original.
00:45 But before we get on with this list, make sure of course that you like this video, subscribe,
00:48 and enable notifications to always on so you never miss another list just like it, and
00:51 make sure you check out one of the other WrestleMania themed lists that we've had over the last
00:55 month and a half.
00:56 Number 11.
00:57 Triple H vs Batista - Backlash 2005
01:00 WrestleMania 21 was a perfect show, if you ignore the quality of its two most important
01:04 matches.
01:05 A show that crowned the company's two new world champions in two butt-ass matches.
01:10 Triple H having long and boring WrestleMania main events has practically become a meme
01:13 at this point, but it may surprise you to hear that the game actually has a better-than-average
01:18 Backlash track record.
01:19 This match with Batista isn't wildly better than their match at WrestleMania, but it is
01:23 considerably shorter, and that adds half a star to the match on its own.
01:27 This rematch is completely built on Triple H being sure that the pedigree is the weapon
01:31 that will beat Batista, while Batista tries to use his own Batista Bomb early and often,
01:36 and this match does tell these stories pretty effectively.
01:39 It isn't the most exciting match, given that it is two fairly plodding plotters having
01:43 a plod, but it does everything their Mania match does in three quarters of the time.
01:47 Thumbs up.
01:48 Number 10.
01:49 Randy Orton vs Kane - Extreme Rules 2012
01:51 Of all the people who came up short at WrestleMania 28, the one I feel the worst for has to be
01:56 Randle Chief Keef Orton.
01:58 Sure Daniel Bryan got completely hosed in his 18-second match, but that helped launch
02:02 the rest of his WWE career.
02:04 Randy gets beaten in a boring 11-minute match by Kane on his birthday.
02:09 Poor guy.
02:10 Thankfully, they got another chance to do this one right at Extreme Rules, and even
02:13 though this match ticks the box of my biggest wrestling pet peeve, falls count anywhere
02:18 matches that end in the ring, this is a massive improvement.
02:21 Half the match takes place backstage, but that does give way for a cameo from everyone's
02:25 favorite wheelchair-bound cuck Zack Ryder, who gets a big pop.
02:28 Woo woo woo, and all that.
02:31 Randy Orton is uber popular and gets the win with an RKO on a chair, a birthday gift four
02:35 weeks late.
02:36 Sorry Randy.
02:37 Number 9.
02:38 Cody Rhodes vs Rey Mysterio - Extreme Rules 2011
02:41 Speaking of falls count anywhere matches that end in the ring, and is that QT Marshall is
02:46 one of Cody Rhodes' bag carriers?
02:47 I guess he never grew out of that position.
02:50 Anyway, Cody's Wrestlemania match with Rey Mysterio in 2011 was a fun little match and
02:54 the first big singles win in the young, knee-padless career of the man that would become the American
02:59 Nightmare, but their rematch a month later at Extreme Rules was even better.
03:03 The falls count anywhere format works better for some wrestlers than others, but thankfully
03:07 Rey Mysterion is definitely in the former camp.
03:10 Watching Rey hit his seated senton off the stage is very fun, and the use of a surprising
03:14 misting from Mysterio, back when no one did the mist, made for a notable and unique finish
03:19 and a fitting end to this rivalry.
03:21 Number 8.
03:22 Randy Orton vs CM Punk - Extreme Rules 2011
03:25 Now let's wind the clocks back an hour, shall we?
03:27 The Randy Orton-CM Punk feud of 2011 was a weird one, filled with a three-year callback,
03:32 Randy's fake wife, and Mason Ryan, but the matches they had were quite fun.
03:36 Their Mania 27 match is a nice little gem buried beneath an otherwise horrible show,
03:41 but their rematch at Extreme Rules was a solid little last-man-standing match.
03:45 Remember when every match on Extreme Rules was a different stipulation?
03:48 What a time that was.
03:49 Anywho, last-man-standing matches have gotten a particularly bad rap in recent years, and
03:54 it is well-earned, but here there is enough to keep our attention, and it being the opening
03:58 match of the pay-per-view meant that it isn't 30 minutes long and needing to put on a main-event
04:02 match stretched out with boring stretches.
04:04 A top-row bar KO put CM Punk away, and the most fun I had here was thinking about just
04:09 how two months later, CM Punk was getting ready to drop the pipe bomb, and here he was
04:13 just another heel.
04:14 Mental.
04:15 Number 7.
04:16 The Brothers vs. Matt Hardy, Backlash 2009 While our criteria for these matches were
04:21 clear that the rematch must take place at the pay-per-view after WrestleMania and must
04:25 feature the same participants, it should also be clear by now that the stipulations attached
04:30 to these rematches can be different, as is the case with this match between the Brothers
04:34 Hardy.
04:35 While their WrestleMania Extreme Rules match is more iconic and spectacular, it is also
04:40 mostly a series of things happening.
04:42 Their I Quit match at Backlash, while considerably less #radical #extreme, did focus much more
04:48 on psychology, with Matt trying his best to neutralize Jeff's leg and ultimately failing,
04:54 leading to a pretty satisfying end to what many people consider a pretty unsatisfying
04:58 story.
04:59 Matt being the one who had been f***ing with Jeff for over a year and killing his f***ing
05:03 dog, a plot point that should never be used in wrestling, was f***ing stupid, but seeing
05:07 him tied to a table, absolutely f***ed, reduced to a pathetically helpless man, pleading with
05:14 Jeff not to hurt him anymore, invoking the name of their dead mother and sick father,
05:18 saying that he loved him, and finally quitting only for Jeff to take him out anyway and actually
05:23 break Matt's hand, just left a better lasting impression than a disappointing loss for Jeff
05:28 to WrestleMania.
05:29 Just ignore that Matt has to cost Jeff a match at the next pay-per-view in an angle that's
05:33 never followed up on.
05:34 6.
05:35 Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk - Extreme Rules 2010
05:38 Rey Mysterio and CM Punk always had great chemistry together, but there is only so much
05:42 chemistry that can be done in six minutes at WrestleMania.
05:45 Sometimes them's the breaks at Mania, because who would want to see these two great workers
05:48 with an impassioned story when you could see a meaningless Sheamus and Triple H match,
05:52 or Bret beat the piss out of Vince for twice as much time?
05:55 Thankfully, Extreme Rules gave Punk and Mysterio the stage to have the match they should have
05:59 had on the grandest stage.
06:00 Sixteen minutes of well-worked action, with Punk playing the role of the slimy cult leader
06:05 perfectly as he kept alluding to his hair being on the line.
06:08 The Straight Edge Society f*ck around and find out, getting tossed from ringside, but
06:12 all this builds to the re-debut of Joseph Mercury, the masked apostle who cost Rey the
06:16 match and gives us all a reason to get to see this very fun match again for a third
06:20 time where they once again got all the time they needed.
06:24 5.
06:25 John Cena vs. Batista - Extreme Rules 2010
06:27 And now let's fast forward an hour and 45 minutes to the main event of Extreme Rules,
06:31 and a divisive match, but one I fall on the positive side of.
06:35 I think I may be the biggest fan of Heel Batista in the world.
06:38 When the man stopped giving a sh*t, he was at his best, and ladies and gentlemen, early
06:42 PG era Batista did not give a sh*t.
06:46 His match with John Cena at WrestleMania is really quite good, but their last man standing
06:50 match a month later is even better.
06:52 It may have a finish that made goofy-ass John Cena even goofier, but I prefer to look at
06:56 someone duct-taping someone's legs around a pole as genius psychology rather than Krusty's
07:01 Funhouse nonsense.
07:02 The match ramps up the intensity with AAs on chairs, through the announce table, a spine
07:07 buster through a table, Batista telling that one kid he hates him, and throughout it all,
07:11 Batista is working over Cena's legs, thus making it all the more poetic when Cena neutralizes
07:16 Batista's legs to win.
07:18 4.
07:19 Charlotte Flair vs. Ronda Rousey - WrestleMania Backlash 2022
07:23 The list of highlights from Ronda Rousey's second run in WWE may be shorter than the
07:27 list of conspiracy theories she believes in, but at the very least, she was able to win
07:31 the Smackdown Women's Championship for the first time in a pretty solid match.
07:35 Her WrestleMania match with Charlotte Flair was an outright stinker, with Ronda horribly
07:39 miscast as a babyface, and the two just not having the same chemistry that they had in
07:44 2018 when Ronda's matches were much more meticulously planned out.
07:47 But a month later, with a ton of smoke and mirrors, they were able to pull off what their
07:51 Mania match should have been.
07:53 Ronda dual-wields kendo sticks like someone who actually has been trained to use them,
07:57 and on more than one occasion appears to be ready to rip Charlotte's arm out of its
08:01 socket.
08:02 The match didn't lead to anything good, in fact, the title win effectively caused a chain
08:05 reaction that led to Naomi and Sasha Banks leaving the company, but for one night, Ronda
08:09 stood tall as a champion babyface, and the people cheered.
08:13 3.
08:14 Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar - Extreme Rules 2013
08:16 The Triple H/Brock Lesnar series of matches left a particularly bad taste in my mouth
08:20 when I watched them, because I don't know about you, but I simply wouldn't have had
08:23 the former UFC heavyweight champion lose to Triple H in a 24-minute snoozefest at his
08:28 first WrestleMania since returning to WWE, but that's just how you play the game.
08:32 Fortunately for all involved, they saved their best match for last, with Brock getting a
08:36 much-needed win inside a steel cage.
08:38 The psychology is a little topsy-turvy, with Triple H attacking Brock from behind to start
08:42 the match, but once things are in the ring, we settle into a much more appropriate tried-and-true
08:47 cage match format, with Heyman keeping trips from escaping, handing Brock weapons, and
08:52 such and such.
08:53 It is a little jarring seeing Brock in a much slower and more methodical match than he would
08:57 go on to have, but again, sometimes, that's just how you play the game.
09:02 2.
09:03 Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan - Extreme Rules 2012
09:06 If we're talking about the biggest discrepancy between the quality of a Mania match and the
09:09 quality of its follow-up, this is undoubtedly the top spot.
09:13 After WWE got their jollies from flipping the bird to all the Daniel Bryan fans that
09:17 had tuned into WrestleMania 28 to get to see him work a world title match at the biggest
09:21 wrestling stage in the world, they got to have the match they should have had at Mania
09:25 at Extreme Rules.
09:26 In a two-out-of-three falls match that actually made perfect use of its stipulation, Bryan
09:30 backed up why he was deserving of the outpouring of respect he had been receiving from fans.
09:34 Bryan sacrifices the first fall to injure Sheamus' arm, only to immediately take the
09:39 second fall and then build to a climactic third and decisive fall with the pair putting
09:43 on some of the best in-ring work WWE fans would expect to see all year.
09:47 I love this match, and I just want to point out that when Bryan tells the ref "I have
09:52 till 5, referee" his trademark catchphrase from his days in Ring of Honor, no one in
09:57 the crowd knew what he was doing.
09:59 Which put to bed any of the theories that Bryan was only over because of internet fan
10:04 support.
10:05 He was over because he was f***ing awesome.
10:07 And Number 1 - Steve Austin vs The Rock, Backlash 1999
10:12 When WWE would just do WrestleMania properly at Backlash a month later, and this is most
10:16 perfectly exemplified by Steve Austin not having his vest for WrestleMania.
10:20 He forgot it at the hotel and thus walked to the ring in a t-shirt.
10:24 The match itself was fine, but a no-vest Steve Austin is a no-sauce Steve Austin.
10:29 This match at the first ever Backlash has all the sauce.
10:33 You have your Attitude Era wackiness with Shane McMahon as the guest referee who is
10:37 ultimately thwarted by Vince, The Rock puts on the headset while he's kicking ass, actually
10:41 good crowd brawling and stage destruction, and a white hot crowd happy to be there to
10:47 see the two top pro wrestlers in the world.
10:49 I mean it's Austin vs Rock in 1999.
10:52 It just doesn't get any bigger than this.
10:55 Austin said himself that he considers this to be a much better match than the first WrestleMania
10:59 encounter they had, and I simply will not argue with the man lest I be on the receiving
11:03 end of a stone cold stunner.
11:05 But honestly, I would consider it an honor.
11:08 And that's our list.
11:09 Make sure of course that you like this video, subscribe, and enable notifications to always
11:12 on so you never miss a list just like it, and you can check out last week's list with
11:16 a clip here.
11:17 (Outro)