The 42 Worst Things In WrestleMania History
Continuing column series alert!
In honor of the “Granddaddy Of Them All,” WrestleMania, I’ve been doing a series over the last few years that has looked at the history of the event. Last year, before WrestleMania 41, I made my picks for the 41 most important people in the history of WrestleMania. The year before that, I revealed my 40 favorite matches in WrestleMania history. I didn’t do a column like that in 2023, but in 2022, I looked at the 38 most memorable moments in Mania history.
In thinking of a topic for this year’s column, I kept coming back to one question that I would ask myself…
Why does everything have to be positive?
The columns have all looked at the positive side of Mania… the biggest and the best… but that’s not all of what WrestleMania represents, is it? The event has had a lot of bad things through the years… poor quality matches, terrible booking decisions, injuries, lame segments, and much more, so why not talk about that, too?
That’s what we’re doing here.
I’m going through the lengthy history of WrestleMania, and I’m making my picks for the 42 worst things to ever happen at the event. These are my opinions, and they’re nothing more than opinions. You’ll have your turn to share your picks when all is said and done, but for now, let’s take a bad trip, shall we?
42. Weather Delay (WrestleMania 37): From the moment WWE begin doing these big open-air stadium shows, fans wondered what the company would do if Mother Nature didn’t want to be cooperative. There were a few times when things got a bit dicey… for example, I remember being at WrestleMania 24, and there were a few moments before the show and in the early stages of the show when there was a very light sprinkling of rain, but nothing more… but otherwise, WWE was safe.
Until 2021.
WrestleMania 37 was the first time in over a year that ticketed fans would be in attendance for a WWE event due to the COVID pandemic, and the fans were ready for a fun night… but they would have to wait just a bit longer, as poor weather and lightning in the vicinity of Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium. Just as the show was about to begin, with introductions and the usual performance of “America The Beautiful” already out of the way, everything was put on hold. At the time, I remember legitimate discussions that the show would have to be postponed. What would’ve happened if a 30-minute delay became a 60-minute delay? Then a 90-minute delay? The show was beginning at 8pm in the Eastern time zone of the United States, so what do you do if it doesn’t get to begin until, say, 10pm or later? Just deal with a show that ends at 2am?
Luckily, we didn’t have to worry about that, but one would hope that WWE (and now, AEW, who also runs the occasional open-air stadium show) has a plan in place in the event of worst case scenarios happening in the future.
41. Rick Boogs Gets Injured (WrestleMania 38): Sure, his gimmick was silly, but you would be a fool to deny how popular Rick Boogs was getting with live crowds. His rise was proven at WrestleMania 38, when he was not only on the card, but was teaming with Shinsuke Nakamura to challenge for the Smackdown Tag Team Titles held at the time by The Usos.
Unfortunately, Rick’s big moment came to a crashing halt mere minutes into the match. During a spot where he was carrying both Jimmy and Jey on his shoulders and walking around the ring, he tore his quadriceps and ripped his patellar tendon clean off of the bone.
After being on the shelf for nearly ten months, he returned in early-2023, but his career was never the same. He was barely used on television, and his final appearance would be in a Battle Royal at SummerSlam before being released a month later, eight months after making his return. This would also mark the end of his wrestling career, as he stated he had no desire to continue wrestling.
40. A Last Minute Venue Change (WrestleMania 7): The biggest storyline heading to WrestleMania 7 was Hulk Hogan trying to topple the newly heel Sgt. Slaughter, who had spent years being a member of the GI Joe family and defending the United States at every chance, but was now an “Iraqi Sympathizer” to capitalize on the real-life tension that America had during the Gulf War.
Their feud was supposed to lead to them having the main event spot at WrestleMania 7 in front of what the WWF hoped would be a record-breaking crowd at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The company’s goal was to get in the vicinity of 100,000 fans in attendance for the show, but in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania, somewhere around 12,000 to 15,000 tickets had been sold. This forced the company to make a last-minute decision to move the show to the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, a much smaller basketball arena that was next door to the open-air Coliseum.
To cover their asses, the WWF presented the move as being due to security issues, saying that there was concern over what might happen in an open-air venue with someone like Sgt. Slaughter appearing during the show.
People like to crack jokes that WWE is having a difficult time selling tickets for this year’s edition of WrestleMania, but Mania 7 was moved two weeks out with 12-15% of the allotted tickets sold. That’s insanely embarrassing. For the equivalent to have happened this year, WWE would’ve needed to move Mania from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas to the nearby T-Mobile Arena after only selling a combined total of 10,500 tickets spread across both nights. At the same two weeks away mark, WrestleMania 42 has sold over 80,600 combined tickets for both nights.
39. The WWE Championship Tournament (WrestleMania 4): I have no problems at all with pro wrestling tournaments. The tournament that we got at WrestleMania 4… created to crown a new WWF Champion after the title was vacated after new champion Andre The Giant sold it to “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase… was a great idea on paper.
On paper.
What ended up happening was 11 tournament matches taking place on the show, creating a card that featured 16 matches in total. Of the 11 tournament matches that happened at WrestleMania 4, seven of them ended in six minutes or less, with an eighth match clocking in at 6:06. The longest tournament match… Jake “The Snake” Roberts vs “Ravishing” Rick Rude… went to a time-limit draw. Fans were especially upset that the match they were looking forward to most… Hulk Hogan vs Andre The Giant… ended in a Double Disqualification in under six minutes, knocking both men out of the tourney in the first round.
Ultimately, the tournament is romanticized because it led to the crowning of “Macho Man” Randy Savage, who won his first WWF Title by defeating DiBiase in the Final. However, there was almost nothing but brief, dogshit wrestling matches all night long, making the entire thing a tough watch.
38. Pat McAfee vs Vince McMahon (WrestleMania 38): McAfee had just finished having a match against Austin Theory that was, if we’re being honest, better than it had any right to be. After the match, Pat called out Vince McMahon, who was at ringside (this was during the weird story where Theory was Vince’s on-screen “chosen one” of sorts), giving us an announced match.
McAfee was already tired from the first match. Vince was 76 years old at the time. Needless to say, this wasn’t quite the pinnacle of athleticism and smooth professional wrestling. It was over quickly, but my favorite part of the entire thing came after the match. Actually, my two favorite parts both happened after the match. First, Vince and Theory celebrating in the ring when Theory’s music hits, causing Vince to react in terror for some reason before snapping out of it and going back to celebrating. Then, we would find out why Vince reacted the way he did… because he was waiting for the arrival of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and he merely reacted a bit too early. The glass shattered, Stone Cold made his way to the ring, and what we ended up getting was the single ugliest Stone Cold Stunner sell job of all-time.
Some people will argue that this doesn’t belong to be on the list because the crowd loved it. While the fans in attendance did enjoy everything, it was still really, really bad, and this is my column, so I’m including it.
37. The Boogeyman vs Booker T (WrestleMania 22): By all accounts, Marty Wright… the man playing The Boogeyman in WWE… is a very nice man. I’ve read and heard a lot of accounts from people who have worked with him or met him at shows, conventions, and things along those lines, and everyone has positive things to say about him.
He still shouldn’t have been wrestling, though, and he sure shouldn’t be wrestling at WrestleMania, and he damn sure shouldn’t be beating Booker T at WrestleMania, and he extra damn sure shouldn’t be beating Booker T at WrestleMania in under four minutes.
Sure, this was a weird point in Booker’s career, anyway. This was five years after the closing of WCW, and he had been clearly defined down as a “midcard guy” on the roster. Then, nearly two months after losing to Boogeyman, Book won the 2006 King Of The Ring tournament, became KING BOOKAH, and earned himself another World Title reign out of nowhere. At the time, though, nobody could see that coming, and it just looked like Book’s career had reached a new low.
36. Sable vs Tori (WrestleMania 15): In my research for this column, I went back and watched this match. It was a bad day to have eyes.
During this era of pro wrestling, all a woman needed to get a prominent spot on television was to be viewed as sexy by someone, somewhere. Sable is a good example of that. She couldn’t wrestle to save her life, but because she had sex appeal, men all over the world cheered for her, and the WWF gladly displayed her on television regularly. They could’ve just made her a Valet or any other non-wrestling character, but no, they decided to put the WWF Women’s Title on her, and she was defending the belt here.
Tori… not to be confused with Torrie Wilson, who was also firmly in the “super hot, but can’t wrestle” category… was in a similar situation. She had no business wrestling at all, let alone competing for a championship at WrestleMania, but a portion of the world thought she was hot, so there she was.
This was a five-minute match that featured approximately zero spots which landed properly, and also featured approximately zero spots that saw things being sold properly. That’s difficult for pros to pull off, but by golly, these two women did it.
35. Baron Corbin Is Kurt Angle’s Final Opponent (WrestleMania 35): I’m on record saying that Baron Corbin received a lot of unwarranted hate during his career.
While he wasn’t ever one of the absolute best in-ring performers on the roster, he was able to prove, time and time again, that he was able to deliver on some entertaining matches. His problem was the way WWE presented him. They kept putting him in these major roles, having him wrestle longer matches than he needed to be working, and that was a poor fit.
A prime example of putting him in a poor fit was making him the final opponent for Kurt Angle in Kurt’s legendary career. In what world was that ever going to end well? At the time of WrestleMania 35, Kurt was 50 years old, and was clearly showing the wear and tear that decades of wrestling, both professional and amateur, had done to his body. In kayfabe, you could argue that the move made sense, as Kurt and Baron had clashed a lot on-screen while Kurt was the Raw General Manager, and Corbin was the one who ended up being the Raw GM after that, but it still didn’t work for anyone.
Vince McMahon’s weird obsession with Baron Corbin won out, and the match suffered somewhat because of it. While Corbin is underrated, he’s not someone who needed to be “leading” a match as the only one involved with two good knees, hips, ankles, and so forth.
I have no problems with Angle losing the match. It’s wrestling tradition to lose on your way out the door, but to Baron Corbin? It’s not like Corbin gained a ton from this. He didn’t beat prime Kurt Angle, instead beating 50-year-old-with-a-75-year-old-body Kurt Angle, and he couldn’t use it to build him up for anything after this. So… what was the point?
34. Kane vs The Great Khali (WrestleMania 23): Other than in the “creative” mind of Vince McMahon, who would ever think this would be a good idea? Khali’s physical limitations made for difficult matches, no matter who he was facing, but it’s not like Kane was in the peak of his physical abilities here, either.
It was another match that was super short, clocking in 5:30, which keeps it from being higher on this list, but holy hell, it was so bad. Watching Khali wrestle was like watching snails fuck in molasses, and watching him sell anything was also like watching snails fuck in molasses. The memorable spot here was Kane picking Khali up and body slamming him, which was the first time Khali had been thrown around like that, in an ode to Hulk Hogan doing the same thing to Andre The Giant 20 years earlier, but the main difference here is that it didn’t do anything for Kane, as he would lose the match moments later.
Whatever.
33. The Bushwhackers vs The Fabulous Rougeaus (WrestleMania 5): There’s one major key to comedy wrestling. It has to be funny.
A simple concept, no?
Not every comedy match hits on all cylinders, but this match didn’t hit on any cylinder, or any other part of the car, for that matter. We’re keeping the streak of short matches going, as this one barely lasted five minutes, but that was five minutes of nonsense. Piss poor wrestling and comedy spots that weren’t getting reactions, which combines for a complete waste of time that had zero business taking place at WrestleMania.
32. Randy Orton vs The Fiend (WrestleMania 37): Can I be honest with you? We’re all friends, right? Okay, here goes…
I didn’t enjoy much of anything in Bray Wyatt’s career.
There. I feel better now.
You can argue about how much of that is Bray’s fault, how much of it is the fault of the WWE Creative team, and how much of it is the fault of the fans for having high expectations and hopes, but the bottom line is that his career is filled with misses, one way or another.
This was one of those misses.
The stupid red light that made Fiend matches difficult to see? Check. Not a lot of time for the match, making you wonder what the point of even including it was? Check. Slow-motion action? Check. An absolute dogshit ending involving a distraction by Alexa Bliss who had black goo all over her face? Check.
Just a disappointment from start to finish, and it didn’t even pop the live crowd. They ended up booing everything by the end.
31. Santina Marella Is Miss WrestleMania (WrestleMania 25): For the 25th anniversary (which wasn’t actually the 25th anniversary, but that’s how dumb WWE thinks we are) of WrestleMania, WWE decided to have a 25-woman (more on that in a bit) Battle Royal, consisting of Divas from the past and present, to crown “Miss WrestleMania” on the show. Names like The Bellas, Gail Kim, Natalya, Michelle McCool, Sunny, Jackie Gayda, Maryse, Mickie James, and much more were involved in the match.
One particular entrant was newsworthy, as it was Santina Marella, played by Santino Marella. The story was that Santina was Santino’s “twin sister,” even though we all knew… wink, wink… that it was actually Santino.
Superb comedy. Real highbrow stuff.
This was well before the “women’s revolution” that saw women’s wrestling treated in a much more serious manner, so nobody was expecting anything great, action-wise, but it was a pretty big slap in the face to have the match won by a man in a joke gimmick that wasn’t even over with live crowds. It was a super rare comedy bit from Santino that didn’t land perfectly.
The entire thing was a waste of time, made an even bigger waste of time by the fact that it happened immediately following a 10-15 minute concert from Kid Rock. Eww.
30. The Ultimate Warrior vs Hunter Hearst Hemlsley (WrestleMania 12): When you really stop and think about everything that Paul Levesque has achieved in his career, both in the ring and what he’s done as an executive over the years, it’s amazing that this moment didn’t kill him right there on the spot.
Warrior made his highly publicized return to the WWF at Mania 12, making his first appearance in nearly three-and-a-half years. His return match was against the up-and-coming Hunter Hearst Helmsley, who was still a month-and-a-half away from the “Curtain Call,” which means he was still in the good graces of the company.
It took Warrior all of 99 seconds to defeat Mr. Helmsley here. During that 99 seconds, Warrior was hit with a Pedigree… which he immediately no-sold, getting back to his feet right in front of ol’ Hunter.
In no way am I saying that Warrior should’ve lost his return match. I’m also not saying Warrior should’ve struggled in his return, taking 15-20 minutes to vanquish his younger opponent. I’ve just struggled to understand… even now, 30 years later… how this was of any benefit to anyone.
It certainly didn’t do anything for Hunter Hearst Helmsley at the time. You can’t even say that it did anything for Warrior, who was released not even four months later for no-showing several house shows, after spending those not-even-four months competing for the Intercontinental Title and facing people like Jerry Lawler on pay-per-view.
To quote the famous philosopher Belcalis Almanzar… WHAT WAS THE REASON?!?
29. Roddy Piper’s Body Paint (WrestleMania 6): Folks, it’s 2026… if I have to explain to you why it might be problematic for Roddy Piper to cut a backstage promo in half-blackface, doing an impersonation of Bad News Brown, and talking about sharecroppers being “honest” and “real men” while “you,” in reference to people like Bad News Brown, are not… well, then I don’t know what to tell you.
The point that Roddy was trying to get at during the promo was that we are all the same… he, a white man, and Bad News Brown, a black man, were no different… but why would anyone think THAT was the way to go about making the point?!?
In shoot interviews, Bad News would say that the entire idea was one of the stupidest things that he ever heard, and also said that Roddy was a racist in real life, so it didn’t surprise him. Take that for whatever you will.
28. Shane McMahon Gets Injured (WrestleMania 39): For all intents and purposes, The Miz and Snoop Dogg were sharing co-hosting duties at WrestleMania 39. They had their share of segments together, but towards the end of night one, Miz ended up in a match with Pat McAfee, who would go on to defeat Miz with the help of San Francisco 49er George Kittle.
On night two, Miz, who was angry with Snoop for making the McAfee match, was looking for revenge. What he got was Snoop putting him in another match, this time against a returning Shane McMahon, making his first appearance for the company in over a year.
Not even 30 seconds after the bell rang, Shane attempted a leapfrog over Miz, landed on the mat and crumpled down damn near in the fetal position. We would later find out that he tore his quad when he landed. He would be quickly replaced in the match by Snoop himself, who would go on to beat Miz in about two minutes.
While Shane was out with his injury, it would be reported that he was no longer under WWE contract, and we haven’t seen him since.
It’s a match that had no business taking up time on the WrestleMania card to begin with, and then, to add injury to insult, Shane tears his quad in an embarrassing spot on top of it all? That’s not exactly ideal.
27. Multiple Locations (WrestleMania 2): If you’re someone who hates the idea of WrestleMania taking place over two nights, allow me to point out that WrestleMania 2 took place in three completely different cities and venues.
The card featured a total of 12 matches, spread out with four matches taking place in each city. The first four matches happened at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. After those matches were done, we got four matches from the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, Illinois. The final four matches took place at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California.
What’s the problem?
Well, the first major problem is that you can only have one “main event” on the show, which means that the “final” match in both Uniondale and Rosemont aren’t actual “main event” bouts. What were those matches, you ask? Uniondale got Mr. T facing “Rowdy” Roddy Piper in a Boxing Match, largely viewed as one of the worst things to ever happen at WrestleMania (this won’t be the last time you read about this match in this column). Rosemont got Greg “The Hammer” Valentine and Brutus Beefcake (a year before he adopted his moniker of “The Barber”) defending the WWF Tag Team Titles against The British Bulldogs tag team of Davey Boy Smith and The Dynamite Kid. While I would say that match was entertaining, and might have been the best match of the entire night, it was still a match that had no business being in a “main event” spot for Rosemont, and that might explain why the Rosemont portion of the show only drew 9,000 fans. For the sake of comparison, that same venue also hosted WrestleMania 13 and WrestleMania 22, drawing 18,197 at 13 and 17,155 at 22. If you want further comparison, the Uniondale portion of WrestleMania 2 drew 16,585 fans and the Los Angeles portion drew 14,500 fans.
At least Los Angeles got the big draw of Hulk Hogan defending the WWF Title, but it took place in a bad Steel Cage Match against King Kong Bundy, which probably should’ve taken place on an episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event instead.
The second major problem is that the show took place on April 7th, 1986… which was a Monday. Why in the hell would you hold a pay-per-view on a Monday night? This was nearly seven years before Monday Night Raw debuted, making live wrestling on Monday nights a weekly tradition that continues today.
Finally, if you’re going to split the card up and charge fans in these cities to attend one-third of a show (there were screens in each arena that did allow the fans to watch the portions from the other cities), why would you only give them a small amount of wrestling to watch? The Uniondale portion featured 12:25 worth of wrestling, plus a boxing match that lasted another 13:14. Fans in Rosemont were “treated” to a total of 25:46 worth of action. Los Angeles saw 33:10 worth of action, so… hooray for Los Angeles, I guess? I get that it was a different era, but it just seems insane to charge fans to attend a show that was mostly them staring at screens with approximately one half-hour worth of action taking place in person.
The entire thing seemed like a cash grab by the WWF, and while it was technically a success on pay-per-view, it was critically panned almost all the way across the board, and has never been tried again.
26. Dean Ambrose vs Brock Lesnar (WrestleMania 32): When Brock Lesnar likes and/or respects you, there’s no limit to the things he’ll be willing to do in a match to make you look good.
Boy, oh boy, though… when Brock doesn’t like and/or respect you, things can get ugly very quickly.
Leading up to WrestleMania 32, one of the more heavily anticipated matches was Brock facing Dean Ambrose in a No Holds Barred Street Fight. Two of the craziest bastards around, beating the hell out of each other on the biggest stage in the sport, with no real rules to hold them back? Sign me up and put me down for two, please.
What we got as a pretty underwhelming match that featured two men who didn’t seem to connect with any real in-ring chemistry, and it was essentially Brock spreading out over a dozen suplexes while brushing off Ambrose’s attempts at getting “hardcore.”
Months later, Ambrose was doing an interview with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and he shed some light on what happened during the Mania match. He said that his vision was for the match to be the “craziest thing imaginable,” and that he pitched a ton of ideas to anyone who would listen, but that Brock turned them all down. Immediately, people began blaming Brock and calling him all sorts of names, but let’s really stop and think about it for a minute. If you didn’t know how insane Jonathan Good (the man who played Dean Ambrose and now, Jon Moxley) was back then, you’ve probably figured it out by now with his time spent in AEW. If HE is pitching what he felt was the “craziest thing imaginable,” God only knows what type of shit he was pitching. If you’re Brock Lesnar, do you want to sign up for barbed wire, thumbtacks, fire, and whatever else was pitched? That type of thing isn’t for everyone, obviously.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter if it’s Brock’s fault for shutting everything down, Dean’s fault for pitching pie-in-the-sky nonsense, or something in the middle. The fact that these two couldn’t get on the same page and deliver what could’ve been a WrestleMania classic is a damn shame.
25. Chester McCheeserton (WrestleMania 16): Vince McMahon has always had a unique sense of humor. There are countless stories of people who have worked backstage or alongside Vince in some way, saying that he will often put things on WWF/WWE television that pop him and only him. He loves toilet humor, and there are several instances of farting and pooping becoming part of the company’s programming because of it.
The fact that Chester McCheeserton even exists is clearly another instance of Vince chuckling to himself, saying that it’s “good shit,” and then green lighting it to make air.
Leading up to WrestleMania 16, Al Snow and Steve Blackman were an “odd couple” pairing on television, and Snow had their team name as Head Cheese. You see, Al Snow had a mannequin head named Head, and according to Al in storyline, Steve loved to eat cheese, so… Head… Cheese… Head Cheese.
Classic.
At Mania 16, Al was looking for their team to have a bit more personality. His great idea was for the team to have a mascot, of sorts, and we got the debut of Chester McCheeserton, who was just a man in a full body cheese costume like he was at some fraternity Halloween party.
Zero reaction from the 19,776 people at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, California, but if you turn your television volume up and listen very closely, you can hear a distinct, booming voice coming from the backstage area…
HAHAHA! THAT’S SUCH GOOD SHIT, PAL!
24. Bret Hart vs Vince McMahon (WrestleMania 26): In no way will I say that it didn’t make sense for this match to take place. After everything that took place at the 1997 Survivor Series, and all of the back-and-forth chirping between them through the years after that, there were fans all over the world that wanted to see Bret get his hands on Vince, even in a kayfabed wrestling match.
Unfortunately, it happened when Bret was on the verge of turning 53, and was in poor physical health after having his in-ring career ended prematurely due to a concussion, and a stroke that he suffered in 2002. Vince, on the other hand, was a couple months shy of his 65th birthday, and although he was still jacked, he was never a beacon of coordination and athleticism in the first place.
This was basically an 11-minute squash match, with Bret finally getting his “revenge” on Vince after everything that Vince did to him and his family. It was two or three minutes worth of action, but it took 11 minutes because of how slow Bret had to move. He probably didn’t need to be “wrestling” at that stage of his career, and you could’ve had his “revenge” take place with some punches and a Sharpshooter, either on an episode of Raw or at the end of a match between other people.
Is that so much to ask for?
23. Jey Uso vs Jimmy Uso (WrestleMania 40): Like many of you, I was very excited when it was announced that we would be getting this match at WrestleMania 40. The Bloodline story had been done so well, and for so long, and the creative arc between these two was so layered that I couldn’t help but think this was going to be a blast to watch.
I’m not sure it could’ve been any LESS of a blast to watch.
In doing the research for this column, I looked up the length of the match and was STUNNED to see that it was listed as being 11:05. It felt like the match went for at least twice that, so I took one for the team and watched it again, keeping an eye on the clock. Sure enough, the match lasted 11 minutes, which blew me away. It dragged, and dragged, and dragged some more, and then dragged some more. They threw no less than a combined total of 729 superkicks, and they didn’t do much else during the entire time they were out there.
There have been a ton of bad matches in WrestleMania history, but a very large percentage of them were matches that you knew were going to be bad ahead of time, with no redeeming qualities. When it comes to matches that you thought would be up HERE, and ended up being down here, though, there aren’t many matches in the history of the event that feature a bigger gap than this one. Jimmy was never the same as a singles wrestler after this, and I’m legitimately shocked that it didn’t kill Jey’s singles career dead, as well.
22. Bray Wyatt Losing To John Cena (WrestleMania 30): If, for whatever reason, you missed Bray’s career, let me break it down for you.
He’d start a feud with a random wrestler, then he’d cut a bunch of vague promos, and then he would lose the feud with that random wrestler in the ring. Then, he’d start a feud with a random wrestler, followed by cutting a bunch of vague promos, then he would lose the feud with that random wrestler in the ring.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
That seemed like at least 80% of his main roster run, but this is where it started.
Bray’s feud with John Cena was his first real battle that seemed special, leading up to his first WrestleMania match. He was already getting a lot of buzz from fans, and people were already calling for him to become a World Champion in 2014.
After a match that went on for at least five minutes too long, Cena was able to overcome the numbers disadvantage, dealing with interference from Wyatt Family members Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, pinning Bray to win the match.
You could feel the disappointment in the air. Like I said, this would become the beginning of a long-running trend in Bray Wyatt’s career, and he struggled to overcome the stigma surrounding it. It’s wild to think about what could’ve been in his career if he won this match at WrestleMania. It’s not like the company didn’t think he should beat John Cena, as he defeated Cena the following month at Extreme Rules (albeit by escaping a Steel Cage, not by pinfall), but my point remains.
21. The Rock vs Hulk Hogan Not Being The Main Event (WrestleMania 18): This is more of a “hindsight is 20/20” thing, and I will freely admit to that.
From the moment that Rock and Hogan made their match for WrestleMania 18, everyone knew the match would be special. I knew it, you knew it, Rock knew it, Hogan knew it, and the company knew it. Maybe it wouldn’t be a five-star technical classic, but they would find a way to make it work, and the crowd would eat it all up.
Would it be the main event of the show, though? While I’m sure some people assumed it might be, or at least though it should be, I think it was a safe bet to make that Chris Jericho defending the Undisputed WWF Title against Royal Rumble winner Triple H, who just made his long-awaited return to the company after a torn quadriceps, was going on last. Of the previous 17 WrestleManias, only three of them weren’t main evented by the WWF Title match, and one of those three (the first Mania) featured the WWF Champion (Hogan) in a tag team match.
Once the Rock vs Hogan match began, though, I think everyone realized a mistake may have been made. Jericho and Triple H were probably losing their minds backstage, realizing that there was no shot they would be able to top the crowd reaction Rock and Hogan were getting. I don’t even want to know how Jazz, Lita, and Trish Stratus felt backstage, because they were going on immediately after Rock and Hogan.
Jericho and Triple H ended up having the best actual wrestling match that night, but if you say that their match is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about WrestleMania 18, you’re a liar. Even Jericho and Triple H themselves probably think about Rock and Hogan’s match when they first think about WrestleMania 18.
20. Bret Hart vs Bob Backlund (WrestleMania 11): When it comes to the best technical wrestlers of all-time, Bret Hart and Bob Backlund get their names mentioned over and over again. They’ve had a lot of great matches and moments during their legendary careers, but this… this match was not one of them, by any means.
The feud that led up to WrestleMania 11 was fun. After leaving the WWF in 1984, Backlund went into a semi-retirement, of sorts, only wrestling a handful of times here and there for different companies. When he returned to the company in 1992, it was a cool story, but it didn’t really go anywhere. He kept sliding further and further down the card, eventually doing a house show run in 1994 against The Brooklyn Brawler, of all people. Because this is the brain of Vince McMahon that we’re talking about, though, Backlund went from facing Brawler at house shows to feuding with the WWF Champion at the time, Bret Hart. After Bret won a match against Backlund, Bob would turn heel, “snapping” by locking Bret in the Crossface Chickenwing submission. The heel turn was well done, and I enjoyed seeing this new “crazy old man” version of Backlund.
It all led to the 1994 Survivor Series, with Bret again defending the WWF Title against Backlund in a “Throw In The Towel” Match, with the winner being the man that could force someone else to literally throw the towel in the ring for their opponent. In a match that nearly bored viewers to tears, Backlund shocked the world by becoming the WWF Champion when Owen Hart was able to convince his mother, Helen, to throw in the towel for her son. The match went over 35 minutes, but with a snail’s pace and a truly old school style that made it feel much longer than that. Forget the fact that Backlund would lose the title three days later when Diesel pinned him in eight seconds at a house show in Madison Square Garden.
Fast forward to WrestleMania 11, a little over four months after their Survivor Series match. This time, it was an “I Quit” Match with no title on the line. Surely, they couldn’t screw this one up, could they?
Not only did they screw it up, but Bret Hart himself is the first to tell you that. He has trashed the match in interviews and in his autobiography. While a lesson was learned after their Survivor Series match, with the WrestleMania rematch coming in just shy of the ten-minute mark, it was still the snail’s pace borefest that plagued the previous match. It was made even worse by Special Guest Referee “Rowdy” Roddy Piper obnoxiously screaming into the microphone at every possible chance he could get. In ten minutes, I’m pretty sure Piper yelled “WHADAYASAY?!?” at least 2,500 times. Then there’s the final insult, with Backlund losing the match even though he CLEARLY didn’t say the words “I” or “Quit,” let alone both of them back-to-back. He made a bunch of noise, but no actual words, and Piper still called for the bell.
While the story and the “Mr. Backlund” character were entertaining, Bob Backlund simply couldn’t evolve his in-ring work to match up with the “New Generation” in the WWF. He was 45 years old during his feud with Bret, but he might as well have been 145 years old with the way he looked in the ring.
19. Mr. T vs Roddy Piper (WrestleMania 2): I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that the very first WrestleMania was a success. It helped to solidify the WWF’s place in the wrestling business, and they’ve only taken off from there.
Two huge parts of that WrestleMania success are Mr. T and Roddy Piper. Their participation in the show’s main event helped to make it one of the more iconic matches in the history of the sport. It also created a real-life feud between the two men, started by Piper, who was upset that this “outsider” was coming to pro wrestling without paying his dues and so on. Naturally, taking advantage of their real-life heat, and of Mr. T’s star power, made a ton of sense.
T and Piper had a Boxing Match at WrestleMania, and boy howdy, did it stink.
Both men had amateur boxing backgrounds, but they had to switch it up to have “fake” boxing here, and their punches looked awful from start to finish. All the flailing and the dancing around led to both men (especially T) to get gassed early on, and that only got worse with each passing moment. Piper, the dastardly heel that he was, kept trying to mix in some pro wrestling nonsense. He greased his face up and tried to use it to his advantage, stomped on T when T collapsed in Round Two, and then bodyslammed T in Round Four, which led to a disqualification.
Yes, after all of the complete garbage that fans had to sit through, the entire thing ended in a disqualification during a worked boxing match. Fans stopped caring about anything early on, eventually cheering for Piper to end it. It was a chore to sit through, with a weird combination of boxing and pro wrestling, work and “work,” and some piss poor cardio from both competitors.
18. Bart Gunn Gets Knocked Out (WrestleMania 15): The Brawl For All will go down in wrestling history as one of the absolute worst ideas ever created. You can’t take a “fake” sport, then try to insert “real” action, because you’re making everything else on the show look bad. Are the wrestlers not in the Brawl For All pussies or something? Why would I care about Wrestler A when he isn’t “tough” like these guys who are fighting FOR REAL?!?
Then you have the fact that seemingly everyone involved in the tournament ended up suffering a real injury. Pro wrestling is difficult enough to get through on a weekly basis without hurting yourself. The WWF decided to make it even harder for this particular group of men.
For the icing on the cake, you have “Dr. Death” Steve Williams being chosen by management as the man who they felt would win the tournament. The entire thing was built around him, and his victory was going to propel him… you know, back in the “fake” world… to becoming a challenger for “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and the WWF Championship. Unfortunately for Steve Williams, he was placed in a match with Bart Gunn in the second round. During the fight, Gunn took Dr. Death down, and Dr. Death tore his quad in the process. Moments later, Gunn knocked him out to advance in the tournament.
Bart Gunn came out of nowhere to win the entire thing, defeating Bob Holly, The Godfather, and Bradshaw, along with the aforementioned Steve Williams fight.
His reward for winning… facing Eric “Butterbean” Esch in a Brawl For All match at WrestleMania 15. Butterbean was one of the most successful Toughman Competition fighters of all-time, going on to become a five-time World Toughman Heavyweight Champion, and was also a successful pro boxer on top of that.
In a grand total of 35 seconds, Butterbean hit Bart Gunn with a bunch of solid right hands, knocking him down to the canvas once, and then turning him into a human bobblehead doll as soon as the fight restarted. It was an embarrassing moment, not only for Bart Gunn, but for pro wrestling, as a whole. The “toughest” guy in the entire WWF was just made to look like an absolute piece of garbage against someone who didn’t exactly look like a superstar.
There would be speculation, later confirmed by Butterbean himself, that he was brought in as something of a hired hitman by the WWF to punish Bart because Bart had the audacity to defeat Dr. Death during the tournament. Think about how stupid and how petty that is for a moment.
The tournament shouldn’t have ever taken place, but when it did, the punishment of Bart Gunn for winning it was even worse.
17. The Hanging Of Big Boss Man (WrestleMania 15): It really is crazy to think about how much the company accidentally stumbled upon greatness with The Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak. They put him in the ring with the worst wrestlers and/or the dumbest storylines, year after year, until someone randomly realized that he had yet to lose a match at Mania.
This took place before the streak was “The Streak.” There wasn’t a single person on the planet that was asking to see The Undertaker face Big Boss Man, at WrestleMania or otherwise, but there we were. Heel vs Heel… Hell In A Cell… WrestleMania… you can just smell the star ratings.
The match was awful. Neither man seemed motivated to do much of anything other than punch and kick. Even their blade jobs were uninspired. The match didn’t even reach the ten-minute mark before coming to an end, but that didn’t stop the Philadelphia crowd from chanting “boring” time and time again and just growing more and more upset at the lack of action.
Then, just when you thought it was over, it got even worse after the match. Taker signaled to someone, and that brought out The Brood (Gangrel, Edge, and Christian), who rappelled from the rafters down onto the roof of the Cell. They tore open part of the roof, allowing for them to throw a noose down into the ring, which Taker grabbed and put around Boss Man’s neck. Paul Bearer pushed the button to lift the Cell, and just like that, Boss Man was hanging from the noose, thrashing around for a bit before going limp ten-plus feet in the air. The lights in the arena went out, and we were sent to a video package.
Is that it?!?
You just murdered a man on live pay-per-view, and you throw it to a WrestleMania Rage Party video package without mentioning Boss Man’s passing?!?
The entire thing was so stupid, even back then. You’ll notice that WWE never mentions it. Not when they talked about Taker’s streak, not when they talked about Hell In A Cell, not when they talked about anything. Even the match itself was so bad that the company wanted to forget it existed, and that post-match bullshit was obviously not something that they could replay and repeat moving forward.
16. Akebono vs Big Show (WrestleMania 21): Like Akebono, I was born and raised in Hawaii. I can say that I’ve met the man on several occasions, and that he was always a nice guy. Rest In Peace, Braddah Chad.
That’s cool and all, but who in the hell was asking for Akebono to show up in WWE and get a Sumo Match with Big Show at WrestleMania? Not I, that’s for sure.
I will admit, though, it remains hilarious, even 21 years later, that the crowd reacted the way they did when Akebono and Show took their robes off, revealing that both men were wearing the traditional mawashi that sumotori use as part of the sport. There were loud screams from the crowd, as people weren’t quite prepared for the visual of two 500-pound men stripping down and showing full cheekage, even though Rikishi was a staple of the company for years at that point.
Beyond that, though, this was bad. It was VERY out of place on a pro wrestling show, and pro wrestling fans weren’t ready for the pacing and the traditions of sumo. Even before Akebono and Show ever made physical contact, fans were already booing because of how long it was taking. Then there were more delays, and that led to more boos from a crowd that was becoming increasingly more impatient with each passing second.
Once they did make contact, the action lasted all of a minute or so before Akebono was able to use his leverage and momentum to throw Show out of the dohyō that had been set up in the ring.
Why? What did any of this do for anybody? It let everyone know that Big Show, who had spent a decade as one of the biggest and baddest men that pro wrestling had ever seen, was no match for Akebono in the sport of sumo. Okay then. Why not have other wrestlers face athletes in their sport of choice? If Show can lose to Akebono, you could’ve also had Orlando Jordan lose to LeBron James in a Slam Dunk Contest, or had Carlito lose to Alex Rodriguez in a Home Run Derby, or even had Hardcore Holly lose to Tony Stewart in a NASCAR race. If we’re in the mood to make pro wrestlers look inferior, why not go all the way with it?
15. Booker T Losing To Triple H (WrestleMania 19): It’s not a stretch to say that there were some racial undertones in the build to Triple H vs Booker T at WrestleMania 19. Some fans think it was just Paul Levesque playing a character, and saying things that someone else wrote for him. Other fans think it was Paul Levesque showing his real personality on television. No matter where you are on that debate, it seemed like the easy story for WWE to tell that night was to have Booker T overcome the odds and dethrone Triple H to win the World Heavyweight Title.
Of course, it was not meant to be, and Triple H emerged victorious. The decision didn’t sit right with me then, and it doesn’t sit right with me now.
I’m not going to sit here and say that Paul Levesque is a racist, and I’m also not going to sit here and say that Vince McMahon is a racist. I can’t say why Triple H beat Booker T at WrestleMania 19, and if it had anything to do with the color of anyone’s skin. All I can do is look at the story that was being told on-screen. This was the perfect opportunity for Booker T to win, showing the world that you can turn your life around and overcome some serious mistakes that you made when you were younger. It was a chance for a feel-good moment on the grandest stage in the sport. Instead, we got more of the status quo with Triple H on top, opening up every episode of Raw with a 20-minute promo segment.
14. Goldberg vs Brock Lesnar (WrestleMania 20): This should’ve been a “dream match” for just about anyone watching. Two of the biggest, baddest motherfuckers in the business, ready to beat the hell out of each other in front of a rabid Madison Square Garden audience. Oh, and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was also there as a Special Guest Referee, adding to the excitement factor.
It all began to unravel before WrestleMania even rolled around. Fans learned that Goldberg would be leaving the company after Mania, and that this would be his last match. They also learned that Lesnar would be leaving the company, too, and would be going off to try out for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings. Fans were upset. They felt betrayed.
As soon as both men were in the ring, the crowd let them have it. They were heckled, chanted at, booed, and treated like garbage. Goldberg, the raging egomaniac that he is, couldn’t handle the vitriol, and it clearly rattled him. Lesnar, the young (26 years old at the time) and immature kid that he was, also couldn’t handle it. Both men were thrown off their games from the start, and they weren’t able to recover.
Nobody was involved was smart enough to pivot from the original layout of the match. It was put together to be an epic clash between two behemoths… slow, plodding, and with both men feeling each other out for a while, trying to look for the right moment to pounce. With the crowd already against them, that wasn’t the time for a slow match with lengthy stretches of inactivity. Someone should’ve communicated to them that the original plan was in the trash, and that they should just go full “Godzilla vs King Kong” on each other.
Ugly, ugly stuff. Outside of Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair, you don’t often see wrestlers get legitimately rattled by crowds like this.
13. Shinsuke Nakamura Losing To AJ Styles (WrestleMania 34): In 2018, Shinsuke Nakamura was absolutely on fire. He had a great entrance, featuring one of the best themes in the history of the sport, and that helped carry him to the ring with the aura of a rock star. Week in and week out, in city after city across the globe, fans were going nuts for him, and that’s before his matches even began. Once the bell rang, he kept delivering quality performances against anyone he faced.
He carried that momentum to becoming the surprise winner of the 2018 men’s Royal Rumble match. That led him to a WrestleMania 34 showdown with WWE Champion AJ Styles. Expectations were high for the match. Both men are world class performers, but they also knew each other well from their time with New Japan. Their match at Wrestle Kingdom 10 on January 4th, 2016 is still one of my all-time favorite New Japan matches, so I was excited to see what they could do on an even bigger stage.
While I can’t say that their WrestleMania match ended up being necessarily bad, it wasn’t something that you’d consider a classic, either. It was decent enough, but not something worthy of an event like WrestleMania, and Nakamura failed to win the title, which seemed like a weird way for the company to capitalize on his momentum.
Then, we got a post-match heel turn by Nakamura that nobody asked for.
Three weeks later, they had a rematch at the Greatest Royal Rumble show in Saudi Arabia. Once again, with the WWE Title on the line, Nakamura came up short, and the match ended in a Double Count Out.
Two weeks later, they had another rematch, this time at Backlash. Once again, with the WWE Title on the line, Nakamura came up short, with the match being thrown out as a No Contest due to double dick kickery.
After defeating AJ in a non-title match on Smackdown, Nakamura would receive another title shot, this time at Money In The Bank, a month after Backlash. Once again, with the WWE Title on the line, Nakamura came up short, this time losing under a Last Man Standing stipulation.
In one fell swoop, WWE took one of their hottest commodities and pretty much neutered him, having him fail again and again and again in such a short amount of time. While Nakamura would see some success after this, he never reached these levels again, and that’s a shame.
12. Travis Scott (WrestleMania 41): Here’s another “hindsight is 20/20” entry, because Travis Scott, like everything else in the build for the Cody Rhodes vs John Cena match at WrestleMania 41, was seriously affected by The Rock deciding he wasn’t going to participate anymore. Rock disappearing at the height of the story, when he was needed most, brought everything down at least one notch across the board.
That means Travis Scott was dead on arrival when his music hit at Mania, whether he knew it or not.
In the middle of a match that wasn’t living up to anyone’s expectations (one that we would later find out was disappointing on purpose because of Cena’s decision not to wrestle the way the fans wanted), the annoying “FE!N” started playing, and it took Mr. Scott nearly two full minutes to make his way to the ring. He was walking slowly, milking the moment for everything he could. Meanwhile, Cena and Cody were forced to basically freeze in the ring while they waited.
Once he got there, his time was spent posing, and then pulling the Referee out of the ring to break up a Cody pin attempt, followed by Cody calling him out, and then him eating a Cross Rhodes. To be fair, he distracted Cody long enough for Cena to sneak back in with the title belt, leading to the final stretch of the match that saw Cena hit Cody in the head with said title belt and getting the win, so… hooray for Travis, I guess?
So, to recap, we had a match that wasn’t making anyone happy to begin with. That was followed by a celebrity appearance that nobody was asking for, and that celebrity was by himself because the person that fans WERE asking for decided he didn’t need to appear on WWE programming anymore. It also meant that fans needed to listen to that stupid “FE!N” song for the 1,722nd time that weekend, which deserves a spot on this list all by itself.
11. The Undertaker vs Giant Gonzalez (WrestleMania 9): In the entire history of pro wrestling, an argument can be made that Jorge González… the man who was El Gigante in WCW and Giant Gonzalez in the WWF… is the worst in-ring performer to ever step foot inside of a ring.
All he could do was look tall, mostly due to the fact that he was tall. When you’re 7’7″ in height, that part comes pretty easy. Beyond that, though, he had zero skills as a pro wrestler. He could barely move, thanks to gigantism and serious knee injuries that he suffered during his time as a pro basketball player. Having only spent a year or so training to be a wrestler, he couldn’t perform even the most basic of moves, and never learned how to sell, tell a story, pace himself, or any of the other nuances that come with being a professional wrestler.
His time as El Gigante was bad, but when he debuted as Giant Gonzalez, it became laughable at first sight. His full body suit with airbrushed muscles and patches of bushy hair attached looked ridiculous. Immediately putting him in a storyline with The Undertaker was sure a brave decision by the WWF. This was still relatively early in Taker’s WWF run, and he wasn’t exactly viewed as a “ring general” yet, but he was damn sure going to have to take the lead in any match with Giant Gonzalez.
The match was so slow, so bad, and so boring. Again, Gonzalez couldn’t do anything properly, and it showed right away. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the match ended after about seven minutes when Gonzalez was disqualified for using “chloroform” on a rag to knock Taker unconscious. That didn’t make the crowd happy at all, although what was the alternative? Having to watch them wrestle for another ten minutes? No, thank you.
If you watch this match, it’s clear that Gonzalez is the worst part of it, but at the time it happened, there was definitely some talk about whether or not Taker could be a major star if he wasn’t in the ring with other major stars. When you go back and watch a lot of his early stuff, especially at WrestleMania, it’s almost amazing that he was able to overcome it and have one of the most legendary careers in wrestling history.
10. Brock Lesnar’s Shooting Star Press (WrestleMania 19): I’ve written about this specific moment so many times through the years, and I hate it, because my brain makes me go back and watch it all over again whenever I write about it.
As I’ve said… in all my years of being a wrestling fan, and with all of the wrestling I’ve consumed in that time, I’ve never felt more like I just watched someone die in the middle of the ring than I did when Brock landed incorrectly following his Shooting Star Press at WrestleMania 19. That instant feeling when he landed was terrifying.
I’m pretty sure that 99% of the human population would’ve, AT BEST, broken their necks, if not outright died had they landed the way he did. The fact that he is a freak of nature, built the way he is, saved him on that night.
All these years later, this remains a reminder of just how dangerous pro wrestling is, and how close a wrestler can be to suffering something catastrophic at any time.
9. The Undertaker vs Roman Reigns (WrestleMania 33): In-ring chemistry is so important in pro wrestling. Wrestler A and Wrestler B can both be amazing on their own, but there are times when pairing Wrestler A and Wrestler B together doesn’t end up with great results.
When one of those wrestlers is also 52 years old with tons of wear and tear on his body, that just makes everything worse.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that this was smack dab in the middle of the part of Roman’s career where fans HATED him and wanted nothing to do with the company trying to push him as the top babyface in the business.
Throw all of that in a blender and you end up with this match. At 23 minutes in length, it was a lot longer than The Undertaker should’ve been working at that stage. Those 23 minutes were full of botches, near botches, and ugly looking spots. Even though Taker was largely responsible for how the match turned out, it was Roman that took the brunt of the negative reaction from the crowd. To them, this was “proof” that Roman didn’t deserve to be a main event guy.
The most baffling thing about this match to me is the fact that this didn’t deter WWE and The Undertaker from having him wrestle more. He had nine more matches after this! Why?!?
8. Steve Austin’s Heel Turn (WrestleMania 17): WrestleMania 17 remains the best overall Mania event from top to bottom, and the night’s main event… The Rock defending the WWF Title against “Stone Cold” Steve Austin in a No Disqualification Match… remains an incredible entertaining watch.
The reason this makes the list here is the lack of foresight by Vince McMahon and the WWF Creative Team. They decided to go ahead with what should’ve been one of the most shocking and iconic moments in the history of the sport… a Steve Austin heel turn, and him aligning with Vince McMahon to do so… and they pulled the trigger in the one place where he was never going to be booed, and that is Texas.
Seriously, a heel turn that puts Steve Austin and Vince McMahon in tandem should’ve been something that fed families for decades. Instead, it happened and the crowd erupted with cheers. Nothing Austin could’ve said or done in Texas would’ve had those fans booing him.
Crafting a huge face/heel turn in wrestling isn’t as simple as just taking someone and flipping their alignment on a whim. You have to understand the wrestler, the audience, and the situation. This shows that Vince McMahon, to the surprise of nobody, didn’t understand any of it. Austin has gone on record saying that he disagreed with the timing of the turn. Would it have gone better if it happened at a different show in a different location? It’s hard to say, but I’d have a tough time believing that it could’ve gone any worse. The company ended up trying to force Austin into a comedic role, and while it was entertaining, it was not what fans wanted to see out of Stone Cold, and seven-and-a-half months later, Austin was a babyface again.
What a waste.
7. Not Doing Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair (WrestleMania 8): For years, Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair was the ultimate “dream match” that wrestling fans all over the world wished they could see. You couldn’t visit a grocery store or a newsstand without seeing a wrestling magazine that featured those two on the cover, with writers fantasy booking a scenario where they would face each other.
When Flair jumped to the WWF in the second-half of 1991, fans were just SURE that we were going to get those two squaring off against each other. Not only that, but it was going to take place at WrestleMania. I mean, damn, where else could it have happened? It’s one of the biggest matches in wrestling history, so OF COURSE it was going to happen at the sport’s biggest event. The WWF would make approximately seven quintillion dollars by doing that.
After Flair’s arrival in the WWF, he and Hogan would work the house show circuit together. From October 1991 to the 1992 Royal Rumble, Hogan and Flair faced each other 12 times at house shows across North America, and they even had another house show match the night after the Rumble.
They were on opposite sides of a megawatt tag match on an episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event, with Hogan teaming with Sid Justice to face the duo of Flair and The Undertaker. That really seemed like it would be a appetizer for the inevitable Hogan vs Flair showdown at Mania, but it never happened.
At WrestleMania 8, Hogan would be paired with Justice, who turned heel on Hulk during the SNME match, while Flair would defend the WWF Title against “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Don’t get me wrong… both matches were big deals, and Flair vs Savage ended up being a great match. However, the fact that the company didn’t go with Flair vs Hogan was a huge mistake, and that mistake would only be magnified once Flair left the company to return to WCW at the start of 1993.
You could say that Vince McMahon assumed he had more opportunities to make Hogan vs Flair at WrestleMania, but why did Flair leave the WWF? He and Vince had a verbal agreement that if Ric was going to be anything other than a main event guy, he would be free to seek employment elsewhere. Vince was ready to make Flair a midcard guy, and when WCW came calling, Ric jumped at the chance to leave. Ironically enough, Hulk Hogan would also leave the WWF in 1993 before eventually signing with WCW in 1994.
Want to take a guess what Hulk’s first WCW match was?
If you guessed “a WCW World Title match against Ric Flair on pay-per-view,” you would be correct.
Way to go, Vince.
6. Daniel Bryan Losing To Sheamus (WrestleMania 28): Oh, hey, it’s another thing that I’ve written about numerous times in the past!
One thing would not only prevent this from being ranked so high (low?) on the list, but probably keep it from being listed here altogether… if this were the real start of a meticulously thought out story that would last until WrestleMania 30, two whole years later, with Daniel Bryan overcoming every hurdle and winning the WWE World Heavyweight Title.
As I have continued to say from the very beginning, though, I don’t think it was a meticulously thought out story. I will take it to my grave that Daniel Bryan was never supposed to succeed in WWE, and that every hurdle placed in front of him was truly designed to trip him up until the company eventually found themselves with no other excuse to ground his ascension.
One year after their United States Title match was bumped down to the WrestleMania pre-show, DB and Sheamus were on the Mania main card, and fighting for the World Heavyweight Title. They opened the show, which is technically the next-best spot to be in if you aren’t going on last.
It took a mere 18 seconds for WWE’s entire landscape to change, though. That’s the time it took for Sheamus to get the pin and the win, becoming the new World Heavyweight Champion. The internet was ablaze with angry fans, claiming that WWE had “buried” Daniel Bryan. People were outraged. While it didn’t happen immediately, this is where the seeds for the “Yes! Movement” were truly planted, as fans began to build support for “their” guy, who wasn’t what Vince McMahon thought a WWE Superstar should look, talk, and act like.
It’s yet another example of Vince McMahon being allergic to good decision making, almost needing to be beaten over the head repeatedly before finally giving in and making the fans of WWE happy. A real “genius,” indeed.
5. The Overall Length Of The Show (WrestleMania 35): Did you know that a two-hour pre-show for a pay-per-view is a terrible idea? I bet you knew that already.
Care to guess who didn’t realize that was a terrible idea? Yup… Vince McMahon.
A two-hour pre-show makes zero sense on just about every possible level, even if you’re putting four matches in that two-hour window. The pre-show being that long would be stupid if the main show was an In Your House-esque two hours itself.
In case you’re brand new to the sport, WrestleMania 35 didn’t last two hours. It didn’t even last the usual pay-per-view length of three hours.
No, WrestleMania 35’s main card lasted FIVE HOURS. Actually, throw the extra 20 minutes on, making it a 5:20 show, plus the two hour pre-show. Throw in fans getting to their seats well before the pre-show even begins, and you’re looking at many of the fans in attendance being in their seats for eight hours. Folks, that’s an entire work shift for many people.
The show was so long, featuring so many complaints about the length, that naturally, WWE decided to tone it down the following year and had a much shorter show.
Wait… what? That didn’t happen? They decided to turn WrestleMania into a two-night event and had a total of six hours and eight minutes worth of runtime for 36?
Whoops.
4. Hulk Hogan vs Yokozuna (WrestleMania 9): Think back to WrestleMania 9 for a moment, if you wheeeeeel.
We all thought the main event was going to be Bret “The Hitman” Hart defending the WWF Title against Yokozuna. Yoko would pin Bret to win the title for the first time, and the monster heel was officially on the map as a major player.
Would you have complained if the show went off the air with the new champion celebrating?
Yes, it would’ve gone against the company’s “rule” of sending the fans home happy by having a face end the show in celebration (the previous eight Manias were ended by faces celebrating), but I think it would’ve made sense here, starting a brand new “era” in the company with the seemingly unstoppable Yokozuna at the top of the mountain.
We’ll never know, because Yoko’s title reign lasted all of a few minutes before coming to an end.
After the match, Hulk Hogan made his way to the ring, upset over the fact that Yokozuna and his manager, Mr. Fuji, cheated to win by throwing salt in Bret’s eyes to blind him. Fuji got on the mic and challenged Hulk to face Yoko, and with Bret’s “blessing,” Hogan agreed. The match officially went for a whopping 22 seconds before Hogan got the pin and the win, and sure enough, we had a face celebrating to end WrestleMania, keeping the streak alive.
Years later, Bret Hart would tell the world that the impromptu match and title change happened due to some backstage politics with Hogan. Bret would also say that Hogan came to him backstage after the show, thanking him and saying that he (Hulk) would gladly return the favor down the road.
Eventually, Bret would say that the original plan was for Hulk to lose the title to Bret at King Of The Ring later that year. According to Bret, that plan changed at the last minute, with Hulk refusing to lose, telling Vince that Bret wasn’t in the same league, so Vince changed the plan to what we eventually saw… Hulk dropping the title back to Yokozuna, and then leaving the WWF.
Hulk denied everything, of course, saying that he never promised to return any favors to Bret, and that Vince McMahon, and Vince McMahon alone, came up with the plan for Hulk to win at Mania and to lose to Yokozuna at King Of The Ring.
Hogan might be the single biggest liar that pro wrestling has ever seen, telling some of the dumbest, most easily proven false whoppers ever. Bret might be the single biggest history revisionist that pro wrestling has ever seen, constantly painting himself out to be a completely innocent victim who never had anything go his way. Who do you believe more?
3. Sting Losing To Triple H (WrestleMania 31): After years of fantasy booking and “what if” scenarios, Sting finally made his WWE debut in 2014, attacking Triple H and starting his feud with The Authority.
It wouldn’t take long before Sting’s first WWE match would be put together… a WrestleMania bout against Triple H himself. One of WCW’s most loyal soldiers against one of the men who helped the WWF rise to the top of the Monday Night War. It was a huge match, and if there was ever a match where you were sure of the outcome, that was going to be it. Surely, Sting was going to get the win. Not only did Triple H not need the win, but it just didn’t make sense for Sting to FINALLY show up and lose his first match.
Then that’s exactly what happened. In a match that featured DX showing up to help Triple H and the nWo showing up to help Sting, it was Triple H that got the pinfall victory.
It made no sense, and it would go on to make even less sense when we found out that Sting would be challenging Seth Rollins for the WWE World Heavyweight Title at Night Of Champions in September of that year. If you knew Sting would be competing for the title, why wouldn’t you have him win his WrestleMania debut match?
Most fans viewed it for what it probably was… it was one more chance for Vince McMahon to put the boots to WCW and proclaim victory, 14 years after buying the company.
2. Jerry Lawler vs Michael Cole (WrestleMania 27): You’re supposed to dislike heels in wrestling. Some more than others, of course, but their entire point is to make sure you don’t root for them.
With that out of the way, can I just say how much I fucking hated heel Michael Cole on commentary? There has never been a more annoying chore to sit through than a multi-hour show with Cole as the play-by-play guy, yelling over EVERYTHING that anyone else said on commentary, pitching out CONSTANT lines delivered to his headset by Vince McMahon, and being as grating a personality as he could possibly be. I had to watch WWE programming on mute far more often than not, because Cole would actively ruin the shows.
Naturally, Cole’s heel character was going to get a push, with a match at WrestleMania against his partner on commentary, Jerry “The King” Lawler.
In no way, shape, or form should the match have lasted more than two minutes, and should’ve simply been Lawler embarrassing Cole and putting him out of his misery right away.
Instead, what we got was a match that lasted nearly 15 minutes. It was the fourth-longest match on the show, and was only 58 seconds shy of being the third-longest match.
WHY?!?
It was slow, ugly, and then, to make it all worse, we got a “Dusty Finish” to boot. Lawler initially won the match, forcing Cole to tap out. After the match, though, the Anonymous Raw General Manager (another AWFUL idea from the “creative” mind of Vince McMahon) reversed the decision, saying that Special Guest Referee “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was too biased, meaning that Cole was the official winner of a match at WrestleMania. People like Goldust, Asuka, The Dudleys, Shinsuke Nakamura, Ken Shamrock have never won a match at WrestleMania, but Michael Cole has a win in the official record books.
Everything here was just the perfect storm of suck, forming an F-5 sucknado that probably had people contemplating ending their lives to avoid the destruction.
1. John Cena vs The Undertaker (WrestleMania 34): From the moment John Cena won his first WWE Title at WrestleMania 21, wrestling fans began to pencil in a future Mania match between Cena and The Undertaker.
In the following years, as Cena became the biggest star on the roster, and as Taker’s undefeated streak at WrestleMania became a bigger and bigger deal, it just made sense that we’d inevitably get that Cena vs Taker match. It was the biggest match the company could give us, with Cena and Taker being kept apart from each other for years and not facing each other since the early days of Cena’s main roster run.
As time kept ticking, we still weren’t getting any closer to the match happening. It seemed like a possibility on an episode of Raw in 2009, when Cena and Taker teamed up to win a Triple Threat Tag Match against the teams of Shawn Michaels & Triple H and Chris Jericho & Big Show. After the match, completely out of nowhere, Taker attacked Cena, dropping him with a Tombstone to close the show. This was four months before WrestleMania 26, and a month before the 2009 Slammy Awards, when Shawn Michaels challenged Taker to a Mania rematch, so I, like most people, assumed this was the beginning of the build for Cena vs Taker.
Obviously, that never happened. More years went by, and eventually, not only did Taker lose his streak after being defeated by Brock Lesnar, but he lost again to Roman Reigns three years later. It seemed like we would never get that super duper showdown between two of the company’s all-time greats.
At this point, I wish we never did get it, because what we got at WrestleMania 34 was nothing more than a traveshamockery.
After failing to make the Mania card on multiple occasions, Cena decided to call Taker out for a match there, but received no answer, no matter how many times he tried. Dejected, Cena said he would be attending Mania as a fan, and sure enough, he was sitting in the crowd when Mania rolled around.
With a few matches done, someone ran out to inform Cena that Taker had arrived to the building. Cena, excited that he was getting his match, waited for Taker, but when the lights went out, they came back on to reveal Elias instead. Cena took his frustration out on Elias, attacking him before leaving. As Cena was leaving, the lights went out again. This time, it really was The Undertaker, and it was on like Donkey Kong.
In less than three minutes, after dominating most of the match, Taker hit Cena with a Tombstone and got the win.
After all the years of waiting, that was it. The terrible overacting from Cena, the will-they-or-won’t-they nonsense about the match happening at all, and then… not even three minutes of action, forming nothing more than a squash match.
I’ve said this before, and I will continue to say it, but I think there’s some real life heat between Cena and Taker. There is no other explanation for why they were kept apart for so long once Cena became a top star. WWE has been running a brand split for a long time now, so having one wrestler on Raw while another is on Smackdown is nothing new, but to be kept away from each other for that long while the billion-dollar match was on the table every year? No chance. There’s more to it than we know, but both Cena and Taker are smart enough, and are company men through and through, so they aren’t going to sit there and say anything but positive things about one another in interviews, on podcasts, and so forth.
Not getting John Cena vs The Undertaker at WrestleMania, with both men basically in their primes, is one of the biggest disappointments I’ve ever experienced as a fan of this sport.
There you have it. Now, I turn things over to you. What did you think of my list? Is anything ranked way too high, or way too low? Do you have something that ranks high on your personal list of the worst things in WrestleMania history that I left out? As always, feel free to hit me up in the comments section below, on Twitter (@HustleTheSavage), or on Bluesky (@aaronhyden.bsky.social), and let me know what’s on your mind.
It’s time to switch things over to my Weekly Power Rankings before closing it out with the list of songs I was listening to as I put this column together.
Weekly Power Rankings
Will Ospreay, Callum Newman, Francisco Akira & Henare vs Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, Pac & Daniel Garcia: I had something else to do yesterday, so I haven’t had the chance to watch AEW Dynasty yet, before anyone wonders why nothing that happened during the show is listed here. With that said, this one was a lot of fun. It was called “Chaos In Canada,” and that’s exactly what they delivered. Lots of moving pieces, but non-stop action all around, and a nice showcase for the United Empire members that don’t spend a ton of time wrestling in North America. Henare, specifically, made the most of his time on Dynamite, getting over with the crowd due to his antics and offense.
CM Punk: Say whatever you want about Punk, but he continues to show that there aren’t many people in the business who can touch him on the microphone. He cut one helluva promo to open up Monday Night Raw, weaving between multiple topics and unleashing venom on not only Roman Reigns, but on Pat McAfee, as well.
Oba Femi & Brock Lesnar: The build for their WrestleMania match continues to be great. They don’t need to cut promo after promo on each other. Just go out there and brawl, getting the crowd to go nuts, and leave just enough meat on the bone, so to speak, to get everyone excited about what they’ll do at Mania when they aren’t being stopped by waves of security.
Kazuchika Okada vs Myron Reed: Reed didn’t have a chance in hell of winning this and taking the AEW International Title from Okada, but that didn’t stop this one from being a lot of fun. It’s also nice to see first-time-ever matches like this. You don’t get to see that too, too often in WWE or AEW these days.
Mistico, Kevin Knight & “Speedball” Mike Bailey vs David Finlay, Clark Connors & Gabe Kidd: You know the deal by now. AEW? Check. Trios? Check. Then you know you’re getting a ton of action and plenty of stuff to work with.
Darby Allin, Jack Perry & Bandido vs Konosuke Takeshita, Andrade El Idolo & Mark Davis: *ahem* You know the deal by now. AEW? Check. Trios? Check. Then you know you’re getting a ton of action and plenty of stuff to work with.
Tony D’Angelo, Joe Hendry, Ricky Saints & “All Ego” Ethan Page vs DarkState: DarkState keep showing that they have a ton of in-ring chemistry together. On the other side of the match, you have four men who just competed against each other for the NXT Title, so they don’t exactly get along, but they did just enough to pick up the win. Entertaining stuff.
Bayley vs Alexa Bliss: Nothing earth shattering, but this was two veterans that know each other really well knocking out a really solid match.
Jasper Troy vs Keanu Carver vs Josh Briggs: BIG MEATY MEN SLAPPING MEAT! What the hell else could you want out of something like this?
The Young Bucks vs Hechicero & El Clon: The outcome was never in question, but this was a nice warmup for the Bucks as they got ready for their big match against Okada and Takeshita at Dynasty.
This Week’s Playlist: “Mr. Know It All” by Teddy Swims… “SAME SH!T” by Isaiah Rashad… “Who Will You Follow” by Evanescence… “In Your Name” by Vana… “Heaven Sent” by The Amity Affliction… “Unknown” by Fire From The Gods… “SEVERANCE” by Banks Arcade… “Okay” by St. Lunatics… “Boom D Boom” by St. Lunatics… “Midwest Swing” by St. Lunatics… “Groovin Tonight” by St. Lunatics & Brian McKnight… “Icey” by St. Lunatics… “One More Try” by George Michael… “You Know I’m A Ho” by Ice Cube & Master P… “Body Bumpin’ (Yippie-Yi-Yo)” by Public Announcement… “I Miss You” by Aaron Hall… “Left, Right, Left” by Drama… “Never Scared” by Bone Crusher, T.I. & Killer Mike… “Whoa!” by Black Rob… “Tear It Up” by Yung Wun, DMX, Lil Flip & David Banner… “Spring Love” by Stevie B… “Let The Music Play” by Shannon… “I Can’t Wait” by Nu Shooz… “Rumors” by Timex Social Club… “Why You Treat Me So Bad” by Club Nouveau… “Friends” by Whodini… “Freaks Come Out At Night” by Whodini… “Wild Wild West” by Kool Moe Dee… “Mama Said Knock You Out” by LL Cool J… “Loungin (Who Do Ya Luv) Remix” by LL Cool J & Total… “Doin’ It” by LL Cool J & Leshaun… “Hey Lover” by LL Cool J & Boyz 2 Men… “Luv U Better” by LL Cool J & Marc Dorsey… “My World” by Big Pun… “Still Not A Player” by Big Pun & Joe… “The Dream Shatterer” by Big Pun… “Twinz (Deep Cover 98)” by Big Pun & Fat Joe… “Notorious Thugs” by Notorious BIG & Bone Thugs N Harmony… “B.O.B.” by Outkast… “Rosa Parks” by Outkast
