There Aren't Many 10/10 WrestleMania Matches, But These 10 Were Genuinely Perfect
WrestleMania is the weekend of every year where all eyes from the world of sports and pop culture are locked on WWE. In what essentially acts as the "season finale" of WWE's calendar year, WrestleMania is the biggest stage possible for a professional wrestler to perform on. It is where legacies are made, and heroes are crowned.
It is also a pressure cooker environment, where performers are judged and remembered for their actions on this one blockbuster night. These are the matches where everything came up roses, as these 10/10 matches cemented themselves into wrestling history forever. Some need championships, some needed action from outside of the ring, but all these matches are essential to completing your WrestleMania knowledge.
10 Hulk Hogan vs The Rock
WrestleMania X8
It is often a massive and unwanted distraction when fans hijack WWE programming to make themselves the star of the show. Years of complaining about wrestlers not getting a chance only to bounce a beachball around while they perform on the Raw after WrestleMania, the "what?" chant still existing, and so on. You'll have doubtlessly felt these same frustrations. At WrestleManiaX8, Toronto created magic as Hulkamania spontaneously ran wild and the script between Hulk Hogan and The Rock got completely flipped.
Hogan came into the bout as a mega heel, who just a few weeks earlier had driven a tractor into the side of an ambulance carrying The Rock (an ambulance that Hogan and the NWO had put him in, no less). The sight of Hogan back in WWE after the Monday Night Wars, and at his first WrestleMania in 9 years, all got too much for everybody as the Toronto Skydome and millions watching at home reawakened Hulkamania.
The performers responded perfectly to the crowd's change of heart immaculately, going bananas for all of Hogan's schtick. Will Ospreay won't lose any sleep watching this, but for pure spectacle and theater, Rock and Hogan is one of WrestleMania's greatest moments.
9 Bret Hart vs Owen Hart
WrestleMania X
Bret Hart is your favorite wrestler's favorite wrestler. Immaculate in the ring, The Hitman was the standard-bearer for in-ring excellence for most of his tenure with the WWE. Owen Hart is a different flavor of the same Awesome Sauce that produced Bret Hart, and their WrestleMania X classic told the story of sibling rivalry through the lens of two of the greatest in-ring performers of any era.
This classic is a must-watch for all fans of technical wrestling and featured genuine shock when Owen pinned Bret with an expert pinfall counter to The Hitman's Victory Roll attempt. He'd already countered Bret's Sharpshooter into his own earlier in the match, and then went one further with a clean pinfall victory. Despite Rey and Eddie's best efforts, it is yet to be topped as WrestleMania's greatest opening match.
8 Triple H vs The Undertaker
Hell In A Cell, WrestleMania 28
In a streak that was littered with some of WrestleMania's greatest matches and moments, The Undertaker's best WrestleMania moments were two matches with each of DX's leaders, Shawn Michaels and Triple H, across four unstoppable matches. This was the last match of the Taker vs Shawn & Hunter four-match series, coming inside the unforgiving Hell In A Cell structure with Michaels as Special Guest Referee. It simply couldn't fail, and it didn't.
The second ever Hell In A Cell match at WrestleMania following Undertaker and Big Boss Man's WrestleMania 15 encounter, the match itself was a blast from start to finish. Michaels landing a flush Superkick onto The Deadman into Triple H's Pedigree and one of the closest 2 counts in the history of WWE. Michaels' "WTF?" face is perfection, as Taker looked like he could only be stopped with nucelar weaponry at WrestleMania. Dubbed "The End Of An Era", it was a fitting farewell to the Attitude Era.
7 Cody Rhodes vs Roman Reigns
WWE Championship, Bloodline Rules, WrestleMania XL
The greatest championship reign of the modern era met the Prodigal Son, in the middle of a ring at the center of a football field filled with 60,000 screaming fans, to finish a story generations in the making. If a WrestleMania Main Event is about capturing a snapshot in time, this was the culmination of everything WWE has built, everything Cody had worked for since he said goodbye to Stardust, and everything Paul Heyman and Roman Reigns had constructed with The Bloodline story, restoring WWE's credibility for the first time in decades. And then there were the run-ins.
As WrestleMania used its 2-day event for a storyline for the first time, Bloodline Rules were set in motion after The Rock completed his Final Boss arc by pinning Cody on Night 1. As such, the match was a riot of run-ins and massive moments, so good you could use it to explain why pro wrestling is the best thing humans have created to an alien with zero context.
John Cena, Solo Sikoa, The Undertaker, Jimmy and Jey Uso, The Rock and Roman's Shield past getting the better of him as Cody finishing the story was a moment in time so good that it made generations of fans believe in WWE again.
6 Macho Man Randy Savage vs Ricky Steamboat
Intercontinental Championship, WrestleMania 3
There is a reason that this is the match that is always in these lists, and that is because it is phenomenal from bell-to-bell. Everything Savage and Steamboat did was so clean that simple arm drags and wristlocks are enough to cause jaws to drop and mass applause. Savage had tried to end Steamboat's career on an episode of superstars, draping his throat onto the steel guard railings and delivering a vicious trademark double axehandle.
Crucially, this is the match that put the Intercontinental title on the map. At WrestleMania, it is the IC Championship's first true classic as Macho Man's charisma and intensity, and Steamboat's selling and desperation melds in 15 mins of flawless wrestling. George Steele's unwavering concern for The Dragon's health adds a layer of urgency to proceedings, and the scream in the crowd, as Hebner counts 3 for Ricky's surprise package pin, is electrifying. Put this match in any era and it would sparkle.
5 Hardy Boys vs Dudley Boys vs Edge & Christian
Tag Team Championship TLC Match, WrestleMania 17
At the height of the Attitude Era, 3 of WWE's greatest tag-teams took part in a 6-man demolition derby disguised as a professional wrestling contest. It perhaps personifies the Attitude Era more than any other WrestleMania match, as bodies are routinely broken in half. This included Edge's classic spear off a ladder as Jeff Hardy clings to the hanging Tag Team titles, and Matt Hardy and Bubba Ray Dudley falling from the top of a ladder through 4 stacked tables.
It's pure, undiluted action from bell-to-bell. During an era where everyone was constantly trying to up the ante of extremity, it is wild to consider that this non-stop carnage came just 7 years after the very first ladder match at WrestleMania. Edge and Christian won the match in a barn-burner that featured cameos from Spike Dudley, Lita, and a match-winning appearance from Rhyno, but it felt like every team in this match wrote a definitive chapter of their legacy in this classic.
4 Kurt Angle vs Shawn Michaels
WrestleMania 21
Wrapped in the idea that Angle was chewed up inside by 1996 being all about the Heartbreak Kid and the WWE while he won a gold medal with a broken freakin' neck, Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels tore the roof off Los Angeles Staples Center as they had their first ever one-on-one match, at WrestleManiaof all places. Michaels eliminated Angle from the Royal Rumble, causing the Olympic gold medalist to snap, re-entering the ring to eliminate the Showstopper, make him bleed with steel steps, and clamp him in the ankle lock.
Wrestling doesn't always have to be complicated. HBK's "Shawn Michaels is a doormat for nobody" line is a classic and Angle's motivations for jealousy were believable, but this was about two of the best seeing who was the better man on the grandest show of them all. Angle was working in his prime, and Shawn Michaels had already earned the nickname Mr WrestleMania.
The bar was as high as a skyscraper, but Michaels and Angle were born to deliver on this kind of stage. Taking in technical prowess, brawling, using the tables, ringposts, and anything in sight to get the win, Angle got the win as Michaels contorted, writhed, and tried everything in his power to escape the ankle lock but was forced to tap out.
3 Gunther vs Drew McIntyre vs Sheamus
Intercontinental Championship, WrestleMania 39
Meat was very much on the menu at WrestleMania39, as three enormous mountains of men beat the ever-loving hell out of each other for the world's entertainment. Gunther is an old-school wrestling fans dream and his record-breaking Intercontinental Championship reign put the title back on the map, hopefully for good. Even if it was hard to see him losing (and he didn't), it was always going to be a blast getting there.
Opposite the big Austrian champion, UK & Ireland buddies Drew McIntyre and Sheamus were at loggerheads over their friendship and the gold. Sheamus's quest for his holy grail Intercontinental Championship saw him going after Gunther, and he was livid that Drew would try to usurp him on the grandest stage of them all. The outcome was one of the most physically brutal wrestling matches in Mania history, that required nothing but hard right hands and massive size 15s.
2 Bret Hart vs Stone Cold Steve Austin
Submission Match, WrestleMania 13
After months of animosity and interfering in one another's business, Bret Hart and Steve Austin finally got their hands on one another at WrestleMania 13. It is widely regarded as the night that made Stone Cold Steve Austin, as Bret Hart had been losing fan support rapidly as he vented about the perceived injustice of the WWE and fans getting behind the degenerate antics of Stone Cold. As Austin continually cost Hart the WWE Championship in banner matches, the stage was set for a hostile encounter.
It's a match that shows Hart and Austin were both divine in-ring technicians, capable of utilizing their environment to create a match every bit as venomous as their feud. Steel steps, ring bells, and the exposed concrete floor came into play, as Bret annihilated Austin's knee and leg to soften him up for the Sharpshooter.
The iconic image of Austin's crimson-soaked face will live forever, as Bret won the match but Austin won fans' hearts, refusing to tap to Bret as guest referee Ken Shamrock rang the bell. Austin pushed off officials to limp to the back, as WWE had their new biggest hero and villain made for them on the same night.
1 Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker
WrestleMania 25 & 26
You might have a preference in Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker's back-to-back WrestleMania classics, but both matches between Shawn and Taker are 10/10s. These are men who have careers long-enough to have been in Mania matches with the likes of Giant Gonzalez and Tatanka (and even bigger WrestleMania disappointments), as two of the longest-serving one-company men in WWE history defined their WrestleMania dynasties forever. No titles were needed for this. Just two men from Texas and the only stage to accommodate their talents.
Undertaker and Michaels himself had already established impenetrable legacies at WrestleMania. This was about using their years of experience at the top to create something special and then having the temerity to do it all over again. HBK's year of losing his head over his defeat in a match people were calling the best of all time at WrestleMania25 was great, with Taker finally snapping at Michaels' insistence and granting him his wish for a rematch in a Career vs Streak match. The match would be more urgent and have greater stakes to deliver another 10/10 for the ages (albeit one that falls slightly short of the first match).
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