Best WWE matches of all time: WWE has been providing sporting entertainment to countless fans across the globe with an extraordinary brand of story-telling, wrestling, and rivalry for more than five decades now. The brand has established several famed wrestlers and has completely changed the fabric of entertainment wrestling with its transformation over the past few years.
These wrestling matches are penned in a storybook and with time these stories eventually turn into iconic myths. In today’s story, we will sneak a peek into the five best matches of all time. Being candid, this is definitely a very debatable list and we all have our own preferences when it comes to WWE. However, considering the amount of impact these matches had in the minds of the wrestling fans alongside the thrill that it imbued fans with, we have chosen the five most iconic bouts under the banner of WWE.
The most important factors that shape up the destiny of a match are a proper storyline that will not be ridiculed by fans, a selection of the stipulation that can bring out the very best in the wrestlers, a display of technicalities and more importantly, brutality. Maybe, in the five matches that we have selected, you will not find all of them converging, but every single match in the list will coincide with at least one factor.
#5 Stone Cold Steve Austin vs the Rock at Wrestle mania X-Seven, 2001
The WrestleMania X-Seven is deemed as one of the grandest WMs of all time. It happened at the Astrodome in Houston and had full-blown star-studded match line-ups. This was the bout of the two iconic grapplers who framed the death sentence for WCW together.
Two of the biggest stars of the WWE went toe-to-toe against each other in a cut-and-run encounter just ahead of the annual extravaganza. It was a consistent contest of knocking each other out and the battle continued until the very end, making the build-up an extremely explosive one. With every single fight, WWE used a different set of background scores, and it all culminated with Limp Bizkit’s “My Way”.
As already mentioned, WrestleMania X-Seven marked itself as the first pay-per-view to chronicle one million buys for itself, becoming the most sold PPV ever then.
SCSA and Rock dished out an absolute masterclass with two very different and yet badass gimmicks that finished on a stunning note with Austin turning heel at the end of the match.
#4 Shawn Michaels vs Kurt Angle at WrestleMania XXI, 2005
The heartbreak kid was someone who kept the Universe on their toes with his extraterrestrial and Godly brand of resilience in the ring. No matter whatever you threw at Michaels, he always knew the way to circumnavigate those manoeuvre holds or kick out of a pinfall at the right time.
This was a bout of insane submission manoeuvres and fine ground wrestling, as both the grapplers were known for their techniques on the mat and also implying painful submissions. Angle brought along with himself the best of Olympic grappling, while Shawn showcased his dogged resilience even against the vicious ankle lock.
The two icons of the industry fought an absolutely captivating and thrilling contest until the very end, keeping the audience gripped to their seats and television screens with near pinfalls occurring every alternate five-minute.
The last laugh was laughed by Angle as he successfully imposed the umpteenth ankle lock on Shawn who put everything he had left to break free unsuccessfully.
#3 Ricky Steamboat vs Randy Savage at WrestleMania III, 1987
With Hogan and Andre the Giant being the stars of WrestleMania III, it was Steamboat and Savage who grabbed the headlines with an absolutely extraordinary match-up. The match was a very closely contested encounter, with both the grapplers stealing momentum every alternate second.
It was a contest for the Intercontinental Title and the championship got a major shot in the arm with two of the best wrestlers in the industry colliding for the same.
After a brutal exchange of haymakers and some nasty manoeuvres that left both the wrestlers flattened on their back, it needed a Herculean effort from Ricky Steamboat to finally roll up Savage in an insane moment of madness to secure the hallowed belt and send the crowd into a volcano of frenzy.
#2 TLC II: WrestleMania X-Seven, 2001
With the first Tables, Ladders and Chairs match at the preceding Summerslam blowing the expectations through the ceiling, WWE decided to bring in another version of the TLC at WM X-Seven. The match-up was between Edge and Christian, Hardy Boyz and Dudley Boyz who would battle their life out in an unprecedented Slug-fest.
The vicious blows being traded in every nook and cranny of the ring for this contest saw bodies being laid to waste, sprawled across the ring and the floor in the Astrodome.
The most intriguing and fascinating moment of the match was delivered by Edge, who would go on to deliver a flying spear into Jeff hardy mid-air who was dangling by the cord holding onto the championships.
Edge and Christian would become the eventual winners after the telling blow from the R-rated superstar, putting down the discourse of TLC once and for all.
#1 Mick Foley vs The Undertaker at King of the Ring, 1998
No list in entertainment wrestling can be complete barring the likes of Mick Foley and the Undertaker, if not for the worse. There are a few clips in WWE that would remain etched onto the memories of the WWE universe forever. One such glaze into history was Mick Foley’s fall off a 16-foot cell through an announcement table in an absolutely insane match-up between him and the Dead Man.
Taker and Mick dished out an impeccable rivalry, with the duo going toe-to-toe against each other in a sequence of brutal contests, with both the wrestlers lusting for blood. However, if there was one match that defined this rivalry, it was this insane Hell in a Cell contest between two of entertainment wrestling’s icons.
Taker spiced up the match by throwing a verbal volley of invectives aimed at Mick, and with every passing second, they simply got worse and unbearable.
Other than that mad fall from the top of the cell, Foley also got chokeslammed through the top of the cell and Taker used everything in his arsenal to inflict severe punition on his rival.
As already mentioned that this battle had a few indelible memory clips in the antiquity of wrestling, Foley’s Mankind will then be chokeslammed through countless thumbtacks, leaving the WWE universe awed and terrorized for Mankind’s safety at the same time.
The telling blow to the encounter will arrive at the hands of Taker who would eventually throw Foley from the top of the roof through an announcement table to make it one of the most brutal matches of all time, also launching Foley’s fourth face, Mick Foley.
