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It must be that time of year again. With WrestleMania fast approaching and WWE fans clamoring for content about the Showcase of the Immortals, its time to reflect back on why we still watch professional wrestling's biggest event year after year.
Hang on. Most disappointing Wrestlemania main events? Roman Reigns has this covered in modern times.
A main event can't be disappointing if everyone knows the outcome and expects a dull match ahead of time, can it?
Going back a little further than this most recent run of ill-advised closers (I almost feel bad for Reigns — a very talented in-ring performer in his own right), here is a list of the main event matches that left fans bitterly disappointed with what they had seen and wondering about what could have been.
#5 Triple H vs The Rock vs Big Show vs Mick Foley — WrestleMania 2000
Picture this scene to close out your biggest show: Vince McMahon is ordering his cronies Briscoe and Patterson to count to three and seal a win for Triple H against a lifeless Rock, who can’t even get up for a final pedigree.
The next thing you know, glass shatters and more than 19,000 lose their minds as a returning Stone Cold lays waste to everyone via steel chair. Cue the Brahma Bull hitting a People's Elbow finish to send the audience into utter delirium.
Yes, this show is still etched in the hearts of professional wrestling die-hards and the main event will live long in the memory. This was Backlash 2000.
Wait, what? Backlash? What happened to the grandest stage of them all? How could they have possibly topped this the month prior? Well, to all you young fans out there who’ve been told the Attitude Era was all sunshine and rainbows, Wrestlemania 2000 was just awful.
The pay-per-view equivalent to throwing the entire locker room at the wall to see what sticks, the four-way elimination main event with a McMahon in every corner was just the tip of this overcrowded iceberg.
The triangle ladder match and the fact that WWE could have had someone wrestling a broomstick and still fill arenas meant this disappointing closer did not do much long-term harm. A simple reroute got them back on-course in time for their next show.
Mick Foley and Big Show getting their five minutes in the main event (less than that in the seven-foot giant's case) is the only reason this was even a thing. Maybe Vince McMahon does have a soft spot in his heart after all.
#4 Hulk Hogan vs Yokozuna (vs Bret Hart) — WrestleMania 9
Speaking of soft spots, I know we’ve all Hulked up and hit the poses with Hogan on TV at one point or another in our lives. It's all great stuff, something that really got us going as kids and fall in love with pro wrestling.
I also know that the Hulkster is a far bigger draw than Bret Hart and Yokozuna, and keeping him in 1993 with WCW making moves seemed like a life or death situation. 22 seconds, though…
Even today, Wrestlemania IX is just brutal to watch. Boring, visually jarring, nonsense booking, poorly executed. It's just a real struggle for fans.
You would have hoped that two fresh additions to the main event scene in Yoko and Bret would have made for an intriguing matchup to salvage the show. I suppose they did enough to warrant a do-over the following year, so respect to that, but this finish was just horrendous.
A decent but short match ends with Bret, who is looking directly at Mr. Fuji dig around in his pocket for at least ten seconds, receive the most devastating finishing move in history: salt to the eyes.
It's so devastating in fact that he lets go of the sharpshooter, rolls into the center of the ring and gets pinned immediately without being hit by another move. Oh, the fun does not end there.
For some reason, Hogan shows up as though he’s not going to jump ship for more money in a few months and gets the most cringe-worthy endorsement from Bret to avenge the injustice from mere seconds before.
In line with the shambolic booking from the proceeding hours, Hogan then beats Yokozuna in mere seconds. 22 seconds to beat the big monster who had just beaten the defending Champion.
Creative might as well have had Yokozuna give up after getting salt in the eyes himself (a cunning reversal by Hogan) but we had to have a leg drop because that’s how things were done. Again to those who aren’t aware, WWF took an atomic leg drop in business for the following half decade because of this shambolic piece of booking.
#3 Hulk Hogan vs Sid Justice — WrestleMania 8
The only slight reservation I have about burying the ninth edition of WrestleMania is that it was very much on track with the downhill slope the company was headed in the early to mid-90s. Another horrendous showing that had perpetuated the slide to Las Vegas was the main event the year before.
By now it's been argued endlessly why the two biggest stars in wrestling in the 80s did not face off for the championship belt on the biggest stage at WrestleMania VIII, but disappointment remains the lasting taste of what we were served.
No one knows how Sid stumbled into two WrestleMania main events, but he sure won the backstage politics award because he was awful in both. The only reason his second bout with the Undertaker did not make this list is because everyone knew it would be terrible. Everyone knew this because his first closer with Hogan in Indianapolis was terrible.
#1 In the match, Sid kicked out after Hogan’s hulking up sequence and leg drop. He kicked out because his idiot manager missed the closing spot. The whole finish was poor.
#2 The reason this match finished with a disqualification was for Warrior to run out and make the save. What? Why? Huh? Why?
#3 During the event, they aired a taped interview with Hogan concerning his retirement. He made it abundantly clear in his entrance that he was taking it all in and appreciative of the moment. This amounted to nothing.
#4 Flair and Savage had a great championship match in the middle of the show! Why was that not the main event!!
To classify this main event as a disappointment is unfair to other disappointments. This was just utterly dismal.
#2 Triple H vs Chris Jericho — WrestleMania 18
Do I really have to explain why this was disappointing? A battle between Triple H and his wife, Stephanie McMahon, to main event WrestleMania 18 when the company had the largest potential talent pool in the history of wrestling to call upon at the time.
I’ll float a few more things out there to bear in mind if you ever watch this match.
#1 Jericho was the first-ever Undisputed Champion.
#2 Vince McMahon had acquired WCW the year before.
#3 The Rock vs Hollywood Hogan was on the same card.
#4 This was sandwiched between two of the five greatest WrestleMania shows of all time, a fairly unanimous opinion as far as ranking shows.
#5 Triple H had just made one of, if not the, biggest returns from injury in professional wrestling history.
#6 It's worth reiterating that Vince McMahon had a tremendous array of WCW talent at his disposal; the likes of Goldberg and Rey Mysterio would soon follow suit.
#7 Also, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan were on the same card
#1 Triple H vs Randy Orton — WrestleMania 25
I’m almost at a loss for words about the WrestleMania 25th Anniversary main event, largely because the WWE does not understand what the word ‘anniversary’ means and it annoys me to this day. Triple H vs Randy Orton, though, might very well be the dictionary definition of ‘disappointment’, so I will do my best to explain why.
Firstly, The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels was out of this world. While those kinds of matches have been very difficult to follow in the past, it is not impossible to get the crowd invested in another great match. Particularly when the rest of the card was mediocre to awful, this was not an excuse.
These two even had a great backstory with all the elements of an all-time rivalry. The build to this match was great. It felt like it could deliver a transformational moment in the business, and they had put the world title in exactly the right position for the match.
While Triple H is not a good babyface, highlighted best by his absurd celebrations at the end of this match, a white-hot heel Orton at this time was the perfect foil and Stephanie McMahon's husband was merely needed to take it over the top.
While Triple H himself blames the stipulation of losing the belt if he was disqualified as the reason for this being awful, it sums up why he is the epitome of a B+ performer (the irony has always been lost on the Game).
There are so many ways WWE could've made this main event worthy of being on the same card as Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels and headlining the biggest show in company history. Here is what actually happened.
They gave it about four and a half minutes of psychology and storytelling, threw in matching finishers to open the bout and just did what they do every other night.
Orton is as much to blame for this as Triple H; he should have known that his demeanour and style out of the ring which was being received so well needed to carry over into a ruthless and cold in-ring style (a few cold stares and squeezing a headlock a little harder does not a style make).
Triple H, I can’t say I’m surprised at anymore because his style is the norm in today’s product.
Everyone needs to get their signature moves in irrespective of situation or story. Every ‘big’ match needs to go 20-30 minutes regardless of what makes sense or how the crowd reacts. The intense brawl needs to happen for momentum to shift because there is no other way for a face to gain the upper hand.
It's all nonsense and formulaic booking that makes this match the same as all the other Triple H and Randy Orton matches. Very much the same, in fact, because whenever it really counts, you know the Game is coming out on top.
Never mind the momentum or potential of an Orton win, never mind the story arc of Orton finally getting one over on an old mentor, never mind the tailor-made conditions to make this an all-time main event for your own legacies.
The only thing that matters apart from the crowd outright rioting, thank you, Daniel Bryan, is that Triple H goes over or gets a prominent spot on the card.
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