I put enormous pressure on myself to come through, and I thought I had the best all-around performer in the business in Edge to try to do that with. And these wrestlers have put on many of the greatest matches in pro wrestling history. The five greatest matches in NXT history September 14, 2021 Ryan Satin FOX Sports WWE Analyst By Ryan Satin FOX Sports WWE Analyst Before a new version of NXT is unveiled Tuesday night, let's. Survivor series 2002 5. ANTHONY BENIGNO. What kind of human being was he?' While The Wyatts won, every wrestler emerged a superstar, and that's the definition of a classic. The Dragon played the long game and tied the bout up at three falls with less than 10 minutes left, and reversed a sleeper hold into a pinfall to take the lead as time ran out in the grueling contest. Yet what made this match special wasn't the spectacle, but the storytelling. There are matches I look back on and think, 'Maybe I shouldnt have gone to that extreme. Third, there must be a conclusive winner(s), so Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind from Mind Games 1996 and Steve Austin vs. Kurt Angle from SummerSlam 2001 are out. There was nothing pretty about a match between Masato Tanaka and Mike Awesome. "It was an incredible match, and if you watch it back now, it still holds up like a great movie. What makes it even more impressive is there were no gimmicks (HIAC or Casket) and no stakes (like HBK's career), besides of course, Undertaker defending his streak and the pride of victory. It was a pitch-perfect old-school championship bout, a match that felt big not because of the effects or the stage, but because everybody in the arena so fully believed that this was the most important match ever. And I said, 'What do you mean?' How did the nWo's Scott Hall & Kevin Nash factor into the contest? MICHAEL BURDICK. Following The Rock and Steve Austin's showdown is no easy task, but Angle and Lesnar put on a clinic while constantly pushing each other's competitive hunger to another level. I cant pinpoint why I liked Bret so much. He loved Bret Hart just like me, but as the match was unfolding, he started to hate Bret and love Austin. Swanton Bombs and Spears off ladders are what everybody remembers; what they forget is that Rhyno, Spike Dudley and Lita all got involved, too, essentially making the match a 9-way affair. This match, and the standing ovation that followed, would be CM Punk's last great moment in WWE. Everybody seems to push it and go beyond that peak. He's tough as hell. Most consider the very first Money in the Bank Ladder Match to be the best of all time. Even the World Titles were reversed as The Rock entered with the WCW Championship and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin captained the WCW and ECW Alliance while WWE Champion. Two rings, covered by a cage, no way out and a lot of hair and blood flying. Few competitors enamored her the way Sasha Banks did, which is why nobody knew if Bayley could finally put aside childish things to defeat her for the NXT Womens Title at the very first TakeOver: Brooklyn. Truly great matches don't just get stars, they create them. It was a cool dynamic to see Sting try to take the fight to Cactus Jack." They fought in WrestleMania 13 Submission Match in which blood was tipping out in the face of Stone Gold. In many ways it was a simple match in a relatively humble setting, but inside the ring, this was an epic. But within a few minutes of the bell ringing, Smith was blown up, so Bret basically had to wrestle himself. Both men took turns clobbering each other around the arena in a barbaric Texas Death Match, living up to their legendary reputations for being able to inflict and tolerate high amounts of pain. For my money, this is one of the absolute best matches of all time. In an hour-long Iron Man match, both Michaels and Hart infamously refused to take the first fall. The highest-rated NXT match on this list saw Almas and Gargano give absolutely everything they had as they did battle for the NXT Championship. Mr. Money in the Bank, Randy Orton, entered the arena with a knowing grin. By the time Rhyno helped Christian get the titles back for him and his buddy, the WWE Universe was both thrilled to see the champs retain and relieved that the mayhem was finally over. Never has that saying been more appropriate than the WWE Championship Match between Bret Hart and an up-and-coming competitor named The 1-2-3 Kid. This was one of those perfect storms of pro wrestling a Loser Leaves Town Match between two top-level wrestlers on a stray episode of Raw one night in January. JEFF LABOON. So, the Cincinnati-born competitor tried to employ a ground-and-pound attack against the Japanese titleholder. They should have pleaded for Ricky to do something about it. Triple H's Hell In A Cell match at WrestleMania XVIII may vary. That changed on May 21, 2001, when the duo challenged Austin and Triple H for the belts on "Monday Night Raw.". When Flair came to Texas to put his NWA Title on the line against Kerry Von Erich, the fans hoped they would see their local hero score an upset against the established champ, but what they got was even better a moral victory that spun off into the greatest rivalry in Texas wrestling history: the Von Erichs versus the Freebirds. Wrestlemania 19 3. The fact Hart not only salvaged the match, but produced an all-time classic that made both men look like stars, is a testament to his brilliance. SETH ROLLINS, AS TOLD TO ZACH LINDER. You don't, but The Deadman and The Heartbreak Kid certainly gave it a darn good try at WrestleMania XXVI, resulting in one of the best matches in WWE history. While the idea was to keep both guys in the cage, a cameraman got "injured" and needed treatment, allowing Michaels to escape. Triple H gets the win, but you dont have a second to catch your breath as a viewer, because you just saw this crazy Street Fight and youre like, These guys have taken everything they can out of each other, and then the cage starts lowering and youre going What?! Since the latest livestream, we know 62 ratings of the full 200 wrestlers on the roster. Undertaker would not be denied, as he continued his assault on Michaels on top of the cage, even knocking The Heartbreak Kid off the structure, in what was at that point the biggest bump in WWE history. From a crash-and-burn standpoint, no, it was not going to be like that. Smackdown - 4 Matches Most frequent ratings: 4.5 Stars - 88 Matches 4.75 Stars - 23 Matches 5 Stars - 8 Matches Highest Rated Years: 1987: 1 Match 1992: 2 Matches 1993: 1 Match 1994: 5 Matches 1995: 3 Matches 1996: 3 Matches 1997: 3 Matches 1998: 2 Matches 1999: 1 Match 2000: 5 Matches 2001: 9 Matches 2002: 6 Matches 2003: 1 Match 2004: 3 Matches There's more, but that's the beauty of this match. This was the biggest match in my career and probably the last time that my heart was completely in being in the ring. "The thing about both me and Savage was that neither one of us liked to do a lot of talking when it came to settling our differences. Thats what new wrestlers are learning today. No way out 2001 11. The crowd was red hot for this feud. "Shawn was the perfect opponent because he was small enough that I could do some big guy stuff. Despite the fact that both Superstars were (and are) better known for their explosive, OMG-inducing acrobatics, the match quickly turned into a gritty battle of wills, wherein Zayn seemed to correct, one by one, the mistakes that had previously kept him from the title. "David vs. Goliath" is one of the most popular storylines for a reason: it works. The gimmick was clever, a Three Stages of Hell match, a modified 2 out of 3 Falls match. and its also the challenge of 'Whats your desire to try?' On any other event, Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart would've stolen the show. Though Vader escaped the Figure Four, Flair was able to take out the giants weakened knee and pin him to win the title and continue his epic career. Yet that's exactly what Bam Bam Bigelow did, setting up this personal slugfest between two of the toughest men in ECW, right in Bam Bam's hometown of Asbury Park, N.J. From the get-go, Tazz and Bam Bam tore into each other like two predators on a National Geographic documentary. Then by order of WWE Commissioner Gorilla Monsoon they were forced to take it even further. While the WWE Universe was still catching its breath, Daniel Bryan snapped in what was then called the"No!" But this wasn't any other event; it was WrestleMania X and the "match of the night" belonged to Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels for the Intercontinental Championship in a ladder match. WRESTLEMANIA 35 - Becky Lynch vs. Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair A groundbreaking winner-takes-all match for both the Raw and SmackDown women's championships that saw Becky Lynch become the. "I thought I would collect on the Lloyd's of London policy that would kick in after a 450-pound man sandwiched me. Scarier than a ladder, more dangerous than a cage, and more vicious than a street fight, the Hell In A Cell was a match where wrestlers who hated each other could finally settle their score, at risk to their lives. Lock and he got [disqualified]. Commentating bouts between The Japanese Buzzsaw and The Insane Luchador was always fun. I think everybody sort of feels 25 is a smidge better than 26, but not enough to bother anybody. " TOM HERRERA. Subscribe and watch all 100 matches right now. With his longtime friend Shawn Michaels serving as the unpredictable special guest referee, Triple H used every tool in his arsenal including steel chairs, ring steps, his signature sledgehammer and multiple Pedigrees to put The Deadman down for good. "The greatest thing about that rivalry is that each week it changed, because there was no destination in sight, and one of the things that got added to it as the rivalry was progressing was Chris getting white-hot and winning the World Championship. " RICKY STEAMBOAT, AS TOLD TO ZACH LINDER. It has been said a great wrestler can make a broomstick look good. It goes without saying that Flair, knowing he was on his way out, could have sandbagged this match, but he was an absolute pro in competing against Perfect. When Mysterio leapt from the apron to the top rope, moonsaulted and caught Guerrero with a DDT on the way down, it was because he had to. And yeah, it was pretty cool when he blew The Chairman a kiss goodbye, too. The grudge match had all the hallmarks of a classic brawl: arena-sprawling fisticuffs, assorted weaponry (chairs and trash cans in this case) and the prevailing sense that none of it could actually be controlled or regulated. Any of the above can make a match one of the best ever. The contest alternated between a fast-paced, high-flying affair and a slow, methodical bout as Zayn and Cesaro split the first two falls. "The physicality and our different styles have created a great chemistry. Throwing caution to the wind, both teams pushed their bodies to the limit in a Ladder Match display the likes of which the WWE Universe had never seen before. The animosity between Tully Blanchard and Magnum T.A. PES DRAFT PES 2019 ! Thats the expression, 'Take them on a roller coaster ride.' Number nine of the best Wrestlemania matches is the first to involve Shawn Michaels as a competitor, but nowhere near his last. @JOEYSTYLES, In front of more than 70,000 fans in the Georgia Dome, two Superstars who defined an era clashed in an epic No Holds Barred Match. Both guys were at their peak, both in terms of star power and workrate (yes, Austin's peak as a technical wrestler was in 1997, but as a brawler he was never better than in 2001). In 2001, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and Triple H were running roughshod over the WWE as the "Two-Man Power Trip," basically an evil version of the Mega Powers. 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