Greatest WM Match Ever: Round 1 (Mideon Bracket)
This is the third eight match bracket up for voting. The first bracket, known as The Berzerker bracket is RIGHT HERE and the polls for that bracket are closed as of Monday. I will post results later in the day on Monday. For the second four match bracket, known as the Al Wilson Bracket, the polls are open until Tuesday at 8amET and you can access them RIGHT HERE. If you haven’t voted, go now. Get your votes in before it closes.
We’ve got four head to head matchups. Vote how you want by picking the match that you feel is better. It’s your choice. Each poll will be open for 48 hours. Please add comments in the section provided below. Here’s the link to the graphic in case you want to see what’s coming up: http://www.thejohnreport.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/greatestmatchfinal.png
Now let’s get on with this bracket. I’m posting shorter comments on these ones. I’m exhausted after a long night (I do these posts at night, then post them in the AM) and simply don’t have the time or energy. I’ll post the matchups, the videos and of course the polls. The rest is up to you.
THE NAKED MIDEON BRACKET
#1) Steve Austin vs. The Rock for the WWF Title @ WM 17
The main event for the WWF Title for the PPV that many (including myself) feel is the best PPV in WWF history. The end result sees Austin capture the WWF Title after turning heel in a grueling, fast paced match that is the culmination of the very successful Attitude era.
VERSUS
#8) Evolution (Flair, Batista, Orton) vs. The Rock & Mick Foley
It’s rare that a 3 vs. 2 match would be considered one of the best, but this is an underrated tag match featuring some of the best performers ever. Watching this again makes me wish we got to see Rock vs. Flair on the WrestleMania stage in singles. It’s a high energy tag that’s underrated in my opinion.
Here’s the poll awaiting your vote:
The winner of that matchup will face the winner of this one:
#4) Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho @ WM19
After a four year absence from WrestleMania, HBK comes back to answer the challenge of the younger Jericho, who grew up idolizing Michaels. It was a great example of a pure wrestling match that ended on a counter hold rather than the finisher we all thought was coming.
VERSUS
#5) The Undertaker vs. Edge for the World Title @ WM24
The Streak vs. The Title was a very even match full of great counter holds and nearfalls that kept the action going from start to finish. While the outcome was inevitable, it doesn’t take away from the quality of match these two had in their first ever PPV match. (It was very hard to find video of this match. I did the best I could.)
Here’s the poll awaiting your vote:
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#3) Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle for the WWE Title @ WM19
This was a dream matchup for a lot of people since they were both acclaimed amateur wrestlers. They were kept apart during Lesnar’s first year in the company until they met in the main event of WrestleMania 19. A great technical wrestling display happened with one of the scariest finishes ever.
VERSUS
#6) The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan @ WM18
This was a dream matchup too. Two icons, one from the past in Hogan and one from the present in Rock, going face to face in Toronto on the biggest stage of them all. It was one of the most electric atmospheres for any match in WM history.
Here’s the poll awaiting your vote:
The winner of that matchup will face the winner of this one:
#2) Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage for the IC Title @ WM3
One of the most technically sound matches in the history of WrestleMania and the oldest match that made this top 32 tournament. It’s a match that featured a lot of counter holds, plenty of drama and an explosive finish that is memorable due to the performance of two of the 1980s best performers.
VERSUS
#7) Bret Hart vs. Roddy Piper for the IC Title @ WM8
This was a straight up match featuring two of the most famous performers ever. Piper rarely lost matches clean, yet he lost here in one of the better matches of his career. It was a straight up babyface match that is one of the more underrated matches in WM history.
Here’s the poll awaiting your vote:
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That’s it for today. The matchups for Tuesday will come to us from the Kamala bracket. They are as follows:
1. Undertaker vs. Michaels @ WM25
8. Undertaker vs. HHH @ WM17
4. Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit @ WM17
5. John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels @ WM23
3. Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy Savage @ WM7
6. Money In The Bank @ WM23
2. Chris Benoit vs. Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels @ WM20
7. The Rock vs. Steve Austin @ WM19
Just a reminder that each poll will be open for 48 hours, so these ones will close Wednesday at 8amET.
Feel free to add your comments in below, as always.
Thanks for reading, watching and voting!
1) Austin/Rock vs Evolution/Rock n Sock….seeing as Austin/Rock 17 is my fav WM match ever, I need not bother analyzing this. Although I will say that I re-watched the tag match for the first time and its much better then I remember it being.
2) HBK/Jericho vs Edge/Undertaker….I LOVE the HBK/Jericho match. The counter wrestling and storytelling was amazing. Jericho going for the superkick and imitating HBK’s mannerisms was priceless. The finish was outstanding cuz it was unexpected (finishers were already used) and it was off a beautiful counter. This is a Top 5 WM match for me. Edge/Taker was quite good as well but not as good as HBK/Jericho in my book.
3) Lesnar/Angle vs Rock/Hogan….I do think John made the right decision to include Rock/Hogan in this tournament. Its not a technical classic by any means–but its historic in its own right. Two of the biggest starts ever from different eras. The Toronto crowd was one of the best crowds you’ll ever see for a match–they made it special. However–none of this compares to the brilliance that was Lesnar/Angle which is my #3 fav WM match ever. For technical wrestling it doesnt get much better then what these guys did. I had unbelievably high expectations going in, and these guys surpassed it. Of course, the missed SSP is what most people remember (and Brock’s lucky he didnt kill himself or break his neck) but it didnt take away from how great this match was–two of the best wrestlers ever.
4) Steamboat/Savage vs Hart/Piper…..I was too young to see Steamboat/Savage live but I remember watching it on VHS when I was probably 7 or 8 (which was 1989-1990). My older cousin at the time said it was the best match he’d ever seen. This match is one of the reasons I fell in love with wrestling–everything was brilliantly done. In an era that didnt feature a ton of skilled wrestling (Hogan!!) this showed the WWF fans what great wrestling was all about. The mat wrestling, the finish, the storytelling….everything. Hart/Piper is def a forgotten underrated match but its just not as good as Steamboat/Savage
@Mike
You know, a lot of people criticize the misses SSP, but I thought it was awesome. If it were a work, people wouldn’t be so upset about it because the spot was crazy. Sure, it scared the hell out of us because Brock could have suffered a serious injury, but thats the point. The missed SSP brought even more emotional investment to a match that was already pretty damn emotional. I think that missed SSP added to it, instead of took away like most people say.
If Brock would have nailed the SSP, it would have been “Oh my God, that is cool!”, but instead, everyone was like “OMG, Brock just died!!!” (The same reaction Foley got from us when he fell from the cage when he faced Undertaker at the 2nd Hell in a Cell).
It was an incredible match and by no means did anything make it seem less watchable, if not more. Seriously, that misses SSP actually makes me want to watch it again…
This is by far the Toughest Bracket of the 4….When you have HBK/Jericho as a # 4 seeding….you know you’re in for a tough go at it.
I went with Rock Vs Austin for WM 17 b/c it had everything for me. Great Crowd, Two great workers, Awesome promo (I will never get tired of the Limp Bizkit My Way promo), excellent ending, great story telling from the beginning the match was signed to the last second.
Went with HBK/Jericho on the next one. Because I’m a little biased toward HBK, b/c I think he’s the best to ever do it. And to be on that long of a hiatus and still deliver an awesome match, It got the nod.
Went w/ Rock and Hogan…tough decision, but it was just the electricity of the crowd, the stare down…the “Hulking Up” which made me return to a little boy rooting for the Hulkster. The moments were just magical. You don’t get dream matches that often.
Went with Steamboat vs Macho Man on this one easy. Putting on a match of that caliber at WM 3 nonetheless…in which the business has changed and alot of those fans have left wrestling and wrestling has received new fans and it still gets that much respect. It’s saying something. Those two men put on a wrestling clinic that night.
Although good, I think Steamboat/Savage is one of the most over-rated matches in history.
@Marko Hallam
I actually agree. It was a good match, but not as good as their earlier bout on Superstars where Savage hit Steamboat with the ring bell.
Rock/Austin vs Evolution/Rock and Sock I had to go with Rock/Austin because it was the two biggest stars at the time going head to head for the title and put on a good show whereas the handicap match was just kind of thrown together mainly because Rock was willing to come back to the ring for once. I didn’t care one bit about Rock coming back because I didn’t really like him too much other then he had some funny promos not to mention he really didn’t seem to care about WWE he just wanted to keep his star up in Hollywood and he knew the WWE Universe would cheer for him. Rock/Austin were two guys in their prime whereas the handicap match featured two guys who weren’t in their prime quite yet but were close in Randy and Batista then you had Foley who has never had a prime, Flair who although can still have a good match if paired right was well past his days of being able to pull off half hour classics every night, and Rock who may not had really missed a step but was only there to further his own career in Hollywood by showing the fans still liked him. I hope Rock never comes back to wrestle again and if he ever did come back to fight Cena it’d be the one time I’d actually be rooting for Cena to win since they were pushing Khali as World Champion.
Y2J/HBK vs Taker/Edge I voted for Y2J/HBK because they had a much more techically sound match not to mention you didn’t know 100% for sure who won before it even began. The problem with Taker matches at Wrestlemania is its hard to get into it because you know Taker’s streak is going to live on and I think that’s why HBK/Taker at 25 was so great because they were able to do that but against Edge this match I didn’t see as much better or worse then their other matches. Y2J/HBK had more excitement, was executed better, and I think people were able to enjoy it much better.
Steamboat/Savage vs Hart/Piper was the hardest of the three to vote on because both were great IC title matches but I voted for Steamboat/Savage. Bret and Piper put on one heck of a showing and I really think it raised both their stock in the company. I really think Bret really showed he was ready for the main event with this match and Piper put on the match of his life. It was so rare to see Piper take a clean loss so it was refreshing to see it and I really think that ending the match off a sleeper reversal into a pin was a much better way to win over making Piper tap with the Sharpshooter which I think if that match happened today rather then WM8 Bret would of rolled out of that pin attempt and somehow ended up with a Sharpshooter because WWE doesn’t seem to understand matches don’t have to end with either a finisher or a heel tactic like a belt shot with the ref’s back turned/knocked out and that a great match can just as easily end with a reversal into a pin. Steamboat/Savage also had the reversal into pin ending with Steamboat countering a body slam into a small package which was great. I feel that those two knew that Hogan beating Andre was going to be the mark history maker of the night even if they didn’t know that Hogan would use that famous slam on Andre and they also knew that in order to be remembered for their match that night it’d have to be one for the ages and that’s exactly what they did. Thank the stars that WWE had enough faith in these two to give them a half hour to put on a wrestling clinic. The reason why Savage/Steamboat goes over Hart/Piper in my book is because if you were to sit a younger fan, someone old enough to know what makes a good match rather then believing hype yet young enough to have not seen these guys wrestle in their days I think that Steamboat/Savage would still take their breath away whereas Hart/Piper would just get a “good match” comment and that’s about it.
Pretty much everyone in the wrestling business would put Steamboat/Macho Man in their top 5 (probably even top 3) Wrestlemania matches of all time. I never got to see it live cause I was only 2 when it was on but I’ve seen it since and it was an amazing match. Having said that these lists are subjective and the idea behind the wrestling as a whole is to extract emotion from the viewer. I remember watching the Bret Piper match as a kid and being a huge Hitman mark (still am to this day)jumping around my sitting room. That moment with Piper standing over a bloodied and battered Bret Hart with the moral dilemna of choosing the title or the moral high ground was a moment i’ll never forget (not that I could articulate it like that when I was 7!) So I’m going with my Hart on this one(Yeah I did!)
Why do some matches have more votes than the others? Why vote on one of these matches and not the others?
Why live life when you’re just going to die anyway? I love asking questions too! So fun! Haha.
Because some matches people just don’t think they deserve a vote on either side.
I curse the sky for putting two matches I really love against each other right away. Like the first bracket. Stone Cold vs Rock wins by a megamile, but I do love the other match too. Same with Jericho/HBK vs Edge/Taker WM24 (really, REALLY good match) Icon vs Icon / Wrestler vs Wrestler
Voted:
Rock/Austin WM17
HBK/Jericho
Rock/Hogan (had a tough time here. Picked this one because when I saw it live, it actually drew the whole bar into the match chanting HOGAN HOGAN. Yes, this seriously happens when enough alcohol is involved. I feel as far as matches go, Angle/Lesnar was better by a mile, but Rock/Hogan was like a moment in time. Kinda like Andre/Hogan.)
Steamboat/Savage (Wasn’t a hard call to make considering how many wrestlers study this match, and you can see was definitely a starting point for the evolution of wrestling today. Plus, it was an awesome match. Bret/Piper btw, was also awesome. Steamboat/Savage was just more important to the entire industry as a whole.)
The only one where I’d hae to sit down and think again would be Rock/Hogan vs Lesnar/Angle bracket. Kudos on an extremely tough call for us, as fans, to make.)
I agree savage/steamboat is very overated the ending was just there. I will never understand why anyone thinks angle/lesnar is a great match the soon to be champion fell right on his face! I never liked anything lesnar did in the ring & that match solidified it for me.
Savage/Steamboat IS overrated, and Hart/Piper is underrated. See, back at Wrestlemania 8 the IC title mattered more than the world title does now. Bret was an underdog working his way up, which is the way I liked him best. Bret was such a fantastic technical wrestler, and Piper was such a charismatic performer, that they had the best of both worlds. I’ll always love the locker room interview where Piper shares his fond memories of playing with Bret when they were kids, but undercuts The Hart family with put down after put down. And the ending, with Piper looking to the audience to help him decide whether or not to clock Bret with the ring bell and save his title. A man struggling for his soul. As much as Savage/Steamboat was a classic, smooth and pure wrestling match, this was still an easy call for me.
@ Henry :«See, back at Wrestlemania 8 the IC title mattered more than the world title does now.» So much true. Wanted to post that at some point before you did. It makes the matches so more meaningfulls and at the same time, so much better.
I feel that match is underated, but maybe bause it is a Bret match and people don’t like more technical matches? Hopefully, Owen/Bret will last a bit longer, since I feel it desrves to win in it’s bracket.
Undertaker vs. Michaels @ WM25 will probably win everything. The only match at the same level for me was HBK/Hart, but it looks like I won’t have to make that choice.
I am voting for hogan and the rock to win the whole thing don’t look like it will but I was at sky dome for mania 18 and that place was absoultly nuts split all the way I found myself routing for both. While hogan sucks in the ring his personia more then makes up for it. This should have been the main event the womans match was after it and I’ve never heard a crowd so silent even the main event hhh and jerico was dead everybody was exhausted from rock hogan. To me the best match ever maybe it was the moment but it came off well on tv and it doesn’t even give u half of how electric the crowd was
Rock/Austin WM17 deserves to be a #1 SEED.
HBK/Jericho was great but I was in Orlando for WM24 so my vote goes to UT/Edge just because….
Rock and Hogan is in my top 5 WM matches of all time because my favorite wrestler as a 5-9 year old was going against my favorite wrestler of all time. That Toronto crowd was legendary to me. Watching it live made me feel that the WWF DID have something to top the greatness of WM17. The buildup for everything WM18 was lame except the buildup for Hogan/Rock (The nWo beatdown in Chicago, The 6 Wheeler smash that came RIGHT AFTER the beatdown, nWo, Hogan pinning Rock the last Raw before WM18)
I remember online everyone was saying how it was going to be a terrible match because neither The Rock nor Hogan knew how to sell wrestling moves. That made the match even better to me because they were wrong. Rock/Hogan felt like Hogan/Savage to me in the style of the match. (BTW, no Hogan/Savage Wrestlemania 5 is disappointing)
Lesnar/Angle just doesn’t get a high grade to me because Lesnar’s Botchamania at Wrestlemania moment just took away from the match to me completely. And he couldn’t even celebrate with Kurt because he was completely out of it. I wanted him to hit that SSP and felt bad he got hurt. Maybe I would have swallowed my pride and voted differently here but no. Rock/Austin 3 was the best WM19 match IMHO.
Savage/Steamboat vs Lesnar/Angle…Savage/Steamboat will win. SO NOT FAIR PEOPLE ARE VOTING FOR LESNAR/ANGLE…I like Kurt as much as the next guy but that botched move ruins the match!
Hogan/Rock is moving on, narrowly beating Angle/Lesnar. I don’t personally agree, but I’m only one vote.
think ur wrong here mate austin and hogan are the two biggest stars of their eras not cocky “im just here to be famous and get film offers ” rocky maivia.
and yeah im nearly 100% sure the crowd would not have turned on austin if it were austin vs hogan