Greatest WM Match Ever: Round 2 (Al Wilson Bracket)
It’s time for round two of the second bracket named after the legendary Al Wilson. The results from the first round went as follows:
1. Angle/Michaels @ WM21 (96%) d. 8. Cena/HHH @ WM22 (4%)
5. Edge/Foley @ WM22 (67%) d. 4. Savage/Flair @ WM 8 (33%)
3. TLC @ WM17 (60%) d. 6. Michaels/Flair @ WM 24 (40%)
2. Hart/Hart @ WM10 (77%) d. 7. Warrior/Hogan @ WM6 (23%)
There was one upset as the 5 beat the 4 rather handily although it’s not a major upset. Now let’s move on to the next round.
THE AL WILSON BRACKET – ROUND TWO
#1) Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels @ WM21
From my WM21 recap: This was amazing. This did live up to the hype. This did meet all expectations. This did deliver the goods the way we all hoped it would. My God. The amount of counter holds seen in this match was unreal. It was wrestling at its absolute best. Amazing stuff here. I can’t say it enough. You didn’t know when it was going to end. There was incredible spot after incredible spot here. Finishers kicked out of, drama at the end, and everything you want in a match. The match time was great, the pacing was really good because it built up to the end and the last ten minutes were as good a finish to a match that you can have. This was a dream match for me. My two favorite wrestlers at the time – along with Benoit – working in singles for the first time ever. And they delivered. It’s interesting to note that Angle’s health was a huge question at this point as well. He managed to make it through the match and they had other matches that were very good as well. This was their best, though. I’ll never get tired of watching it.
VERSUS
#5) Edge vs. Mick Foley in a Hardcore Match @ WM22
From my WM22 review: I loved it. Great action in this match. The risks they took were amazing with both guys doing unbelievable bumps. It was similar to Orton/Foley from 2004 although I liked that match just a bit more. This was still pretty damn great though. The use of the tacks worked, Lita did an excellent job as the heel manager and I loved the spot early in the match when Edge’s spear on Foley was countered by barbed wire being wrapped around Mick’s body. The finish with Edge giving Foley a spear through the ropes into a flaming table was one of the most memorable match finishes in WrestleMania history.
Here’s the poll:
The winner of that matchup faces the winner of this one:
#2) Owen Hart vs. Bret Hart @ WM10
Love the story going in about how Bret doesn’t really want to fight him, but has to if he wants his title match later in the night. I don’t know if many people thought Owen was going to win. I sure didn’t as a 13 year old that was rooting for the heel because just like him I was a younger brother that fought with my older brother once in a while. When he pulled it off I cheered even though he was a heel. It was such perfect booking. Bret could afford the loss because he was winning the belt later and now they had their feud to carry them through the summer. This was as good a technical wrestling match as there’s ever been at a WrestleMania and it still holds up 16 years later. I’ll never get tired of this one, nor will I stop celebrating when I see Owen celebrate what was a huge upset.
VERSUS
#3) Edge & Christian vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. The Hardy Boyz in a TLC Match for the WWF Tag Titles @ WM17
From my Top 50 PPV matches from 2000-2004 column: The addition of Rhyno, Spike and Lita added something good to the match that wasn’t there before. The spots in this match were once again awesome as all six guys, plus their three friends, busted their asses to put on a great show. As usual, Jeff Hardy took the most insane bumps with the Swanton onto two people as well as the biggest bump of the night which was the spear he took from Edge while hanging onto the belts. It was one of the sickest bumps I have ever seen and quite frankly I’m surprised he could walk after that one. Then of course there was the bump by Matt Hardy & Bubba Ray Dudley off the giant ladder through the stacked tables on the floor. That was just sick.
The other thing that sticks out is the chemistry these teams had by the time of this match. They had everything planned out so meticulously and perfectly. It worked in every way possible. I liked the ending of this one better than the other two, which makes it the best of the three. I liked it because it was heels acting like heels, cheating to win a match on the biggest stage of them all. I like that a lot. Also of note is the time of the match. Sixteen minutes is the right amount of time. I like that because it’s unrealistic to expect guys to kill themselves like this for over twenty minutes.
Here are the polls:
We’ll post the Naked Mideon’s bracket second round pairings on Friday.
Thanks for reading, watching and voting.
JC
this has to be one of the hardest brackets to vote against now that we are down to the last 4 matches. Both should be close, but I think Angle/Michaels have it in the bag, as for the TLC/Hart match, very close and could go either way
I voted for Angle/Michaels. It was a huge match going into it and it delivered as far as I’m concerned. I really like Edge/Foley. I can honestly say I liked it more on multiple viewings, but I think it’s a notch below Angle/Michaels in terms of quality.
For the second one, it was a tough call. I really loved both matches, but I ended up going with Hart/Hart. Part of it is because of the emotional attachment I had with the match. I was always a huge fan of Owen Hart fan, so to see him beat Bret clean like that was a momentous thing for me. The fact that I can watch it again 16 years later and marvel at the quality of technical wrestling lets me know that I’m right in thinking it’s one of the best matches ever. The TLC is the best one that they had, but I grew up on Hart/Hart. It means too much to me and in the sense of the “better match” that’s what I’m going with.
Angle/Michaels for the win vs Edge/Foley. I loved that the hype for Angle/Michaels was huge and they lived up to it.
Hart/Hart over TLC. I like TLC a lot and have recently rewatched it and it’s still better than any of the MITB matches. Just an awesome ladder match that was faster paced because of the team aspect. However, Hart/Hart is the better match. Great psychology, awesome build, fantastic ending, and just really smartly done. It deserves to move on more than the TLC match does.
I guess I’m a hardcore mark. I voted for Edge/Foley and TLC. You can’t take away the epicness of Angle/HBK… But I think 20 years down the line I’ll remember the flaming table spot more than I will Angle/HBK.
I went for Angle/Michaels and TLC 2.
Simple reason being that these are two of my favourite matches in the times that I’ve been watching wrestling (2000-current).
Foley/Edge was good, but Angle/Michaels – as I’ve said before – is my favourite match ever. I’m biased because Angle was in it, but he’s still my favourite wrestler ever and that match was insane when I watched it for the first time. Watching it again, knowing how rare a match like that is, makes me appreciate it even more.
I’m watching Hart/Hart now on YouTube and, while I’m in no doubt that it’s a technical wrestling masterpiece – I’m on Part 2 now and it’s great – I’ve no idea of the backstory or emotional investment into the match, unlike when I watched TLC 2 when I was firmly backing The Hardy Boyz in everything they did and I loved the feud between them and the other two teams. Not to mention that sick spear spot on Jeff Hardy being one of my favourite spots of all time. All the camera bulbs flashing, then they stop as soon as he hits the mat. That’s almost as good as the move itself! My 2nd favourite Hardy spot was the time he did the Swanton on D-Von through the table from the “cheap seats” at MSG at the Royal Rumble 2000 – my first event. From that night, I was a Hardys fan, not to mention a Kurt Angle fan after he opened the show!
Angle/Michaels will get my vote over pretty much any match, it has to be said.
Wow, how the Hell is TLC beating Bret v. Owen?
Yeah really I have no idea. I guess there are a lot of spot match fans out there.
The poster above says he wasn’t watching during Hart/Hart. If you think about it that was 16 years ago, which means there are plenty of online fans who weren’t born then. Kinda puts into perspective why Bret isn’t more over today. I can only assume that if I were a kid during the attitude era I’d feel nostalgic about TLC matches instead of Hart/Hart.
I assume Hart/Hart is losing because there are a lot of wrestling fans that consider spotfests to be wrestling.
That isn’t to say the TLC wasn’t a great match, but we knew we were gonna get a trainwreck before the contestants came out. These fans will see tiny athletic types go to bigger promotions and wonder why they’re not allowed to go balls to the wall with high flying crazy shit. Generally, I would assume safety comes #1, second…a match consisting of barbed wire, fire, explosions, blood, 15 chairshots in a row, and ending it all with some thumbtacks and a garbage can isn’t telling any kind of story, except maybe raw hatred?
Edge/Foley really showed us how hardcore can make a match better, but Foley has built his name off of that. He’s good at what he does. As for the spotfest flippy types, ask little guido about the flippy guy who broke his face, nose, and a ton of other stuff by botching a 450 and landing his knee on Nunzio/Guidos face. True story.
I voted Hart/Hart, as I’m a fan of the classics, and any time owen stepped in with bret, we had a classic. They have a steel cage match somewhere along the line, where bret keeps hauling owen into the cage and owen keeps trying to slip away and get the easy win. Those two could tell a story. Hell, Bret has sold me books! TLC was great, and will always be memorable…but dear god. I really wish we wouldn’t as fans encourage this sort of behavior. I like Matt/Jeff, Team 3D, AND E & C. I would hate to think any of them had health issues down the road or their careers got shortened due to this craziness. People wonder why wrestlers used to seem so prone to abusing pain killers? Matches like this are probably why.
Angle/HBK beats Edge/Foley for all the reasons listed above. If you had the Edge/Foley vs Dreamer/Funk match there also, I’d vote against that too. Angle/HBK was pure intelligence in the ring, and I’d watch those two clash time and time and time again. Remember those couple of years where it seemed every PPV main event was HHH vs HBK for the world title? Yeah. I wish we had a couple years of Angle/HBK to make up for that.
Don’t get me wrong, LOVED Edge vs Foley, it was a hardcore match that DID tell me a story, albeit a touch violent. I don’t like seeing edge get cut up, or Lita bleeding from the mouth due to a barbed wire mandible claw. I get that you’re entertaining me, but you don’t need to kill yourselves to do that. This match was unique from most spotfest matches, because it was obvious they were careful as possible, and they’re both great workers at what they do. I just don’t think the in ring action, even with the awesome flaming table finish, holds a candle to Angle/HBK. (See what I did there?)
There was a time when I chanted EEE-SEE-DUBLYOU with the rest of them. I was younger, and the violence really was an enticement, a draw, because I’d never seen it before. It was more believable. Years down the road, I feel bad. A lot of the ECW alumni that didn’t bail out when they thought “these people are f***ing nuts” are showing a lot of wear and tear, especially in their in ring speed. There’s a lot of names ECW made me respect, and it makes me feel bad to see them broken down, some of them before they’re 40.
I have always loved Bret & Owen but have never been wowed by their WM match. The fact that Owen won & then Bret was the one that actually walked away w. the title was complete crap to me & I think that’s why I don’t like the opening match as much as many others
I always thought they should have had Owen challenge Bret for the title after the Yokozuna match when everybody was holding Bret on their shoulders, and then walk out with the title. I feel Owen/Bret, and HBK/Hall were the two main event matches at WM10. If Owen had walked out with the title they wouldn’t have had to put the title on Bob Backlund, and Diesel just to get it away from Bret, and that would have meant better matches, and more legit champions(nothing agianst Bob Backland he was 3 times the performer that Nash was when he got beat in like a minute).
ECW wasn’t just about hardcore it was about realy good matches. The guys that couldn’t wrestle to good used it to their advantage(Ric Flair was right, but not in Foley’s case), but there were guys that really had awesome matches even without the hardcore aspect, but when they used the hardcore it was to tell a story, but it wasn’t the basis of the whole match.
I’m 27 years old and while I’m more partial to the technical wrestling matches of Bret-Owen, I also enjoy the hell out of the TLC matches. I think people voting in this contest should remember that John is asking us which is the better wrestling match, not which is the most exciting match. Obviously, the TLC match is more exciting. However, I don’t think there’s any doubt the Bret-Owen match is the much better wrestling match.
HBK-Angle and Hart-Hart. I’ll go on record as saying I LOVE Edge-Foley and TLC. TLC is the best spotfest match ever. Edge-Foley is arguably the best “hardcore” match WWE has ever put on (Orton-Foley was damn good too). I would never expect wrestlers to put on these kinds of matches often…but I admit that I miss seeing these happen like 1 or 2 times a year.
However….I’ve said before that HBK-Angle is my 2nd fav WM match ever. And Hart-Hart was great to watch. Good pacing and great storytelling. I still remember Owen’s reaction after he won–just awesome. The feud those two had in 1994 was great…the cage match at SS was fantastic as well. Why this feud never led to an Owen title run is beyond me.
I’m a bit sad that a guimmick match will beat Hart/Hart. Maybe a good guimmick match, but a guimmick match, still.
The feud between the 2 brothers was huge and that was a great match, with the upset at the end. Maybe because I was a big Owen fan at the time and this is his greatest match ever, most likely. Wanted it to win the bracket, but will probably not happen now.
This tourney is all chalk with the 4 #1 seeds so we know Angle/HBK deserves to be in the final four.
TLC2 was better than Bret vs Owen. TLC2 perfected the ladder match, hasn’t been topped, and it was at the best Wrestlemania of all time.
Bret vs Owen was better in the steel cage match at Summerslam in my opinion.
I am still in awe that a “wrestling” match with foreign objects is way ahead of one of the greatest technical wrestling matches of our time. Just goes to show how many kids must be voting on this poll. Next poll, you should come up with a way of blocking out would be voters who dont appreciate wrestling. Just saying…..
I can see some frustration from TLC 2 beating Hart vs Hart….and while I do agree Hart vs Hart was good. I can’t agree that it beats TLC 2. The contest is Greatest WM Match ever. And I agree it’s not the most exciting WM match contest. Neither is it the best Technical Wrestling contest either. With that being said, I’m going to think of the match that stands out the most in my mind that will stand the test of time. In a WM 17 where 95% of any wrestling fan will tell you is the best WM, this is one of the reasons why. 6 men walking into the ring throwin their bodies on the line and caution to the wind for the tag team titles what was at that time, precious. The like of a tag team battle of this magnitude is just about extinct, now. We will never see something like that again, where we could possibly see Hart vs Hart next year if Danielson wrestles Jericho for 20 min IMO. So for the match, the WM moment, and the ability to know where I was at when I first put my eyes on it. I have to go w/ TLC 2 hands down.
This is not making sense to me. Some of you people are acting as though it was a 500 lighttube, barbwire on fire, lawnmower on a pole match where the winner is the person who doesn’t die just because whoever booked it thought it would be cool… Using weapons is a very effective way to add to the story of a feud if done properly. Triple H/Catus Jack from RR 2000 and the 3 Stages of Hell match between Triple H and Austin are great examples.
Tamara Love said “a match consisting of barbed wire, fire, explosions, blood, 15 chairshots in a row, and ending it all with some thumbtacks and a garbage can isn’t telling any kind of story, except maybe raw hatred?” EXACTLY!!! It shows the level of hatred between the two performers and what they are willing to do/put themselves through in order to accomplish victory.
TLC II is not CZW. The use of weapons is not CZW. That’s what you don’t like and there is a HUGE difference.
So it’ll be Angle/Michaels vs. TLC in the Elite 8 round.