14: Ronda Rousey vs Charlotte Flair vs Becky Lynch for Raw and Smackdown Women’s Championships WrestleMania 35
A history making match that was the first womens wrestling match to main event a WrestleMania. For this to happen and break this ground, the stars had been aligning for quite some time before ethe event. Ronda Rousey had made an appearance at WrestleMania a couple of years earlier and was paired with the Rock to set up what would eventually be her debut to tag with the Rock against Triple H and Stephanie McMahon…except plans changed and The Rock was subbed out for Kurt Angle. With The Rock involved we may have had the intergender tag match as the main event, but it was not to be.
Instead we’d have to wait another year for women to wrestle in the main event and with Rousey being a big star in the UFC and in movies she was the perfect person to have as one half of the puzzle for a womens main event. The other half of course was the decorated and respected Charlotte Flair who has the personality, wrestling ability and name recognition to carry a main event against Rousey…except plans once again changed and we ended up with a triple threat match instead.
Rousey was given a mega push, and as often happens in the WWE these days, the fans started to turn on anyone who is perceived to be over pushed. Charlotte was the planned opponent, and all the fans knew it, and whilst the fans didn’t really have an issue with Charlotte, they had also picked The Man Becky Lynch as their hero and my goodness did the fans campaign hard for Becky to get the match.
A few months prior to Mania Becky was due to have a match with Rousey and this wasn’t to happen due to Becky getting badly busted open in an angle which put the match with Ronda on hold. The image of Becky standing proud whilst covered in war paint of her own blood was enough to be Becky’s ‘Stone Cold crimson mask moment’ from WrestleMania 13 and the fans were determined to see Becky get her match with Ronda, and they wanted it at the grandest stage of them all.
Just as WWE had listened to fans and eventually gave us a triple threat featuring Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 30, the WWE listened to fans again and gave Becky the win at the Rumble and even though they teased that Charlotte would get the match instead they did eventually give us the match we wanted and even upped the stakes so that Becky could walk out with both the Raw and Smackdown women’s Championships.
13: Undertaker vs AJ Styles – Boneyard Match WrestleMania 36
In what would turn out to be the Undertaker’s final match before he retired, the Dead Man showed the world the potential of the ‘cinematic wrestling match’. Now some people love these matches and others absolute hate them, but whichever side you land on, it has to be said that the Boneyard Match is perhaps the best example of one to date.
Shot like a short movie, the Boneyard Match was atmospheric, and had the feel of final showdown in a Clint Eastwood action movie, or like a showdown between Rick and Negan in the Walking Dead.
AJ Styles is one of the most talented wrestlers in the world and whilst everyone had initially hoped that their match would be another Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels level classic, the reality was that Undertaker was right at the end of his career and being able to film a match in many takes with carefully planned set pieces was probably the better scenario for this match to have an epic feel. We all remember the disappointing match John Cena had wit the Undertaker, and the WWE were so unsure that the match would even happen, that it wasn’t even confirmed until during the actual event.
It’s also worth noting that this match was never originally supposed to be a WrestleMania main event, but due to the Covid 19 pandemic, WrestleMania 26 was split across two nights and this match headlined the first night giving the Undertaker one final WrestleMania main event and giving AJ Styles his first.
