6: Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant WrestleMania 3
The irresistible force vs the immoveable object. The famous words said by Gorilla Monsoon as the two biggest stars in the history of professional wrestling faced off in this classic main event. Now let’s be clear about this, this match isn’t the greatest display of wrestling ever, but wrestling ability alone isn’t what makes pro wrestling, and it certainly isn’t what the spectacle of WrestleMania is solely about.
Andre was advertised as undefeated at this stage or his career (true or not) and this match was taking place in front of the largest crowd for wrestling ever with 93,000 fans in attendance (true or not) and is one of the most important matches in wrestling history (true). Hulkamania was already running wild, but this win cermented Hogan into legendary status and gave us the most famous WrestleMania moment of all time when the Hulkster was able to pick up and body slam Andre the Giant to the fans shock and delight.
5: Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels WrestleMania 12
Perhaps the two greatest in ring wrestlers of all time, Bret Hart took on Shawn Michaels in a 60 minute iron man match at WrestleMania 12. Shawn had won the Royal Rumble two years running, and whilst he came up short in his challenge against Diesel the year before, this was a baby face Shawn Michaels on the path to fulfil his boyhood dream.
An iron man match if you didn’t know, is a match that will last a set length of time such as 30 minutes or an hour, and the winner is the person who manages to win the most falls during that time.
The WWE doesn’t often do iron man matches, and so it’s odd in a sense that they chose for this match to go the entire hour without a fall. This made the final minutes of the match tense as there was no man with the advantage, but things really heated up in the final minute when Bret was able to put Shawn into his signature sharpshooter submission hold. The fans went crazy as they were hoping Shawn would either submit or survive the time limit and as the time ended Shawn did not submit.
This lead to the very controversial ending where it was decided that the match would restart and Shawn was able to surprise a flustered Hart with a superkick and win the belt.
