26: Triple H vs Mick Foley vs The Rock vs The Big Show – WrestleMania 16
WrestleMania 16 is a show where the main event was formed not from careful planning, but as a response to evolving state of the main event picture on the roster. Steve Austin was out with injury, and so the long rumoured main event of the Big Show vs Steve Austin was not to be. Add to this that despite the Big Show having a huge contract in the WWF after jumping ship from WCW he hadn’t made the impact that had been desired. Yes he got in the main event, but was not put in as the focus he could have been. Some have said this was down to the Big Show’s lack of discipline at the time, but history has also told us that the WWE really struggled to know how to use the 7 foot tall giant.
Triple H was still early enough in his main event career that he wasn’t quite being given the ball to run with as he would be in years to come. And The Rock was still rising up the ranks as a main event face in the company having only a year earlier been in the main event as a heel against Austin.
The trio of Big Show vs Triple H vs Rock wasn’t quite seen as strong enough so the WWE thought to bring Mick Foley out of retirement only a month after he lost a retirement match at the Hell in the Cell match against Triple H. Foley has said that he didn’t intend to come back, but when the opportunity to come back to the main event of WrestleMania came up he couldn’t resist it.
The match was decent, but was the start of a trend of multi-man matches to main event Mania. To add extra spice to the main event, the McMahon’s crowbarred themselves into the feud with each of Vince, Stephanie, Shane and Linda being in the corner of one of the wrestlers.
25: Triple H vs Randy Orton – WrestleMania 25
There is no doubt that Randy Orton has formed an incredibly storied career by this stage of the game, but if we roll back to WrestleMania 25 we have a Randy Orton who was still finding himself in ways. This is weird to say as he had first become a world champion almost five years earlier, but as he was the youngest ever world champion it’s understandable that Orton would end up as a multi time world champion before he’d even hit his prime.
This match also came in the height of the Triple H era when everyone was saying that Helmsley was primarily in his position of power and status because of his relationship with Stephanie. Never before had a consistent heel remained on top for so long and repeatedly won main events, and this was the case here. Use of the trusty sledgehammer and a pedigree was enough to send the fans home unhappy as the heel Triple H stood tall.
