10 Dream Wrestling Matches That Didn't Deliver

Last week, WWE fans got another harsh lesson in the difference between expectation and reality when The Undertaker made his triumphant return at WrestleMania 34, only to fight a match that was shorter in length than his ring entrance.

This is nothing that followers of wrestling haven't seen a hundred times before, of course. The very nature of the business is that it's live and unpredictable. Where movies and TV shows have the luxury of a re-shoot, a wrestler having an off-night or the creative team misreading a crowd can irreparably ruin the whole occasion.

Countless matches, billed as ostensible dream encounters in the build-up, have ended up falling flat on the night itself, and often it's not necessarily because their technical quality has been below-par (although this is often incidentally true) but because the climax is just weak and unsatisfying, leaving more questions than it does answers.

You would think, after so many letdowns, we as fans would learn to moderate our expectations in the future, but that's easier said than done. We're always apt to be reeled back in by another clash of the titans, wondering whether this is the one where they finally deliver on the hype.

It was only for a small group of fans that Triple H versus Sting at WrestleMania three years ago actually constituted a "dream match". The rest of us were far more keen on the idea of the WCW icon, taking his long-awaited first steps in a WWE ring, facing The Undertaker.

But that's partly what marks this one down as such a disappointment. It was Sting's only appearance on the Grandest Stage of Them All, and it was wasted in the ring against a man who was a distant second on the list of opponents we wanted to see him face.

Even on its own terms, the match wasn't exactly a classic. The No Disqualification stipulation wasn't made proper use of for most of the 18-minute run-time, and the finish - with HHH picking up the victory - felt awfully anti-climactic to boot.

There were cool scenes after the final bell when a gaggle of Monday Night Wars legends descended to the ring in the aid of an intense stare-down (ending with that idiotic handshake), but you expected far more from the bout itself.