10 Longest Gaps Ever Between WWE WrestleMania Matches

by John Bills

1. 21 Years - Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat

Ricky Steamboat Chris Jericho WrestleMania 25 XXV
WWE.com

Only one man has ever had to wait more than two decades between WrestleMania appearances, and that man is none other than Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat. The Dragon returned to WrestleMania after 21 years to team with Snuka and Piper in that match against Jericho, and it was Steamboat who came out of the match with the most credit. The Dragon looked so good that a singles match with Y2J soon followed.

That was 2009, and you have to go all the way back to 1988 to find the previous time Steamboat's name appeared on the WrestleMania card. At WrestleMania IV, Steamboat took on Greg 'The Hammer' Valentine in the first round of the WWF Championship tournament. Steamboat came up short in the match, and left the company soon after.

Steamboat was on the losing side at the end of that 21 year wait, but interestingly enough the same can be said for the vast majority of the names on this list. Only The Rock, Matt Borne, Terry Funk and Bret Hart were victorious on their WrestleMania returns.

Despite the WWE's obsession with legends and nostalgia acts, it is difficult to see how Steamboat's 21 year record can be broken. Nothing is impossible in pro wrestling, but someone like Kevin Nash would have to make a pretty remarkable comeback for The Dragon to be knocked off the top of this list.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.