The modern professional wrestling fan may take them for granted somewhat, but three way matches were once extremely innovative. There is a lot of debate around where the concept started in North American pro-wrestling, with some claiming ECW popularised the match with the infamous Terry Funk v Shane Douglas v Sabu bout in 1994. Regardless of where it came from, in the 1990s it was still new and fresh. Due to the fairly modern creation of the match, there wasn't a single triple threat match (as it is known in WWE) at WrestleMania until WrestleMania XV in 1999. If you can guess who was involved in the match before clicking through the answers, your WWE trivia is on point to say the least. Since the very first one, there has been a total of 15 triple threats on the Grandest Stage of Them All. All except one has seen a championship on the line, with three of these closing out the show, although this didn't first happen until WrestleMania XX. In fact, between WrestleMania XV and XXVI, only two Manias (XXI and XXIII) have been without a single three way. Where do all of these matches stack up against each other? Some have deservedly reached legendary status, whereas some others are best left forgotten. Here is every triple threat match at WrestleMania, ranked from worst to best.
15. Jazz (c) Vs. Trish Stratus Vs. Lita - WrestleMania X-8
It is with a slightly heavy heart that I place this match at the bottom of the list, as it had the unenviable honour of following The Rock vs. 'Hollywood' Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania X-8, one of the greatest matches in the history of the event. The crowd were completely spent at the climax of that contest, and the decision not to close the show with it looks more and more like lunacy with every passing year. The three women fought over the Women's Championship, and though they worked hard they were fighting a losing battle from the start as the crowd just did not care. Take the audience reaction out of it however and you have a decent match, with Jazz anchoring everything so that the two popular women could bump off her, which they did with some aplomb. It's easy to forget just how enjoyable a performer Jazz was; she played her role in the division to perfection. She picked up the win in this match by absolutely destroying Lita with a top rope Fisherman's Suplex.
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.
