10 Most Shocking WrestleMania Turns
Crossing the great divide on 'The Grandest Stage'
In reference to his show-stealing classic with Shawn Michaels and WrestleMania XIX, Chris Jericho once made the point of just how hard it was to have a memorable match in professional wrestling.
That seems off-kilter at first glance. As fans, we're constantly collating and updating our favourites lists with matches old and new. Access has never been better, allowing audiences of all ages into all eras, with and without context to judge contests through any prism of choice. Added to that is the weekly churn of good-to-great in-ring action on almost every episode of mainstream wrestling television.
Raw and SmackDown will present absolute drivel dressed as storylines, but the quality of the work is such that sometimes the shows are good in spite of themselves. AEW promises elite tier work in the company initials and delivers it more often than not as a modus operandi. NXT 2.0 is more punchline than punch-up now, but even that will have at least one match a week that would, from an in-ring point of view, stand up against almost anything Vince McMahon promoted in the 1970s and 1980s.
All these speaks to Jericho's original point - there's so much good stuff that maybe it is just that tough to have a memorable match after all. Not least at a WrestleMania, and not least when you can shock the world with a simple pivot of the hips...
10. Mike Tyson (WrestleMania XIV)
As if signing Mike Tyson on for WrestleMania XIV's promotional push wasn't a masterstroke enough on Vince McMahon's part, the subsequent creative for 'The Baddest Man On The Planet' was just as dynamic.
Getting into a scuffle with number one contender Stone Cold Steve Austin on his first night in the promotion, Tyson was then positioned with D-Generation-X renegades Shawn Michaels and Triple H shortly after being announced as the guest enforcer for the mammoth title battle between 'The Rattlesnake' and 'The Heartbreak Kid'.
Ostensibly stacking the odds further against Austin, Tyson's presence at ringside was there to ensure Michaels left WrestleMania with the title, but a secret betrayal of the champion lay afoot.
Austin would hit a Stone Cold Stunner on Shawn late in the contest, but looked around to see the referee still knocked out from getting trapped between Michaels, Austin and the ringpost.
Leaping into the ring to (rather too quickly) count the three on Michaels, Tyson had betrayed his relationship with DX to guide Austin to his first ever World Title, posing for the mainstream media beauty shots of the two arm-in-arm to close one of the most important broadcasts in the company's history.