10 WWE WrestleMania Matches That Had To Follow Something Infamously Terrible
WrestleMania NO-ments.
It won't be easy being a part of the WrestleMania 36 card.
Imagine you're a wrestler, and it's January. You've been given confirmation you're going to be working at WrestleMania. Perhaps it's your first one, or your first title match, or your first main event, or a dream match with a legend. You're permitted to picture Raymond James Stadium in Tampa near capacity with fireworks and all sorts bouncing off that pirate ship at the back, all serving as vindication of the career choice you made and the hard yards making it viable.
And then nothing. Almost literally so.
The 'Show Of Shows' this year will be like no other one in the event's history, but that's likely to be the only thing of any magnitude about it. Matches will be worked in as-yet-unknown empty venues or the known-too-well empty Performance Center over two pre-taped days. Get excited roster, get excited fans, because this WrestleMania will be "Too Big For Just One Night!" or whatever it is they've added to those banter t-shirts.
Along with attempting to manage your personal and professional disappointment and expectations, there exists the task of paying off a half-finished programme in a match that won't look or feel quite right and may never be watched again. Michael Cole will call it a "WrestleMania Moment" and you'll know that because you'll hear it hit the table.
But still, at least WrestleMania 37 will look incredible getting to follow it next year. Just make sure you make the card!
10. John Bradshaw Layfield Vs. John Cena Following Big Show Vs. Akebono (WrestleMania 21)
What else did WWE realistically expect when they put The Big Show in sumo attire in a body-shaming exercise couched as a WrestleMania spectacle against Akebono?
A flawed celebrity/special attraction match that had more going for it before the match than during, the contest required fans to give a toss about the import (they didn't), buy into an imagined dislike between the large lads (they didn't) and care about the result (they did... but only because The Big Show fell clean out of the ring in something the presentation was happy to let you think looked a bit silly).
It was the opposite of sumo in a sense in that it was a WWE-brand "let me up" before the John Cena/John Bradshaw Layfield showdown, but it was too effective. Fairly well trained hardcores in Los Angeles had barely plugged into the moribund Championship battle before Cena shrugged off some Layfield attacks and planted him with a match-winning FU in the most pedestrian of torch-passings between one man who didn't have the prestige to hand it over and another that suddenly didn't look ready for it.
WrestleMania 21 is a diverse and dynamic show for the most part, but two dead spots going back-to-back undercut what had otherwise been approaching all-timer status.