10 Best Wrestling Trilogies

Triple H and Batista had the slow-build story, the intensely personal rivalry and the high stakes. All they needed was to deliver in the ring.

Their first match, though - the go-home bout at WrestleMania 21 - perhaps suffered from being placed after the Shawn Michaels-Kurt Angle encounter that preceded it. The pressure of his first big singles gig seemed to weigh heavily on The Animal's shoulders, and the match fell, at least somewhat, below the pre-show expectations.

But with familiarity came better results. The Backlash replay saw a significant improvement, and the third and final match two months later at Vengeance - aided by the Hell in a Cell structure - was one of the very best matches of 2005 (and perhaps still the defining one of Big Dave's wrestling career).