10 Classic WrestleMania Moments (WWE Won’t Ever Brag About)
8. The Return Of The Dragon
The handicap match positioning Chris Jericho against the legendary triumvirate of Jimmy Snuka, Roddy Piper and Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat was an embarrassment in both set up and execution. It was a compromise hastily rearranged after The Wrestler star Micky Rourke turned down a singles bout with Jericho and was, for a good four minutes, a calamitous catastrophe. Even in his capacity as a ringside spectator, Rourke wore the expression of a man who did not want to be there.
His mood must have worsened when confronted by Jericho's exchanges with Snuka and Piper. You could see dust, much less rust, on Piper. Snuka, mercifully, wasn't afforded the chance to embarrass himself; he only left his feet when Jericho upended him for the Walls. Jim Ross, in stark contrast to his 2018 Twitter form, described everything the men did as "bowling shoe ugly". But, in an awesome and completely unexpected cameo, the Dragon rediscovered his fire on the night. Timing everything with the perfect precision of a Swiss watchmaker, Steamboat delivered a lesson in emotion-driven wrestling, launching himself across the ring with a jaw-dropping cross body block, selling Jericho's subsequent cut-off as if in palpable agony, and waiting until the last possible second to send Jericho tumbling with a back body drop from the apron.
Unfortunately, the controversial reaction to WWE's poor-taste celebration of Jimmy Snuka last year means that this is bound, over time, to find its way onto the cutting room floor.