Nowadays, WrestleMania storylines too often take the form of vanity projects. Participants in the higher-profile matches crave emphatic victories over their iconic foes for aparently no other reasons except to have a 'WrestleMania moment', or to boost their own 'legacy'. Whatever happened to the storylines where somebody would be horribly wronged, bide their time, and then annihilate the villain in front of wrestling's largest viewing audience? If anything, I'd wager the increasing disconnect between the audience and the product is due to an increasing lack in such stories. From Rocky Balboa to Frank Castle to Bruce Wayne to Paul Kersey (that's Charles Bronson in Death Wish, kiddos), there are plenty of three-dimensional characters through the ages that prove there's money to be made in selling revenge fantasies. Wrestling used to be pretty good at this in the days before the executives would pat themselves on the back with corporate branding. But instead of complaining about the sterility of today's creative (for the most part), let's look back at ten times where WWE satiated the audience with a well-crafted tale of vengeance at WrestleMania. As a note, I excluded Undertaker ending Shawn Michaels' career at WrestleMania 26, even if it was in fact revenge for Shawn costing him the World Heavyweight title five weeks earlier. To qualify for this list, I decided that the one getting comeuppance had to be a heel. Without that stipulation, it's in the top three or four 'Mania paybacks ever.
Justin has been a wrestling fan since 1989, and has been writing about it since 2009. Since 2014, Justin has been a features writer and interviewer for Fighting Spirit Magazine. Justin also writes for History of Wrestling, and is a contributing author to James Dixon's Titan series.
