1. The Rock vs Mankind - WWE Championship Match - Raw, Jan 4th, 1999
Mick Foley was always going to win the WWF title somehow, it was just a matter of when, where and as what persona. After McMahon screwed Mankind over at Survivor Series in '98, he went on to feud with the Corporate Champion, The Rock. They first faced off at Rock Bottom: In Your House, Foley successfully knocked The Rock out, but Vince threw out the match on a technicality claiming that The Rock never gave up and was still the WWF Champion. Mankind received another chance at the main event of Raw on January 4th. As The Corporation story-line was company wide, practically the whole locker room was at ringside to watch the match, with almost constant interference. Mankind took a chair shot from Shamrock, Billy Gunn evened things up, with the final moment being a shocking return from Stone Cold Steve Austin. With yet another chair shot The Rock went down, as Austin dragged Mankind over for the cover. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60pU-fAcLdk Mankind's first WWF Championship is a huge event, in a gigantic match for TV. A match of that calibre on TV shows how valuable TV ratings were back in the Monday Night Wars. In fact, the match was so huge it arguably stole part of WCW's viewership after they changed the channel, thanks to Tony Schiavone.
Sam is an experienced Film, Gaming and Wrestling writer, critic and journalist who was written for a vast number of different entertainment websites. Follow him on twitter at @Sams_Reel_Views.
