10 Most Influential WWE Matches Ever
1. Randy Savage Vs. Ricky Steamboat - WrestleMania III
In the territory days, a wrestling match wasn't laid out in advance; it was, bar the finish, an improvised art driven by the audience reaction.
If they rejected the action between the ropes, the wrestlers would change narrative tack; if what they were doing was well received, they'd continue along that path.
Randy Savage Vs. Ricky Streamboat changed wrestling on a fundamental level. In his quest for perfection, and to steal the show Hogan sold, Savage insisted on meticulously pre-planning every move and sequence in advance - an approach Vince McMahon would later insist on making the norm.
Certain people within wrestling have bemoaned the pre-planned nature of the seminal fifteen minute Detroit match, the DNA of which can be found all over every episode of Monday Night RAW to this day.
Steamboat himself has often been loathe to discuss it, with many perceiving this reticence as proof that he doesn't feel he has any ownership or pride over it. It was Savage's baby. Steamboat ironically would later become a road agent - whose role it is to pre-plan WWE matches in advance.
George "The Animal" Steele was in Steamboat's corner both in the match itself and in his appraisal of it; as a graduate of the old school, he felt that it betrayed the artistry of the wrestling craft - something Ric Flair agreed with in his autobiography, To Be The Man.