3. Steve Austin Vs. Undertaker - Fully Loaded 1999
Far from the prettiest match on this list, the First Blood match between Stone Cold and Taker was a helluva brawl to watch unfold. The stipulations going into this one were pretty significant at the time: If Austin won, Mr. McMahon was never allowed on WWE television again. But if Undertaker won, Austin would never receive another shot at the WWE Championship. (In hindsight, either possible ending was ludicrous. But at the time both of these things could have very well been legit.) Add to that Undertaker's "personal" quest to make Austin bleed and you've got yourself a pretty dramatic matchup. Even without the storyline build-up, there's a sly sense of drama to a match like this, where the ultimate goal is to bust open your open's face to get the win. Both men are constantly reversing each other's maneuvers and engaging in a lot of near misses, which only builds the anticipation from the crowd, who are clearly chomping at the bit to see it all culminate in a bloody mess. There's been a lot of brawl style matches in WWE history, but this may be the most methodical of them all. That may sound like a given considering The Undertaker was involved, but reigning in someone as occasionally wild and flailing as Stone Cold is no easy feat. Here though, Austin looks every bit as steady as The Dead Man, working him over in an brutally calculated manner. When Undertaker gets tied up in the ropes toward the end of the match, and Stone Cold grabs a steel chair, the pop from the crowd really says all that needs to be said about the tension-building these two pulled off. There are some WTF moments for sure (Shane McMahon and X-Pac and Triple H and The Rock and Vince McMahon all get into the ring at various points), but this match ultimately works so well because of the little things these two titans did to make the melee look so meticulous.