14. The Ultimate Warrior Vs. Ravishing Rick Rude (WrestleMania 5)
This Intercontinental title match is underrated in one sense because of overshadowing. WrestleMania 5 is the "Hogan-Savage" WrestleMania, and the thirteen matches taking place before the main event were mostly space-occupiers. One of the exceptions is Warrior vs. Rude, which is not only a very good match, but one of Warrior's first good matches, period. Rude was game to bounce around the ring selling Warrior's mighty offense, providing a watchable current to the match, and taking it out of the usual Warrior fare. The Atlantic City casino crowd was mostly humdrum throughout the afternoon, but Warrior and Rude spurred them awake with a killer ten-minute battle with plenty of visual spikes. Their SummerSlam match that year would be even better, but here was a fine building block.
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.
