9 Times WWE's WrestleMania Main Event Was The Worst Match On The Card

8. WrestleMania X8: When Triple H MUST Go On Last

A recurring theme of terrible WrestleMania main events isn’t that they’re necessarily horrible matches on their own, but they’re lackluster or boring, most certainly shouldn’t have closed the show, and there was an obvious alternative to finish 'Mania on the highest of high notes.

Why did matches like these take the main event slot? We’ll let the facts speak for themselves.

WrestleMania X8 had the misfortune of taking place on the back of the end of the Monday Night War and the failed Alliance invasion angle. WWF hadn’t yet transitioned from the Attitude Era to Ruthless Aggression, and Brock Lesnar and John Cena had yet to debut.

But Triple H made his triumphant return from a torn quadriceps, and the original nWo made its WWF bow, so all was well, right?

The match card played out to mixed results, with nothing approaching great until the match that should have main-evented, Hollywood Hogan versus The Rock. Fans know the story of that match all too well, so let’s just state that it’s the Best Match Ever and move on.

Unfortunately, what closed WrestleMania X8 was Triple H finally getting his big singles main event and revenge against arch enemy… estranged (storyline) wife Stephanie McMahon – and Undisputed WWF Champion and Stephanie’s unofficial dog walker Chris Jericho.

Triple H and Y2J had a long, slow, dull match that saw Hunter understandably sell the leg, but a gassed crowd could not care less. Meant to be the workrate bait match of the night, it hardly featured the best moves ever.

The match is never mentioned except when fans ask what actually closed Mania that year instead of Rock/Hogan. It had the weight of salvaging a borderline card and following one of the biggest matches in wrestling history, and it failed miserably on both accounts.