Ranking All 16 WWE WrestleMania Celebrity Matches

11. WrestleMania 21: Akebono Versus Big Show

Johnny Knoxville WrestleMania celebrity matches ranked
WWE.com

You’re forgiven if you read that and said, “Who?” at the screen.

Continuing the theme of celebrity involvement being a spectacle more than a competition, former sumo champ Akebono battled Big Show in a sumo match… inside a ropeless wrestling ring. The two went through the pre-match rituals, salted the ring and locked up… for an action-packed 63 seconds until Akebono threw Show out of both rings. The pre-match shenanigans and “psych-out” antics before they made contact lasted longer than the physical part of the match itself.

Thankfully, WWE did not try to play this for laughs with Big Show wearing traditional sumo garb. One has to wonder if Vince McMahon was tranquilized or if Akebono has it stipulated in his contract that the company couldn’t make a mockery of his sport if he competed.

Akebono did go on to a lengthy wrestling career in Japan, winning titles in ZERO1 and All Japan Pro Wrestling.

 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.