Why WWE WrestleMania No Longer Has The Best Matches Of The Year
10. WrestleMania XXVII To WrestleMania 35: Part-Timers Take Over (II)
From 2008 to 2011, a significant amount
of WWE’s Ruthless Aggression Era mainstays gradually moved away from our
screens; be it because they left the company (Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Batista,
Shane McMahon), retired (Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, Edge) or started
part-timing (The Undertaker, Triple H, Chris Jericho). A new generation was
supposed to take over.
At that time, if you would've asked fans to fantasy-book WrestleMania cards for the next decade, the main event slots would've quite possibly been filled with the likes of Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler, Sheamus, The Miz, Wade Barrett, Cody Rhodes, Drew McIntyre, Kofi Kingston, Jack Swagger or John Morrison...
Instead, we got The Rock, Brock Lesnar, Triple H, The Undertaker, Sting, Kurt Angle, Shane McMahon, Goldberg and Batista. It's simple: from the 28th to the 37th editions of the annual Showcase of the Immortals, the main event has always featured a part-timer. And if nowadays the idea of a Dolph Ziggler vs Cody Rhodes one-on-one closing WrestleMania 31 seems unimaginable, try to picture the raised eyebrows of fans in ‘96 if you had told them that Rocky Maivia and The Ringmaster would main event the show in three short years.