WWE: 15 Memorable Staples Center Moments

8. WrestleMania 21 - WrestleMania Goes Hollywood

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdfUub3OeYM Wrestlemania 21 was one of the greatest Wrestlemania cards of all time. Being the first Wrestlemania to take place in the Staples Center, WWE went with the theme of €œHollywood,€ for the whole event. In the buildup to the show, various WWE superstars took part in parody trailers of massive Hollywood movies. These included Eddie and Booker doing a great Pulp Fiction, John Cena doing A Few Good Men, Eugene as Forrest Gump and various other superstars trying their hand at Taxi Driver. The show then opened with the best one yet. I€™ll never forget opening video package as Stone Cold Steve Austin acted out a WWE version of the famous speech from Gladiator. Being in LA, it also had a lot of celebrities in attendance including Adam Sandler, Billy Corgan, Motorhead, Ice Cube and Sylvester Stallone. The card itself was just as memorable, with barely a bad match in the bunch (although they managed one or two.) Most famously, Wrestlemania 21 was home to the first ever Money in the Bank ladder match. The supposed brainchild of Chris Jericho, pitted a number of top stars against each other, with the winner gaining a guaranteed title shot whenever they so pleased. The match itself was unbelievable, but at the time no one realised the implications of the match or how important it would become. Since then, all but one of the men who have won the briefcase went on to win the World Title. On this night in LA, Edge became the first to win, marking the beginning of him becoming the Rated R Superstar. Being only the second match of the night, it looked like no one was going to be able to top the Money in the Bank ladder match. That was until Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle made it to the ring and tore the house down. Given the longest time slot on the event, €œMr Wrestlemania,€ and the, €œWrestling Machine€ put on not just the match of the night, but one of the best Wrestlemania matches of all time. After 30 minutes of non stop action and trading finishers, it was Kurt who came out on top, forcing Michaels to submit to the Ankle Lock. This was the caliber of entertainment you expect is one of a kind, but the two somehow managed to replicate the magic a few months later at Vengeance. Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio competed in another fine match together, in their storyline where Eddie struggled over whether or not he could ever bet Rey. This time, Rey picked up another win in what would unfortunately be Eddie€™s last ever Wrestlemania appearance. It was the Streak vs the Legend Killer when Undertaker faced off against Randy Orton. After another good match, that even featured Randy€™s father Bob Orton getting involved, Randy became just another victim and the Undertaker streak continued. In retrospect, both world title matches could never have lived up to the rest of the card in the ring, but both were fine matches in their own right. In the Raw main event, after months in the making, Batista finally got his title shot against Triple H and beat the World Champion with the Batista Bomb to win the world title for the first time. In the Smackdown title match, John Cena pinned JBL in what was also his first ever World Title win. In other events on the night, Stone Cold Steve Austin was the guest for a special edition of Piper€™s Pit, which ended in Carlito and Piper himself getting a stunner. Trish Stratus beat Christy in a standard Women€™s title match and Big Show lost to Akebono in a Sumo match that was a waste of everyone€™s time. Despite this sole lowlight of the show, Wrestlemania 21 was a huge success, and proved to the WWE that the Staples Center was capable of hosting the big events, leading to its now traditional hosting of Summerslam.