7. Battle Royal Featuring Several NFL Players - WrestleMania 2
As a general rule, battle royals rarely are good. Try as you might, unless you've got some good dynamics/storylines interwoven into the match, it's just 20 guys in a ring trying to throw each other over the top rope. And without a prize for winning (like a title shot), it really is just a pointless exercise. At WrestleMania II, several NFL players joined the wrestlers in a 20-man battle royal during the Chicago portion of the three-venue event. The big draw was William "The Refrigerator" Perry, who had just won a Super Bowl with Chicago three months prior. The players added nothing to a nothing match, except for Perry. He was eliminated by Big John Studd (though he got revenge and pulled Studd out seconds later) and the match came down to Andre the Giant vs. the Hart Foundation. One guess who the winner was. Hint: There isn't a WrestleMania XXX battle royal named after the Hart Foundation. Oh, and WWE, take note of this for that battle royal next month. Throwing a bunch of guys in the ring for a payday sounds great, and that is an impressive statue as a prize, but why don't you sweeten the pot a little, with a title match on Raw or at Extreme Rules as the prize? Something, anything will help avoid it being an afterthought.
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.
