Top Ten Things: Owen Hart Matches

Welcome to a special Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!  Today is the anniversary of what was for me the most tragic death in wrestling history, that of Owen Hart.

For those of you not familiar (by this point that's probably no one), on May 23, 1999 Owen was the victim of a horrific stunt gone wrong, when the harness in which he was supposed to descend from the ceiling released prematurely, causing Owen to fall 70 feet to his death.  Owen was 34 years old.  Unlike so many untimely pro wrestling deaths, Owen's wasn't the result of drugs or steroids or neglect of his health.  Owen was a happily married family man who had planned to retire early from wrestling to enjoy a quiet life as a father and husband.  I've said for years that if I could go back and save one person in the wrestling business from dying young, it would be Owen.  He deserved to live a long, content life and enjoy the fruits of his success.

In the ring Owen was possibly the most athletically gifted of all the Harts, possessing a natural grace and agility surpassing even Bret's.  Bret may have been more technically sound, but Owen seemed innately suited for pro wrestling, employing a mix of grappling and aerial techniques that made him one of the most well-rounded performers of his generation.

Owen toiled in the WWF undercard for a few years before finally getting a big heel push as Bret's disgruntled little brother.  The two had a legendary feud, tearing the house down every time they met, and as a result Owen became one of the most dependable top names in the company, eventually winning every available heavyweight title except the big one (Whenever I'm asked who was the best wrestler never to win a world title, my two answers are always Owen and Davey Boy).  Then in 1997 Bret and Owen, now both heels, reunited to form the new Hart Foundation stable, prompting the best feud of that year which pitted the American wrestlers (and fans) against the Harts (and basically all non-American fans).  On the back of this unprecedented feud, the WWF churned out must-see television nearly every week, and Owen was a huge part of it all.

After Bret's messy WWF departure (along with Davey Boy and Jim Neidhart), Owen was the only Hart Foundation member left, and as an old-school character he struggled to fit into the new WWF Attitude era.  Owen enjoyed modest success for his remaining time in the company, but was repeatedly asked to take part in sexualized angles with which he wasn't comfortable.  The compromise was repackaging him as a dorkier version of the Blue Blazer (his 1989 persona), hence the fateful ceiling descent on May 23rd.

It's a shame the company wasn't able to find something more dignified for him to do, or wasn't willing to release him from his contract when Bret left.  In either scenario he'd undoubtedly still be with us today.

Owen was a one-of-a-kind talent who left the wrestling industry better than he found it, who was beloved by all who worked with him, and who stayed true to himself and his family in a business where such a thing was increasingly rare.  Two decades later, the wrestling business still feels incomplete without him.

Now let's take a look at his best matches.....

Honorable Mention: Owen Hart vs. 1-2-3 Kid - King of the Ring - 6.19.94

Yeah I know, this match only went 3-1/2 minutes, but holy lord what a match considering.  These two packed about as much action into 217 seconds as you possibly could, delivering one of only two good matches on this PPV.  Owen made the Kid submit with a Sharpshooter in this semi-final match, on his way to becoming the second PPV King of the Ring.  It's a great illustration of what Owen (and X-Pac) were capable of even with severe time constraints.

10. Owen Hart & British Bulldog vs. Vader & Mankind - WrestleMania 13 - 3.23.97

One of the forgotten WrestleMania gems was this rare heels vs. heels Tag Title match, where Owen and Davey had teased splitting up for weeks.  Owen had become jealous of all the attention Davey was getting, particularly after Davey bested him to become the inaugural European Champion.  Between the champs not being on the same page and the physical dominance of Vader and Mankind, it looked like we might see a title change here, but this wild brawl ended unceremoniously with a double countout, as Mankind subdued Davey with a Mandible Claw on the outside.  A better finish would've undoubtedly elevated this match, but as it was I still consider this one very underrated.

AEW Double or Nothing 2025 Preview & Predictions

This weekend marks the sevenths (SEVENTH) annual AEW Double or Nothing PPV, and also the sixth anniversary of the company's first show, DON 2019.  Man, what a game-changing time it's been these last six years of All Elite Wrestling.  Here's to many, many more...

Well it took them until the final 7-10 days to actually put this whole lineup together, but Double or Nothing 2025 is looking like a helluva show on paper.  Two huge tournament finals, one of which will fittingly headline the show, the annual Anarchy in the Arena match, a women's title bout, and two undercard matches that should deliver big.  Plus the PPV return of Nigel McGuinness!

AEW Tag Team Championship: The Hurt Syndicate vs. The Sons of Texas

The one match that likely won't be above TV quality is this one, pitting the dominant tag champs against the unlikely challenger tandem of Dustin Rhodes and Sammy Guevara (whose last PPV main card match was at Worlds End 2023!).  Obviously there's no chance of Dustin and Sammy winning this, it'll just be a means to further the MJF storyline.  Will he get involved, and will Bobby and Shelton appreciate it?  And when the MJF thing inevitably goes south for Bobby and Shelton, who will he team up with against them?  Wardlow?

Pick: Hurt Syndicate retain

Paragon vs. Don Callis Family

This one was just added on Collision and is a helluva trios lineup.  Glad to see Takeshita and Fletcher weren't forgotten on this show.  I have a feeling this will be used to set up one or more TNT Title challengers for Adam Cole.  Should be fun.

Pick: Don Callis Family

FTR vs. Nigel McGuinness & Daniel Garcia

This one should be fun.  I love that Nigel gets to wrestle once in a while; in his prime he was one of the best in the world and he deserved a better career end than he got in 2010.  The story here is Nigel doubting he and Danny have a snowball's chance in hell of beating FTR.  But undoubtedly they'll put up a gallant fight.  I think FTR wins in the end, and they should, but it'll be a fun watch.

Pick: FTR

Top Ten Things: Star Trek Films RANKED

Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!

I've been a Star Trek fan since about the age of four when my parents were watching the original series on TV and I wandered into the room to see a weird dude with pointy ears and a bowl cut prattling on about space anomalies and whatnot.  From then I was hooked, and despite not understanding much of the sci-fi technobabble at that age, I could somehow easily identify with the gallant Captain Kirk, the crotchety Dr. McCoy, and of course the computer-minded Mr. Spock.  My fandom increased tenfold in the early 80s when I went to see Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and these characters and their adventures were presented on a much larger scale.  We were still treated to philosophical explorations of the human condition, but with much slicker production values and effects.

The Star Trek films were major events for me every 2-3 years and some of them still hold up among my favorite science fiction movies.  Thus far we've had three series of films; from 1979-1991 the original Star Trek cast graced the big screen, and then from 1994-2002 the Next Generation crew got their turn.  Finally in 2009 Paramount rebooted the series completely, recasting the original characters and converting Star Trek into more of a Star Wars-esque action franchise.

But how do the 13 movies stack up against each other?  

13. Star Trek: Insurrection

Star Trek: Insurrection has to be the weakest in the entire series, with its half-hearted storyline about a society of 600 Ba'ku hogging the life-extending resources of an entire planet at the expense of their dying brethren the Son'a, not to mention the billions of others who could be helped by this age-defying radiation.  And for some reason the Enterprise helps the Ba'ku stay there.  Huh??  Don't the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?  It's hard to get invested in a movie when the good guys are on the wrong side of the issue.  F. Murray Abraham did what he could with the weak villain he was given to play, and of the NextGen films this one comes closest to resembling the TV show, but the story doesn't work and this feels like a B-movie.

12. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Next up is Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, a nigh-unwatchable mess of a film that clearly suffered from a Hollywood writer's strike, leaving director William Shatner without a coherent script.  After things wrapped up neatly at the conclusion of The Voyage Home, we now catch up with our gallant crew and their newly built Enterprise (which for some reason is nearly crippled by technical issues), as they're tapped to settle a hostage situation perpetrated by a mysterious Vulcan, who needs a starship to travel beyond the Great Barrier to find God.  The filmmakers tried to cram the action of Star Trek II and the humor of Star Trek IV into this one, and failed on basically every level to capture the spirit of either film.  Star Trek V cost $33 million, more than any previous Star Trek movie, yet the effects are Original Series bad.  Basically everything went wrong here, and Shatner would not be asked to direct another one.

11. Star Trek: Generations

Our final entry to fall short of the top ten is Star Trek: Generations, the one that kicked off the NextGen films.  Man, what a colossal disappointment this was.  The first NextGen film that also features Captain Kirk??  How could this be bad??  Well, the filmmakers found numerous and profound ways to screw this up.  Generations has some fun moments but its convoluted plot involving an energy ribbon that somehow absorbs people and lets them live out their wildest fantasies (and travel time and space at will should they choose to leave) simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny, nor does the shoehorned involvement of Captain Kirk.  This film united the two iconic Enterprise Captains just to....have an awkwardly staged action movie fight sequence to stop a villain from firing a rocket?  Is this real life?  And did we really need to see the Klingons and their Bird of Prey AGAIN??  Generations marked the fifth consecutive Star Trek movie to feature this stupid model, and boy was I tired of seeing it by this point.  If this movie set the tone for what the NextGen film series would look like, it's no surprise all four of them fell so drastically short of what the TV series was.

10. Star Trek Beyond

Here's a movie I had high hopes for.  I'd read that this was the closest the new series has gotten to capturing the philosophical, character-driven bent of the original show.  And while Beyond has a little of that - Kirk for example laments early on that the ongoing voyage is taking its toll on him and his crew - sadly the film plunges almost immediately into an extended action sequence that leaves the Enterprise in pieces in a matter of minutes.  They don't treat poor Enterprise well in these films, do they?  Anyway, the crew gets separated during the space battle and we learn a little about the villain Krall.  Mostly that his name is Krall.  Seriously, this film uses a fine actor like Idris Elba pretty shabbily.  He's given nothing to do in the first two acts except bark angrily, and it's not until the final half hour we're told his motivation and his true identity; by then it's hard to care.  What I liked about this film: Kirk had some solid character moments, McCoy and Scotty had more to do, the new character Jaylah was very cool and likable, Krall and Kirk had one poignant scene toward the end, and the Spock-Uhura romance was barely present.  What I didn't like: Krall is motivated by revenge just like the last three Star Trek villains, Krall is barely a character beyond that, there's once again too much emphasis on Star Wars-y action, and Spock's wig looks terrible.  Distractingly so.  Star Trek Beyond is the weakest of the most recent series.  And what exactly does "Beyond" refer to?

9. Star Trek: Nemesis

Nemesis is a guilty pleasure.  It's a pretty terrible, unnecessarily dour affair featuring a young clone of Captain Picard trying to destroy the Enterprise, Romulus and Earth, and contains far too many Wrath of Khan callbacks and a go-nowhere subplot involving an earlier model of Data, but damn if it isn't entertaining drivel.  A young, far less jacked Tom Hardy plays Shinzon, Picard's clone who spent his childhood enslaved on Romulus's sister planet Remus, building up a severe hatred for both his Romulan oppressors and his "father" Picard.  He fashions a giant evil starship to exact his revenge, and all hell breaks loose.  This template of a revenge-obsessed villain with a gigantic ship would oddly be used in some form for all three reboot films, despite Nemesis tanking at the box office.  Still this film includes some of the best space battle sequences in the NextGen series, plus Tom Hardy!  But it's not good...

8. Star Trek (2009)

The 2009 reboot essentially took the original series characters, boiled them down to their most easily identifiable cursory traits, and turned them into action heroes.  This film is an all-thrusters-ahead popcorn movie that vaguely resembles the series we all know and love.  Casting was key here, and fortunately Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, and Simon Pegg do an admirable job of reimagining their characters while staying more or less true to their predecessors.  This film is all about setting up the new version of Star Trek and thus the main plot is fairly forgettable.  A revenge-hungry Romulan named Nero has been chasing a future incarnation of Mr. Spock through time in retaliation for Spock's failing to save Romulus from a supernova, and a space battle ensues between the brand new Enterprise and Nero's monstrous vessel.  Star Trek 2009 is full of slick visuals, engaging action and light humor but fails to explore profound human themes the way the original series did.  Still it's a fun popcorn movie with characters we can all relate to, so not a total miss.

Top Ten Things: Chris Cornell Albums

**Originally published 5/21/17, updated in 2022**

Welcome to a special Top Ten Things here at Enuffa.com.

Chris Cornell's suicide last week has left a ragged, gaping hole in the music world many of us are still struggling to come to terms with.  As my colleague Dan Moore talked about HERE, Cornell was a golden-throated force of nature, whose mindbending vocal range and soulful power were unmatched in rock music.  He rose to prominence as one of the pioneers of grunge but later explored genres as wide-ranging as singer/songwriter rock, adult contemporary, folk, and even dance pop.  Few artists have created such a wildly divergent body of work, and for me no other singer ever wielded his instrument with such effortless agility and emotive grace.  My coping mechanism has been to learn and record as many of his songs as I can and hope I do them even a modicum of justice (You be the judge).

But today I'll be talking about his amazing discography as I count down my ten favorite Cornell albums.  Here we go.....

HM. Chris Cornell - Scream

Cornell's most divisive album was 2009's Scream, an electronic pop collaboration with hotshot producer Timbaland that combined Chris's rock songwriting sensibility with a hooky R&B sound.  The results were understandably mixed, but the album yielded some excellently written songs, like the bleakly syncopated "Time," the anthemic, strikingly mature love song "Never Far Away," and the title track, a gloomy ode to relationship strife.  While far from Cornell's best work, Scream showed an artist cheerfully exploring new territory and reinventing himself.

HM. Soundgarden - Louder Than Love

Soundgarden's sophomore effort showed an improvement over its predecessor both in production and in songwriting, with songs like the anthemic lament of environmental destruction "Hands All Over," the dark and violent "Gun," the tongue-in-cheek "Full On Kevin's Mom" (about a friend of Chris's who actually hooked up with their friend Kevin's mom) and "Big Dumb Sex" (a parody of 80s cock-rock tunes), and the de facto title track "Loud Love."  Soundgarden were emerging as the leaders of this new, strange rock n' roll movement coming out of Seattle, and Chris's soaring vocals were beginning to garner mainstream attention in a big way.  But the band's third album would show exponential creative growth....

10. Chris Cornell - No One Sings Like You Anymore, Vol. 1

The first of what will hopefully be numerous posthumous releases, NOSLYA is an album of cover songs, recorded in 2016 and put out in 2020 by Cornell's estate.  The eclectic material all lends itself well to Chris's unique interpretation, and he put his own beautiful stamp on all ten songs.  From well-known favorites like Guns N' Roses' "Patience" and Prince/Sinead O'Connor's mega-hit "Nothing Compares 2U," to John Lennon's semi-deep cut "Watching the Wheels" and songs I was unfamiliar with like "Sad Sad City" by Ghostland Observatory, this album is a bittersweet reminder of Chris's transcendent gifts, and a wonderful little addition to his already incredible discography.  I can't wait for Volume 2.

9. Soundgarden - King Animal

Cornell's grunge quartet had split in 1997 but reunited 13 years later for a tour, and began writing new music for their sixth studio album.  The result was King Animal, a safe but fairly triumphant return for the grunge pioneers, that fit right in with their previous output.  Album highlights included the Sabbathy "Blood on the Valley Floor," the eccentric, off-balance "Bones of Birds," the folky "Halfway There" which would've been at home on a Cornell solo record, and the classic Soundgarden feel of "Eyelid's Mouth."  It was a long time coming, but King Animal would be a worthy Soundgarden record and ultimately the band's final completed work.

8. Audioslave - Out of Exile

After his first solo album's disappointing commercial performance, Cornell was able to reinvigorate his career by forming a supergroup with three members of then-defunct Rage Against the Machine, creating an unusual groove-rock hybrid.  Their second album is our #8 entry on this list.  Released in 2005, Out of Exile may not have been the hard rock powderkeg of the band's debut, but it was a perfectly sturdy followup, providing trademark Tom Morello guitar riffs in songs like "Your Time Has Come" and the title track, and some gentler, more thoughtful tunes like "Be Yourself" and "Doesn't Remind Me."  Out of Exile built on the successful formula of the first record and in retrospect serves as a fine companion piece.

Top Ten Things: Star Wars Films

Welcome to a Special Edition (See what I did there?) of Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!  It's time for a ranking of the live-action Star Wars films, making this technically a Top Eleven Things....

I literally can't remember a time before Star Wars came into my life.  I was 18 months old when it came out, and I'm not sure when exactly I saw the original film.  I think it was probably during the 1979 re-release but I can't be sure.  I am however certain that I saw Empire multiple times in the theater between 1980 and 1982, and rushed out to see Return of the Jedi in '83.  The original unaltered trilogy is still my favorite series of films (I can't watch the Special Editions anymore, I just can't), and it's still the yardstick by which I measure every other movie trilogy.

When the prequels were released from 1999-2005 I was hooked on those right away too.  Only later as I actually thought about them did I realize how far short they fell, and for the better part of a decade I'd resigned myself to being an OT purist.  But then Disney bought the property and took the series back to all the things I'd originally loved about it - enduring characters, profound themes, thrilling battles, and visually stunning worlds and creatures.  The Star Wars series was ready to expand, for realsies this time.

But how do the films stack up against each other?  Well if you read my intro the lowest-ranked entries should be no surprise.  So let's get to it - here are my rankings for the Star Wars live-action films.....

11. Attack of the Clones

Sigh... yeah, I gotta get through the three bad ones before I get to the good ones.  Look, when the prequels first came out I was so blinded by my love of Star Wars that I couldn't see the glaring, logic-defying, nonsensical plot contrivances that made the story being told incomprehensible.  And I was so dazzled by "oooh, lightsabers!" that I forgave the embarrassing performances from nearly every cast member (Seriously, Natalie Portman is an Oscar-winning actress and George Lucas failed to get even one passable performance out of her in these films).  The specific problems with the prequels have been explored ad nauseum, so I won't go into too much detail, but suffice it to say, there really isn't one redeeming thing about Attack of the Clones.  The storyline of Obi-Wan discovering an illegally created clone army that the Republic then actually uses(??) makes no sense and is pointless as the main plot of a film.  Why wasn't the middle chapter of this trilogy dedicated to the actual Clone Wars?  Isn't that what everyone was looking forward to, aside from seeing the creation of Darth Vader?  Instead we get the very beginning of the Clone Wars here and it turns out to be a fake war orchestrated by Palpatine just so he can remain in power, while not one of our protagonists can see through this shovel-to-the-face obvious ploy.  Plus we get the worst love story ever put to film.  Plus we get PlayStation One-esque CGI in every frame.  Plus the aforementioned terrible acting.  Plus the "I don't like sand" speech.  This stuff is Ed Wood-bad.  Attack of the Clones is the worst live-action theatrical Star Wars film.

10. The Phantom Menace

Only slightly less terrible is Episode I, in which the dialogue is every bit as cringeworthy, the story every bit as preposterous, and the acting equally wooden.  Plus fucking Jar Jar.  Damn, this is a tough call....  But what The Phantom Menace has over Clones is twofold - the pod racing sequence is fun, despite being a totally convoluted way just to get Anakin off Tatooine, and Darth Maul is a badass villain, despite only having ten minutes of screen time and no real character to speak of.  From a technical standpoint the lightsaber duel in this film is the best of the series (Sure, there's exactly zero going on between the participants, but the choreography is cool at least).  So those two aspects are enjoyable, even if the rest of the film isn't.  But yeah, The Phantom Menace is drivel.

Top Ten Things: Stanley Kubrick Films, RANKED

Welcome to another Top Ten Things here at Enuffa.com!  A couple weeks ago I made a list of Quentin Tarantino's ten best, and thought it might be appropriate to give Stanley Kubrick similar treatment.  

Kubrick was one of the all-time great film auteurs, creating a unique visual style characterized by fluid camera movement, unnervingly symmetrical deep focus photography, and often a cold emotional detachment.  His films often contained deep subtext and were generally much more about the human condition as a whole, than about the fate of the individual characters.  He would build his stories around lofty philosophical concepts and themes, which he hammered home with every sequence.  Kubrick was notorious for being a perfectionist, often asking his onscreen talent for dozens upon dozens of takes before he saw one he liked, and demanding strict continuity on the set.  Considering he was active for over 45 years his filmography was quite sparse, and in later years his filmmaking process was so painstaking it became infamous.  His last film Eyes Wide Shut for example was in production for a staggering 17 months, and he just barely lived long enough to see its completion.

Stanley Kubrick was one of the most controversial, divisive, and thought-provoking filmmakers of all time, and he left behind a stunning body of work containing some of the most amazing visuals ever put to film.  Lending themselves to varied analyses, his films demand repeated viewings and tend to reflect humanity's virtues and (more often) deep-seated flaws.  What a tremendous talent this man was.

Here now are the films of Stanley Kubrick, RANKED....

13. Fear and Desire

Kubrick's first film about soldiers in a fictitious war descending into madness was made on the thinnest of shoestring budgets, and Stanley himself was so unsatisfied with it he pulled it from distribution.  But despite Fear and Desire obviously being very much a DIY project from an inexperienced director, it did demonstrate Stanley's prodigious eye for editing and shot composition.  The scene where the soldiers attack an enemy cabin is uniquely filmed and blocked, and it was clear even from this early effort that Kubrick was something special.

12. Killer's Kiss

Kubrick's sophomore feature, and the first that he didn't disown, was this film noir about a boxer, a girl and her gangster boyfriend.  The story hit pretty basic, familiar beats, but once again it was Kubrick's eye for light, shadow and framing that elevated Killer's Kiss above some of its 1955 brethren.  From the dream sequence negative imagery of the New York City streets to the rooftop chase to the fight in a mannequin factory, Killer's Kiss is quite a visual delight, even if Stanley hadn't yet mastered the art of telling a story.

Check out a full piece I wrote about Killer's Kiss, which has grown on me quite a lot over the years.

11. Spartacus

The one film Kubrick didn't properly own or plan to make was this 1960 sword and sandals epic, produced by and starring Kirk Douglas.  Douglas has originally hired Anthony Mann but clashed with him right off the bat, and fired him only days into shooting.  Enter Kubrick, with whom Douglas had developed a contentious but respectful relationship on Paths of Glory.  That relationship didn't change with this film but Kubrick kept his head down, knowing that a major box office hit here would open all kinds of doors for him as a Hollywood mainstay.  Spartacus doesn't really feel like a Kubrick film but between its epic set pieces, its massive visual and narrative scope, and its all-star cast, it's a monumental accomplishment from a still-very young director who had now punched his ticket.

10. Lolita

This 1962 adaptation of Nabakov's provocative novel was met with vehement scorn from religious groups upon its release, to the point that Kubrick had trouble even getting it distributed.  The story concerns a middle-aged man's love affair with a 12-year-old girl and his subsequent fall from grace.  Kubrick enlisted Nabakov himself to adapt the novel into a screenplay but changed several elements and played up the dark comedic aspects, such as the supporting character of Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers).  Beholden to the MPAA, Kubrick also had to keep much of the lurid material implied rather than explicit.  The result was a pretty outrageous "dramedy" with strong performances from its lead actors, in particular Sellers and the 16-year-old Sue Lyon, whose turn as the title character is well beyond her years.  I consider Lolita one of Kubrick's lesser efforts, but it's certainly never dull.

9. The Killing

Kubrick's third feature (though only his second "official" release as he pulled his first film Fear & Desire from theaters) is an early example of the heist-gone-wrong story.  Based on the novel Clean Break, The Killing is about an intricate plot to rob a racetrack of $2 million, and the aftermath of the crime which leaves most of the conspirators dead.  The theme of "even the best laid plans..." is prevalent in this film, and the carefully orchestrated robbery ultimately fails due to multiple unforeseen events.  The standout performance belongs to Sterling Hayden, who brings a cynical, grizzled quality to criminal mastermind Johnny Clay.  In assembling the film, Kubrick played around with the timeline, presenting certain events from multiple points of view.  I have to think The Killing had a big influence on Quentin Tarantino when making Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown.  The Killing is an early example of Kubrick's considerable intellect as he moves his characters around like chess pieces.

8. Full Metal Jacket

The late 80s saw a bevy of Vietnam-related films, and Kubrick's adaptation of The Short-Timers was one of the most noteworthy.  Though later to the game than he'd hoped, Kubrick nonetheless presented a fascinating take on the evils of war and their effect on the human psyche.  The film is split into two parts, the first (and best) of which depicts Parris Island Marine Corps basic training, where Private Joker (Matthew Modine) witnesses the complete mental breakdown of Private Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio) at the hands of a brutal drill instructor (R. Lee Ermey, in a brilliantly vulgar performance).  The second half of the film then picks up with Joker's exploits as a war correspondent in Vietnam.  While still atmospheric and beautifully shot, the second half is unfortunately nowhere near as strong as the first, given that it's missing the two best characters in the film.  Still, Full Metal Jacket remains one of the best films made about Vietnam and about the dehumanization of those who lived through it.

Top Ten Things: Opening PPV Matches

Welcome to yet another Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!

Time for an updated list of my favorite PPV opening matches over the last 40 years or so.  Like a killer opening song on an album, a great opening match can instantly grab your attention and set the tone for the rest of the evening.  It gets the live crowd excited, which in turn lends more energy to the rest of the PPV.  The quality of the opening bout can leave almost as big an impression as that of the main event; if a show starts well and ends well you tend to remember it as a damn fine show (I do anyway), even if the stuff in the middle isn't so hot.  At the very least a great opening match makes me want to watch the show a second time.  Most PPVs tend to feature shorter bouts to kick things off, but every so often the first match either steals the show outright or comes pretty damn close.  Here are ten such examples, plus some Honorable Mentions.....

HM: AJ Styles vs. Shane McMahon - WrestleMania 33

The main card of the 2017 edition of WrestleMania kicked off with a match I wasn't at all happy about.  AJ Styles, by far the most accomplished star in the company over the previous 14 months, was saddled fighting Vince's son instead of tearing it up with someone of his caliber.  But I'll be damned if it wasn't incredibly entertaining.  AJ was amazing as usual, and Shane had his working shoes on just trying to keep up.  Many of the spots were over-the-top, including Shane countering AJ's 450 splash into a triangle choke, Shane missing a Shooting Star Press, AJ trying the Van Terminator but running into a trash can, and Shane doing his own Van Terminator.  AJ finally took the win after hitting the Phenomenal Forearm, capping off what was shockingly the best match of the night.  This match proved that AJ Styles could have a good match with anyone, and also earned AJ the company's permanent stamp of approval.

HM: Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler - Bragging Rights 2010

Probably D-Bryan's first true standout match in WWE was this sleeper hit to kick off the second and final Bragging Rights PPV.  By far the best match on the show, this US Champ vs. IC Champ bout allowed Bryan to show off his technical prowess against an opponent who could hang with him move-for-move.  This see-saw match went a thrilling 16 minutes, including a false finish where Ziggler seemed to have won the match but Bryan's foot was on the rope, before Bryan tapped Ziggler out with the LeBell Lock.  The pair followed it up with an equally good rematch the next night on RAW.  At year's end, WWE cited this as one of the best matches of 2010, ranking it second (I believe) only to Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker.  This was the first instance of the company openly showing appreciation for Bryan's abilities.

HM: Brian Pillman vs. Jushin Thunder Liger - SuperBrawl II

The second SuperBrawl PPV, the best in the series, had the show stolen by this groundbreaking opening contest for the newly minted WCW Light Heavyweight Title.  This 17-minute bout was full of great false finishes and big high spots, demonstrating this wonderful alternative to the norm known as cruiserweight wrestling and showcasing a style of wrestling North American fans weren't yet accustomed to.  Pillman won with a bridging leg cradle after Liger missed a top-rope splash, regaining the short-lived championship.  While Jr.-style wrestling wouldn't catch on for a few more years, this match served as one of the templates.

Oscar Film Journal: The Deer Hunter (1978)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Alright, this one is a repeat watch, a film I viewed 20+ years ago on a little 20-inch CRT television and therefore it can hardly be said that I watched it at all.  I decided the 1978 Best Picture winner deserved another day in court, on a proper widescreen TV in hi-def.  So here we are, let's talk about The Deer Hunter.

Directed and co-written by Michael Cimino and starring Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage and Meryl Streep, The Deer Hunter is an epic drama, part war film, part study of late 60s working class America.  It's divided into three distinct acts, the first of which takes place over the course of two days and centers around the wedding of the Savage character Steve, who along with Mike (De Niro) and Nick (Walken) are set to ship off to Vietnam a few days later.  We spend a lot of time with this group of friends and the film takes its time world-building via the wedding sequence, a scene in the local bar, and a hunting trip the group takes in the mountains.  Act two is set in Vietnam, where the three friends are reunited and quickly captured by the Viet Cong, and forced to play Russian roulette.  This absolutely harrowing sequence is the film's centerpiece and serves as a metaphor for the war itself, changing the characters and their circle of friends forever.  Act three is the aftermath of the war.  Mike has returned home a hero but can't seem to reassimilate into civilian life, Steve is wheelchair-bound and his wife is unable to cope, and Nick has gone AWOL and is still in Saigon, now a professional Russian roulette player with PTSD.  

Oscar Film Journal: Ghost (1990)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Alright time to polish off the final 1990 Best Picture nominee, one that I couldn't believe was up for the big award at the time, and after actually viewing it I'm still baffled.  That's right, it's the supernatural romantic dramedy, Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg, and directed by Airplane's Jerry Zucker.  

Note: SPOILERS ahead, this movie is after all 35 years old.

Ghost is about a young Manhattan couple for whom everything seems to be going great.  Sam is a successful investment banker up for a promotion, while Molly is an up-and-coming artist.  They've just purchased a (really luxurious) loft their friend Carl (Sam's coworker) helped them renovate into part-living space, part-art studio.  At the banking firm Sam has stumbled across some troubling balance inconsistencies with a few of their accounts (Hmm, you gotta wonder how this is going to pay off later).  One night while walking home from a play, Sam and Molly are attacked by a mugger and Sam is shot dead, but his ethereal consciousness remains on Earth, where he must figure out a way to communicate with Molly and piece together what happened and why.  To that end he recruits a psychic named Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg), a fraud with a long criminal record, in whom Sam has inadvertently awakened actual medium abilities.  From there the film's tone shifts from romantic tragedy to screwball comedy, as Oda reluctantly agrees to help Sam mostly because he won't leave her alone.  And then once Sam learns why he was killed (It was no random mugging I assure you) and who set him up (No points for spotting this bombshell a mile away), the tone shifts again to intense thriller fare.

WWE Backlash 2025 Preview & Predictions

WWE's already got another PPV this weekend, only three weeks after the abnormally late WrestleMania.  And boy does this show look skippable.  This five-match B-show thing is quite lame considering how much time they waste with video packages and entrances.  Mania could've easily fit 1-2 more matches per night without extending the overall running time, and so can these B-shows.

Also, not one black wrestler on this card, not one.  Never. Beating. The allegations.  Sorry.

Intercontinental Championship: Dominik Mysterio vs. Penta

This is one of three potentially good matches on the show.  Dominik is always either a heat magnet, or in the case of 'Mania, one of the most popular guys on the card.  Penta is always fun to watch.  I don't see any title change happening this soon though.

Pick: Dominik retains

Oscar Film Journal: The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Welcome to yet another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Heading back to the early 1960s today, and a classic war adventure film known as The Guns of Navarone, starring Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and David Niven.  This highly influential World War II actioner centers around a secret mission cooked up by the British military to rescue 2000 stranded soldiers on the tiny Greek island of Kheros.  The Axis powers plan to annihilate everyone on the island in a week's time, and have been able to thwart any rescue attempts using two massive, transport-killing cannons located on a nearby island called Navarone.  Captain Keith Mallory (Peck) and his team must disguise themselves as local fishermen (Mallory is an accomplished spy who fluently speaks both Greek and German), sail around to the scarcely-guarded back end of Navarone, scale a several hundred-foot cliff, and make their way across the island to the fortress housing the guns so they can sabotage them.  All without being caught or killed by the Germans.  None of the men (and women) on the team has much hope that this "impossible mission" (TM pending) will succeed, but it's their only chance of saving the marooned soldiers and stopping Turkey from joining the Axis powers.  

Oscar Film Journal: Selma (2014)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

This time I'm talkin' about a fairly recent film, one from 2014 that sort of flew under the radar, only nabbing two Oscar nods, for Best Picture and Best Original Song.  Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay, covers the events leading up to Martin Luther King's iconic 1965 protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and the fight for voting rights in the south.  Played quite effectively but without flash by British actor David Oyelowo, King struggles with his role as the leader of the 1960s civil rights movement, balancing his philosophy of nonviolent protest and his growing impatience with America's leaders in Washington, specifically then-President Lyndon Johnson (played by Tom Wilkinson).  On the other side of the battle of course were the racist Alabama state leaders, in particular Governor George Wallace (a stellar Tim Roth), and the barbaric Sheriff Jim Clark.  MLK and his fellow activists were forced to exercise unfathomable patience and bravery in combating the violence of white supremacists with peaceful demonstrations in order to get their message across.

Oscar Film Journal: The Killing Fields (1984)

And we're back with another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  In the brilliant words of comedian Michelle Wolf, I'm still chippin' away at the ham....

Today it's another Best Pic nominee from the 1980s, Roland Joffé's harrowing true account of two reporters stationed in Cambodia during the 1975 Khmer Rouge takeover.  Played by Sam Waterston and newcomer (and actual survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime) Haing S. Ngor, Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran were assigned to Phnom Penh to cover the Cambodian civil war and the US's involvement in bombing civilians.  When the capital fell to the murderous Khmer Rouge forces, Schanberg as an American citizen was given safe passage to neighboring Thailand, but as a Cambodian citizen Pran was captured and put into a forced labor camp.  Schanberg had previously arranged for Pran's family to be relocated to San Francisco, and engaged in a massive letter-writing campaign to find his lost friend, but Pran had to rely on his own wits and bravery to ultimately escape captivity.

NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 2025 Preview & Predictions

This weekend is NJPW's annual Wrestling Dontaku two-nighter and while a lot of these matches are the usual filler tag fare, there are some significant bouts on tap, as well as Tetsuya Naito's final match with the company (for the time being anyway), albeit a filler tag match.

I'm only doing picks for six matches but let's take a look....

NJPW TV Championship: El Phantasmo vs. Konosuke Takeshita

Oooo, this is interesting.  The current NEVER champ going after a second title.  I for one hope he becomes Two-Belts Takeshita, because he fucking rules.  Match should steal the show in spite of the fifteen-minute time limit.

Pick: Takeshita

Top Ten Things: WrestleMania Main Events, Part 5 (#10-1)

Alright, now it's time for the really good shit.  The all-time great shit.  Such good shit.  

Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

10. Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns (vs. Seth Rollins) - WrestleMania 31

Maybe the most unexpectedly great WrestleMania main event took place at the 2015 edition, as the reviled babyface Roman Reigns challenged the unstoppable Mayor of Suplex City (a phrase he coined during this match), Brock Lesnar.  Brock had decimated John Cena for the WWE Championship at the previous SummerSlam, allowing almost no offense during their 16-minute squash, and then all but disappeared with the title for most of the next six months.  At the 2015 Royal Rumble Brock, Cena and Seth Rollins had a spectacular Triple Threat match, where Brock turned back both challengers in dominant fashion.  Enter Reigns, the company's handpicked "it" guy, with whom the fans wanted nothing to do.  Reigns won the Rumble match that night to earn his WrestleMania spot, but was booed unmercifully, and this main event had all the markings of a dud; an absentee heel champion vs. an unliked babyface challenger.  But the match ended up being an exercise in brutality as these two monsters beat the piss out of each other.  Brock took a legit headbutt to the ring post which opened a huge gash on his forehead, while Reigns got suplexed into oblivion and kept getting up.  But the most memorable thing about the match was the unique finish, as Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase mid-match, curb stomping Brock, attempting a second stomp that was countered into an F5 attempt that was thwarted by a Reigns spear, and then curb stomping Reigns to win the match and the WWE Title.  The Santa Clara crowd exploded at the surprise finish and Rollins stood tall, swinging the strap over his head as Michael Cole dubbed the title change "The Heist of the Century."  Thus began Seth Rollins' excellent run as the company's top heel.

9. Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels - WrestleMania XII

The longest match in WrestleMania history, and thus far the only Iron Man match at this event, pitted the company's top two babyfaces against each other in an unprecedented athletic display.  Bret Hart was the veteran technician, while Shawn Michaels was the charismatic upstart.  Planned as the first part of a trilogy of bouts designed as a torch passing, this match played out as an old-school grappling contest for much of the first half.  Shawn stymied the champion with an expected ground game, while Bret grew increasingly frustrated and employed some heelish tactics.  The second half picked up, with much more high-risk offense, but neither man could gain a pinfall.  In the closing moments Shawn went for a dropkick but Bret countered into a Sharpshooter.  Shawn withstood the pain for nearly a full minute as the clock ran down to zero, leaving the match a time limit draw.  But WWF President Gorilla Monsoon ordered the match restarted under sudden death rules, much to Bret's chagrin.  The angry champion attacked Shawn's weakened legs, but Shawn answered with a pair of superkicks to win the title and start off his main event run.  Given its slow pace and frequent lack of crowd heat, this bout hasn't aged as well as one would think, but it does stand as a singular achievement in WWE lore - a mostly pure scientific marathon between two of the company's all-time best.

Top Ten Things: WrestleMania Main Events, Part 4 (#20-11)

Moving on to round 3 of our countdown, here's where we get to the pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good stuff....

Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 5.

20. Randy Savage vs. Hulk Hogan - WrestleMania V

The MegaPowers EXPLODE!  One of the greatest long-term angles in WWE history culminated in this WrestleMania V main event.  Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, the two biggest wrestling babyfaces in late 1987, joined forces on Saturday Night's Main Event to form the MegaPowers, an unstoppable force for good.  Hogan helped Savage win the WWF Title at 'Mania 4, the pair teamed up at SummerSlam and Survivor Series, and all seemed well.  But Savage had slowly grown jealous over Hogan's bond with Elizabeth, and the situation came to a head at the second Main Event special in February of '89.  Savage was thrown out of the ring during the MegaPowers-Twin Towers match, accidentally knocking out Elizabeth, and Hogan left him to fend for himself while he brought her to the back for medical attention.  Savage took a beating for several minutes, realized his partner was nowhere to be found, and got duly pissed when Hogan returned.  The Macho Man walked out on Hogan and the match, and the two men got into a heated altercation in the locker room, where Savage pummeled Hogan with the WWF Title and left him laying.  The most emotionally charged WrestleMania main event in history was now on the marquee.  The match was classic Macho Man, a hotly contested, somewhat unruly main event where Savage dominated much of the action.  It was a pretty great match until the ending, when Hogan did his usual Hulk-up comeback in unintentionally comical fashion, puffing his cheeks and bulging his eyes as he no-sold everything.  Hogan kicked out of the Macho Man elbow and hit his big boot-legdrop combination to regain the WWF Title, and Savage was gradually moved down the card on his way to becoming a King.  At the time this was easily the best WrestleMania main event, and it would maintain that status for me until seven years later.  Great stuff until the usual unimaginative Hogan finish.

19. Shawn Michaels vs. Steve Austin - WrestleMania XIV

The Stone Cold Era began officially on March 29, 1998 (in my hometown of Boston), with a grueling WWF Title win over Shawn Michaels.  I went into this match super-hyped, as Austin and Michaels were my two favorite wrestlers at the time, and the company had brought in Mike Tyson to be the ringside enforcer and bring lots of mainstream attention to the show.  This was a dream main event for me, and while it was a damn fine match it didn't quite live up to my expectations.  The problem was Shawn's back, injured in a casket match with The Undertaker two months earlier.  Shawn began this match in expected high-energy form, but a botched whip into the turnbuckle seemed to aggravate his herniated disc, and he spent the rest of the bout barely gutting it out.  Still the agony on Shawn's face during every move added to the drama, and these two pros managed to put together a pretty great piece of gritty wrestling business.  The finish especially was perfectly executed - Shawn went for Sween Chin Music, Austin ducked and went for the Stunner, Shawn blocked it, shoved him into the ropes and went for another kick, Austin caught his foot, spun him around, kicked him in the gut and stunned him, as Tyson counted the pinfall.  The Boston crowd went apeshit as the Texas Rattlesnake held the title over his head, cementing his place as the unlikely new face of the company.  Shawn took a Tyson knockout punch to put an exclamation point on the night, and it would be his last match in over four years.  As good as this bout was, I always wonder how much better it would've been had Shawn been at 100%.

18. Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair - WrestleMania 35

The historic main event of WrestleMania 35 marked the first time a women's match would headline the show.  The white-hot Becky Lynch won the 2019 Royal Rumble to punch her ticket to 'Mania, but her animosity with RAW Women's Champion Ronda Rousey went back further than that.  Their paths were supposed to cross at the 2018 Survivor Series, but a real-life broken nose/concussion handed to Becky by Nia Jax derailed plans (and also made Becky an even bigger star), and Charlotte Flair took Becky's place.  Thus anticipation for the Becky-Ronda showdown built for months.  Sadly the company felt Charlotte should be added to make the bout a triple threat; Charlotte vs. Ronda at Survivor Series turned out to be a violent, fiery encounter where Charlotte got herself disqualified and beat the tar out of Ronda with a kendo stick.  So there were unresolved issues between Ronda and both of her challengers, but the addition of Charlotte served to muddy the waters a bit too much, particularly since she was also hastily booked to defeat Smackdown Women's Champion Asuka so as to make this main event a double championship match.  The build became very confusing as the company didn't seem to know who should be sympathetic and who should be antagonistic.  Ronda had been a fan favorite upon her WrestleMania 34 debut but by the end of the year was greeted with increasing crowd hostility, while Charlotte was viewed as being overexposed and overpushed.  But hopes were still high that these three accomplished athletes would deliver in the clutch.  And for their part, they put together a very good main event with a ton of atmosphere.  The company sadly didn't set them up to succeed however, overloading the WrestleMania card with so many matches it was after midnight by the time the main event kicked off.  An exhausted, overspent crowd couldn't be asked to respond with much enthusiasm, and the main event they legitimately wanted to see unfortunately suffered a bit as a result.  Also working against the women was the finish, which saw Becky defeat Ronda not with her Disarm-Her finisher or even a decisive impact move, but with a botched crucifix pin where Ronda's shoulder was visibly off the mat for part of the three-count.  For a groundbreaking WrestleMania main event with so much at stake, this was a mild disappointment, but it still delivered big from a mechanical and character standpoint. 

17. The Rock vs. John Cena - WrestleMania XXVIII

The Once in a Lifetime....Until Next Year dream match between John Cena and The Rock took place in Rocky's hometown of Miami, in front of a vehemently partisan crowd, and was a major financial success for the company.  The bout was set up a year earlier when The Rock returned from a seven-year absence to host WrestleMania and left that show's two main eventers laying in the ring at the end while he celebrated.  A terrible ending to WrestleMania 27, but WWE's long-term planning was to be applauded at least.  The company had an opportunity to build interest for this match at the following Survivor Series as Rock and Cena teamed up to face The Miz and R-Truth, but unfortunately that main event was a glorified 20-minute squash and the two babyfaces co-existed just fine, leading people like me to question the point of it all.  The proper build began shortly before 'Mania 28, as Cena cut one of the most impassioned promos of his career, pointing out that while he was busting his ass week after week, The Rock had abandoned the WWE fans for Hollywood, and Cena needed to win this for the full-time WWE wrestlers.  I couldn't have agreed more; this was one of the few times where I was fully in Cena's corner in terms of the story being told.  But as they were in Miami, such an outcome wasn't in the cards.  For just over thirty minutes the two megastars expertly worked the audience and put together a very good, epic sports-entertainment main event.  I thought this went overly long; surely 25 minutes would've been enough.  But this had a big-fight feel in spades, The Rock looked to be in the best shape of his life, and they told a good story.  Cena kicked out of the first Rock Bottom of the night but fell to a second, to send the pro-Rock crowd home happy.  Their rematch a year later would fall significantly short of this bout.

  

16. Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns - WrestleMania 34

Perhaps the most underrated WrestleMania main event was this rematch from WrestleMania 31.  The year was 2018, and the Roman Reigns Top Babyface experiment was still chugging along, with no change in the results from three years earlier.  The fans still didn't like Roman in this spot, they still booed him out of the building every night, and the company still refused to turn him heel, using the dipshit excuse that "Any reaction is a good reaction."  Yeah, not when the reaction is precisely the opposite of what you intended.  Regardless, Vince once again stubbornly refused to change his plan, and booked Brock vs. Roman II as the main event of WrestleMania 34.  After a very good undercard featuring Rollins-Balor-Miz, Charlotte-Asuka, Ronda/Angle-Triple H/Steph, the return of Daniel Bryan, and AJ-Nakamura, the New Orleans crowd simply didn't want to see this match, and they let WWE know it.  Chants of "You both suck," "CM Punk," and "This is awful" rang out throughout this match, and Vince hedged his bets in the booking, changing the result the weekend of the show.  Brock shockingly retained the title, Vince holding out hope that by SummerSlam the fans would magically come around to Roman's side (The tone deafness on display was staggering).  So the company gave fans a lot of reasons to hate this match.  It was two guys everyone was thoroughly sick of, it came at the end of a five-hour show, and the finish of the match made the whole thing kinda pointless.  But really sit down and watch this match; it's a helluva fight.  These two monsters beat the absolute shit out of each other, each guy kicked out of numerous finishers, Roman took an elbow shot that split his forehead in two, and it stands as one of the most purely violent spectacles to ever headline a WrestleMania.  Was it as good as their first match?  No.  But was it light years better than the third and fourth?  Absolutely.  I don't care what anyone says, I liked this main event a lot.  As far as I'm concerned it was Roman's second-best WrestleMania main event by far up to that point.  That would change three years later...

15. Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes - WrestleMania 39, Night 2

Man, this match was on its way to a well-deserved Top 10 spot on this list.  Really, just an epic, drama-filled, twisty and turny WWE Universal Title match between two consummate pros.  The story was there, the build was there, the moment was there.  And then the last thirty seconds happened.  After an action-packed, story-driven 35 minutes that featured Solo Sikoa being ejected for interference and Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens running off the Usos, Cody hit Roman with a CrossRhodes, held on, hit another one, held on, and then Paul Heyman jumped on the apron to distract the official while the previously ejected Sikoa thumbed Cody in the throat, setting up Cody for a match-ending Spear.  Roman retained the title, again, in the exact same fashion he'd retained against Drew, Kevin, Sami, etc.  One of the least imaginative and most tone-deaf endings to a truly great match I've seen in years.  The company rectified the situation a year later, and fortunately (miraculously) Cody didn't end up losing steam in the long run, but man, what a terrible, terrible finish.  At 'Mania 39 WWE snatched a stalemate from the jaws of total victory.

14. Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes - WrestleMania 40, Night 2

Finally a year after WWE porked the ending of WrestleMania 39, plus a clusterfuck of booking changes involving Cody bequeathing his hard-earned second title shot to The Rock, changing his mind, Rock turning heel and attacking him, etc., we arrived at the big rematch.  And this time, thanks to Roman and The Rock beating Cody and Seth Rollins the night before, this match would be contested under Bloodline Rules, which just meant run-ins and weapons were legal.  For the first twenty minutes or so this was a traditional wrestling match, and a damn good one.  Then the run-ins started and got borderline silly after a while.  Jimmy, Jey, Solo, Cena, Rock, Seth, Taker.  Gettin' to be a lot.  But the crowd ate it all up and it served as a climactic build before the inevitable feelgood ending.  This match wasn't quite on the level of the previous one in terms of the work being done, but I'm ranking it ahead of Roman-Cody I because it had the right result and served as a major turning point in WWE lore.  

13. CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins - WrestleMania 41, Night 1

Vastly superior to its Night 2, counterpart, the Night 1 main event, while not really containing any substantial stakes, was nonetheless a very strong 33-minute bout where the drama centered around whether Paul Heyman would remain in CM Punk's corner as promised, or if his loyalties still lay with longtime associate Roman Reigns.  The action here was well put together, with loads of nearfalls and finisher kickouts.  I had issues with the overdramatic nature of the finish, where Heyman slid Punk a chair but then turned on him, gave the chair to Roman and then turned on him, and aligned himself with Seth Rollins.  But overall the match was very effective and places high on the all-time 'Mania main events list.

12. Roman Reigns vs. Edge vs. Daniel Bryan - WrestleMania 37, Night 2

The final match of WrestleMania 37's two-night spectacular, this Triple Threat match pitted Universal Champion Roman Reigns, finally a monster heel at long last, against returning legend Edge, ten years removed from his untimely retirement, against perennial fan favorite Daniel Bryan.  Edge had won the 2021 Royal Rumble, entering at #1 and running the table, to challenge Roman at the Show of Shows.  But there was a problem; WWE forgot long ago how to book a likable babyface, and thus painted themselves into a corner by writing Edge as kind of a jerk.  And without someone to root for, an Edge vs. Roman main event would certainly fall flat.  Enter Daniel Bryan, the one man on the roster seemingly immune to inept booking.  No matter how many times they had Bryan lose, he could still get a strong babyface reaction from the crowd.  So Bryan was added to the match after Edge screwed up the Roman-Bryan bout at Fastlane, and suddenly it became much more intriguing.  These three worked a fantastic, chaotic Triple Threat, complete with Jey Uso run-ins, bumps on the ring steps, a broken table spot, a great moment where Bryan and Edge locked in simultaneous crossfaces on Roman and traded headbutts to knock the other guy out, and a controversial but decisive finish where Roman brutalized both men with chairs and stacked them on top of each other before pinning both.  Just an excellent, memorable way to close out the 2021 edition of WrestleMania.

11. Sasha Banks vs. Bianca Belair - WrestleMania 37, Night 1

The historic WrestleMania 37 Night 1 main event was one of the most satisfying in recent memory.  For the first time ever two women of color main evented a WrestleMania card, delivering an athletically marvelous, emotionally resonant near-classic that created a brand new top star in the division.  Smackdown Women's Champion Sasha Banks turned in a Bret Hart-like performance as she steered the bout with a veteran's confidence and made her relatively inexperienced challenger look like a megastar.  Bianca Belair played the self-assured, prodigious, eminently likable babyface to the hilt, keeping up with Banks and displaying incredible athletic feats, not the least of which was a spot where she caught Banks on an outside-the-ring dive, rolled through, pressed her over her head, and walked up the ring steps to toss her back in.  After a clever tug of war with Bianca's hair braid that ended with Bianca using it like a whip on Sasha (complete with a sickening crack and a nine-inch welt across Sasha's ribs), the challenger landed a 450 splash and a Kiss of Death finisher to win her first WWE gold.  Off-camera Sasha smiled with satisfaction, watching her opponent bask in the glory of the moment she helped engineer.  Both women shined here; Bianca earned her spot as the new face of the division, while Sasha cemented her place as one of the best women wrestlers in WWE history.

We're almost to the cream of the crop - click HERE for the Top Ten!

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