Welcome to another Top Ten Things, or should I say, Top FORTY-EIGHT Things, here at Enuffa.com! I decided to put every WrestleMania main event in order from worst to best, and split it into five parts so as to make it a little more digestible for you folks. "But Justin," you're probably saying, "How can there be a Top 48 when there have only been 47 WrestleMania main events?" Well, I'll explain that one in a bit.
WrestleMania is of course the biggest PPV of the year, a time when athleticism and spectacle intermingle on the biggest possible scale for one night (or two nights nowadays). The results over the last four decades have been mixed, but when WWE is on their game, they're capable of transcending the art form. When they aren't, it ranges from uninspired to the drizzling dumpster farts. This list has a little of everything, as the WrestleMania main event has historically been overshadowed by another match on the card more often than not (roughly two out of every three times by my calculation). But whether or not the participants deliver in the final match of the evening, the WrestleMania main event is the ultimate goal for just about everyone who throws their hat into a WWE ring. It's an honor bestowed only on a select few, and even fewer truly make their moment count. Let's peruse the WWE archives and see which 'Mania main events have measured up and which ones belong on history's scrap heap.....
48. Yokozuna vs. Hulk Hogan - WrestleMania IX
Alright, so I said earlier I'd explain why there are 46 entries on this list, and here's the reason. WrestleMania IX's main event as officially announced was Bret Hart defending the WWF Championship against newly minted monster heel Yokozuna, who earned his title shot at the 1993 Royal Rumble. That match took place as planned, but immediately afterwards Hulk Hogan showed up to protest the result (Yokozuna beat Bret after Mr. Fuji threw salt in the champ's eyes), and Yokozuna challenged him to a match on the spot. Nevermind that it made zero sense for the brand new *heel* WWF Champion, who'd just endured a grueling nine-minute match, to challenge a fresh babyface for an impromptu title defense. Hogan accepted with Bret's blessing (which also made no sense as Bret and Hogan had never really interacted before), dodged an errant salt throw from Fuji that landed in Yoko's eyes (Apparently salt is the deadliest weapon ever, as it was responsible for two title changes in one night), and dropped his big stupid leg to win the WWF Title only two minutes removed from the PPV's official main event finish. A guy who wasn't even booked to headline the show walked away with the gold (an occurrence which would repeat 22 years later under much better circumstances) while the two new main event guys were made to look like chumps. This was goddamn disgraceful and entirely counterproductive at a time when the WWF desperately needed to move on from the Hogan Era, and worse, Hogan would take the belt home for two months, reneging on his backstage promise to put Bret over at SummerSlam. To paraphrase George Carlin, fuck Terry, Terry sucks. This "match" is the worst main event in WrestleMania history, but I'll be goddamned if I'm not also going to acknowledge that show's true main event on this list. Hence Bret vs. Yokozuna will appear as well, bringing the total number of entries to 46.
47. Sgt. Slaughter vs. Hulk Hogan - WrestleMania VII
Speaking of Terry and sucking, the main event of WrestleMania VII was centered around the recently returned Sgt. Slaughter, who instead of being the heroic American soldier we all knew and tolerated, announced himself as an Iraqi sympathizer, complete with a Saddam Hussein lookalike manager and a flag burning. He defeated The Ultimate Warrior at the Royal Rumble, thus robbing fans of a Hogan-Warrior rematch which would've done ENORMOUS business, and setting up this stinker of a main event instead. Fans were so unimpressed with this bout headlining the show in fact, WrestleMania VII had to be moved from its original 100,000-seat location at the LA Coliseum to the much smaller 16,000-seat LA Sports Arena. The match in practice was about as good as it looked on paper, which is to say it wasn't good. At all. Hogan and Slaughter plodded around the ring for a pretty excruciating 21 minutes before Hogan put a merciful end to Slaughter's title reign, and this match. Ridiculously their feud would continue until SummerSlam, a full six months after our real-life skirmish in Iraq had ended.