Scott,
A few weeks ago, I started a small project about trying to find a wrestler
to consider as "Mr. Wrestlemania". I wanted to see how wrestlers measured
up against each other over the 25 years. For instance, Hulk Hogan main
evented at 7 Wrestlemanias, but the Undertaker has appeared at more. I saw
that you posted someone's chart of Royal Rumble star power, and thought
that since Wrestlemania is coming up that I'd share my work with you and
the blog posters.
I created a point system and based everything off of Match Results and
they are as follows:
Wrestlemania Appearance: 1 Point (This was designed so that managers could
gain some points, but anyone who got one of these points, only got one per
show. This doesn't count non-match segments)
Wrestlemania Match: 2 points (Hence, just by having a match, a wrestler
gets three points. If a wrestler wrestled more than one match, they got
two points per match, but only one appearance point for the whole show)
Match Winner: 5 points
Special Stipulation Match: 2 points (Any match involving some kind of
stipulation. This doesn't include a match like a triple threat or 4-way.
Wrestlers get this on top of match points from before)
Special Match Win: 3 points
Title Win or Title Defense: 5 points
Main Event Match: 5 points (I only count the last match of Wrestlemania to
be the Main Event. The only exception is Wrestlemania 9. I gave Main Event
points to Bret Hart and Yokozuna but not to Hulk Hogan)
Main Event Win: 7 points
Obviously these points are subject to debate, and I have no doubt that it
will be contested in some way. Without further ado, here are the top 25
wrestlers.
25. The Big Bossman 45 (6 appearances, 6 matches, 5 wins, 1 special match)
24. Rob Van Dam 47 (4 appearances, 4 matches, 4 wins, 1 special match and
win, 1 title win, and 1 title defense)
23. Big Show 48 (9 appearances, 9 matches, 1 win, 3 special matches, 1
title defense, 1 main event match)
22. Matt Hardy 49 (7 appearances, 7 matches, 2 wins, 5 special matches
with 1 win, and 1 title defense)
21. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper 51 (10 appearances, 7 matches, 2 wins, 3 special
matches with 2 wins, and 1 main event match)
20. British Bulldog 51 (7 appearances, 7 matches, 4 wins, 1 title win, and
1 title defense)
19. Christian 57 (6 appearances, 6 matches, 3 wins, 4 special matches with
2 wins, and 2 title wins)
18. Ted Dibiase 58 (7 appearances, 8 matches, 4 wins, 2 title defenses,
and 1 main event match)
17. Chris Jericho 58 (8 appearances, 8 matches, 3 wins, 2 special matches,
1 title win, 1 title defense, and 1 main event)
16. Bradshaw 59 (10 appearances, 10 matches, 3 wins, 3 special matches
with 1 win, and 1 title win)
15. The Ultimate Warrior 62 (5 appearances, 5 matches, 4 wins, 1 special
match with 1 win, AND all in one match: a title win, a title defense, a
main event match that he also won)
14. Yokozuna 63 (4 appearances, 6 matches, 3 wins, 2 title wins, 1 title
defense, 2 main event matches with 1 win)
13. Owen Hart 64 (8 appearances, 8 matches, 5 wins, 1 title win, and 2
title defenses)
12. Chris Benoit 65 (7 appearances, 7 matches, 3 wins, 1 special match, 2
title wins, 1 title defense, 1 main event match with 1 win)
11. The Rock 80 (8 appearances, 8 matches, 4 wins, 2 special matches, 2
title defenses, 3 main event matches with 1 win)
10. Kane 82 (11 appearances, 11 matches, 5 wins, 3 special matches with 1
win, 2 title wins, and 1 title defense)
9. Edge 86 (8 appearances, 8 matches, 5 wins, 5 special matches with 4
wins, 2 title wins, and 1 main event match)
8. John Cena 92 (6 appearances, 6 matches, 5 wins, 3 title wins, 2 title
defenses, 2 main event matches with 2 wins)
7. "Macho Man" Randy Savage 104 (8 appearances, 11 matches [He was in 4
matches at Wrestlemania 4], 7 wins, 2 special matches with 1 win, 2 title
wins, 1 title defense, 2 main event matches with 1 win)
6. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin 111 (9 appearances, 7 matches, 5 wins, 3
special matches with 2 wins, 3 title wins, 3 main events with 3 wins)
5. Bret "The Hitman" Hart 121 (12 appearances, 13 matches, 7 wins, 5
special matches with 2 wins, 2 title wins, 3 main event matches with 1
win)
4. Shawn Michaels 132 (16 appearances, 16 matches, 6 wins, 4 special
matches with 3 wins, 1 title win, 1 title defense, 4 main event matches
with 1 win)
3. Triple H 145 (13 appearances, 13 matches, 6 wins, 1 title win, 4 title
defenses, 6 main events with 3 wins)
2. Hulk Hogan 187 (11 appearances, 12 matches, 8 wins, 2 special matches
with 2 wins, 3 title wins, 2 title defenses, 7 main events with 6 wins)
1. The Undertaker 195 (17 appearances, 17 matches, 17 wins, 4 special
matches with 4 wins, 3 title wins, 2 main events with 2 wins)
-Ryan
Well I would have guessed that Undertaker would win, but I’ve never heard of “Ryan” before.
I’m not sure I understand the reason one would have appearance points. I mean, I know it’s because he said that managers would get points, but because they can get only one per WM worked, there’s no way they would crack this list.
Someone like Bobby Heenan did have legitimate star power, even if in a non-wrestling role, and I’d be curious about how to legitimately compare whether he was a bigger “star” than, say, the Big Boss Man.
Meanwhile, I’m not sure how you fairly give bonus points to Hogan for a thirty second title match at WMIX.
Not trying to be overly critical, because there’s no “right” way to do it. Still, I can’t help but think there’s a better way.
Yeah I admit my system could use some tweaking. After I got started, I thought about including points just for being in a title match, because I think that would hold some kind of significance.
I agree that Bobby Heenan had a lot of star power. More than Bradshaw in at least his first few appearances.
I did have to make a personal call for WMIX. I felt that the real main event was Hart vs. Yoko and so I gave those two main event points and Yoko got the title defense points. Then I gave Hulk and Yoko regular match points for that 30 second match.
I’ve never EVER thought of the tag match with Hogan as being even close to the main event at WM 9. Not even in the conversation for me. There are much more difficult calls on what constitutes the main event than this show. Seems pretty cut and dried to me that Bret and Yoko was the main event.
Oh no I didn’t count the tag match as the main event. I believe the match in question was after the Bret and Yoko match where Hogan came out and beat Yoko for the title in like 30 seconds. I didn’t think it was fair to call that the main event even though, by my definition of the main event for this thing, it was the last match on the card. Hogan did not get main event points or the main event win. He only got the points for a title win.
I did a similar sort of thing, by using Scott’s star ratings to calculate how many ***+ matches each wrestler had for the Wrestlemanias, and in the end HBK won hands down.
Mr Wrestlemania can’t be judged by statistics.
HBK IS Mr Wrestlemania.. it has got to the point where an HBK match at WM is a special occasion in itself. He has set the bar so high each year that we expect a defining ‘wrestling moment’ every time now.
You’re exactly right. You can look at it in a scientific way and/or an artistic way. In my scientific way, this is how it turned out, but I do believe that when it comes right down to it, Shawn Michaels will go all out and put on a phenomenal match. I look forward to seeing what he does this year.
Michales Wrestlemania record is 6-11. I mean, it’s a Kayfabe title, that needs to mean something! Also, a lot of those matches (and LOSES) were against guys like Tatanka, The Orient Express, and the Twin Towers.
Legitimately, isn’t a Mr. WrestleMania more someone like the Rock, who wrestled in title matches for five straight years (2IC, 3WWF), the in his last three fought Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, and Ric Flair, and won two of those three?
Or a guy like Cena, who won or retained major championships in his first five WrestleManias, against The Big Show, JBL* HHH and HBK?
Or even a Hulk Hogan? His career defining matches and victories occurred at WrestleMania.
*I know JBL sucks.
Shawn Michaels is Mr. WrestleMania because the WWE marketing department decided it.
How does three of 11 losses count as “A lot”?
I’m just curious.
I guess what I’m saying is “Mr. WrestleMania” lost his first three matches in the mid-card, then won two against Tito Santana & Haku & The Barbarian, then lost three more against Tatanka, Razor Ramon and Diesel. Then “Mr. WrestleMania” best Bret Hart, couldn’t see fit to MAKE the next WrestleMania, the lost his title to Austin. “Mr. WrestleMania” lost as many WWF Title matches as he won in his first run.
In his second run, he beats Jericho (in a great match, but it was promoted as the fifth most important match on the card), gets wedged into a Triple Threat that he can’t win, loses to Angle, beats McMahon, loses to Cena, beats Flair and loses to Undertaker.
He’s got A TON of loses for a “Mr. WrestleMania.” That’s all I’m saying. A guy like Rock, Austin, Undertaker or Hogan is the real Mr. WrestleMania.
But this is a silly argument. Like I said, he’s “Mr WrestleMania” because Vince thinks it’s great marketing.
The BIG problem here is that UT needs to put someone over when the streak ends, and it would mean a lot more for him to lose to a CM Punk or even a John Cena. Michaels is as over as he’s ever gonna be, and beating UT isn’t going to make him more of a star.
The thing is though, if Undertaker put someone over at WrestleMania what good would it really do, I may be a tad too cynical about the WWE these days but I don’t see someone beating Taker as something that you could live off for more than a couple months, I guess that has to do with how quickly everything goes these days, 20 different champs a year etc, it would definitely be the ultimate way for Taker to put someone over, but at the end of the day I don’t really want to see the streak end on someone who gets lost in the fold in the fold 6 months later. Edge in 2008, main eventer though he was, was the only time I would’ve deemed the streak worthy of ending. I wouldn’t have a problem with Shawn ending it, even though it may be a bit counter-productive. But the most interesting thing would probably be Taker/Cena in a face v face match where Cena screws over Taker to become a major heel.
Edge could have done it.
I honestly thought Orton would, with his “legend killer” thing. Then I heard he would need surgery following Mania that year, and I thought “no way he goes over Taker if he is going to be off a few months.”
Batista also could have done it, but I knew they would not do it. And finally, the guy that should have done it: Kane, at Wrestlemania XIV. The streak was not The Streak yet. It was Kane’s Mania debut, and the feud was set to continue in a month. Why not put Kane over first to make him seem like a threat? Instead he was jobbed two months in a row (and many, many, times to come).
I pretty much knew Orton wouldn’t end the streak, though it’s kind of surprising it didn’t happen. WrestleMania XIV is one of those that could have gone either way, but really the story called for an Undertaker win. Kane was over for months, they just needed something productive for him to do after the conspiracy angle aster SummerSlam.
Everything I said in the Royal Rumble star power thread applies here. This is a fun exercise where the results are skewed by this strange new era.
There’s no context taken into consideration here. The early cookie-cutter WM shows were set up to be one or two-match shows. Way fewer high-profile spots to grab, especially when two of those slots were automatically going to Hogan and a new-Hogan-opponent every year. Today, they build the show around five or six major matches. Half the roster points to a stupid banner for two months leading up to the show, and promos actually discuss ridiculous stuff like ‘making a Wrestlemania moment.’ A lot of differences between now and the way it used to be.
And longevity is always going to heavily favor people from the last ten years. Now that they openly pay homage to their past (and book storylines around it) and WCW, ECW, and the territories are long gone, the company doesn’t cycle wrestlers out anymore. We’re in an era where someone like Kane or Big Show or Edge or HHH or Bradshaw or Bob Holly or Jericho, etc. sticks around for 10-15 years. Randy Orton and John Cena are young guys and they’ve already been around longer than the original runs of DiBiase, Savage, Jake, the singles runs of Bret and Shawn, etc. And they’re still positioned to be the face of the franchise for years to come. Wrestling is just different now.
Wrestlemania has been around 25 years, yet 10 of the 25 names on the list are currently on the roster and several more have wrestled for them within the last couple years (Bradshaw, RVD, and Benoit, who had he not gone nuts would no doubt still be around and in the list’s top 10). 25 years of history and half the names are current or recent guys (most of which will surely still be in the same spot 5, maybe even 10 years down the line). What does that tell you?
Compare that with any other time period. At the time Wrestlemania 10 or Wrestlemania 15 rolled around, I wonder how many guys from the then-current roster would have made a top ten list with this same criteria (I’m guessing Bret, Savage and maybe Shawn at WM 10 and Taker, Austin, Owen and maybe Boss Man at WM 15).
For the record, I will always consider the best Wrestlemania performers based on their peak performances while taking their eras into account. To me, those who have had the most memorable matches are:
Savage: Three classics (with Steamboat, Warrior, Flair), two great main events where he won and lost the Title, and a solid farewell match against Crush. If wrestling operated the way it does now in 1992, they would have been calling him “Mr. Wrestlemania.” (They also never would have done the Liz storyline with Flair- it would instead be a lame storyline about status and historical bragging rights with the NWA guy taking on Mr. Wrestlemania.)
Bret: Four classics (with Piper, Owen, Shawn, Austin), lost and won the Title in main events, and a solid Hart Foundation farewell against the Nastys. (Of course if wrestling operated the way it does now in 1992, the Piper match would have been a triple threat with the Mountie.)
Hogan: Like him or not, the first eight shows were built around him almost entirely, and he hijacked the ninth one too. The Andre, Savage, and Warrior matches are three of the most famous main events ever.
Because of the drastic changes I mentioned above, I take the “historical” aspect of the last 5-10 years with a huge grain of salt. That said, you still have to give credit to Shawn. Before the injury, he did have classics with Razor and Bret and the huge high-profile match with Austin. I also thought his return match with Jericho was awesome.
As for Taker, he did nothing of note at Wrestlemania in his first five years with the company. Even after ten years, he had just two notable WM matches (Diesel, Kane).
Much like Taker’s streak, Shawn’s Mr. Wrestlemania tagline is a gimmick- they’ve been putting them into positions to succeed and selling the show based on Taker’s streak and Shawn’s showstealing for years now. It’s not their fault, but let’s not overlook the benefits their legacies have received because of the new craptacular era of wrestling.
It’s nothing against Shawn or Taker; I just hate to see the guys from the 80s and 90s like Bret and Savage get shortchanged in historical terms because Vince ended up with a monopoly.
As far as Undertaker goes, the fact of him not really doing much at first with Wrestlemania isn’t his fault really. They just kept pairing him up with people that could hardly work or not work at all. He kept getting the big guys who weren’t that good. It wasn’t until his program with Shawn in 97, I think, that they realized Taker could do fine with the smaller guys. That is, if my memory is serving me correctly.
But it’s OK to short-change Shawn and Taker for their amazing matches in the 2000s?
Sorry, Shawn Michaels is Mr. WrestleMania because he’s earned it with more classics than ANYONE at that show: WMX, XII, XIX, XX, (and especially) 21, 23, 24 and 25.
**** or better matches against everyone from prime Hart and Angle to John Cena and washed up Ric Flair.
No, I don’t want to short change anyone. I just don’t think it’s anyone’s fault for who they get stuck working with. That’s Vince’s doing, not theirs.
I agree that Shawn is just fine as Mr. Wrestlemania, but there’s others I think that are definitely nipping at his heels, and Undertaker is definitely one of them, I believe.
Not sure if that was directed at my post or the other post, but I don’t mean to shortchange Shawn at all. I just think it’s important to put things in context and acknowledge the differences in each era.
Matt Hardy has probably wrestled on more WWF/E PPVs than Bret Hart or Hulk Hogan. Doesn’t mean he was in their league. Sheamus has more World Titles than Mr. Perfect. Doesn’t mean he’s better. If you were to look only at the numbers and see that Hardy had X amount of PPV matches or Sheamus has won the title and Perfect never did, you’d be missing the picture. Of course we all know there are a lot more factors to consider.
And that’s all I’m saying. Consider the current environment under which all these “historical feats” are being manufactured. Shawn has had a bunch of awesome WM matches. He’s undoubtedly one of the best and *arguably* the single best. But don’t overlook all the other factors and the ways this era has benefitted him and others.
Just ten years ago you never would have seen a guy stick around in the same company for 20+ years. With Vince’s monopoly and the constant praise and exposure that all the active old-timers get, guys like Shawn and Taker are in a rare position that wouldn’t have even been possible until recently, something every star before the early 2000s couldn’t have dreamed of. To point that out is not to slight him. It’s just another factor in the discussion that merits consideration.
Anyone else also love the Rockers-Twin Towers match and the Rockers-Haku/Barbarian match? I wasn’t even a Rockers fan (they were my least favorites, actually), but I still thought those two matches were incredible.
Off topic, LOST is back…and it kicked ass.
Scott, did you catch it tonight?
Someone was a fan of WWE Fantasy, me thinks.
Don’t you think Mr.Wrestlemania should be the person that contributed the most to selling the shows? Shawn Michaels, as great as a performer as he is, is not a big draw. In this era especially, the names “Wrestlemania” and “WWE” sell more than individual wrestlers. To say he is the greatest performer at Wrestlemania would be accurate, but to say he’s the biggest icon at the show would be wrong.
Hulk Hogan is Mr.Wrestlemania. The first 9 Wrestlemania’s were built around him, and he stole the show at Wrestlemania 18. His garbage brawl with McMahon was on the poster for Wrestlemania 19. When most long time fans think of Wrestlemania, they think of Hogan. Undertaker is the only real competition he has, but Hogan’s biggest moments at the show easily trump Taker’s biggest moments.
I don’t know why we’re wasting time debating it since obviously, the only real Mr. WrestleMania is Vince himself.
Yeah I’m with Hogan as well. I’m biased as a I grew up with all the early WM videos and they all had Hogan on the front cover and in the main event. Even so, I think if Wrestlemania is associated with any one wrestler, it has to be him. I remember someone saying, “Hogan sold Wrestlemania and since then Wrestlemania has sold all the other WWF/E wrestlers”. I might not go that far but (clearly Austin and Rock took it to another level) but there’s no doubt it wouldn’t have been as big without the Hulkster.