An unrelated note before we begin. In between this and the last column, Blade Braxton, of Wrestlecrap, passed away suddenly. I had the pleasure of writing for Wrestlecrap for ten years, and, though not nearly as much as RD did, I got to know Blade. One time, he was in Detroit, visiting his then-girlfriend, and it was Wrestlemania Sunday (WM24, to be precise). They couldn’t find a bar of restaurant playing it. We weren’t intending on watching it, but when I saw their distress, I shot him a message inviting them over. I got to know Troy Ferguson, the man behind Blade, that day. He was like a big kid, but in the best way; endless, boundless enthusiasm. We laughed when the power went out on the Playboy Lumberjill match. We almost fell off our seats with the melodrama from Shawn Michaels’ “I’m sorry, I love you”. Over the years, we’d talk about him coming up for a Lions game, and he had a standing invite to crash at our place. It never came to pass. Life got in the way. I wi
The difference between an average WrestleMania match and a
great WrestleMania match is pretty severe, and you start to feel that here. The matches ranging from 100-51 on this greatest of all-time list are all inherently solid, and begin to verge on truly great as the numbers get smaller. Every match in this chunk is something you could show a non-wrestling fan in an attempt to get them to understand the mystique of WrestleMania and it would translate (well, maybe not a certain Bray Wyatt/John Cena experiment from last year, but more on that in a bit).
The real sparks start to flare as we break into the top 100, inching enticingly closer to the best of the best. Let’s get into it.