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WWE in 2026

Obe of the Jonas Brothers is performing American the Beautiful at Wrestlemania. No, it's not the one married to Priyanka Chopra.
 
It's Friday before night one and the buzz surrounding WM is almost nonexistent in my sphere. They finally did it.

So many people who were in high profile matches last year are left off the card entirely: Damien Priest, IYO Sky, Tiffany Stratton, to name a few.
 
Maybe I should wait to comment until after McAfee cuts his latest awful promo tonight, but I'm amused by him invoking the Attitude era as a heel line because a lot of fans are going to agree with him there. Yes I know a lot of that shit doesn't hold up but if you tell the fans everything was better when Stone Cold and the Rock were around of course they're going to believe it. So he should be instead praising the Ruthless Aggression era and reminding everyone that Orton was its standard bearer. "Hornswoggle. Vickie Guerrero. The Diva Search. Big Dick Johnson. ECW's Courtney Taylor as Elin Woods chasing a guy in a tiger costume with a golf club. Guest host Ken Jeong. It's all coming back when this man wins his 15th title." Then maybe the fans will appreciate the current era a little more.
 

Amusing list that immediately got credibility with me for saying Bret and Shawn isn’t a top 42 match and it ranked Piper/Bret and Flair/Taker way higher than most of these WWE friendly media partners ever do but also doesn’t put Bret/Owen in the top 14 which is a criminal offense.
 
Flair-Undertaker was a good match, but putting it at No. 4 is nuts. Big Show-Mayweather at No. 9 is egregious.
 
I thought I was the biggest fan of that Mayweather/Big Show match, but holy shit putting it as the 9th best WM match ever is completely insane lmao.
 
It's Phil Schneider, so he's bringing that DVDVR sensibility to the world of WWE listicles. If only Bunkhouse Buck or Tracy Smothers had a Mania match...
 
Oh that makes total sense then. I remember DVDMB going absolutely crazy over Mayweather/Show. I'm pretty sure there were threads listing HBK and Angle matches they thought it was better than.

I remember Phil going crazy about the Finlay/JBL brawl from the same show, so I got to see if that made the list. He got a Regal match on the list, with that clunky RVD/Regal opener from Wrestlemania X-8.

I'm shocked Shawn/Taker at 25 is at number 5. I could've sworn the Segunda Caida guys were down on that match. Heh, Angle/HBK made the cut at 20. I remember how divisive that match was on that board, although tbh I still hate the last two minutes with Shawn trying to milk the selling of the Ankle Lock to a crowd that is kind of over it.
 
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Angle/HBK got hurt badly by the different replays of the Angle Slam on the outside. Real time it looked like Shawn died against the post.
 
PWI is reporting Paige is returning to WWE.

McAfee already delivered on his promise y’all.
 
Triple H just can’t catch a break because Nikki Bella will not cleared to compete this weekend so yet again he won’t be able to book a great show because someone got hurt, poor guy.
 

Amusing list that immediately got credibility with me for saying Bret and Shawn isn’t a top 42 match and it ranked Piper/Bret and Flair/Taker way higher than most of these WWE friendly media partners ever do but also doesn’t put Bret/Owen in the top 14 which is a criminal offense.

Good to know that Phil's 1 and 2 are mine as well.

What really stands out to me from this list is how few truly great WM matches there are.
 
I was ready to say that Eddie/Angle was way too high at 18. But honestly, there's not much below it that's better.
 
The Raven match that almost ended Mania needs to be on this but other than that it mostly just shows that mania doesn't have a lot of great matches tbh.
 
What was the last truly classic Mania match? Taker/Shawn at 25?
Some would argue thematically that Cody-Roman II fits that criteria but according wrestling historian and match quality inspector, Davey Meltzer, that would be the iconic USOS vs Owens/Zayn showdown at 39 which is the most recent WM match to get the esteemed score of 5 stars.

The actual answer is probably Sasha-Bianca or Gunther/Drew/Sheamus for match quality but for historical purposes, it’s probably Brock/Roman with the Seth cash in.

edit: I stand corrected the aforementioned three way actually happened the next night after the usos tag classic, how could i forget the timing of that matchup.
 
That's by far the best three-way in Wrestlemania history (20 was always just okay even when the investment was there) and probably top three IC title.

But moments > matches so
 
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