Bonus Column: Opening For Business
I was going to post this elsewhere but I never got around to it so here it is.
Earlier this week, WWE announced that the main event of WrestleMania 35 will feature a women’s match for the first time in history as Raw Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey will defend the title against Charlotte and Becky Lynch. This alone is worthy of a headline story, but it made me think about the other end of the show.
In a documentary on WrestleMania 32, Kevin Owens said that if you can’t be last, you want to be first. The opening match of WrestleMania is a very important part of the card as it sets the table for the rest of the evening and often can be a memorable match in its own right. Today I’m going to look at the thirty four opening matches in WrestleMania history and see which worked and which didn’t, along with seeing which was the best at its job (hint: it might not be what you think). Also note I’m only talking about the show’s official opener and not dark matches or Kickoff Show matches.
Wrestlemania I: Tito Santana vs. The Executioner
We’re starting off big here as it’s the first match in WrestleMania history, which certainly has a lot of weight in its own right. It’s also a weird one to start with as WrestleMania is far from what the show would become. Really, it’s a souped up house show from its era so a match like this isn’t all that surprising to have. Santana wins in a short match over the masked Buddy Rode with the Figure Four, but Santana is so popular that it gets the fans even more hyped up. Absolutely nothing special to it, but it did its job well.
WrestleMania II: Paul Orndorff vs. Don Muraco
We’ll continue the odd choices to start as this is fallout from a few stories, including Orndorff vs. Mr. Fuji, who was managing Muraco. The match is a nice brawl, though a little harder to watch with Orndorff’s full on racist gestured at Fuji. It even ends in a double countout, making it more of a “come back next time” match than anything definite. It’s not even all that good, making this a weird opener for a decisively weird WrestleMania.
WrestleMania III: Can Am Connection vs. Don Muraco/Bob Orton Jr.
I’ve long since called this perhaps the perfect WrestleMania opener, which may sound crazy. Here’s where we get back to doing the right job though. This match, which would be a dark match today at best, is a fun little five minute match that gets the crowd going but doesn’t take anything away from the rest of the show. That’s where a lot of openers lose me: if it’s the best match of the card, it’s all downhill from there. There are certainly better matches, but this was a great choice to open the show and it still works perfectly well today. I’m not sure if it’s going to hold up, but it’s the right match in the right place with the good guys winning.
WrestleMania IV: Battle Royal
We’ll get out of these weird matches eventually. WrestleMania IV was built entirely around the tournament to crown a new WWF Champion so a lot of people, including these twenty, were left out in the cold. Therefore, in what would later become a tradition, a bunch of people were thrown into a battle royal, with newcomer Bad News Brown eliminating Bret Hart to win. The post match brawl was supposed to set up Hart’s face run but it was still a few years off.
WrestleMania V: Hercules vs. King Haku
Then there’s this one, which is the definition of a nothing match with no specific feud or story coming in and Haku’s King’s Crown not on the line so he could take the loss here. Neither guy was really doing anything at the moment but they were thrown in this match for the sake of having a match. Then again, that was the case for almost the entire card out of a handful of matches, so this is one of the weaker entries on the list.
WrestleMania VI: Rick Martel vs. Koko B. Ware
This is in the same vein of the previous match with no particular reason for the match to be taking place other than they need something to start the show. It is however a rare heel victory with Martel making Ware give up. There’s nothing to say about this one and, much like the previous year’s match, there’s no particular reason for most of the card outside of one match so it’s not that surprising.
WrestleMania VII: Rockers vs. Barbarian/Haku
We’ve moved into a new era of the show and the company as a whole with the match changing up a little bit. This one was more like the WrestleMania III edition with a fast paced match between a good and evil team with the villains going down. The major change of pace here though is both teams are quite a bit better, making for a better match up and down. The Rockers were awesome at this point and getting even better, which you’ll get used to soon enough.
WrestleMania VIII: Shawn Michaels vs. El Matador Tito Santana
Expect to get used to Michaels for a bit here as the WWF realized that he was one of the best things around and one of the best table setters that they had to offer. Then you put him in there with one of the best workers in the company with Santana (who was a bullfighter for some reason) and how could this not be at least good? Again no story, but Michaels’ heel push was just getting started and he needed a win like this.
WrestleMania IX: Intercontinental Title: Shawn Michaels(c) vs. Tatanka
How did we go eight years without a title defense to open the show? Michaels opens the show for the third year in a row and this time he’s against the undefeated Tatanka, though this match was more about the managers. Michaels had Luna Vachon (for some reason) and Tatanka had Michaels’ old manager Sherri Martel, which would have seemed to be a better match. Tatanka won by countout to continue his undefeated streak but not win the title, which is one of your first storyline advancing openers. A long, but rather good match as Michaels continues to be the best way to get things started.
WrestleMania X: Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart
Ok we might have a winner here. This was all about the backstory as Owen had claimed to be stuck in Bret’s shadow and wanting to prove that he could defeat his brother. He would go on to do just that in an instant classic if not a masterpiece, pinning Bret completely clean. This was made even more interesting as Bret won the WWF Title later that night, setting Owen up as the obvious #1 contender, giving us a series of great matches throughout the summer. This is a hard one to top and it may never actually be topped because it’s that good on all levels.
WrestleMania XI: Blu Brothers vs. Allied Powers
With that classic out of the way, we’re back to another nothing match which was just there because something had to open the show. WrestleMania XI is often viewed as the low point of the series and while the opener isn’t the worst, it’s certainly nothing worth remembering. Of course the good guys won, but did anyone really care that they did? Just a nothing match that was merely there to fill in part of the card, which I thought we had passed up.
WrestleMania XII: Camp Cornette vs. Ahmed Johnson/Vader/Jake Roberts
There was a lot of work that needed to be done to get the company out of the funk it went into around this time and it wasn’t close to being done yet. This was a step up from what we had seen the previous year as there was an actual point to it and the fans wanted to see Cornette get what was coming to him but had to wait until later as his guys survive again. It’s not a great match by any stretch and, like previous entries, this show was all about one match.
WrestleMania XIII: New Blackjacks vs. Doug Furnas/Phillip LaFon vs. Headbangers vs. Godwinns
Oh my tag team wrestling was a rough sit in the 1990s. This was another really bad stretch for the titles (which tends to be the norm rather than the exception) with four midcard teams fighting for a future shot at the Tag Team Titles. To make things even worse, it’s an elimination match, meaning we had to sit through three falls. As the best team, the Headbangers won as they should have, but egads it was a rough sit. Things would get better for the division, but it was going to take a lot of time.
WrestleMania XIV: Tag Team Battle Royal
See what I mean about it needing to get better? This was another #1 contenders match, though the big story here was the return of the Legion of Doom as LOD 2000 with Sunny as their new manager. The team didn’t do anything long term, but seeing them come back here was a cool moment that helped give the division a jolt by winning while we waited on the good teams to come around.
WrestleMania XV: Hardcore Title: Billy Gunn(c) vs. Hardcore Holly vs. Al Snow
And now we get to the really bad ideas with Gunn, who had nothing to do with the hardcore division, winning the title to defend here, while his partner and hardcore specialist the Road Dogg won the Intercontinental Title and defended it against the people Gunn had been feuding against. Now some of you might find this dumb, but that’s the beauty of booking for the sake of a SWERVE: it doesn’t have to make sense because it’s a SWERVE! Thankfully Holly won the title back to end the failed experiment, which was never spoken of again.
WrestleMania XVI: D’Lo Brown/Godfather vs. Big Bossman/Bull Buchanan
Things didn’t get much better in the next year as we had this match for the sake of Ice-T playing Godfather and Brown to the ring. That’s all well and good…but then they lost. You know, because the way to get the crowd going for the night is to have the popular and fun team lose a meaningless match to a team that would do a grand total of nothing going forward. All the sense in the world.
WrestleMania XVII: Intercontinental Title: Chris Jericho(c) vs. William Regal
Now THIS is more like it. This was a feud built around Jericho finding Regal boring, so he, ahem, relieved himself in Regal’s teapot and then dressed up as Doink for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Regal, the Commissioner at the time, tortured Jericho by having him wrestle a bunch of handicap matches, setting himself up as the #1 contender for the title. They then went out and beat the fire out of each other with Jericho winning (as he should have) to get the show off to a good start.
WrestleMania XVIII: Intercontinental Title: William Regal(c) vs. Rob Van Dam
I mean it worked well enough last year. This one didn’t have the build of Regal vs. Jericho but it was a nice title change to open the show in front of a huge crowd and that’s all it needed to be. Sometimes a title change for the sake of a title change is acceptable and that was the case here with the popular Van Dam winning the title and shutting up the annoying Regal.
WrestleMania XIX: Cruiserweight Title: Matt Hardy(c) vs. Rey Mysterio
I don’t think there’s much arguing against the idea that Mysterio is the greatest cruiserweight of all time (save for maybe Jushin Thunder Liger). Having him in the division made perfect sense, though having him lose here was a little confusing. Hardy as the oversized cruiserweight was funny, but there came a point to have him lose the title. That point was here to Mysterio, not two months later to Mysterio.
WrestleMania XX: United States Title: Big Show(c) vs. John Cena
Now we get into the historic stuff on two fronts. First of all, Big Show’s title reign is historically bad with less than five title defenses in a five month reign. That’s not what matters of course though, as this was the night Cena won his first of many (and I do mean many) titles in the company with the fans being more than ready to cheer the heck out of him. That’s what WWE gave them and it worked like a charm. Not a great match, but the exact right booking.
WrestleMania XXI: Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio
This is the more storyline driven match as Guerrero and Mysterio were SmackDown Tag Team Champions but had a match against each other for the sake of competition. The idea here was that Guerrero couldn’t beat Mysterio and the frustration set in. I would go into a deeper look at the story…but it’s Mysterio vs. Guerrero at WrestleMania. Do I need to explain this one further?
WrestleMania XXII: Raw Tag Team Titles: Kane/Big Show(c) vs. Chris Masters/Carlito
We’re going back a few years here with a title match for the sake of having a title match, though in this case the titles didn’t change hands. Kane and Big Show were the monster team (well duh) and Carlito and Masters were their meal for the day. The titles would change hands the next night, but you don’t want to start a show like this with the monsters losing to some cheating heels.
WrestleMania XXIII: Mr. Kennedy vs. CM Punk vs. Edge vs. Finlay vs. Jeff Hardy vs. King Booker vs. Mark Henry vs. Matt Hardy
It’s Money in the Bank time and this is a good example of a match that shouldn’t have opened the show. Money in the Bank is one of the biggest matches that is going to be taking place on the card and anything that comes after it is going to feel like a downgrade. They were smart to have the popular Kennedy win here, but this was the wrong place on the card for the match and there was no way to get back to this level for a few matches.
WrestleMania XXIV: Finlay vs. John Bradshaw Layfield
This is an interesting one as I’ve always liked it and it certainly gets a lot of praise. That being said, it’s not hard to see why. It’s a Belfast Brawl (street fight) and there’s something so safe yet efficient about it. The match isn’t great and it’s been done a lot better before, but they do things at a very nice and steady pace, making the match do exactly what it’s supposed to. It’s nothing great or even very good, but it works rather well and I can see why it’s so well liked, even though the rather evil JBL won.
WrestleMania XXV: CM Punk vs. MVP vs. Finlay vs. Christian vs. Kane vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Mark Henry vs. Shelton Benjamin
Money in the Bank again and, just like last time, I’m not sure on the line of thinking here. Do you really want to go with something that can pick the crowd up later this early on? There are other things to use instead of this match for the opener, and having the Kid Rock concert after it didn’t help things. This is one of the many reasons that WrestleMania XXV isn’t well remembered and it was downhill from here (save for that all time classic later on). Yeah Punk winning helped, but it wasn’t enough to fix the show’s problems.
WrestleMania XXVI: SmackDown Tag Team Titles: Big Show/The Miz(c) vs. John Morrison/R-Truth
I’m not sure what to make of this one as the match doesn’t even last long enough to think much of it. The match doesn’t even last three and a half minutes and seems like it was thrown onto the card for the sake of getting the four people onto the show. It’s something that could have been taken off the show for the sake off freeing up some space, but I guess it’s good enough for an opener, even though it’s not even worth the time it got. The champs retained, but it’s hard to even remember.
WrestleMania XXVII: SmackDown World Title: Edge(c) vs. Alberto Del Rio
Now this one has always been confusing to me as it just doesn’t feel like a match that should be opening WrestleMania. This feels like a match that should have been one of the last three or four matches on the card but, possibly due to Edge’s legitimate neck injury that would force him to retire shortly thereafter, it opened the show instead. That being said, it’s really not very good in the first place so it’s certainly on the low end of the list and made even worse by Edge’s surprising win. If he knew he was done, why wasn’t he dropping the title here?
WrestleMania XXVIII: SmackDown World Title: Daniel Bryan(c) vs. Sheamus
What in the world can I say here? The match is literally the bell, a Brogue kick and a pin to make Sheamus the champion in eighteen seconds. That’s hardly enough to go anywhere and while it did wind up helping move Bryan up the card (eventually), it felt like a pounding the desk moment and that’s not the best way to start WrestleMania.
WrestleMania XXIX: Shield vs. Randy Orton/Sheamus/Big Show
Ah the Shield. This is the kind of act that the company could ride for years and as it turns out, that’s exactly what they did. The team was still on their undefeated streak here as we looked for someone to defeat them. Orton and company were another all-star team who couldn’t get it done, but the WrestleMania debut was more than enough for the Shield, which was the entire point because they looked like stars.
WrestleMania XXX: Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H
This might be the most impressive opening match in the show’s history, as you have to remember what came before. WrestleMania XXX opened with Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin and the Rock in the ring at the same time. What in the world is supposed to follow something like that? Bryan and Triple H managed to get the fans into the palm of their hands and it was incredible with Bryan winning to advance to the triple threat title match later in the night. Great match, great story, and a better accomplishment.
WrestleMania XXXI: Intercontinental Title: Bad News Barrett(c) vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Stardust vs. Luke Harper vs. R-Truth
We get back to the Money in the Bank formula of starting with the huge mess of a match, possibly to avoid the issues of having to set up the ladders during the show. This was a huge mess of a match with a bunch of insane spots until Bryan, fresh off his return from injury, won the title for the feel good moment to open the show.
WrestleMania XXXII: Intercontinental Title: Kevin Owens(c) vs. Zack Ryder vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz vs. Sami Zayn vs. Sin Cara vs. Stardust
Remember what I said about all the previous year’s match? It’s the same thing here but with Ryder’s feel good moment instead of Bryan’s. This was another big mess of a match that should have had half the people in it (cut one of the wrestlers in half or something) for the sake of building something up but remember that EVERYONE HAS TO BE ON WRESTLEMANIA so it was the only way.
WrestleMania XXXIII: Shane McMahon vs. AJ Styles
So yeah, McMahon returned the previous year and helped move a lot of sales for WrestleMania XXXII so it was decided that he needed to be around every year to help boost the audience. The problem is that he had to wrestle a match here, and that became a problem. The match was good, but it felt like everything was catering to McMahon, which dragged things down a lot. It was better than expected, though that’s not exactly a high bar to clear.
WrestleMania XXXIV: Intercontinental Title: The Miz(c) vs. Finn Balor vs. Seth Rollins
We’ll wrap it up here with another match that was there to open the show hot and little more. Rollins and Balor had both beaten Miz leading up to this and the question now was who would take the title from him. That would be Rollins, and that’s certainly one way to go. Rollins was back to full strength after his knee injury and it was great to see the old version back again.
So those are all of the WrestleMania openers and like I said: it depends on what you’re looking for. If you want a great match, it’s Hart vs. Hart or Triple H vs. Bryan. If you want a spectacle, pick a ladder match. For something that just gets the show going, there are more choices than worth naming. The best overall though….yeah it’s hard to argue Hart vs. Hart. With the wrestling and the storytelling combined, it’s impossible to beat and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
There are so many WrestleMania openers over the years (about thirty four of them) and they all offer a little something. Some of them might not be as good as others, but they all have one thing in common: they have to get things ready for the rest of the evening and that’s one of the most important things all night long. If the fans aren’t interested, it’s going to be a rough night, but if you can start them off hot, it’s WrestleMania.
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