10 Best Non-Title, Non-Stipulation Singles Matches in WrestleMania History
With less than a day left for the 35th Edition of WrestleMania, the excitement among the wrestling fans is at an all time high. With a mammoth card of 16 matches, WWE has gone all in with an aim to produce one of the greatest shows in professional wrestling history.
Headlined by a trifecta of World Title matches, including a Women's Title main event, WrestleMania 35 indeed has all the ingredients to be a show that fans could talk about for years.
Apart with World Title matches, WWE has a long history of booking grudge, non title matches between prominent Superstars at WrestleMania. These matches, with no stipulation and nothing up for grabs, often end up stealing the show from under the nose of other high profile matches.
This year, WWE has set two such encounters for Mania, with the likes of AJ Styles and Roman Reigns looking to settle their issues with Randy Orton and Drew McIntyre respectively. While we wait for Sunday to see how these two matches end up being, here are the 10 best non-title, non-stipulation matches in Mania history.
Note:- This list is only made up of what is called a Singles Match. Hence, matches like Retirement matches, Career threatening matches, #1 Contender matches and other stipulation matches are not included in this list.
Honourable Mentions:
Undertaker vs Triple H (WrestleMania X-Seven)
Chris Jericho vs Christian (WrestleMania XX)
Undertaker vs Randy Orton (WrestleMania 21)
Randy Orton vs CM Punk (WrestleMania XXVII)
Randy Orton vs Seth Rollins (WrestleMania 31)
#10 AJ Styles vs Shane McMahon (WrestleMania 33)
This match had no right to be any good, let alone be the phenomenal encounter that this actually was.
While one can argue that it was a match that featured AJ Styles at the peak of his WWE run, the fact that his opponent was Shane McMahon, a 47-year old year non-wrestler, in a match that didn't have any stipulation meant that fans had very little expectations with the quality of the match.
However, fans were treated with a delightful, submission style wrestling match at the start of Mania 33. Despite not being a regular in-ring performer, Shane went toe-to-toe with the greatest performer of this generation for over 20 minutes, hitting moves that he rarely performs, including a sick shooting star press.
Styles, as always, was at his best inside the ring and carried Shane like a true veteran. With the crowd literally on their feet, Styles pinned McMahon after a Phenomenal Forearm and stole the show at WrestleMania for the first time in his career.