WrestleMania 28: Ranking the Best 'Mania Buildups of All-Time

For the first time in WWE history, the main event for WrestleMania was announced a year in advance as The Rock and John Cena agreed to a match at WrestleMania XXVIII the night after WrestleMania XXVII. After all of the waiting, the match that everyone has been waiting for is nearly here.

With all of that said, though, very few would consider The Rock vs. Cena to be the best or even one of the better buildups in the history of wrestling's biggest events. The match is undoubtedly going to be huge, but with The Rock focusing on his acting career for most of the year, it wasn't really possible for there to be a proper build.

WrestleMania features the biggest matches on a yearly basis, though, so there have been plenty of great builds. Here are the three best buildups in WrestleMania history.

3. The Rock vs. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin - WrestleMania X-Seven

Leading up to what was the second of three epic WrestleMania encounters between the two, The Rock and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin had the third-best buildup in the event's history. Both The Rock and Austin were faces heading into WrestleMania X-Seven, so there was a bit of a divide amongst the crowd, although Austin obviously still had the advantage in that regard. 

An interesting wrinkle to the feud that really heated things up was Vince McMahon demanding that Austin's wife Debra be The Rock's manager. This increased the bad blood between Austin and The Rock before Debra was ultimately relieved of her duties. On top of all that, this match was responsible for perhaps the best hype video in WWE history.

The match itself was shocking as it was a no-disqualification match and Austin ended up aligning himself with McMahon. Austin used a chair given to him by McMahon to defeat The Rock, win the WWE Championship and turn heel. The build made this one of the most anticipated matches in WWE history and led to one of the most surprising moments as well.

2. Triple H vs. Batista - WrestleMania 21

Although both Triple H and Batista have caught a lot of grief over the years, there is no denying how good their feud was leading up to WrestleMania 21.

Following Randy Orton's departure of Evolution, Batista had shown some babyface tendencies at times. When he won the 2005 Royal Rumble he had the choice between challenging for JBL's WWE Championship at WrestleMania or his mentor Triple H's World Heavyweight Championship.

It was continually teased that Batista would turn face and challenge Triple H and it came to fruition after Triple H and Ric Flair failed in a scheme to get Batista to take on JBL. Batista signed a contract to face Triple H at WrestleMania, thus completing his slow-burn face turn.

Such well-developed turns simply aren't done much anymore as writers and fans alike tend to be impatient. What made this build so good was that a number of seeds were planted with regards to Batista turning on Triple H, but it took a long time for it to actually happen.

The match itself allowed everything to come full circle as well since Batista officially became a superstar by defeating Triple H for the title on the grandest stage of them all.

1. "Macho Man" Randy Savage vs. Hulk Hogan - WrestleMania V

It's quite rare that a match is in the making for a year or more, and while The Rock vs. John Cena was announced a year ago, its build pales in comparison to what Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Randy Savage did from 1988 to WrestleMania V in 1989.

Hogan and Savage formed a union in late 1987 and became the Mega Powers. Not long after that, Savage won a tournament at WrestleMania IV to win the WWE Championship.

From that point forward, tensions began to run high between the two men. The main point of contention was that Savage didn't like Elizabeth managing Hogan and felt as though he was being left out.

Things came to a head during a Saturday Night's Main Event in February of 1989. Elizabeth was inadvertently injured during a match between the Mega Powers and the Twin Towers.

Hogan left Savage to take Elizabeth to the back for medical attention. This ultimately led to Savage attacking Hogan for "abandoning" him and turning heel in the process. The former friends faced off in the main event of WrestleMania V with Hogan beating Savage for the WWE Championship.