WrestleMania's 27 Most Underrated Matches (Part Two)

Last Monday, I kicked off the countdown of the most underrated matches in WrestleMania history. Superstars such as Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Tito Santana, Ricky Steamboat, the British Bulldog and Greg Valentine made their presences felt.

This week's countdown features WrestleManias 8 through 14 and contains some of the most beloved Superstars in WWE history. There are championship matches, tag matches, grudge matches, street fights and a whole lot of Macho Madness.

Last week's countdown featured play-by-play coverage of the match. Considering the videos for each match are posted, that is no longer necessary and as a result, text will feature opinion and analysis of the matches.

Wrestlemania VIII: "Macho Man" Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair

It is incredibly rare to see two of the all-time great performers, in a championship match, featured on a list of underrated matches. While many hold the Savage-Flair showdown from WrestleMania VIII in high esteem, many often underrate its importance in the larger scheme of things.

What is shocking is that the match featured two in-ring workers, known more for their high-quality match histories than for their box-office appeal or merchandise-selling abilities.

The story behind the match created a grudge match-type environment.

Flair had begun playing with Savage's head by targeting Miss Elizabeth, claiming the two of them had a relationship. The Savage-Flair feud became about more than just the World Wrestling Federation Championship. It became personal and the intensity of the match was visible.

The match is underrated in that many often forget to mention it alongside the best matches in show history. The storytelling, the intensity and the high-profile nature of the contest should lend itself to iconography. At the very least, it is comparable to Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels from WrestleMania XIX in terms of quality.

WrestleMania IX: The Steiner Brothers vs. the Headshrinkers

WrestleMania IX is a show very much like number six. It is considered one of, if not the, worst WrestleMania events in history. Unlike it predecessor, however, WrestleMania IX does not have an all-time great main event that fans remember to this day.

It does not have its own Ultimate Warrior-Hulk Hogan match to save it from completely negative reviews.

What WrestleMania IX does have, however, is a completely underrated tag team match featuring two teams unafraid of beating the ungodly hell out of each other for the enjoyment of the fans.

Rick and Scott Steiner have the reputation of stiff, mean in-ring workers.

Samu and Fatu, having grown up apart of the Samoan wrestling tree, were no slouches themselves. As a result, the match was a snug one that had more realism than any other on the card.

Newcomers to the company, the Steiners were still in the process of warming the crowd up to them and a win over the Headshrinkers allowed them to defeat an established, dominant team.

The match itself is nothing you have not seen from the Steiners 900 times in the past. It was good, old-school tag team formula that allowed the Headshrinkers to look good in a losing effort and established Rick and Scott as a team that could take a serious beating but still find that part of themselves that would not give up.

On a card full of disappointing-to-terrible matches, it is easy to group the whole card together, call it a turd, and overlook one or two of the matches within. This is one of those cards and the Steiners-Headshrinkers battle is one of those overlooked matches.

Wrestlemania X: "Macho Man" Randy Savage vs. Crush

One of the more intense matches at the quite epic WrestleMania X pay-per-view was the "Last Man Standing" match between Randy Savage and Crush. Unlike most matches with the Last Man Standing stipulations, Crush and Savage had to, first, pin their opponent and then return to the ring while said opponent was counted down.

Crush was bitter that Savage did not come to his aid after his match with Yokozuna. Feeling betrayed, he turned on Savage and a grudge match was signed for tenth installment of the biggest show of the year.

It was clear, at this point, that Savage had lost a step in the ring. He was still better than 90 percent of the guys under contract at the time but he was clearly not the same guy that competed against Ricky Steamboat in the classic Intercontinental Championship match seven years earlier.

The match is not great.

Then again, on a show with two bona-fide five-star classics, the rest of the card did not have to be great. Randy and Crush provided the fans a hard-hitting, intense match that told the story of their rivalry and wrapped it up by the conclusion of the contest. It was everything it had to be and the most underrated match of the WrestleMania X event.

Wrestlemania XI: Razor Ramon vs. Jeff Jarrett

WrestleMania XI was a media circus, thanks to the involvement of Hollywood celebrities throughout the show and NFL great Lawrence Taylor’s involvement in the main event. While that distraction marred much of the event, there were still glimmers of an actual professional wrestling show underneath it all.

 One of the matches that made up the undercard was the Intercontinental Championship match between Razor Ramon and Jeff Jarrett. At this point, both men were hitting their stride.

Ramon was motivated and was at his peak as a worker. Jarrett was finally coming into his own in the Vince McMahon-owned company and appeared to be on track for big things.

 Ramon and Jarrett gave wrestling fans a very simplistic wrestling match that even the harshest of critics could understand and enjoy. Jarrett targeted Ramon’s legs in hopes of applying the figure four while Ramon attempted to over-power his smaller opponent. It worked, it made sense, and the interference from 123 Kid and The Roadie worked within the context of the match.

 WrestleMania XI was a boring show. But "boring" doesn’t always mean "bad" and Ramon-Jarrett is a match that goes under-recognized for being a hidden gem on an otherwise forgettable show.

Wrestlemania XII: Undertaker vs. Diesel

The Undertaker’s match with Diesel at WrestleMania XII was the first match in the Dead Man’s WrestleMania streak to show just how good a worker he was and how, when motivated, Kevin Nash could be among the best big men in the business.

 The match that everyone remembers from this show is Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels, and with good reason. But Undertaker and Nash, as Diesel, had a match that not only was a dream match at the time, was also one of the few high-quality “big man” matches the sport had to offer at the time.

 Diesel was a big threat to Undertaker and it showed in the match. Perhaps the pre-cursor to the decidedly more epic Undertaker-Kane clash two years later, Diesel pushed the Dead Man to the limit.

And for the first time in the streak, which really wasn’t a “streak” at the time, Undertaker looked luckier to win the match rather than simply being the better wrestler. It worked and added to the importance of the Dead Man’s matches at WrestleMania.

 The recent matches between Undertaker and Shawn Michaels, and Undertaker versus Triple H, have overshadowed many of his WrestleMania contests.

As a result, this match (and one later in the countdown) are forgotten. It is a shame because this one match really laid the groundwork for all of the Undertaker’s great work that followed.

It humanized him and allowed him to get away from the stalking, no-selling zombie character he was playing to this point.

Wrestlemania XIII: Ahmed Johnson & Legion of Doom vs. Nation of Domination

Too many times in recent wrestling history, personal grudges have been settled in relatively calm wrestling matches. There was a time, however, where heated rivalries came to a head in violent brawls. WrestleMania XIII featured two of these matches.

The Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart match is ranked as one of the best matches of all-time. Immediately following it, however, was a six-man tag team street fight that has been lost in the shadow of the submission match preceding it.

Ahmed Johnson had been targeted by Ron "Faarooq" Simmons from the minute the WCW Champion made his debut with World Wrestling Federation.

When Faarooq assembled the Nation of Domination, it put Johnson on the bad side of a numbers game. In the weeks prior to WrestleMania XIII, however, Ahmed even that up by recruiting the Legion of Doom to team with him in a Chicago Street Fight against Faarooq, Crush and Savio Vega.

What would result would be one of the most brutal matches in the history of the event.

The Chicago Street Fight is, in this writer’s opinion, the foundation of the match style that would be synonymous with main event matches in the Attitude Era. The six men brawled around ringside, plastering each other with weapons before finishing the match in the ring.

It was a violent match befitting of a rivalry that was as heated and as personal as the one between Ahmed Johnson and the Nation. It was a true blow-off match that, unfortunately, was not the conclusion of the feud. A fact that undoubtedly hurts it.

Wrestlemania XIV: Marc Mero & Sable vs. Goldust & Luna Vachon

Heading into Wrestlemania, Steve Austin, Degeneration-X, Undertaker and Kane were the World Wrestling Federation’s hottest performers. On par with them was Sable and this match was, perhaps, her finest moment in the sport.

Sable was the WWF’s sex symbol. She was incredibly popular and was one of the faces of the Attitude Era. With the added media presence that resulted from Mike Tyson’s involvement in the main event of WrestleMania XIV, Vince McMahon would have been stupid not to showcase his top female talent.

Make no mistake about it: this match existed solely to showcase Sable. Marc Mero was on the downside of his WWF career and, while Goldust and Luna had provided entertaining television, they were not considered for any sort of major push.

That does not hurt the quality of the match. The storytelling is excellent. Mero and Goldust, egomaniacs, worked most of the match and made fans anticipate Sable’s entrance into the match that much more.

Add in a few teases and, by the time Sable was legally tagged in, the crowd popped. Her assault on Luna, which she finished with a Sable Bomb followed by Mero’s TKO finisher, was intense and stiff and the viewer couldn’t help but invest themselves in what they saw on the screen.

The match is the most underrated in a string of under-recognized matches from the WrestleMania XIV card.

It was the show that catapulted the WWF into the Attitude Era and made the company the most successful in professional wrestling. Sable was a major part of that winning formula and this match was proof of that.

Coming Soon

With that comes the end of part two of the most underrated Wrestle

You, the reader, will relive matches featuring Hall of Famers, world champions, the "Best in the World At What He Does" and the owner of World Wrestling Entertainment.