You know, given that WrestleMania long ago stopped being about the wrestling and became a self-referential ode to “moments”, it’s not surprising that the biggest moments of the show have increasingly become about the over-the-top entrances.
Wrestling is, at heart, theater turned up to 11 and it fits perfectly with the biggest show of the year that we’d also see some of the biggest and grandest entrances of the year. Especially for people like myself, who can barely remember the differences between WrestleMania 24 and WrestleMania 26 or really any of the ones past about 20.
I may not remember who, say, John Cena wrestled at 22 in Chicago off the top of my head, but I certainly remember how he made his entrance there. It’s not really good or bad, it just is what it is.
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So here’s my list of the five best entrances I can remember, even if the matches that followed weren’t particularly great.
John Cena is a Chicago gangster at WrestleMania 22.
Case in point, the example I brought up to start.
WrestleMania 22 was held in Chicago and headlined by John Cena retaining the WWE title against Triple H in a career-making performance, but what we all remember about the match is Cena’s first real grandiose WrestleMania entrance in a series of them.
Coming to the ring in a Bonnie & Clyde style roadster, Cena was flanked by Tommy gun-wielding mobsters (including a local Chicago indy star no one’s probably heard of, CM-something). Cena has since upped the ridiculousness of his entrances — such as the time he had 200 or so creepy clones of himself as an honor guard — but this was the first one where he was clearly the biggest star in the company and afforded an entrance to match.
Shawn Michaels’ angelic entrance at Wrestlemania 25
Of course, this isn't Michaels' only appearance on this list, but this entrance remains one of my personal favorites. Given how many times Undertaker has made dark and brooding entrances at WrestleMania, it’s only fitting that his opponent for WrestleMania 25 would try to play some mindgames with him.
Playing off his born-again sensibility, Shawn Michaels came up with the exact opposite of an Undertaker entrance, descending from the heavens instead of rising from the depths, glowing white instead of cloaked in black. It was also something of a symbolic rebirth for him, since the storyline that led up to the show was the ridiculous “Shawn is broke and has to be JBL’s slave” plot that was thankfully dropped for good leading up to the Undertaker match.
Regardless, the idea was that Shawn was now free from the chains of poverty and ready to face the Undertaker on his own terms. Of course, it cost him his career and two WrestleMania losses because beating the Undertaker just isn’t something you did at WrestleMania at that point.
But hey, he tried.
Steve Austin breaks the glass (ceiling) at WrestleMania 13
Sure, the match between Bret Hart and Steve Austin at the otherwise-horrible WrestleMania 13 was one of the greatest of all-time, but a factor often overlooked in talking about how great the match is, is how great the entrance was. Less is more with a character like Stone Cold, and in this case it was simply Austin walking through an “Austin 3:16” glass sign, which shattered along with the breaking glass in his music.
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Up until then Austin had been a midcard player, held back in WCW and the WWF because he wasn’t ever allowed to just be himself. When he walked through the glass in Chicago, he was literally breaking through to the main event, turning himself into a star.
Undertaker’s Johnny Cash/“Gunslinger” entrance at Wrestlemania 27
Granted, the match between Undertaker and Triple H at WrestleMania 27 is divisive, to say the least. I personally loved it because of the big moves and dramatic near-falls. Many hate it for exactly the same reasons, since that’s basically the entirety of the match.
Regardless, Undertaker’s entrance there is epic stuff, as he used Johnny Cash’s “Ain’t No Grave” to get across the idea that he was the old gunslinger out for one more fight (well, until Vince McMahon dumped another million on his doorstep the next year) and he might not return from that fight but he’d go down swinging.
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And that was the storyline of the match, as Hunter blasted him with every big move in his arsenal, including the sledgehammer and even Undertaker’s own tombstone, but no grave could hold Taker’s body down.
Unfortunately, WWE immediately scrubbed the song from the DVD release and the WWE Network version of the show, eliminating one of the only great things about the putrid WrestleMania 27.
I guess the only thing that can stop the "Deadman" is expensive licensing fees.
Shawn Michaels zipline at WrestleMania 12
And of course, the gold standard for over-the-top entrances.
Although this one has been somewhat soured over the years by the Owen Hart tragedy, Shawn Michaels was determined to make his World-title win into something memorable, and that he did.
After Bret Hart did a normal entrance at WrestleMania 12 for their World title Iron Man match, Shawn rappelled from the ceiling of the arena on an extended zipline, landing ringside before winning his first WWF title an hour later. It’s an entrance that was instantly more memorable than anything else on the show, and thankfully one we won’t ever see again due to what happened three years later.
