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Welcome back to the Road to WrestleMania 31. Hundreds of men and women have performed on the grandest stage over the course of its rich history. For the next few months, we will celebrate them all…from worst to best. Today, we enter the Top 200. You may note some strangely curious choices. Let me be clear that I did, indeed, go over this numerous times. But it's basically "The Great Doc List." Good old-fashioned fun and memories galore. I'm too analytical not to have had some guidelines, of course. Take our first entrant and last entrants for today, for instance. The first was involved in a hugely historic match and never did zip else, but that hugely historic match takes precedent over others who did less with more opportunities. The last entrants may be construed as oddly ranked, but I personally place somewhat of a premium on modern accomplishment because of the gargantuan success of the last decade of Manias. Anyhow, back on the Road we go...  Snowman is a genius QUESTION OF THE DAY (8): What is your favorite tag team match in WrestleMania history? 205. Sunny 204. La Resistance 203. Stacy Kiebler 202. Steve Blackmon 201. Danny Davis 200. (Tie) Rhyno and Spike Dudley 198. Funaki 197. (Tie) David Otunga and Brodus Clay 195. Crash Holly 194. Butch Reed 193. The Godwinns 192. The Executioner 191. Al Snow 190. Dino Bravo 189. Charlie Haas 188. Candice Michelle 187. Taka Michinoku 186. R-Truth 185. Koko B. Ware 184. (Tie) Eve Torres, Kelly Kelly, and The Bella Twins 192. The Executioner We begin Day 8 with Buddy Rose’s portrayal of The Executioner. Though he only made the one WrestleMania appearance, it was quite historically significant. Against Tito Santana, Rose wrestled the very first match at the very first WrestleMania. In modern wrestling lore, that carries some serious weight. Most people recall that Tito was involved, but let’s give credit where it is due to Rose. He was more famous for his work in the AWA, where he classically gave Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty their first (and best recognized) tag title run, but no one can ever take away from him the honor of having been in “The Grandest Stage of Them All’s” opening bout. 191. Al Snow “What does everybody want?” The iconic Al Snow once made it popular to make signs and start chants in a live setting on international TV and PPV that you wanted “head.” Only in the Attitude Era, folks. Snow is a smart guy with a good mind for the wrestling business, as evidenced during his time as a trainer on the original Tough Enough. His commentary on certain WWE topics is fascinating, so I suggest you keep an eye out for links that include his name in interviews. Back in the day when the Hardcore title mattered, Snow was one of its most prominent members. He found something that worked in ECW and it translated it well to WWE. He peaked at Mania with his first appearance, competing in the opener against Billy Gunn and Hardcore Holly for the mangled title belt. A year later, he combined with another recent entry, Steve Blackmon, to form Head Cheese in a job to T&A. 190. Dino Bravo Admittedly, I have placed a premium on the WrestleMania IV title tournament. Such is why Dino Bravo is making his appearance now instead of fifty spots back. I loved that entire scenario and fondly remember the whole tournament. Bravo lost in the first round and made just a few other Mania appearances thereafter (all in forgettable squash match scenarios), but the WWE had as stacked a roster as they ever had back in 1988 and he was one of the 14 guys chosen to take part in the tournament. He wasn’t well-known then and he isn’t well-known today. His claim to fame was being a thick guy with a limited skill set. The internet would eat this guy alive if he were wrestling today. 189. Charlie Haas For a few years, Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas legitimately were the World’s Greatest Tag Team. They debuted as Team Angle, the insurance policy that Kurt and Paul Heyman used against Brock Lesnar. It was within that gimmick that Haas made his most significant contribution to WrestleMania history, successfully defending the Tag Team Championships in a triple threat match at arguably the best Mania of all-time. The Tag titles on Smackdown in the early part of the brand split were one of the reasons why the blue team was so much better than the flagship. Just when the momentum was dying down from the initial push for the division, Haas stepped in with Benjamin and formed the preeminent team in the business. Personally, I initially favored Haas, thinking that he had the chops to eventually supplant Angle. I didn’t have the scouting eye then that I do, now, clearly. A year later, Haas and Benjamin had been dubbed the World’s Greatest, but failed to recreate their 2003 success at Mania XX, losing in a Fatal Fourway. 188. Candice Michelle One of my favorite Divas of all-time was Candice, a voluptuous brunette with previous experience prior to WWE acting in soft core, Cinemax specials that yours truly may or may not have seen as a teenager. I was quite pleasantly surprised when she turned up a few years later strutting her more mature stuff on WWE TV. Some women just exude sex; she was one of them. She knew how to use her assets, which carried her all the way to a prominent role at WrestleMania 22. Candice actually became a hard worker who wanted to improve as a performer, but her peak was in 2006, when she posed for Playboy and found herself in a “Pillow Fight” against former Playboy cover girl, Torrie Wilson in Chicago. I was there. I think I dreamed back then that I met Candice in an elevator; cue the classic Aerosmith song… 187. Taka Michinoku The Light Heavyweight Championship in WWE had only a few highlights in its brief history – Summerslam 2001, Backlash 2000, Judgment Day: In Your House in 1998, and WrestleMania XIV (in reverse chronological order). Taka Michinoku might’ve been the most prominent champion of all titleholders outside of X-Pac. He was the man that the division was built around when it hit WWE airwaves in response to WCW’s thriving Cruiserweight division during the Monday Night Wars. His match with Aguila at Mania XIV was an enjoyable addition to the card, offering the different kind of wrestling that smaller, faster grapplers can provide. Taka was a damn good performer. The only other thing that he did at Mania, though, was take part in the lousy Hardcore Battle Royal in 2000. 186. R-Truth What’s up? Not much with R-Truth at Mania. What we can say about Truth is that he was given a curtain-jerking Tag title bout in 2010 that, while short, was fast-paced and entertaining. We can also say that he managed inclusion in the multi-man cluster-you-know-what at Mania 28 designed to get guys that they felt were fairly important onto the card. Finally, we can say that he’s managed to stick around. His Mania resume is an “every other year” list of relative cameos, but he’s still doing his thing, as evidenced by his work in last year’s Battle Royal for the Andre trophy. It’d be alright with me if he disappeared tomorrow. 185. Koko B. Ware Many were critical of Koko’s induction into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009 and, if they were stating their case on the lack of accomplishments at WrestleMania, then they’d be well justified. Koko was an important member of the roster back then. He was over, though, he could wrestle fast paced matches, and he could sell. It made him the ideal candidate to put over other wrestlers as he did in all three of his Mania performances. In singles competition, he impressively did the job for Butch Reed at Mania III in WWE’s unsuccessful attempt at “Naturally” making something of the future Doom member. His loss to Rick Martel at Mania VI in the show opener in Toronto was a better example of what he could do for someone on the rise. Martel headlined the next Mania against Jake Roberts. So, Ware had a job to do and he did it well…just never prominently. 184. (Tie) Eve Torres, Kelly Kelly, and The Bella Twins Eve, Kelly, Nikki, and Brie sort of came about during the transition period in Diva history after Trish Stratus left and the WWE tried to find a balance between pimping out their ladies for Playboy shoots and legitimizing them as contributing, (comparatively) fully clothed members of their roster. They have been four of the women who excelled in some way, shape, or form. Eve was a smart, Southern Cal grad who had the acting chops not to make herself look too foolish despite creative’s best efforts to put her and others in situations that easily could have. Kelly rode the WWE wave to the Maxim cover. Both made several appearances at Mania, with both competing in the Battle Royal at Mania 25, the 10-woman tag match at Mania XXVI, and the only Divas match at the biggest Mania of all-time in Miami (earning mainstream attention in the process). Kelly was a Lumber “Jill” at Mania 24, which I made equal to Eve’s backstage segment as Diva’s Champion with The Rock at Mania 27. The Bellas have spearheaded arguably the biggest coup in modern WWE Diva history in securing multiple seasons of reality TV on E! Say what you will about that modicum of pop culture, but people watch it and it raises WWE’s profile. Their Mania appearances have been limited to 25 and 30 (with a last second cut at Mania 29), but that last one came at a key time during the “Total Divas” season, allowing the entire women’s division a greater spotlight. The bottom line is that, in an environment that made it hard for the ladies to succeed, all four of these women have been reasonably successful. 205. Sunny Sunny only qualified for the list because she was involved in the completely forgettable “Miss WrestleMania Battle Royal” in 2009, but I’m glad that she did. She was the original Diva, but more than that, she was unforgettable. She was absolutely stunning; in my opinion, one of the most gorgeous women ever to grace WWE TV and also one of the most charismatic. She was not just a pretty face, but a manager extraordinaire. We could only hope that a female valet could have as much screen presence as her in the modern era. Believe it or not, she only made one Mania appearance as a manager, despite being such a good one during the New Generation – at Mania XIV. Sable was on the rise and Sunny had some personal problems at that point. 204. La Resistance The silly French Canadian duo and their American sympathizer were a good example of Wrestle Crap in the early-to-mid 2000s. You can thank Sylvain Grenier for their rise up the ranks. I kept coming back to Rene Dupree, who I thought had a lot of potential, and Robert Conway and prepared to put them, first, in the 300s, and then again a few dozen places later. Yet, it was their cohort’s involvement in the “20 Years in the Making” feud between Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan that kept making me hold off. So, here we are. Though the group only competed in one throwaway Mania match – the Fatal Fourway World Tag Team Championship bout at Mania XX – they collectively gained an advantage from Grenier’s antics at Mania XIX. 203. Stacy Kiebler She had legs…and she knew to use them. She rode her incredible lower half to a prominent backstage and on stage role at Mania XIX and a Playboy Evening Gown match at Mania XX. I had a poster of the former Miss Hancock on my wall all three years of my undergraduate education. Damn… Snapping back to reality, Keibler was not a prominent female wrestler, but she was a dominant personality. She was always relevant from the moment that she debuted. I thoroughly enjoyed her time as the manager of the Dudley Boyz and it was her pulling up the ends of her hot pants to reveal her phenomenal ass that prompted me to buy the aforementioned poster for my college dwellings. Including her in the Miller Lite Cat Fight scrap the following year seemed appropriate. It was interesting that she was merely a manager, then, but was featured throughout the evening despite no appearance by the wrestler that she managed. As proven since her WWE departure, she is quite adept at getting herself noticed. 202. Steve Blackmon “The Lethal Weapon” was one of the wrestlers who benefitted from the higher profile of the mid-card offered by the Attitude Era. The night that the era was officially born at WrestleMania XIV, he was wrestling in the opening match in a mess of a Tag Team Battle Royal with Flash Funk as his partner. His next (and last) Mania appearance was a bit more significant, as he teamed with Al Snow at WrestleMania 2000 under the tag name of “Head Cheese.” It was silly, but they did receive quite a bit more airtime than Blackmon had previously at Mania. Of course, his team also lost to T&A (Test and Albert, with Trish Stratus). 201. Danny Davis Occasionally in the WrestleMania Era, top promotions have utilized the evil referee to its creative advantage. Nobody played that role better than “Dangerous” Danny Davis in the late 1980s. He was an official for most of his career, but he stepped into the ring in fairly prominent fashion at WrestleMania III. He teamed with the Hart Foundation against The British Bulldogs and Tito Santana, actually getting the pin and the win. After a limited role in WrestleMania IV’s Battle Royal, Davis morphed back into a traditional referee until getting involved in one of the headlining bouts at Mania IX. He came from the backstage area to disqualify Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake in their match against Money, Incorporated. 200. (Tie) Rhyno and Spike Dudley You know, I always liked Rhyno. I thought that he could have been a much bigger deal in WWE than he ever turned out to be. He made an impressive first Mania appearance in 2001, displaying the sort of big aggression wrapped in a stout package that made me believe he’d have a place in WWE for a long time. He helped Edge and Christian win TLC 2 at Mania X-Seven and had the whole Team RECK thing going with E, C, and Kurt Angle that year, but he had to go out with a neck surgery and missed his window on the mainstream circuit. He came back in 2003 and got a tag team going with Chris Benoit, putting them in position to earn the Tag Team Championships in a solid triple threat at Mania XIX. Rhyno offered one last Gore on the grand stage. Unfortunately, it led to Team Angle getting the win that night in Seattle. Spike Dudley made his most significant Mania appearance in similar fashion as Rhyno, attempting to help the Dudleys to victory at TLC 2 at the Astrodome. He was unsuccessful, then, but he was successful the following year when he ran out and won the Hardcore title during the scheduled match between Maven and Goldust during the infamous 24/7 era. I had a hard time separating Spike and Rhyno. Tie! 198. Funaki “This is Funaki….Smackdown, NUMBAH WON, Announ-sah!” Who didn’t love Funaki? The diminutive Japanese star was an endearing member of the roster from the latter part of WWE’s peak years through the transition to the Cena Era. He was probably most famous for his Raw segment where he, along with other members of Kaenti, “chopped off” Val Venis’s penis, but he contributed a couple of moments to WrestleMania history. He briefly won the Hardcore Championship during the WM2000 mess of a Battle Royal and he also vied for the Cruiserweight title at WrestleMania XX in the Open to get the smaller, faster wrestlers on the card in another mess of a match. 197. (Tie) David Otunga and Brodus Clay I’m not going to lie. I’d forgotten about Brodus on my first run through the list. Does that surprise anyone? I put him here with Otunga because I view them both as talents with unique looks that could have led them somewhere and instead led them nowhere. To Clay's credit, he was given a non-wrestling spotlight at Mania 28 and appeared in a World title match the year prior to accompany his Battle Royal appearance last year. Perhaps the greatest example in pro wrestling history that book smarts don’t necessarily translate to being an intelligent member of the WWE roster, Otunga has been one of the biggest disappointments that I can recall in recent memory. Blessed with the ideal physique, Harvard Law credentials, and a celebrity fiancée with strong ties to the mainstream attention coveted by WWE, Otunga has been so useless that I almost wanted to leave him off of this list altogether just to prove a point. The fact that he was a prominent member of Team Johnny at WrestleMania XXVIII notwithstanding, his only other contribution to Mania has been a bit role in last year’s Andre the Giant Battle Royal. I hope he reads this and it lights a fire under his ass. If my physique matched his and my wife was famous, I boldly guarantee I could be more successful than him in pro wrestling. Doc vs. Otunga. 195. Crash Holly RIP. Crash is one of the (too) many wrestlers in the last twenty years to have died long before their time should have expired on this earth. WrestleMania 2000 was a really mixed bag, but one of the highlights of the show was Crash’s performance in the Hardcore Battle Royal. For all that was wrong with the Hardcore division, Crash was one of the guys who made it right. He was sort of a rough and tumble kind of guy perfectly suited to make that part of WWE TV entertaining. At Mania 2000, he was involved in the climax of the match, winning the Hardcore Championship with less than a minute left in the match, only to be the victim of eventual winner and cousin, Bob’s, evil stylings. Two years later, Crash attempted to win the title from Spike Dudley after he’d more or less stolen the belt in the infamous 24/7 era, but all he could manage was a (literal) chase. I miss Crash. 194. Butch Reed “The Natural” made a more indelible mark on pro wrestling history as the other half of the tag team Doom, with Ron Simmons, in WCW. Just prior to his run down south, he was part of the stacked WWE roster in the late 1980s circa WrestleMania III and IV. At the Pontiac Silverdome, Reed earned a quick victory to put him on the map against Hall of Famer, Koko B. Ware. The following year in Atlantic City, he was one of the 14 men involved in the classic WWE Championship tournament, losing his first round match to “Macho Man” Randy Savage. In WWE, he did not leave much of an impression, but Doom was quite the duo to check out on WWE Network. 193. The Godwinns Henry O. / Phineas I. …The Godwinns! H.O.G. and P.I.G.. Anyone else read that and immediately hear that long-rumored “yuck yuck” laugh that Vince McMahon has been known to belt out when he thinks something is funny? Hardy har har. PIG went onto to portray what has to be one of the top five wrestle crap entries of all-time in Naked Mideon a few years after The Godwinns ran their course. Hillbilly Jim managed the country boys from Arkansas, leading them into battle at WrestleMania 13 for a four corner’s tag team match to open the show in Chicago. A year later, they were involved in the Tag Team Battle Royal in Boston. Was never impressed with either of them…
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