WWE’s 25 Greatest Pay-Per-Views of All Time

credit: wwe.com

1. Wrestlemania 17

And here it is.  Wrestlemania 17 has absolutely everything a wrestling fan could possibly want out of a pay-per-view.  Coming to fans from Astrodome in Houston, Texas, the card featured 11 matches, 6 for titles, 4 including some type of gimmick, and managed to cram in 28 superstars throughout the card, not counting the combatants of the 19-man gimmick battle royal.  It was very clear that the WWE was taking this show extremely serious and it seemed like they were using it as a celebratory night.  See, just 9 days earlier, the WWE had bought the WCW and with that, officially ended the half decade-long feud between the two rival companies as the clear cut winner.  At Wrestlemania 17, the WWE officially wanted to show the entire world why they won and how they were the best in the world.  And it worked.

Call it positive energy, call it a good feeling after winning a long battle, what ever the case, it seemed every superstar who participated at WM 17 had the volume turned up and then some.  It was a long show for sure, but it just seemed to fly as each match was a showcase in brilliance.  The top matches of the night were the Kurt Angle/Chris Benoit classic, a “streak” win for The Undertaker over Triple H, and of course the TLC match.  Edge, Christian, The Hardy Boyz, and The Dudley Boyz completed their trilogy that night in what would turn out to be their best installment yet and to this day no TLC match has ever topped this one.

However, it was the main event that takes this show from being great, to the best of all-time.  The match pitted the two biggest superstars of The Attitude Era in The Rock and Steve Austin and much like two years earlier at WM 15, the two brought the house down.  In what was their best match of their feud, the two icons battled it out over the course of 28 minutes and it seemed like the crowd knew exactly what they were witnessing. Now, say what you want about the end.  Austin aligning with Vince McMahon, his biggest rival, was a controversial decision that some fans absolutely hated.  But the swerve was a tool that was used to write the next year’s worth of storylines while the image of Austin and Vince’s having celebratory beers gave the WWE yet another iconic Wrestlemania closing moment.

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Any time I sit down to watch the WWE Network, Wrestlemania 17 is almost always my first choice of what to watch.  It was the night that the WWE reaffirmed that no other company in this country could match what they could do and as such, was the best show in the company’s history.