WWE.com polled the WWE Superstars and Divas on matches they've had that never seem to get enough credit. Here are the unsung classics they picked.
You know about Steamboat vs. Savage, and you know about Rock vs. Austin. We come here not to praise the classics, but to discover new ones. Your Goldust-Savios. Your JBL-Undertakers. Your Dolph-Ryders? Turns out several Superstars have matches that can stand toe-to-toe with the time-honored classics the WWE Universe knows by heart … only nobody ever talks about them. So WWE.com wound its way through the Superstars, Divas, Hall of Famers and NXT newbies of the locker room to ask what one match of theirs had never gotten its due glory. The answers might surprise you (two guys picked the same one and one guy picked everything), and you’ll never guess what the big finale is.
“One match that kind of goes under the radar a bit – and it is notable because I’ve seen it kind of talked about from time to time, commonly referred to as an underrated match – is our Kickoff match against The Usos in the [WWE] Tag Team Championship Match at Money in the Bank last year. It was me and Roman against The Usos and it was one of our first pay-per-views where we weren’t on the actual pay-per-view, and I know I took that very personally. As someone who fancies himself as a star and as a big name and always brings the heavy wood when it’s pay-per-view time, to be left off was really disappointing, so we all wanted to steal the show. We all wanted to make them take notice like, ‘Hey, you’re not leaving me off another show.’ Being on the Kickoff’s not a bad thing; you have a lot of time, you’re the first match, the first thing the crowd sees. We took advantage of that, and it was pretty awesome.” – SETH ROLLINS
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“There was a match I had with Jack Swagger that was completely overlooked because it was hot off the heels of my 2-out-of-3-Falls Match with Cesaro, which was heralded and praised … [The match was] like two weeks later, at the next set of tapings, and it was, in my opinion, just as good! I thought it was one of my better matches. I don’t know what it was, [but Swagger and I] had a pretty good chemistry. It was the first time we ever wrestled, and it was good. Actually, Kevin Steen texted me once it aired and said, ‘That match is better than the 2-out-of-3.’ A few people told me that, but it never got mentioned, which was very strange.” – SAMI ZAYN
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“I think one of my favorite matches was the Memphis Street Fight with Christian earlier this year when I was coming back from injury. When he had the drum and I Brogue Kicked him through the drum, that was a really great moment. I only wish we could have had that match at WrestleMania; a New Orleans Street Fight would’ve been good. He’s one of the most fun competitors to be in the ring with. Keeps you on your toes, very creative, and very, very underrated in my opinion. He’s never had a bad match … and he’s a great entertainer, too. He’s achieved a lot in his career, so it’s hard to say [Christian is underrated], but I think he’s as good as Edge.” – SHEAMUS
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“Me vs. Zack Ryder for the U.S. Title, and there’s a great little reason. We had a rivalry going on TV. The company decided to [take focus off of it] and just went into random cold matches, but we continued the rivalry on “Z! True Long Island Story.” For the entire show, the crowd was chanting for our match until we went at it, based on a rivalry we built on a YouTube show, slowly but surely, every single week. And to his credit, the kid built one of those pay-per-view packages that WWE does so awesome. He did it with music in the background, building up with quick shots and everything leading up to the match and it ended with two faces on a billboard saying “This Sunday at TLC.” That made it much more special because the fans knew that they were there to see this match. The match went really well. Broski came out on top, and to this day when I see him, I always say, ‘I can’t believe I lost to you.’” – DOLPH ZIGGLER
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“To me, it was a huge deal. I started the year with nothing, so to me that match was WrestleMania. In the grand scheme of things, it was just another December pay-per-view, but my dad was there, my friend was there, when I got the 1-2-3, the camera was automatically on my dad. I never told the cameraman my dad was there; it all worked out perfectly. If my career ended that night, it would have been perfect.” – ZACK RYDER
“Savio Vega vs. Goldust, 1996. It was in the Garden and it was probably one of the most never-talked about matches that I’ve had that was awesome, that actually set Goldust on fire that night. That’s when I was actually coerced into doing some really over-the-line character stuff. The people bit on it, hook line and sinker, and I was shocked because I’d been trying to figure out this character for eight months and it’d been tough. I went behind Savio Vega and rubbed up and down his chest, then he broke away from me and chased me out of the ring. Back then, that was ahead of its time. You do stuff like that today, it might not be so shocking anymore like it was back then. [But] I didn’t turn back after that.” – GOLDUST
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“I had a match with Paige on WWE NXT for the NXT Women’s Championship. It was a match that I was super proud of. It was 13 minutes, an awesome performance, and it really got people talking. It sort of went viral on the Internet. People loved it. It was crazy on social media. Everybody saw it in Canada because NXT airs internationally. I just wish more people saw it here [in the U.S.], though now they can with WWE Network.” – NATALYA
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“Every single match that I’ve ever been in is underrated. Because everyone — on blogs, on Twitter, on Facebook — always craps on everything I do. They need to learn how to respect someone that is more famous. They have to understand that I am from Hollywood. I have done movies. Everyone is going to want to belittle and criticize me, because that’s what critics do. They critique. And so, allow them to critique; it’s fine because I’m just going to keep on being as successful as I possibly can.” – THE MIZ
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“There was this one [match] with Rey Mysterio on ‘WWE Superstars’ when it was still on WGN. This was right before WrestleMania XXVI in Phoenix, and it was actually my last TV match, at that time, as the bad version of The Hart Dynasty, because at WrestleMania we beat up the evil Mr. McMahon and it was onward and upward from there. [I went out] there with Rey Mysterio, a guy that I idolize, and, in my opinion, I held my own. It was a day when they taped Raw, ‘Superstars’ and SmackDown. We were on right after [Raw] and Shawn Michaels had closed it … he was sitting next to Vince behind the curtain and we were on next. Rey had a WrestleMania match, so he gave me a lot more than he had to or maybe even should have. When we got in the back — maybe it was because of Shawn’s influence — but we got a standing ovation from both of them, Shawn and Vince. They say ‘Don’t meet your idols, you’ll be disappointed,’ but Shawn and Rey are two of the guys that are the opposite. I’m very glad that I’ve met them. ” – TYSON KIDD
“I had a match with The Undertaker at No Mercy at the Meadowlands for the [WWE] Title. To me, I had three or four matches that I thought were the best I ever had, and that was certainly one of them. I thought that was about as good as I could ever put together. I thought it was physical and we told a good story. I was extremely proud of that match … I went to Europe the next day looking like a raccoon; my nose had been broken and I had two big black eyes. It was a very physical match. Undertaker and I wrestled each other hundreds of times, and I thought that was probably the best we’d ever done. It just worked, and I don’t know what made it so great.” – JBL
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“You know, I think people need to watch the WrestleMania XIX match a little more, Booker T vs. Triple H. I say watch the match for the match, and watch for what we went out on the ring and did. Watch the art that we went out there and pulled off, and that’s what I’ve always tried to give my students to watch. You have to be better in your losses than you do in your wins, and that’s what I’ve always said.” – BOOKER T
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“There was a match that I had with Dolph Ziggler on ‘WWE Superstars.’ Obviously, more viewers watch Raw than ‘Superstars,’ and we always want to be on the main show, on Raw. We weren’t but we had probably one of the better matches that we’ve had, and that’s saying a lot because we’ve had a lot of matches together. You know you’re having a great match when the fans are into everything you do. It was one of those things where we knew we had ’em, and the handful of people that did see the match still talk about it to this day.” – KOFI KINGSTON
“For a while I was a tag team wrestler, even on the indies teaming with Curt Hawkins. Making that transition from tag team to singles is not as easy as you’d think, and for me it was very difficult. So I was having these matches and all of a sudden it was like, ‘You’re wrestling the ECW Champion tonight.’ What?! It was at TV [in Baltimore], and Christian was one of, if not my single favorite wrestlers ever, so I got to wrestle him in a non-title match. I was just starting as the ‘Woo Woo Woo’ guy, and this was my chance to show people that I could go. I think it really showed. ‘ Whoa, this kid has got something.’ Before then, I was just known as the Edgehead guy or this joke guy with the catchphrase and the one-legged tights … I think that match definitely, not put me on the map, but got people to think, ‘Okay, let’s see what this guy’s got.’ – ZACK RYDER
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“I’m real proud of a lot of the work I did in FCW, and this was pre-NXT, pre-Full Sail, pre-WWE Network, where we felt we were just hidden away in a warehouse. It really put a chip on our shoulder. [I had] a yearlong rivalry with William Regal that resulted in me, in one match, permanently damaging my shoulder. It pulled out of its socket and will still pop out to this day. The subsequent match was me trying my best to rip William Regal’s ear off and very nearly succeeding. Needless to say, he’s of my favorite opponents ever, because every time we get in the ring together, somebody gets gruesomely injured.
"Regal’s maybe the last of his kind. Maybe the last of a great, British old-school brawler grapplers left. To be able to get in the ring with an original like that, with one of the last remaining guys of that era, that style, it’s a trip. And when you go into the ring with William Regal, you have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s all reactive, it’s literally a fistfight with William Regal.” – DEAN AMBROSE
“WeeLC should be up there in the top five matches of this year. Top three! It was the dark horse match. People thought it was going to be a joke and ended up stealing the pay-per view — pre-Show and regular show.” – HORNSWOGGLE
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