Andor Season 2 Review: A Powerful Denouement

This review of Andor season 2 contains no spoilers. A show like Andor in times like these feels like such a breath of fresh air. It’s a soul-stirring story about love, loss, and fighting against impossible odds. It’s what Star Wars should be about above all else, not nostalgic cash grabs for the sake of […]

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With a wrestling show, the opening match can be nearly as important as the main event. While the main event is about finishing the show in a climactic fashion and leaving a lasting impression, you also need to get the audience into the proceedings with a killer start. Get the blood pumping and jumpstart all the energy to carry the next few hours.

With WrestleMania being WWE’s biggest show of the year, those opening minutes can sometimes bring us some fantastic matches to get the ball rolling. Here are the openers that truly started the show off right. For the sake of ground rules, we’re counting matches on the official show itself, so no pre-shows or dark matches.

The Rockers vs. Haku and The Barbarian (WrestleMania VII)

WrestleMania VII was a solid WrestleMania show with an extra hour or so of nothing matches topped on for the sake of getting everyone a paycheck. This opener worked to that advantage, as there was zero story between The Rockers and Bobby Heenan’s goons going in, but they ended up pulling off exactly the kind of match the show needed. It helped that this was the last real gasp of tag team wrestling actually mattering in WWF and just having two teams go out there and put on a solid performance was a regular thing.

It also helped that it had a great dynamic that any new viewer could pick up on: the lumbering and powerful heels up against the plucky faces who were smaller but could run rings around them. Lots of fun tag tropes and teamwork thrown in from The Rockers made this work and showed that even before he broke out as a solo star, Shawn Michaels was earning his reputation as Mr. WrestleMania.

Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart (WrestleMania X)

Bret Hart had an eventful time at Royal Rumble 1994. In the undercard, he and his brother Owen lost when challenging for the tag team titles, causing Owen to snap and brutalize Bret’s hurt leg. Bret then pulled himself together to compete in the Royal Rumble match that night, becoming co-winners with Lex Luger due to falling to the floor at the same time. It was decided that Bret would face Owen at WrestleMania in an exhibition, as he’d then go on to face the winner of Lex Luger vs. Yokozuna in the main event.

Owen was already mad about how reluctant Bret was to face him, only now he was madder that Bret was technically looking past him, as he was going to compete for the title, win or lose. On the same night that gave us the legendary ladder match between Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon, the event peaked early with this battle between brothers. The two put on an excellent show full of amazing ringwork and reversals. That it ended with Owen cleanly getting an upset win was the icing on the cake.

Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero (WrestleMania 21)

Awesome as this one is, it’s also a bittersweet middle to a thematic trilogy between the two competitors. At the previous WrestleMania, Eddie Guerrero successfully defended the WWE Championship and stood tall in the PPV’s final shot. In the months that followed, Eddie fell down the card and ended up as tag champ with Rey Mysterio. To open WrestleMania 21, the two partners had a singles match against each other, trying to stand on the legacy of their cl