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Welcome to the Road to WrestleMania 31. It has become customary for me to provide a special, “Granddaddy”-themed series each year. In the past, I have offered a March Madness-style fantasy tournament, a countdown of every match ever wrestled at “The Show of Shows,” a multi-tiered ranking of each Mania, and, of course, last year my first book on The WrestleMania Era was released. This year, we’re back to the Countdown format; and it will be as epic as anything I’ve presented to date. Hundreds of men and women have performed on the grandest stage. For the next few months, we will celebrate them all…from worst to best. Be sure to check out the “Question of the Day” for every entry, as discussion is encouraged so that we may all be as hyped as humanly possible come March 29.  Snowman is a genius QUESTION OF THE DAY (2): Excluding celebrities, who would you nominate as the absolute least significant wrestler in WrestleMania history? 331. (Tie) Joy Giovanni, Tiffany, and Katie Lea Burchill 328. (Tie) Aksana, Cameron, Naomi, Eva Marie, Emma, Summer Rae, and Tamina 321. Special Delivery (S.D.) Jones 320. (Tie) Pedro Morales, Ted Arcidi, Dan Spivey, Boris Zhukov, Ken Patera, Jim Powers, Sam Houston, Ron Bass, Sika, Yoshi Tatsu, Brad Maddox, Darren Young, Jinder Mahal, Titus O’Neill, Xavier Woods, Damien Sandow, and Sin Cara 303. Sharmell 302. (Tie) Miguel Perez, Jesus Castillo, Jose Estrada, Sniper, Flash Funk, and Chainz 296. Uncle Elmer 295. Adam Bomb 294. Skinner 293. (Tie) Duke “The Dumpster” Droese, The Goon, Gobbledy Gooker, Michael “PS” Hayes, Kamala, and Kim Chee 287. The Kat 286. (Tie) Nunzio, Akio, Ultimo Dragon, Billy Kidman, and Jamie Noble 281. (Tie) Dink the Clown, Haiti Kid, Little Tokyo, Little Beaver, and Lord Littlebrook 276. Jillian Hall 275. Samu 274. (Tie) The Sandman, Sabu, Tommy Dreamer, Elijah Burke, Kevin Thorne, Marcus Cor Von, and Matt Striker 267. William “The Refrigerator” Perry 266. Tom Zenk 265. The Orient Express 264. Genichiro Tenryu and Koji Kitao 263. Corporal Kirchner 262. Ezekiel Jackson 261. The Boogeyman 287. The Kat Poor, Jerry Lawler. After all of those years of talking about “puppies,” he fell for a woman with quite a nice set of them and proceeded to create a quick-healing black eye on his otherwise steadily remarkable WWE career as an announcer, personality, and wrestler through his emotionally draining relationship. The Kat nearly derailed The King. She had what more or less amounted to a battle to see who could shed their clothes the fastest in a critically horrendous match refereed by Val Venis. It was memorable, though, for featuring The Kat’s “get naked for the 16 year old males” persona. Guess how old The Doc was back then? 286. (Tie) Nunzio, Akio, Ultimo Dragon, Billy Kidman, and Jamie Noble The Cruiserweight Open sounded good when it first got announced prior to WrestleMania XX, but they were given single digit minutes to feature ten guys. Mania XX needed five hours to feature their entire roster. I pretty much viewed that as the night that doomed the Cruiserweight division. It had risen to its height a month prior, interestingly enough, with Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero at No Way Out ’04 being one of the top three matches. Then, the Open happened. Dragon was a WWE flop. Kidman had his moments, but not at Mania. Ditto for Noble (he was awesome, by the way). Nunzio was a fun lower mid-card act as part of the Full Blooded Italians (FBI). Akio never amounted to much, but had some really good matches at times as Jimmy Wang Yang (repeating that name just made me laugh out loud). 281. (Tie) Dink the Clown, Haiti Kid, Little Tokyo, Little Beaver, and Lord Littlebrook The first ten years of WrestleMania history actually carved out quite a nice little niche for what were once referred to as “midget wrestlers.” Please forgive the author if he no longer knows what politically correct term that the wrestling world would use to describe the likes of Dink, Haiti, Beaver, Tokyo, and Lord. Minis, maybe? As was the case in the New Generation? I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that the matches involving these talented, vertically challenged stars featured WrestleMania main-eventers King Kong Bundy and Bam Bam Bigelow in the year after and before, respectively, of their show-closing efforts. It was that fact – by association, if you will - that launched these four ahead of certain Cruiserweights and Battle Royal participants. 276. Jillian Hall What, you don’t remember her? C’mon…it wasn’t that long ago that she grew a hideous crustacean on her face and had it eaten off by The Boogeyman. In all seriousness – trust me – I get it. She is the first person to benefit from the “manager clause,” of sorts. She had just one actual match – the abysmal turd of a battle royal with the rest of the girls at Mania 25 won by a guy in drag – but she was JBL’s consultant at WrestleMania 22, accompanying the man who would win the United States Championship on that night. Her well-endowed applause encouraged the future Hall of Famer in the midst of an underrated mid-card match that stands the test of time as one of Mania’s better sub-10-minute bouts. 275. Samu The Headshrinkers came about in the early days of what became the WWE New Generation. Both members were part of the famous Anoa’i wrestling family. Rikishi, then known as Fatu, went onto a reasonably successful WWE career, but Samu was never able to achieve a consistently relevant status in the company. The Shrinkers were good hands and had one Mania match together (originally supposed to be two, but the second bout at Mania X was cancelled due to time constraints) – against the Steiners Brothers at WrestleMania IX. Why put Samu ahead of the others already listed? It was a case of having an appreciation for the Mania IX bout. It was a pretty good match on a card that often gets labeled as completely worthless. 274. (Tie) The Sandman, Sabu, Tommy Dreamer, Elijah Burke, Kevin Thorne, Marcus Cor Von, and Matt Striker The ECW reboot holds a special place in my LOP history. When it came back, I asked for the chance to review it. I wanted the challenge of writing about a live program. I reviewed the very first WWECW show on Sci-Fi back in 2006. A week later, the Raw gig opened up and I took it, leaving ECW behind. I was an avid viewer in those early days. I was a big fan of Kevin Thorne (I loved Mordecai, by the way), but he never made it big. The wrestling teacher, Striker, was no different. Cor Von never could POOOOUNNCCE his way to WWE glory. Burke had potential, I thought. The four of them combined to challenge the ECW Originals – Sandman, Dreamer, Sabu, and Rob Van Dam - in Detroit at Mania 23, losing a forgettable match that had the historical distinction of being the first “ECW” match in Mania history. 267. William “The Refrigerator” Perry The participants in the WrestleMania 2 Battle Royal commonly referred to as “NFL vs. WWE” were vast, in both number and physical size. Most of the NFL guys didn’t qualify for individual ranking, in my opinion, because they were not focal points in the match. The only NFL guy that really mattered that night was William Perry. If you can, off the top of your head, name more than two of the rest of the group, then I’ll mail you a dollar. The wrestlers included were a mix and mash of historical insignificance (at WrestleMania, anyway). The Fridge earned himself a celebrity inductee spot in the WWE Hall of Fame out of his performance. He had a nice, genuinely excited, humble speech in 2006. 266. Tom Zenk The Can-Am Connection was the other half of the opening contest at the most historic WrestleMania of all-time in 1987. Canadian Rick Martel’s American partner was Tom Zenk, a pretty talented, albeit bland wrestler who also spent time in the NWA and AWA. The Z-Man had marginal success in the early WCW years, becoming a tag team champion. Though not a memorable match against Bob Orton and Don Muraco, the Mania III curtain jerker did well to get the enormous crowd into the action and kick off the show with a reasonably solid pop. It would be the only Mania appearance for Zenk. 265. The Orient Express The first tag team to be included, The Orient Express were best known for the outstanding match with The Rockers at the 1991 Royal Rumble that stands the test of time as one of the best pure tag bouts of the 90s decade. However, it was a forgettable loss to the high flying Michaels and Jannetty that lands them on our list. At WrestleMania VI, ten months prior to their Rumble classic, the two teams met in a six-minute affair that was basically an afterthought on the 14 match card. The Orient Express consisted of Sato and Tanaka, who were managed by the incomparable Hall of Fame manager, Mr. Fuji (who will later by featured by himself). 264. Genichiro Tenryu and Koji Kitao The other of the Asian duos from back-to-back WrestleManias was the team of Tenryu and Kitao that shockingly defeated Demolition at WrestleMania VII. Demolition had been one of the faces of the WWE Tag Team division for years. Suffering a loss to the relative unknowns was a big surprise back then. It was a notable win, thus pushing them ahead of their Mania VI counterparts listed above. Nothing ever became of the win, however. As quickly as they arrived, they left. I cannot think of a more forgettable act from my thirty years as a wrestling fan. I had to look them up to remember who they were. 263. Corporal Kirchner Nikolai Volkoff made a Hall of Fame career out of playing the prototypical foreign heel, proudly toting the Soviet flag and singing the Russian national anthem. He met his match numerous times in a variety of American flag-wielding foils, one of which was a former Army paratrooper with the last name Kirchner. The Corporal followed in Sgt. Slaughter’s early 80s footsteps and attempted to become an American hero. However, he lacked the charisma and “it” factor and never amounted to much past his Mania 2 “Flag Match” victory over Volkoff. I suppose it worked for its time. USA! USA! USA! 262. Ezekiel Jackson Smart guys don’t always necessarily make for good wrestlers, as proven by likes of Ezekiel Jackson a few years back when he was getting a push as the last ECW Champion before it got shut down for good and the Intercontinental Champion for a brief stretch in 2011 stemming from the break-up of the group that landed him in our Countdown. The Corre was the attempt by WWE to keep Wade Barrett on the cusp of superstardom after leadership of The Nexus was given to CM Punk. Barrett was joined by Nexus holdovers Justin Gabriel and Heath Slater, as well as the emerging big man, Jackson. The Corre, as was the case with Jackson, never panned out. 261. The Boogeyman I’m not a fan of the Boogeyman…and I’m not going to spend much time on him. 100 words to describe my distaste for Marty Wright’s gimmick are unnecessary, but I’ll do my best to achieve them. I was at the height of my smarkdom in 2006 when I attended my first WrestleMania. I was none too happy to see him on the card in a waste of space of a match against Booker T and Sharmell. God Bless Book and Mrs. Book for enduring that craptastic mess. Boogeyman was terrible. He was, quite possibly, my least favorite wrestler of all-time. End. Of. Story. 331. (Tie) Joy Giovanni, Tiffany, and Katie Lea Burchill These unlucky ladies are tied for the most insignificant wrestlers in the history of WrestleMania. The extremely luscious Joy and Tiffany, as well as the extremely talented Katie Lea took part in the easily forgotten “Miss WrestleMania” Battle Royal at the 25th Anniversary of WrestleMania in 2009. Burchill deserved better placement based on her talent level, but as they say down here in the south, “Thems the breaks,” ladies. The entire execution of the match was pointless, as it failed to give any of the women involved a chance to shine in memorable fashion. Women like Giovanni were laughably included despite having almost zero relevance in the grand scheme of women’s WrestleMania history. 328. (Tie) Aksana, Cameron, Naomi, Eva Marie, Emma, Summer Rae, and Tamina The participants in last year’s Diva’s Championship match at WrestleMania XXX were thrown into a cluster Jill (PG) and asked to contribute to one of the finest WrestleMania cards in recent memory. To their respective credit, they all tried very hard to warrant their spot. It stands to reason that the first-time Mania grapplers tied for second to last place on this massive list may work their way up in the years to come, as Eva has drive, Naomi is unique, Summer Rae has talent, and Tamina is the current “monster” of the division, but it is safe to state that Cameron could wrestle in the next five “Show of Shows” and never shed her label from the diehard fanbase as “that annoying girl who nearly lost her top.” I wish she’d “Girl, Bye” her way out of the WWE. 321. Special Delivery (S.D.) Jones Until 2008’s WrestleMania XXIV saw a new record set, the shortest match in WrestleMania history had been the complete squash of SD Jones at the hands of King Kong Bundy at the original WrestleMania in 1985. It was important in that it set up viewers unique to wrestling to remember Bundy, who would go onto main-event WrestleMania 2 the following year. Jones, however, was fodder. His WWE Hall of Fame induction speech for Tony Atlas was more memorable. It was endearing, actually, in all its 2006, “WWE is still trying to iron out how best to present these ceremonies” glory. 320. (Tie) Pedro Morales, Ted Arcidi, Dan Spivey, Boris Zhukov, Ken Patera, Jim Powers, Sam Houston, Ron Bass, Sika, Yoshi Tatsu, Brad Maddox, Darren Young, Jinder Mahal, Titus O’Neill, Xavier Woods, Damien Sandow, and Sin Cara The WrestleMania 2 and IV Battle Royals have always been a guilty pleasure for me, but not because of any of these guys being involved. Morales is one of the all-time greats in WWE, but Mania 2 was his lone appearance. Arcidi is a nobody. Patera is a guy that younger fans may have read about in various biographies over the years. The former weight lifter earned his fame as one of the strongest wrestlers of all-time, but it did not translate to WrestleMania success. Zhukov was a member of a tag team with Hall of Famer, Nikolai Volkoff. I cannot recall enough about Houston or Powers to warrant even looking them up on the internet. Bass, I remember simply for being known as the “Outlaw.” Sika, though, is a Hall of Fame member of the Wild Samoans, so he’s perhaps the most important member of this group, in terms of wrestling’s great history. Spivey was a Sky Scraper in NWA/WCW along with Undertaker and Psycho Sid. Battle Royals remain a way to get a bunch of guys a spot on the card. They are fun, but the majority of the participants are not substantially memorable. The first few minutes clear out the ring for those that are to be featured in the climax. Mania XXX saw a nice return to that old formula on the main card, with the Andre the Giant Memorial trophy hanging in the balance (a trophy was also on the line at Mania IV). Wrestlers like Tatsu, Maddox, Young, O’Neill, Mahal, Woods, and Sin Cara were given a chance to perform live at the year’s biggest show. One would hope that, of those men, at least one – like Sandow or Titus – may one day find themselves doing something more important. 303. Sharmell The wife of the 5-time WCW Champion and 1-time World Heavyweight Champion, Booker T, Sharmell was one of the featured acts in the abomination otherwise known as the inter-gender handicap match at WrestleMania 22 also involving The Boogeyman. Admittedly, the former Nitro Girl was pretty amusing in her role – which amounted to screaming and being “afraid of the Boogeyman” – but the match is one of my least favorite of all-time and her mere inclusion warrants her terribly low placement. She also made an appearance in the Mania 23 Money in the Bank ladder match, nearly taking a Twist of Fate from Matt Hardy to ensure that Booker stopped climbing the ladder. 302. (Tie) Miguel Perez, Jesus Castillo, Jose Estrada, Sniper, Flash Funk, and Chainz Battle Royals in WrestleMania history have often been the setting for several guys that you’ve never heard of before or since getting on the card. The Tag Team Battle Royal at WrestleMania XIV was important for its having a tag team title shot on the line, but it featured numerous nobodies that make you go, “Who?” As I was compiling the “Master List” of all stars to have ever competed in a WrestleMania match, I was struck by the number of people in this Battle Royal that I had to strain to remember at all. I do remember Chainz, real name Brian Lee, most famous for his portrayal as the fake Undertaker leading up to the infamous Taker vs. Taker match at Summerslam. The first three guys mentioned were members of Los Boriquas from the “Gang Wars” days in ’97. I remember nothing of Sniper. I loved Too Cold Scorpio, but not Flash Funk. Moving on… 296. Uncle Elmer A friend of the Hillbilly named Jim, Uncle Elmer makes it difficult for me to even reach the 100 word minimum I’ve set for discussion of these bottom feeders of WrestleMania’s current 30 events. He lost to Adrian Adonis in a quick match that lasted less than two minutes at WrestleMania 2. I’m unsure what else to write about him. I’m sitting in a coffee shop on Friday, April 18th writing this – the first day of work on this project. With all due respect to Uncle Elmer, that’s what I’ve got to resort to in order to meet the world requirement. (101 words!) 295. Adam Bomb For you New Generation Era fans, you might remember Bomb – real name Bryan Clark - as a pretty ripped dude with an absolutely terrible character born of the “let’s take noun we can think of and turn it into a gimmick” period in WWE history. You might better remember him if you watched WCW in the late 90s. He wrestled as Wrath during WCW’s flirtation with creating gimmick-heavy characters. Based on the Mortal Kombat video game, Wrath teamed with Mortis to wrestle the Sub-Zero knockoff, Glacier, who was highlighted last year on the WWE Network’s Countdown show dedicated to terrible gimmicks. He later wrestled with Brian Adams (aka Crush) as KroniK. He was around right until WCW was bought by WWE. His claim to WrestleMania fame, though, was getting squashed by Earthquake in one of the shortest matches of all-time. 294. Skinner If you have ever wondered why Steve Keirn, one of the trainers for NXT, was chosen to mold the future of the WWE in their developmental process, it has probably been because you remember him as the Alligator Hunter known as Skinner in the early 1990s WWE. He lost to Owen Hart at WrestleMania VIII and that was the extent of his career on the grand stage. In reality, Keirn is one of the most decorated tag team wrestlers of all-time. He has won like a billion tag team championships, perhaps most famously with Stan Lane (also of The Midnight Express) as the other half of The Fabulous Ones of the AWA. Do yourself a favor and look up one of their matches if you get bored some day. As a student of wrestling’s history, I have enjoyed looking back at careers like his. 293. (Tie) Duke “The Dumpster” Droese, The Goon, Gobbledy Gooker, Michael “PS” Hayes, Kamala, and Kim Chee The Gimmick Battle Royal was not really my cup of tea. It was, in my opinion, an unnecessarily comedic break on an otherwise very seriously toned WrestleMania in 2001. I can, however, see why so many find so much enjoyment in it. It was fun. Others that will be featured later on were involved, as well, but I find almost equal comedic value in the fact that Michael Hayes’ only Mania match was the goofy Battle Royal at Mania X-Seven. The leader of the Fabulous Freebirds had just one Mania match. That’s just crazy. It’s also somewhat surprising, to a much lesser degree, that Kamala never had a Mania match in his prime given the gimmick-heavy early 1990s.
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