#3 – The Rajah Forums Countdown of WWE's Best Matches of 2014

Greetings and salutations, boys and girls, and welcome to the first Rajah main page installment of the most prestigious countdown list of the year, the Rajah Forums Countdown of WWE’s Best Matches of 2014!

Now, many of you have never visited the forums that are connected to this wonderful haven of news and features before, and so you might be unfamiliar with this countdown. The idea is that at the end of the year, dozens of Rajah forum members submitted lists of the WWE matches that they thought were the best. After an exhaustive process of averaging and general mathiness, a top 25 list was composed and over the course of the next few weeks, it will be revealed one match at a time.

If you agree or disagree with the matches on this list, or just wish to give your thoughts on them in a rad place full of skateboarding dinosaurs and charming secret agents, then hop on down to the Rajah Forums, make yourself an account and join the party.

Now let’s get on with the next installment of the countdown…

Just 30 minutes after the end of Undertaker’s streak left the Superdome in stunned silence, it was up to these three to deliver a worthy Wrestlemania main event. The crowd initially sound pretty deflated and some must have wondered if the crowd’s lack of noise would help replicate previously tepid Mania main events like HHH/Jericho, HHH/Orton and Miz/Cena.

They start off well though and Bryan goes for his signature “YES!” kicks in the corner which generates some response. Orton’s work early on is pretty smart as well. When he gets his hands on Bryan he goes straight for the injured shoulder. This takes Bryan out of the match for a couple of minutes while Orton and Batista brawl on the outside. After injuring Batista’s back, Orton remembers to go back to Bryan and do some more damage before returning to Batista once again. Bryan interrupts Orton’s domination and takes on both opponents with kicks and the running corner strikes. Lawler points out that Bryan is deliberately avoiding landing on his injured shoulder. Bryan goes for a cover on Orton and JBL points out that the injured shoulder prevented him from hooking the leg.

As Bryan locks in the YES Lock on Orton, Trips and Stephanie hit the ring and take out Mike Chioda, prompting crooked ref Scott Armstrong to emerge from the crowd. Batista casually hits the Batista bomb but Bryan kicks out just in time and now the crowd really start to respond. The odds against Bryan now really are huge. With an already injured shoulder, having wrestled a 25 minute match earlier in the show, he has to overcome a crooked ref, Triple H, Stephanie and both of the much bigger (and fresher) Batista and Orton. Bryan kicks Armstrong in the head, cuts off Trips when he goes for the sledgehammer and takes out all three intruders with a suicide dive. They’re helped to the back and the crowd love it. But soon Batista and Orton decide to work as a team and beat Bryan down, ending with the big RKO/Batista Bomb combo through the announce table. Orton and Batista are left to fight it out in the ring as Bryan is taken away on a stretcher. Earlier in the match, when it was just Batista and Orton fighting it out, nothing but a faint “boring” chant could be heard. Now it’s the same scenario but the crowd chants “Daniel Bryan” in unison instead.

The final few minutes are as exciting as you’d hope from a Mania main event. There’s reversals and near falls a-plenty. When Bryan halts a Randy Orton punt attempt with the running knee, Batista chucks him through the ropes and with a huge grin on his face, covers Orton. I remember being completely taken in by this at the time. What an arsehole Batista looks. Orton’s late kick out prompts another Batista bomb before Bryan knocks him out with the running knee and submits him with the Yes Lock to a huge pop. Bryan immediately no sells the shoulder that had been such a factor over the course of the night, lifting both title belts above his head for the “YES!” chant. We’ll let him off though. Biggest moment of his career and all that. Smart work and extra booking helped this match win over a tired crowd and deliver a more than worthy lead-in to one of the most memorable Wrestlemania moments of all time.