Who were some of the best rivals ever.

[Milkyway!]

Basic thread really. Everytime two people stepped in the ring together, this match was automatically magic. Guys like Shawn Michaels vs Bret Hart, Shawn vs HHH, so on and so forth.

I assume a lot of people are thinking Stone Cold Steve Austin vs The Rock. Something of that nature. But I'm going to share a diffrent approach personally.

My choice is Benoit vs Booker T.



Hey, this isn't my favorite match between these two. I can't find it on YouTube but I remember it clear as the sky. Two refs were refereeing due to Sharmells actions as of late. Booker T was attempting to be a gentleman, because she kept "cheating" Benoit. The ending came when BOTH men pinned eachother at the EXACT same time, each referee counting the other. This kicked off their best of 7 matches, which were absolutely fantastic.

So, there you have it. My two favorite superstars to see go toe-to-toe is Booker T and Benoit, whos yours?

 

[Blade]

For me, it's Stone Cold and Triple H.

I don't know what it was about these two guys when they were working together. They were just two of the most intense wrestlers around at the time. And the intensity of both men came together and created some great chemistry between the two. Their rivalry, however, was overshadowed by Rock vs Austin. But, in all honesty, Austin and Triple H's rivalry, spanning from late 1999 to early 2001 was much more gripping. It gave us some of the greatest and most memorable moments in the attitude era. Austin getting hit by the car, Triple H's "It was me, Austin" speech, the contract signing leading up to No Way Out, Triple H almost costing Austin the Rumble... Just awesome.

The best match from this rivalry came in the form of a Three Stages of Hell classic that remains one of the most underrated matches of all time. If you haven't seen, I suggest you go look it up on Youtube. It's a great and brutal match that has two awesome performers leaving it all out in the ring. And all time classic match and an all time classic rivalry.

 

[Dave]

For me, it's Stone Cold and Triple H.

I don't know what it was about these two guys when they were working together. They were just two of the most intense wrestlers around at the time. And the intensity of both men came together and created some great chemistry between the two. Their rivalry, however, was overshadowed by Rock vs Austin. But, in all honesty, Austin and Triple H's rivalry, spanning from late 1999 to early 2001 was much more gripping. It gave us some of the greatest and most memorable moments in the attitude era. Austin getting hit by the car, Triple H's "It was me, Austin" speech, the contract signing leading up to No Way Out, Triple H almost costing Austin the Rumble... Just awesome.

The best match from this rivalry came in the form of a Three Stages of Hell classic that remains one of the most underrated matches of all time. If you haven't seen, I suggest you go look it up on Youtube. It's a great and brutal match that has two awesome performers leaving it all out in the ring. And all time classic match and an all time classic rivalry.

Although I think that you may correct in some of the things you say, I think that The Rock and Austin was definitely a better feud. I think that the feud with Triple H was definitely a fantastic feud with many moments that I will always remember. I will never forget when Triple H was dropped from the forklift in the car by Austin. That was a tremendous match and one of the best PPV's I have ever seen.

However, one match that I will never forget in my life is Austin vs Rock from Wrestlemania X-7. The build was perfect and when the Austin won the Royal Rumble in 2001, I knew that the two men were going to square off at Wrestlemania. From then on, I knew that it was going to be an epic feud and an even better match. As it rolled around to WM X-7, the build was fantastic. You could tell that both men were fired up for the match and that it really was going to define that age. I remember watching an interview between them both and Jim Ross and thinking that I was really in for a treat when they eventually came together. When they did, they did not disappoint and that match alone is infinitely better than the feud with Triple H.

 

[Dre Guevara]

I gotta go back in time 2 1987 the Road Warriors/Super Powers vs. The 4 Horsemen. after seeing the Horsemen constantly jump on Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, & sometimes Barry Windham, week after week, U just knew eventually this rivalry was bound 2 come 2 a head, which it did during the Great American Bash when they had Wargames, I think I speak 4 everybody, who hated the Horsemen, when I say watching Flair, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson & Lex Luger get the crap beat outta them was a beautiful thing.

 

[MeanGene]

I would have to say that Piper vs Superfly or Sgt Slaughter vs Iron Shiek were my favorite 2. When Piper broke the Coconut over Superfly's head it was legendary and talked about everywhere. Everytime the Shiek said Iran #1, USA haaaaccc puuuh! (spit)...he would get enormous heat, with all kinds of crap being thrown into the ring.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I actually think that Cena and Orton was a great rivalry before it dragged on for too long, but since this is a thread in the "old school" section I'll stick with older feuds. I'm going to go ahead and go with Stone Cold & The Rock. Yeah, most likely that will be a lot of people's answer to this question, but it was such a great rivalry because it never got old and it remained entertaining the entire time. I can't think of many other rivalries that never got stale.

 

[DiscipleofWrestling]

I have three or four that come to mind when I think of great rivals:

1) Angle vs. Benoit- Anytime the two of them competed, you knew you were going to get the best technical wrestling possible. They had many great matches against each other, and they even had a feud while they were tag team partners.

2) Austin vs. Triple H- From 1999 to 2001 (counting Austin's 10 months off due to neck surgery), the Austin-Triple H feud made for very compelling TV and for some really great matches. No Mercy 1999's match and the Three Stages of Hell match come to mind as great contests.

3) The Undertaker vs. Kurt Angle- I never saw a match between the two of them that I did not like. They always seemed to bring their game up another level when they faced one another. My two favorite matches between the two of them would be the triple threat featuring The Rock and the classic WWE Championship match at No Way Out 2006.

4) Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H- Great rivalry, great feud. Ended up consuming everyone in Evolution and most of the Raw roster in the process. Every PPV match they had was great, and the December 2003 Raw match was on par with those as well.

 

[Austin 3:16 4-Life]

Hello everybody! This is my first post and just wanted to say thank you to everybody who posts in the WZ forums, you guys have been entertaining me for years. I finally decided to register so I can post every now and then.

I would have to say that one of the best rivals we have ever seen has to be WWF/E vs. WCW. I think due to that rivalry, the quality of feuds and storylines used were top-notch, which made rivalries that formed during that timeframe more intense and entertaining.

 

[ThegameBigB1222]

I am going to have go with Macho Man and Warrior back in 91

 

[unique.enigma.666]

I have to say Edge and Cena had a hell of a feud in 2006, Edge shocking the world by cashing in his MITB Privilege on a down-and-out Cena. It was planned out incredibly well, which led to one of my favourite tag teams of the current era, Rated-RKO.

Also whilst on the subject of Rated-RKO their feud with DX was awesome, its a shame we'll never know how it truly would have ended down to Hunter tearing his quad. Would DX have been the Tag Team Champions at NYR?

Undertaker and HBK always put on first class matches, and they put on perhaps one of the best matches ever at this years WrestleMania.

HHH and HBK. It wasn't dragged out, you had two guys who know each other incredibly well, and who put on some brutal matches. I really hope we see them face off at WrestleMania 26.

 

[classicviolence]

For me IMO:

1. Benoit vs. Jericho
2. Masato Tanaka vs. Mike Awesome
3. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi
4. HBK vs. Bret Hart
5. HBK vs. Y2J

These feuds to me are how pro wrestling rivals should compete. These matches all share a common aspect as these guys fight really hard against each other. The Tanaka and Awesome matches are always fun to watch because of the brutality and violence involved. The Bret and Shawn feud changed WWF and the 3 matches they had together show the distain they had for each other in real life. Misawa and Kobashi wrestled some of the best matches of all times and both men wrestled really stiff styles. The Jericho feuds with HBK and Benoit showed how technical the wrestlers are, but also brought a stiff "puro stlye" to WWF/E.

 

[RATED R CHAMPION]

GREAT PICKS GUYS, BUT I WILL BRING RIC FLAIR VS RICKY STEAMBOAT 1989 IS A GEM THEIR MATCHES PURE GOLD, THE BUILD UP GREAT, BOTH MEN BEATING THE OTHER FOR THE TITLE, AWESOME!

ALSO GREAT FEUDS WERE HHH VS SHAWN MICHAELS AS SOME OF YOU SAID AND ALSO THE FREEBIRDS AGAINST THE VON ERICHS AND BRET HART AGAINST HBK.

 

[burnout4200]

The threads entitled best rivalry not best matches/feud. I don't think anything can top the Sting/Hogan rivalry in WCW. I've never seen such an anticipated match and so many story changes leading up to it. The pay off could have been alot better but it's the rivalry itself that matters in this case. Years later it also led to Sting's first ever heel turn, but did it count? Sting went after a Red and Yellow Hulk Hogan and got booed for it. Well he's the same guy who tried to destroy WCW while turning everyone against Sting. Forgive and forget my ass. I still don't count that as a heel turn. It just proved that due to the rivalry, they had bad blood that will never go away no matter what side of the fence Hogan is on. It also looks like the rivalry might poke out it's ugly head yet again. Sting vs Hogan is a rivalry that may never end and is still going until this day.

 

[Edge fan]

in my humble opinion, the best rivalry of the 90s was Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart. The best rivalry of the new millenium thus far was Edge and Matt Hardy. Why? Because these men had issues in real life. HBK and Bret Hart hated each other for many reasons, stemming from the fact that Bret didn't want to take HBK seriously. Edge and Matt Hardy had real-life issues because Edge stole Lita from him in real life.

 

[Bizarrax]

I originally started watching wrestling as a wee kid back around 1980 with my uncle on Saturday afternoons. The only wrestling that was shown on local tv (this was pre-cable where I lived boys and girls) was NWA Championship Wrestling. I watched and enjoyed wrestling for a number of years but wasn't irreversibly hooked until the summer of '86 when the Great American Bash wasn't just a one-shot PPV but an actual multi-week tour and it was mainly because of the best-of-seven series between Magnum T.A. and Nikita Koloff. I haven't seen those matches in quite a few years so I'm not sure at how they still hold up from a technical standpoint, but I haven't enjoyed any other wrestling rivalry since then nearly as much as those matches. I wonder what would have become of Magnum T.A. had he not been forced to quit due to his car accident? Guess that's another topic for another time.

 

[boozinjedi]

For me,I go back to the old ECW..
Eddy Guererro vs. Dean Malenko!!!
Every time I watched one of their matches I did one of two things,lose my voice cheering OR be sitting in total,stunned silence at the contest I just witnessed.
The series of matches way back in the day....You would be hard pressed to find a series of matches that could top the move-for-move/hold-for-hold MAGIC these two put on EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME THEIR ENTERED THE RING against each other...Didn't matter if it were a singles match,tag team bout or even a 6-man match.
You would hard pressed to find ANYTHING like that....EVEN TODAY!!!

 

[Undercurrent]

I am surprised and quite frankly disappointed at the fact that no one on this thread has listed Austin/Hart. This was a career defining feud for both of these wrestlers and on top of that, they provided us with some of most memorable matches and moments in recent memory. It was the feud that propelled Austin to the top of the food chain and the feud that cemented Bret Hart as an icon. The match these two had at Wrestlemania 13 is arguably the greatest of all time.

 

[wrestling fan 666]

My all time favorites are:

The Von Erichs/Freebirds: Those boys wrestled stiff, which is why I really got into it for it looked so real. They had bunkhouse, strap, cage, penalty box, brass knuckle, first blood, lumberjack, single/tag-team/6-man...they did it all.

Tommy Rich/Buzz Sawyer: Those guys bled buckets and they put their bodies through hell. After that feud, neither one were the same since.

Austin/Hart: The feud started with Hart face and Austin heel...ended up visa versa. You could never predict what was going to happen and how far it would go.

And last but not least...Any with Vince McMahon: Whether it be Austin or DX or even his own kids, Vince is so over the top, it's awesome. His "Mr. McMahon" character is such an ass, it's great television.

 

[stingerfan]

I have to say that there are many rivals that come to mind. Some of my favorites are:
1.) Sting vs Ric Flair (because they never put on a boring show and most of their matches included a title being on the line from the NWA years threw the WCW years).
2.) The Hardys vs Edge and Christian (because these teams were pretty much the end of great tag team wrestling and they were all innovators of many matches including the ladder match, TLC, and tag team cage matches).
3.) The NWO vs WCW (no discription needed).

 

[the troop]

A rivalry that I believe that really gets overlooked and should be considered is Benoit/Angle. Every time these two crossed paths, they always had an entertaining, engaging program.

These two great wrestlers proved they can do two types of feuds. It could be for the gold like for the wwe championship in early 2003, or they could just have the classic "who's better" feud. This was the case for the most part.

Of course you have to have great matches to go along with a great feud and to say that these two put on some good matches is a definite understatement. When two of the greatest technical wrestlers of our time step into the ring, you better be expecting a work of art. Much like their feuds, you can expect two different match styles. They can put on an awesome straight-up wrestling match like their classic at Royal Rumble in 2003, or they can have a grueling slugfest like their cage match on Raw in 2001. Whatever was the case, expect greatness.

I always loved the simple feuds they had throughout their respected careers and whether who got over or not, they both came out looking good when it was all said and done.

 

[It's...Baylariat!]

I'm going to challenge myself here and bring up a rather obscure, yet intense rivalry from the days of Jim Crockett Promotions. It involved a member of the Four Horsemen and a young up and comer.

Tully Blanchard and Magnum TA​

If you can find me two more bitter rivals than this, that's fine. But you will only be able to match their intensity. Tully was the NWA National Heavyweight Champion at the time, which was renamed the NWA United States Heavyweight title. Blanchard held this belt and defended it on a regular basis. Then you have a guy who was young, charismatic, and had the look of a champion. Magnum TA was a generic knock off of Tom Selleck, who was Magnum PI on television. Magnum managed to win the crowd over with his belly to back suplex and his rugged good looks. Blanchard was making sure everyone hated him by telling the world he's better than they are and by having a perfect 10 at ringside with him... Babydoll.

Their rivalry was intense with a lot of intense confrontations, but the end all to this feud would be their most epic battle and what I consider to be the best cage match in Wrestling history.

​

Tell me this didn't look like the two were going to kill each other. This match was as intense of a match as I've ever seen. How anyone can say a rivalry was better than this is beyond me. Sure HHH and Austin drew money, so did the Rock and Austin, and Hogan/Savage. But if you're talking about old fashioned hate, you're talking Tully and Magnum.

 

[joshuafields78]

I agree the Magnum/Tully wars were the best ever.The I Quit Match was the pinnacle.They sold it like they hated each other,that is whats lacking today..

 

[ashe draven]

Agree w/ you 100% milkway. my choice as well is benoit/booker. their fued in wcw over the tv title was excellent. my 1st choice was bret/shawn, who had real life anamosity, but very few matches. after thinking about it benoit/booker was my fav rivilary during the hey day.

 

[Big Nick Dudley]

Best feuds. When I think of feuds over time in pro wrestling, I try not to think of them just in terms of one guy vs. another. To me, there are two feuds that will always stand out.
1. nWo vs. WCW- i feel this was probably the best storyline in the history of wrestling. So many things made this great. Hogan turning heel was the biggest shock, to date, in pro wrestling. Sting in the rafters was always worth watching, and it was drug out just long enough where it didn't become boring. The Monday Night wars made both companies work hard at keeping things fresh and doing things the right way, unlike now where WWE doesn't have much competition. Yes, TNA is improving, but nowhere near what WCW was like in '96.
2. Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahoh- This is what killed WCW. People can say it was WCW was too old, or that the nWo ran its course, or that the WCW didn't have enough top-tier talent putting on good matches. Whatever your argument, I doubt any of those things weighed as heavily as Austin/McMahon. Austin/McMahon was so much bigger than just the two of them. It turned out feuds like Austin/Foley, Austin/Undertaker, and Austin/Rock. Those feuds would not have been as good without McMahon in the background pulling the strings. Many people point to Steve Austin as the man who brought WWF back, and I agree, but it wouldn't have worked without Vinny Mac.

 

[wolvdog316]

Man. There are TONS that really suckered me in. Tully vs Dream with Babydoll was just great TV and excellent matches. nWo vs WCW was of course epic.

Honky Tonk Man vs Savage. This was a FANTASTIC feud. Throw in Elizabeth and this was classic. Good matches between them too.

Jake vs Rick Rude. Another great feud with two guys who KNEW how to work a crowd. From Jakes wife, to Rudes pants, greatness.

Rude vs Warrior. Rude made Warrior look fantastic, like he could actually wrestle a match. Not to many people can tour the country with Warrior having 20-25 min matches inside cages and make it not only watchable but DAMN good. Rude can, and he did.

Flair vs Savage WM 8. Their match was really really good, and again these two guys KNOW how to make a crowd follow their every move. Again, Liz in the middle.

Austin vs Canada. This is one of my favorite feuds of all time. His work with Bret, and Owen and Pillman was top notch. Some of the best this business has ever seen.

I know this will sound bad, but Harlem Heat vs Bunkhouse Buck and Dirty Dick Slater. I believe that was Bucks name. They had some really good knockdown matches. Add in Sherri and you got money. They didn't draw a lot but I really enjoyed it

Probably a top 3 feud for me at least, is Benoit vs Sullivan. Man. Those two hated each other and they beat the holy fucking hell out of each other every chance they got. Their matches were hardcore before ECW made it famous.

I also liked Bulldog vs Shawn for the HC, that was good, as was Bulldog vs Bret their 2nd run, also Bret vs Owen. I also REALLY loved the Shawn and Vader feud. Their matches were some of the best in WWE at that time.

I'm missing some and I bet you guys will name but I'm drawing a blank right now