5 underrated WrestleMania gems

The grandest stage of them all, WWE's biggest PPV of the year, WrestleMania, has been home to some of the greatest wrestling matches of all time. Matches that are being talked about since decades, and will be talked about for decades to come.

But sometimes the mega event has some great matches that are not talked about, not remembered or even forgotten about, and thus, very underrated.

Here is a list of five such matches.

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#5 Bret Hart vs 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper - WrestleMania VIII

This show and match is when Bret Hart became a star. Bret and Roddy Piper, being both ultra popular at the time, had the crowd split right down the middle mere moments into the match. However, as Bret was the future babyface of the company, Roddy had to heel it up to help cement Bret as the popular choice for the audience in this one. He did this perfectly by resorting to heel tactics and short cuts, which commentator Gorilla Monsoon played up to help get Hart over even more.

This was a smooth collision with a perfect blend of fighting dirty, technical skill and putting over an up and comer. The roof nearly blew off the building when Bret scored the 3 count, and was awarded the Intercontinental Championship by Piper himself.

#4 Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Scott Hall - WrestleMania X8

Overshadowed by the other NWO 'Mania bout

For the first time since WrestleMania VII in 1996, Steve Austin seemed like just another wrestler. Although the feud(s) between The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin vs the NWO had been given plenty of airtime on RAW and SmackDown, WWE made it clear that The Rock vs Hulk Hogan was the vocal point.

The Toronto audience was hot for Austin as usual, but no one will ever forget the response Hogan vs Rock received, and even though Austin's match with Scott Hall occurred earlier on the show, there was just not enough love for 'The Bad Guy' as there was for Hogan.

Another major factor was that the match itself (between Austin and Hall) was just under 10 minutes. I feel due to all of this, the match has been very under-appreciated though the two got the best you could get out of the short time they had.

Austin would go on to win the match with one of the best Stone Cold Stunners he has ever delivered, as Jim Ross put it, '' A WrestleMania Stunner! ''.

#3 Chris Jericho vs Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit - WrestleMania 2000

As you should be able to guess, this match is heavily overlooked by WWE for the most part because it involves Chris Benoit. But I feel that it had been overlooked even before 2007, due in part to the show-stealing Ladder Match between Edge & Christian, the Hardy Boyz and Dudley Boyz.

The then yet to be pinned Kurt Angle entered the match as both WWE Intercontinental Champion and European Champion and left the super show with neither, having lost the IC Title to Benoit, and the European Title to Chris Jericho.

The match featured a series of submissions, counters, counters into submissions, technical skill and even a little brawling. Many actually deemed the match 'boring' following the show but a second look should convince those same people otherwise.

#2 Chris Jericho vs Christian - WrestleMania XX

Former friends and WWE World Tag Team Champions Chris Jericho and Christian came to blows over Christian's growing jealousy of Jerciho's new romance with Trish Stratus. This resulted in a match between the two at WrestleMania XX in 2004 and instantly became one of the best matches of that entire year.

The match delivered a nice mix of mat based and high flying moves. At one point Christian executed a dangerous DDT where Chris landed directly on his head. The match ended when Trish accidentally struck Jericho, allowing Christian to defeat him with a roll-up. This was followed by Trish turning heel on Jericho and siding with Christian.

#1 Hulk Hogan vs Vince McMahon - WrestleMania XIX

Most wrestling fans who have seen it would easily include WrestleMania XIX from 2003 as one of their all time favorite WrestleManias, if not their favorite. The show featured a classic encounter between Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho, Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle in a stunning main event, and Steve Austin's final wrestling match, an exciting affair with The Rock. The matches on the under-card also ranged from passable to decent.

Surprisingly though, the most overlooked match of the show, and possibly that year, was the Street Fight between Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan, that was literally 20 years in the making. Even before the Hulk Hogan scandal in 2015, this was still one WrestleMania match that was barely ever mentioned as one of the greats.

For a match between a then 49 year old Hogan and 57 year old Vince McMahon, the two men worked very hard. It got pretty violent at points with a barrage of chair shots resulting in a lot of blood loss for both men. Vince executed an amazing Hogan Atomic Leg Drop from the top of the ladder through the announce table; we even had an appearance from Rowdy Roddy Piper for the first time in seven years, when he hit Hogan with a lead pipe quite hard in the head. Hogan took home the win after three consecutive leg drops. The match was far better than it had any right to be, than anyone thought it would be.

Edited by Nikhil Bhaskar