So, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week or so, you know that Shane McMahon has made his triumphant return to WWE after a near seven year absence. It was a truly special moment due to it being so rare that WWE is able to surprise us these days, but Shane returning wasn’t even the biggest surprise they had. After declaring that he wanted to take over Monday Night Raw, Shane was thrust into a Hell in a Cell match against The Undertaker by his father Vince. Now, whilst this idea is borderline insane, it can’t be denied that it’s fresh and exciting.
Speaking of insanity, that word can be used to describe most of Shane’s past WWE matches, due to his strange tendency of falling off of large structures and taking spots that most wrestlers would refuse to do. For someone who has had the most minimal wrestling training, Shane has had some truly great contests. Today I’m going to rank the seven best of them, because if this was a top 10, I’d probably be including about 60% of his matches.
7. Shane McMahon vs Steve Blackman – SummerSlam 2000
Starting off strong here. Steve Blackman was the hardcore champion in the lead up to Summerslam, until Shane won the title from him on Smackdown, with the help of Test, Albert, Edge and Christian, which is a pretty big upgrade from the Mean Street Posse. Blackman, as you can probably imagine, wasn’t exactly thrilled about that, and he hunted Shane down backstage at Summerslam for a good hour and a half before the match even got started. Once it did, it was essentially a massive hardcore spotfest, with both men using pretty much every part of a trash can, Blackman using those weird combat sticks that moved far too quickly for me to keep up with, and of course, Shane falling 50 feet from the titantron after a shot from a kendo stick. That spot is the main reason this match makes the list, and it was the first dive of its kind from Shane (the next came at Backlash 2001 against Big Show), it was shocking to see him do it, and even more surprising since it came in a match that didn’t have much of a build up to it. Still, an extremely fun match with some memorable moments, it more than deserves to make the list.
6. Shane McMahon vs Kane – Survivor Series 2003
In 2003, Kane was forced to unmask after losing a match to Triple H at Madison Square Garden, and he went on a little bit of a rampage afterwards. He chokeslammed Eric Bischoff off the stage, he set Jim Ross on fire, he just wasn’t being a very nice bloke. His rage reached its highest level when he tombstoned Linda McMahon at the top of the entrance ramp, something that Shane took exception to because, y’know, that’s his mum. The two had a last man standing match at Unforgiven which Kane won, despite Shane again throwing himself off the titantron because that’s just his thing. The feud continued to escalate, with Shane locking Kane in a car and crashing it and kicking him into a fire, with Kane taking the more gentlemanly approach of electrocuting Shane’s testicles with a car battery. The two met in the first ever Ambulance Match at Survivor Series, and you knew that it was going to be a bit physical the second it started when Shane clotheslined Kane over the top rope and the Big Red Machine landed right on his big red head. The two brawled backstage for a large portion of the match, and when they reemerged at the top of the entrance way, Kane hit a devastating tombstone (after a coast to coast, of course) before throwing Shane into the ambulance for the win. The match was just non-stop action from start to finish, with Shane getting in all of his usual big moves and Kane looking like, well, a monster.
5. Shane McMahon vs Randy Orton – No Way Out 2009
Now here’s a match that I had completely forgotten about until I searched Shane’s name on the network. During the Triple H and Randy Orton feud that ran on and off from 2007 to 2009, Orton made a habit of kicking Triple H’s family members in the head, which isn’t very nice. Shane was one of Orton’s victims, and at No Way Out, he got his chance for revenge in a No Holds Barred match. Orton has always been a good worker and can usually put on a good match with anyone, and this match was no exception. Orton was bloodied early on in the match thanks to a vicious shot with a TV monitor, and Shane got in a lot of offense, including a great sequence where he hit the coast to coast on Orton’s Legacy stablemate Cody Rhodes before attempting an elbow drop from the top rope onto Orton who was lay on the announce table. Orton eventually hit the RKO for the win, which Shane sold fantastically, and although he lost the match, Shane O’Mac put in a performance that surprised pretty much everyone watching, and showed that he can hold his own with best in the business.
4. Shane McMahon vs X-Pac – WrestleMania XV
As part of the DX vs Corporation angle, Shane won the European Championship from X-Pac in February, and the rematch was set for WrestleMania, which would be Shane’s in-ring debut at the grandest stage of them all. The Shane McMahon we saw here was very different to the one we’d start to know and love in the future, as he hadn’t yet started not caring about his body. Despite that, the crowd were extremely into the match, as X-Pac was part of the most popular faction in the company, and Shane was ever-so-slightly hated by just about everyone in the crowd. The match was very well paced and everyone packed into the First Union Centre in Philadelphia was eagerly anticipating a title change, but they didn’t get what they wanted at all. Triple H, the leader of DX at the time, ran down to the ring, seemingly to help his fellow degenerate, but instead, he shocked the crowd by hitting him with a pedigree, allowing Shane to pick up the win and retain his title. The match is a reminder that McMahon doesn’t have to severely damage himself in order to illicit a response from a crowd, or to put on a good match.
3. Shane McMahon vs Shawn Michaels – Saturday Nights’ Main Event 2006
The McMahons had been making Shawn Michaels’ life ‘a living hell’ in the months leading up to WrestleMania 22, where Shawn would defeat Vince in a brutal No Holds Barred match. Before the Show of Shows, however, Shane and Shawn went to war in a street fight, which is pretty much Shane’s signature match. The hatred between the two was on show right from the start, when Shawn attacked McMahon during his entrance before he could even finish his lovely little dance. Michaels and McMahon brawled with various weapons until Shawn superplexed Shane off of a ladder inside the ring to two tables outside. The spot was absolutely incredible as it showed how far Shawn was willing to go to get his revenge on the family who had been tormenting him for months on end, and it wa even more impressive when you consider that Michaels had to retire for four years because of severe back injuries. Shockingly, this spot wasn’t even the end of the match, and even though the pace slowed massively, Shane still attempted a coast to coast that hit his old man instead, but thanks to some good ol’ McMahin family ‘tactics’, Shane picked up a rare win against one of the biggest stars in the company.
2. Shane McMahon vs Vince McMahon – WrestleMania X-Seven
On the final ever episode of WCW Monday Nitro, just as Vince was in the midst of bragging about finally defeating ‘Billionaire Ted’, Shane made a shocking appearance and revealed that he had purchased WCW from right under his father’s nose. This led to the two facing each other in, you guessed it, a street fight at quite possibly the greatest WrestleMania in the event’s 31 years of existence. Father and son didn’t hold back on each other, and they were willing to put their bodies through absolute hell in order to show that the match belonged on an already stacked card, and they succeeded. The match had a seemingly infinite amount of memorable moments, from Shane crashing through the announce table to Trish Stratus finally getting sick of Vince being a massive pervert, and, of course, Linda McMahon suddenly remembering how to walk and kicking Vince right in his family jewels. The crowd was hot from the opening bell to the last, and they were especially lucky to witness the first Shane O’Mac coast to coast. Vince has gone on to lose another three matches at his biggest event, whereas this victory sent Shane to 2-0. Slightly ironic that the Undertaker will be attempting to break someone’s streak at WrestleMania, huh?
1. Shane McMahon vs Kurt Angle – King of the Ring 2001
Let’s be honest, how could this match not be number one? It had some of the most memorable (and most cringeworthy) spots in WWE history, and the quality of the match was even more incredible when you consider that Kurt had already wrestled twice earlier in the night, and the fact that Shane isn’t an actual wrestler, he’s just a mad man with a fetish for violence. Shane began by out-wrestling Angle (you read that right), which, as you can imagine, made the Olympic Champion extremely mad, and that’s when the real fun started. The two brawled for over ten minutes before they slowly made their way up the entrance ramp towards the stage. Angle was supposed to suplex McMahon through the sugar glass boards, but there were two rather big problems. The first was that Kurt’s tailbone was in a lot of pain due to an earlier supplied from Shane on the ramp, and as a result he couldn’t get all his power behind the throw. The second, much bigger problem was that, instead of sugar glass, which is very easy to break, WWE accidentally fitted plexiglass. Which is not very easy to break. Shane bounced right off the glass, and his head hit the concrete floor with an almighty thud that still rings around the arena to this day. Incredibly, Shane decided that he still wanted to be thrown through the glass, as you do, and Kurt tried again with much more ‘success’, if that’s the right word to use. They tried from the other side too, with Shane just bouncing off another two times before going through face first, because he seemingly feels no pain whatsoever. When the two finally returned to the ring after several minutes, Angle hit an Angle Slam from the top rope for the victory. Shane’s daredevil status reached new levels during the match, and he showed that he is willing to do absolutely anything it takes to put on the best show possible, no matter where he is on the card.
And that’s it! Are there any matches you think I should have include? Also, do you think Shane will beat The Undertaker at WrestleMania? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!