Chairshot Top 5: Wrestling Entrances That Were Better Than the Match

From Rusev’s tank to The Undertaker’s Deadman return, these unforgettable wrestling entrances overshadowed the matches that followed.

Sometimes the best part of a wrestling match happens before the bell rings. From tanks and Terminators to druids, vultures and live musicians, these entrances created moments the matches that followed could never quite match.

WrestleMania has always understood that professional wrestling is part competition and part theater. The biggest matches need to feel important before anyone locks up, which is why WWE has spent decades surrounding its stars with pyro, live music, elaborate staging and entrances designed to make a stadium feel like something historic is about to happen.

Sometimes the entrance sets the tone for an equally memorable match. Shawn Michaels descending from the ceiling before facing Bret Hart at WrestleMania XII worked because the Iron Man Match that followed became a defining chapter of both careers, while his angelic entrance opposite The Undertaker at WrestleMania 25 preceded one of the most celebrated matches in company history.

Other times, the entrance becomes the highlight.

That does not necessarily mean the match was terrible. Some of the contests on this list were perfectly respectable, but the spectacle before them created an image wrestling fans remember more clearly than anything that happened after the bell. In a few cases, the contrast became almost unfair because the entrance promised something larger than the match could realistically deliver.

The standard here is simple: when fans look back at the entire presentation, what comes to mind first? If the entrance has survived while the match itself has become secondary, the performer qualifies.

These are the Top 5 wrestling entrances that were better than the match.

#5 — Rusev Arrives in a Tank — WrestleMania 31

Rusev had spent nearly a year establishing himself as one of WWE’s most protected rising stars, but WrestleMania 31 was the night the company gave his presentation the scale to match his push.

The United States Champion entered Levi’s Stadium surrounded by soldiers carrying Russian flags while Lana walked ahead of them. Then the camera revealed the centerpiece of the entire production: Rusev riding toward the stadium on top of a military tank.

It was absurd in exactly the way WrestleMania spectacle is supposed to be absurd.

The entrance took everything WWE had built around Rusev and expanded it to stadium size. The Russian sympathizer character, nationalistic rivalry with John Cena and undefeated aura all became visually understandable before he reached the ring, and the tank instantly became one of WrestleMania 31’s most replayable images.

The match itself was good. Cena and Rusev worked a physical United States Championship contest that included multiple Accolade attempts, a rare diving headbutt from Rusev and enough back-and-forth offense to justify the rivalry. Cena eventually won after Rusev accidentally collided with Lana and walked away with the championship. Nothing about the match embarrassed either performer. It simply had no realistic chance of competing with the entrance.

Years later, fans may debate the details of the finish or where the match fits within Cena’s excellent 2015 United States Championship run. Nobody needs help remembering that Rusev drove a tank into WrestleMania.

That alone earns him a place on the list.

#4 — The Undertaker’s Funeral Chariot and Vulture — WrestleMania IX

WrestleMania IX remains one of the strangest shows in company history, and The Undertaker’s entrance somehow managed to fit perfectly into the spectacle while still feeling completely unlike anything else on the card.

Caesars Palace had been transformed into a Roman-themed outdoor arena, with wrestlers and announcers dressed to match the setting. Undertaker took the concept and turned it into something much darker.

He arrived on a funeral-style chariot pulled by men dressed as Roman soldiers, with Paul Bearer beside him and a live vulture perched ominously behind The Deadman. WWE has since singled out the bird as one of the most memorable animal accompaniments ever used in a wrestling entrance.

The image was incredible. Then Undertaker had to wrestle Giant Gonzalez. The match is remembered much less fondly.

Gonzalez was an enormous physical presence, but his mobility and wrestling experience were limited enough that the encounter never became much more than a slow monster fight. The finish made things even stranger when Gonzalez used a chloroform-soaked cloth to incapacitate Undertaker, resulting in a disqualification.

Undertaker was eventually carried away, only to return and attack Gonzalez afterward. It was the kind of finish that probably seemed designed to protect both characters while extending the feud, but it gave WrestleMania audiences almost no satisfying conclusion.

The entrance required no such explanation.

Undertaker riding toward the ring on a funeral chariot with a vulture looming behind him looked like exactly the kind of supernatural spectacle WrestleMania had been created to showcase. The match that followed became a curiosity from one of WWE’s most unusual events.

The entrance became history.

#3 — Shinsuke Nakamura Gets a Live Guitar Performance — WrestleMania 34

Few WrestleMania matches arrived with more built-in expectations than AJ Styles against Shinsuke Nakamura in 2018.

Both men had already become international stars before reaching WWE, and their previous encounter in New Japan Pro-Wrestling gave fans reason to believe a WrestleMania rematch could produce something special. Nakamura added even more anticipation by winning the Royal Rumble and immediately choosing Styles as his championship opponent.

Then WrestleMania began, and Nakamura’s entrance made the match feel enormous.

Alice Cooper guitarist Nita Strauss appeared live to perform alongside Nakamura’s entrance music, turning “The Rising Sun” into a full stadium production. WWE had already established the violin-driven theme as one of the company’s most recognizable entrance songs, and the live guitar gave it a completely different edge without losing the hypnotic quality that made Nakamura’s presentation work.

The crowd participation elevated everything further. Fans sang along to an instrumental song, while Nakamura moved through the entrance with the kind of body language that made even walking toward the ring feel choreographed.

The entrance felt like a WrestleMania main event. The match never reached that level.

Styles and Nakamura wrestled a technically sound championship match, but expectations had grown so high that “good” felt disappointing. The pace remained measured, neither man produced the kind of extended escalation fans had imagined and Styles retained after countering a Kinshasa attempt into the Styles Clash.

The most memorable in-ring moment actually came afterward, when Nakamura appeared to show respect before delivering a low blow and turning heel. That twist created a story. The entrance created the feeling everyone had wanted from the match.

Years later, the visual of Nakamura walking toward the ring while Strauss played live feels more vivid than most of the championship contest itself.

That is exactly why it belongs here.

#2 — Triple H’s Army of Skulls — WrestleMania 32

Triple H has treated WrestleMania entrances like personal short films for most of his career, and WrestleMania 32 may have produced the largest gap between his entrance and the match that followed.

Stephanie McMahon appeared first, standing on a raised platform wearing a skull mask and delivering a theatrical introduction about authority, control and submission. Below her, an army of hooded figures stood with replica WWE World Heavyweight Championships draped across their bodies.

Then Triple H emerged.

Unlike some of his more elaborate WrestleMania presentations, The Game himself wore relatively simple gear. The surrounding production did the heavy lifting, presenting him as the ruler of an authoritarian wrestling empire while tens of thousands of people inside AT&T Stadium watched.

It was massive, theatrical and completely appropriate for a defending world champion who had spent months representing The Authority. Then Roman Reigns came out, and the evening became considerably more complicated.

The WrestleMania 32 main event had been fighting crowd resistance for months. WWE positioned Reigns as the heroic challenger while large portions of the audience rejected that role, creating an atmosphere where the crowd reaction worked against much of what the match was attempting to accomplish.

The match itself became long and methodical at the end of an already enormous show. Reigns eventually defeated Triple H to become WWE World Heavyweight Champion, but the reaction lacked the emotional release WWE clearly wanted from its closing moment.

That disconnect made the entrance seem even better in hindsight. Triple H’s presentation had a clear identity, visual scale and sense of occasion. Everyone watching understood exactly who he was supposed to be before he walked down the ramp. The match spent much of its runtime fighting the audience over what everyone else was supposed to feel. The entrance won that battle immediately.

Honorable Mention — Triple H’s Terminator Entrance — WrestleMania 31

Triple H receives another spot because WrestleMania 31 produced perhaps the most ridiculous entrance of his career.

The stage filled with Terminator imagery as promotional tie-in material for Terminator Genisys surrounded the entrance. Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on the video screen, robotic figures lined the stage and Triple H rose wearing a cybernetic-style headpiece before making his way toward the ring.

It was shameless cross-promotion. It was also extremely effective.

Sting’s entrance provided its own elaborate spectacle, with drummers and imagery celebrating the mysterious WCW icon finally reaching WrestleMania. By the time both men reached the ring, WWE had successfully made the match feel like a collision between wrestling universes.

Then the match became something entirely different.

What began as Sting against Triple H gradually transformed into WWE versus WCW nostalgia, with D-Generation X interfering on Triple H’s behalf before Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall appeared to support Sting. Shawn Michaels eventually joined the chaos as well, and Triple H won after using a sledgehammer.

Some fans enjoy the match specifically because it embraces that absurdity. Others still question why Sting’s first WrestleMania match became another opportunity to reinforce WWE’s victory over WCW.

Either way, the entrances felt larger and cleaner than the story the match eventually told. Triple H rising through Terminator imagery still works as pure WrestleMania spectacle. Everything afterward requires considerably more explanation.

#1 — The Undertaker Returns as The Deadman — WrestleMania XX

Sometimes an entrance becomes bigger than the match because the match disappoints. The Undertaker’s WrestleMania XX entrance became bigger because the entrance was the actual moment everyone had been waiting to see.

Undertaker had spent several years wrestling as the motorcycle-riding American Badass and Big Evil, gradually stripping away nearly all of the supernatural presentation that had defined the first decade of his career. That changed after Survivor Series 2003.

Kane interfered in Undertaker’s Buried Alive Match against Vince McMahon and helped bury his brother, creating the storyline explanation for Undertaker disappearing from television. Over the following months, strange supernatural signs began tormenting Kane while WWE teased the return of something he clearly feared.

WrestleMania XX provided the payoff.

The lights inside Madison Square Garden dropped, and Paul Bearer appeared carrying the urn for the first time alongside Undertaker in years. Torch-bearing druids followed through the purple haze as the familiar funeral imagery returned.

Then The Undertaker emerged. The reaction was enormous because the audience understood what it meant immediately. The biker version was gone, and The Deadman had returned.

WWE later ranked the entrance among the greatest in WrestleMania history and described the moment as an epic return for The Phenom. It worked because the presentation combined nostalgia with progression rather than simply recreating the 1990 version of the character.

The Undertaker still carried elements of the tougher persona he had developed during the previous several years, but the hat, coat, darkness, Paul Bearer and supernatural atmosphere restored the identity fans had been waiting to see again.

The match with Kane lasted less than ten minutes. That was probably the correct decision.

The rivalry existed primarily to resurrect The Undertaker character, and once he finally stood across the ring from Kane, there was not much mystery remaining. Undertaker controlled most of the match and eventually won with the Tombstone to extend his WrestleMania record.

Nobody needed thirty minutes. The entrance had already delivered the payoff.

That is what separates WrestleMania XX from the other selections on this list. Rusev’s tank overshadowed a solid match, Nakamura’s live performance created expectations the championship bout could not reach and Triple H’s WrestleMania presentation looked more coherent than the main event surrounding it.

Undertaker’s entrance was the storyline. Months of teasing, years of character evolution and more than a decade of history converged when Paul Bearer raised the urn and The Deadman walked back into Madison Square Garden. The match was simply what happened next.

Wrestling entrances are supposed to create anticipation for a match, but WrestleMania has occasionally turned that relationship upside down.

Rusev driving a tank into Levi’s Stadium instantly became one of the defining visuals of his WWE career, while The Undertaker arriving beside a live vulture created an image far more memorable than anything he and Giant Gonzalez accomplished afterward.

Shinsuke Nakamura entered WrestleMania 34 with the atmosphere of a world-class superstar before the long-awaited match with AJ Styles settled for being merely good. Triple H went even larger at WrestleMania 32, creating a championship entrance that felt more decisive than the crowd-divided main event that followed.

The Undertaker at WrestleMania XX represents the ultimate version because WWE had spent months making the entrance itself the destination. Fans were not simply waiting to see whether Undertaker could defeat Kane.

They were waiting to see which Undertaker would walk through the curtain. Once Paul Bearer appeared, the question had been answered. The best wrestling matches make fans forget everything that happened before the bell. Every once in a while, the entrance makes the match feel like the encore.

Research included archival material from WWE.com covering The Undertaker’s WrestleMania XX return, Triple H’s WrestleMania 31 and 32 entrances, Shinsuke Nakamura’s WrestleMania 34 entrance with Nita Strauss, The Undertaker’s WrestleMania IX funeral chariot and vulture, and Rusev’s WrestleMania 31 tank entrance.

Featured Image Recommendation: Make The Undertaker’s WrestleMania XX return the dominant image, ideally showing Paul Bearer and the torch-bearing druids ahead of The Deadman. Use Rusev standing on the tank and Shinsuke Nakamura during the Nita Strauss performance as the largest supporting images, with Triple H’s WrestleMania 32 skull-army presentation and WrestleMania 31 Terminator entrance filling the remaining space. Use a bold “BETTER THAN THE MATCH” headline so the premise is immediately clear.