I must say, a rather daring yet cunning choice for No. 25 Mr Eck.

I live in Cape Town, South Africa and remember, quite vividly, watching the Martel match with my Dad. I was a big Jannetty fan at the time (yes they existed in Africa) and was rather bemused by the blindfold match later on in the card.

Thanks for keeping me updated on all the goings-ons in the WWE and, to a lesser extent, TNA.

Thank you sir!

Jef

would love to see him somehow involved in the jericho storyline. might actually be someone who can match up to jerichos mike abilility finally. plus his blog about jericho made me think he might be involved but he might just actually guenienly dislike him... either way i hope hes involved.

Jake's promos were some of the best around.....bone chilling

Can you imagine how much better Kozlov or Mike Knox would be if they had a guy like Jake the Snake as their manager.

I have Snake Roberts considerably higher on my ranking.
My #25 would be Tito Santana. He was the opening match at the 1st Wrestlemania and fittingly, should be 1st on this list. With 8 Wrestlemania appearances, mostly in tag matches, he makes the top 25, but was never in a significant storyline during Wrestlemania.

"Victory over Welles at WM 2 was a squash but is memorable because Wells was foaming at the mouth after Roberts put the snake on him."

Wells had been a member of our hometown Saskatchewan Roughriders, so a long time passed before my father lightened up on Jake for having done that to George.

I'll tell ya Eck as soon as you said you were doing this ,I started to compile my own top 25,and it's alot harder than it sounds.The first 10 or so were pretty easy, just putting them in order was rough.I was suprised how many big names I had to leave off of my list because they may have had great careers,they didn't have WrestleMania moments.Guys like Eddie Guerrero,Kevin Nash,Matt Hardy,Christian and Brock Lesnar just to name a few.This was fun though.
Next time give us a head's up as I'm sure you had been planing this for weeks and we had to scramble.Remember Eck, some of like to play along at home.
Anyway,my # 25 is Kane.Two defeats to the Undertaker, a MITB match, match's with Angle,HHH and Kahli,and some tag matches and a triple threat hardcore match,it's safe to say Kane never stole the show at Mania but two tombstone piledrivers to Pete Rose will always be on the WrestleMania highlight reels.

I guess this is okay, but that Wrestlemania VII Blindfold Match is one of the worst matches I have ever seen. And losing to the Honky Tonk Man? The only thing worse than that is that Honky Tonk Man became Intercontinental Champion a few months later. Jake Roberts lost to benefit Honky's push.

The best thing I've ever seen Roberts do at Wrestlemania is his promo before his match against DiBiase. It was Roberts at his most moralistic. Does anyone know if I can find it on the web?

I'm a little suprised Jake isn't a bit higher. It's such a shame this guy is a mess in his personal life because he has so much talent to give back to the product. The greatest 'evil eyes' in the business (Though I think Randy Orton's been taking notes!)

I don't know about this one Kevin . I guess he had to be in the mix somewhere though . Aside from his Wrestlemania "ranking" , he was never really a favorite of mine . Take away the (real) snake and what have you got ?
Let's cut to the chase anyway Kevin . Scott Steiner's appearence in '93 places him near the top !!!!!!!!!!!!! ;)

Are you still going to provide your regular commentaries? I sure hope so!

RESPONSE FROM KE: Of course.

It wasn't a WrestleMania moment, but one of the best matches I ever saw live was at the Arena when Jake fought Ronnie Garvin for the National title. It was in the early days of the NWA coming to Baltimore...traditionally a WWWF town. It was a crazy, wild, bloody match. I think I saw my first "unprotected chair shot" when Garvin blasted Jake with a metal folding chair.I think the match even made the cover of one of the national magazines at the time.

I always liked Roberts. I hope that he has been able to put some of his personal demons behind him and live a better life. If there is any one person that Mickey Rourke's "The Wrestler" brought to mind, it was Jake doing weekend indy shows to make some scratch after he fell out of the spotlight.

Jakes best days were diffently in the NWA (Georgia Championship Wrestling). I believe he was in the Legion of Doom.

Wasn't it later revealed that they could see through the blindfolds?

RESPONSE FROM KE: I think it was pretty much known at the time (although not in story line, obviously).

Jack,

Take away the snake and what have you got?

Still an awesome persona.

While the Ultimate Warrior had to show off his intensity by running and screaming, Jake did it quietly and slowly. The way he looked, the way he moved, the way he spoke, the way he stared, he was just one of the most interesting characters ever. And when he was a heel, man, was he a bastard.

I still don't think he belongs on this list, but as far as careers go, he was awesome. It's sad how things went downhill.

Cliff -
All good points . and yes it's very sad to see how he's chosen to live his life .

Jake The Snake Roberts is a better story-teller than historian, but his faceturn happened before I started watching WWF, so I don't know how it happened.

The way he has told it is that he and Honky Tonk Man did a double-turn years before Bret/Austin at WM13. I have seen footage of the incident and Jimmy Hart was with the Honky Tonk Man, so I'd think HTM was already a heel (maybe with no heat, but aligned against the fans nonetheless).

Do you remember it? Was it a true double-turn like Bret/Austin or Demolition and Powers of Pain? Or does his re-telling just make for a better story than what really happened?

Keep up the good work!

RESPONSE FROM KE: I do not recall a double turn.