Wrestlemania

Overview

Wrestlemania is an annual pay-per-view event held by the WWE. It is the largest annual event held by the promotion, featuring championship matches and matches which are the culminations of the biggest storylines the promotion has told over the previous year. It also regularly features celebrities and musical guests. As of April 8th, 2018, there have been 34 Wrestlemanias.

Background

The first Wrestlemania took place on March 31st, 1985. It was held in Madison Square Garden, New York, and was the first pay-per-view event in WWE (then WWF) history.^[1] Its main event featured Hulk Hogan and Mr. T vs. Rowdy Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff.

Wrestlemania was conceptualized by Vince McMahon and the name was coined by Howard Finkel.^[2]

Developments

Over the following decades, Wrestlemania grew into the most popular annual wrestling event in the United States. The most attended was Wrestlemania III, which had an audience of over 93,000 people. The event came to feature different events during the weekend of Wrestlemania, including the WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and a pay-per-view for WWE's developmental brand, NXT.

Notable Moments

The Undertaker's Streak

Professional wrestler The Undertaker notably won his matches at 21 consecutive Wrestlemanias before losing at Wrestlemania XXX to Brock Lesnar. The Undertaker would win his following two matches at Wrestlemanias XXXI and XXXII before losing to Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania XXXIII, leading to speculation that he had retired.

Wrestlemania 23: Battle of the Billionaires

Wrestlemania 23: Battle of the Billionaires was the name of the main staged rivalry between Donald Trump and Vince McMahon at the 23rd annual Wrestlemania pay-per-view event that took place in April 2007. While the event drew large-scale interest in its own right at the time of the original airing, numerous GIFs and video clips from the staged altercation between the two has seen a notable resurgence since Donald Trump's nomination, and subsequent victory, in the 2016 United States presidential election. The event was organized in collaboration among several federations in professional wrestling, featuring performers from Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW brands, as a joint pay-per-view (PPV) event, which took place on April 1st, 2007 at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. On July 19th, 2011, the highlights clip of the match between was uploaded by WWE to its YouTube channel.

Roman Reigns Victories at Wrestlemanias XXXII and XXXIII

At Wrestlemanias XXXII and XXXIII, Roman Reigns was heavily booed after winning the main events against Triple H and The Undertaker, respectively. Fans of the WWE have been divided on Reigns as many see him as having received an unfair push from Vince McMahon to be the company's top star. At Wrestlemania XXXII, after a year that saw Reigns win and lose the World Heavyweight title on two separate occasions after brief runs, Reigns earned the right to face Triple H, the wrestler and Authority figure who ostensibly worked to give Roman adversity all year, at the main event. There, Reigns defeated Triple H, again to boos. At the following night's Monday Night Raw, Roman opened the show to a chorus of boos. In an attempt to win the crowd over, Roman pleaded, "Aw, cmon. I'm not a bad guy! I'm not a good guy. I'm the guy." This would become his catchphrase over the next few months.

At Wrestlemania 33, Roman Reigns defeated and appeared to retire longtime fan-favorite wrestler The Undertaker in the main event. The following night on Monday Night Raw, the crowd chanted "Undertaker" for several minutes, until the crowd turned the chant into a "Roman Sucks!" chant. After Roman entered, the crowd erupted in several distinct chants, many including obscenities, as Roman stood in the ring (shown below).

John Cena's Wrestlemania Proposal

At Wrestlemania 33, after John Cena and Nikki Bella defeated The Miz and Maryse in a mixed-tag match, Cena was handed a microphone and proceeded to propose to Bella in the ring. The moment was compiled in Twitter Moments that evening.

Popular weatherman Al Roker was the guest announcer for the match. The following day, Cena and Bella appeared on The Today Show to talk about their engagement.

Wrestlemania XXXIV

In the build before Wrestlemania XXXIV, it seemed as though WWE was building to a match between Undertaker and John Cena, but Undertaker never appeared on WWE television to confirm the match, leading to mystery as to how that angle will pay off at the upcoming Pay-Per-View. Other notable matches include Reigns vs. Lesnar for the RAW Universal Championship, Shinsuke Nakamura vs. AJ Styles for the World Championship, and Ronda Rousey pairing with Kurt Angle to face Triple H and Stephanie McMahon.

At the April 8th, 2018 Wrestlemania, there were several notable matches and outcomes. John Cena faced The Undertaker in a surprise match and quickly lost. Charlotte Flair retained the Smackdown Women's Championship when she defeated Asuka and broke the latter's 2-year-plus undefeated streak. Matt Hardy won the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royale with help from Bray Wyatt, who had not appeared on television since he faced Hardy in The Ultimate Deletion. Ronda Rousey had a highly-praised debut match, to the surprise of many wrestling writers who had low expectations for Rousey in her WWE debut.^[3][4]

AJ Styles defeated Shinsuke Nakamura to retain the World Championship, but after the match, Nakamura punched Styles in the groin and kicked Styles out of the ring before delivering his finisher. This represented a shocking heel turn for Nakamura's character, who had been portrayed as a babyface (good guy) for his entire WWE run thus far. The main event between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar ended with Lesnar taking a surprising victory, as many felt the entire year of WWE programming prior to Wrestlemania was setting up Reigns winning at Wrestlemania XXXIV and becoming WWE champion. The match, notably, was heavily booed by the crowd, who chanted "boring" and "this is awful." The audience also began playing with beach balls.

Also of note, WWE paid off a storyline in which Braun Strowman was to challenge for the tag team titles, but his partner remained a mystery until Wrestlemania. Before the match, Strowman said he would pick his partner from the crowd before grabbing a small child named Nicholas from the crowd. Strowman instructed Nicholas to stand on the apron of the ring while he did the work. At one point Nicholas tagged into the match but quickly tagged back out, leading to the finish which made Strowman and Nicholas tag team champions of Monday Night Raw.

Search Interest

External References