How WrestleMania Became WWE's Super Bowl
- Thomas Hall
- 15 hours ago
- 5 min read
We have arrived. This weekend marks the biggest event of the wrestling year as WrestleMania 42 is officially upon us. For the second year in a row, the wrestling world descends on Las Vegas, Nevada (well the nearby area) and that means we are going to be in for a heck of a wrestling weekend. An NFL stadium is going to be filled with probably more than 50,000 people on back to back nights, as pretty much only WWE can pull off these days.
Now, I watch wrestling for a living and spend what could be described as way too much of my life doing this kind of thing. In my multiple decades of writing about wrestling, I’ve covered around 10,000 shows, many of which have little more than a few handfuls of people in the audience. I’ve seen shows that take place in theaters, arenas, backyards and in the open sea.
On the other hand, you’ll see a few shows a year that can fill a stadium with all of the pomp and circumstance you want. You can have your SummerSlams, your All Ins, your Royal Rumbles, your Survivor Series, your Wrestle Kingdoms and whatever else. Any of those could be your favorite (I’ve always been a Survivor Series man myself), but there is something different about WrestleMania that makes it stand out.
The History Of WrestleMania
The show has been going on now over the course of five different decades, starting all the way back on March 31, 1985. Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura started off the first show, hyping the event up as the biggest wrestling event of all time. While that might have been a stretch at the time (Starrcade anyone?), the idea behind the show was very clear: this one was different, and while that might have been at least partially due to the wrestling, it was also because WWE wanted it to be special.
If nothing else, you have the name. You have all kinds of alliteration in wrestling names (take your pick of WWE PPV names or a bunch of the Clash Of The Champions over the years) but this one is different. WrestleMania. The idea is right there in the title and much like Hulkamania (or Beatlemania, which is what inspired the name, as invented by none other than Howard Finkel), it shows you how crazy people are going over this whole thing. After things like The War To Settle The Score and the Brawl To End It All, this one felt bigger, better and badder (the WrestleMania III tagline and yeah I still don’t know if I get it).
WrestleMania III Took The Event To A New Level
While the first two shows don’t really have some be all, end all wrestling match that has fans coming back over the years, everything would change in 1987. WrestleMania III saw a mixture of not only one of the best technical matches WWE had ever presented with Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage, but there was the whole biggest match of all time in the main event – Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant. Throw in the show taking place in front of 93,173 fans (yes I know and no I don’t care) and there’s no denying that the standard had officially been set for WrestleManias to come.
And really, that’s about it for the next several years. The WrestleMania formula was pretty much set, as it was officially the biggest event of the year and you knew that you were going to get something big every time. Well ok maybe not EVERY year as you have the less than stellar IX and XI events, but at they were at least trying and there are some good moments in there (the Steiners vs. Headshrinkers is horribly underrated).
Over the years, WrestleMania became so big that it had its own lineup of stars. Of course you have Hogan, who was one of the main reasons the show started in the first place, but then you have people like Steve Austin, John Cena, Bret Hart and other main eventers who would headline WrestleMania after WrestleMania with one legendary moment after another. All of those guys were great, but there were two who somehow managed to outshine even them.
WWE Legends Like Shawn Michaels & The Undertaker Made WrestleMania Must See
Normally I would make some joke about it of course being Tekno Team 2000, but this one is so obvious that it isn’t even worth the time (which I already wasted anyway so ignore this sentence). Over the years, there may be no bigger names in WrestleMania history than Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker. The two of them already have legendary careers, but there is nothing on their resumes that comes close to their exploits on the biggest night of the year.
Starting with Michaels... what else is there to say? The idea is very simple: no one, and I mean no one, could come close to what Michaels could do at WrestleMania. Michaels is one of the most talented in-ring stars of all time and he managed to turn it up even higher when the lights were on the brightest. There was something special about finding out what he was going to do, as you were all but guaranteed to see him doing something special, no matter whom he was facing. His (real) retirement match even took place there against the only person it could have been against at WrestleMania.
As great as Michaels was at WrestleMania, there was one person who took it to an even higher level. Over nearly thirty years, the Undertaker’s matches at WrestleMania literally became the stuff of legend. Starting at WrestleMania VII on March 24, 1991 (your trivia of the day: the Undertaker’s first WrestleMania match was on his birthday) and going all the way until April 6, 2014, the Undertaker never lost at WrestleMania. His success there was remarkable, with all kinds of Hall Of Famers defeated (including every member of Evolution) and multiple World Title wins, to the point where he had a great career based on one night a year.
Yes, he was beaten at other times over the years and lost countless (ok maybe not countless as there is such a thing as a record book) matches over the years, but that one night of the year, The Undertaker was nothing short of immortal. The Streak got so big that it wound up eclipsing even the World Title matches at WrestleMania, because you could win those at any time. Beating The Undertaker at WrestleMania and being the one to end the Streak though? You had one night of the year to make that happen and people chased it like it was the most important thing in wrestling.
I could go on and on about the legends of WrestleMania for hours because it really is that important in wrestling history. It’s the Super Bowl, the World Cup, the Olympics and whatever else you want to name all rolled into one. Wrestling fans literally come from all over the United States and around the world to be in the audience. I’ve been to six WrestleManias in my life and I cannot fathom that I’m done going. It’s the biggest show WWE has, it’s the most important wrestling event you’ll find and it is guaranteed to have some great action. More importantly than that though:
It’s here.
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