WrestleMania
WrestleMania is a professional wrestling event held annually between mid-March and mid-April by the American company WWE, the world's largest professional wrestling promotion. Since premiering in 1985, 41 events have been held, with its most recent 41st edition occurring at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada, on April 19 and 20, 2025. WrestleMania was WWE's first pay-per-view produced and is the most successful annual professional wrestling event in history. The event has been broadcast through traditional PPV since 1985 and has been available via livestreaming since WrestleMania XXX in 2014, which was WWE's first major event available through this medium. WrestleMania was conceptualized by former WWE executive chairman Vince McMahon and named by ring announcer and WWE Hall of Famer Howard Finkel. It is the company's flagship event and along with Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and Money in the Bank, it is referred to as one of the "Big Five", WWE's five biggest annual events of the year.
The widespread success of WrestleMania helped transform professional wrestling. The annual event has facilitated the rise to stardom of several top WWE wrestlers. Celebrities such as Aretha Franklin, Cyndi Lauper, Muhammad Ali, Mr. T, Mike Tyson, Donald Trump, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Snoop Dogg, Rob Gronkowski, Shaquille O'Neal, Ronda Rousey, and Bad Bunny, among many others, have made special appearances within the events, with some participating in matches. Rousey herself would become a wrestler for WWE from 2018 to 2023 and was one of the three women to participate in the first women's WrestleMania main event match, which occurred at WrestleMania 35 in 2019.
The first WrestleMania was held in Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York; the 10th and 20th editions were also held there. WrestleMania III in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan, was the highest-attended indoor sports event in the world, with 93,173 fans in attendance. The record stood until February 14, 2010, when the 2010 NBA All-Star Game broke the indoor sporting event record with an attendance of 108,713 at Cowboys Stadium, since renamed AT&T Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. In 2016, WrestleMania 32 surpassed WrestleMania III as the highest-attended professional wrestling event ever held in America, with 101,763 fans in attendance at AT&T Stadium, although the company revealed that attendance figures are manipulated for marketing purposes through investor calls. All editions of the event thus far have been hosted in North American cities, with 39 in the United States and two in Canada. WrestleMania 43 in 2027 will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which will be the first WrestleMania to emanate from outside of North America.
The only WrestleMania in the event's history not to air live and be held without fans in attendance was WrestleMania 36 in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it was the first major professional wrestling event to be affected by the pandemic. It was also the first to be held across two nights, which subsequently became the standard format for the annual event. WrestleMania 37 in 2021 was WWE's first event back with a live crowd, but at a reduced venue capacity before the company resumed live touring with full capacity crowds in July that year.
Organization
Most WrestleMania events have taken place in large stadiums in large cities, with some in sports arenas. Much like the Super Bowl, cities bid for the right to host the year's edition of WrestleMania. The most-attended events include WrestleMania III in Pontiac, WrestleMania VI in Toronto, WrestleMania VIII in Indianapolis, WrestleMania X-Seven in Houston, WrestleMania X8 also in Toronto, WrestleMania XIX in Seattle, WrestleMania 23 in Detroit, WrestleMania XXIV in Orlando, WrestleMania 25 also in Houston, WrestleMania XXVI in Phoenix, WrestleMania XXVII in Atlanta, WrestleMania XXVIII in Miami, WrestleMania 29 in East Rutherford, WrestleMania XXX in New Orleans, WrestleMania 31 in Santa Clara, and WrestleMania 32 in Arlington. Since moving to large stadiums and running WrestleMania Axxess, the event produces a local economy boost for the host cities.WrestleMania centers on the main event matches, primarily for the men's WWE Championship—and additional men's world titles, such as the previous World Heavyweight Championship, the WWE Universal Championship, and the current World Heavyweight Championship —as well as matches involving celebrities such as American footballer Lawrence Taylor or actor Mr. T. Other WWE championships are also contested for, while the match card also includes gimmick matches and matches involving personal feuds.
Since 1993, the winner of the annual Royal Rumble match receives a guaranteed world championship match at the same year's WrestleMania. With the introduction of the previous World Heavyweight Championship in 2002, the winner was also given the option to choose between it or the WWE Championship. The creation of the ECW brand in June 2006 gave the Rumble winner a third option, the ECW Championship. This option was made available from 2007 until the brand was retired in 2010; however, the title was never chosen. The brand split ended in 2011 and the WWE and World Heavyweight Championships were unified in 2013, leaving the former as the only title to challenge for until the reintroduction of the brand split in 2016, which added the WWE Universal Championship as a choice. After it and the WWE Championship were unified as the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at WrestleMania 38 in 2022, the undisputed title became the only choice in 2023, but with the introduction of a new World Heavyweight Championship following that year's WrestleMania 39, there is once again two choices: the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship. A women's Royal Rumble match was introduced in 2018, with the winner receiving the option of challenging for either the WWE Raw Women's Championship or WWE SmackDown Women's Championship, which were renamed as the WWE Women's Championship and Women's World Championship, respectively, in June 2023. NXT's championships, the NXT Championship and NXT Women's Championship, became additional choices in 2020, but were dropped as choices in 2022 after NXT reverted to its original status as WWE's developmental brand in September 2021.
WrestleMania 21 saw the introduction of the Money in the Bank ladder match. This match features six to ten participants and took place at six WrestleManias between 2005 and 2010 before becoming the headline match of its own pay-per-view event, Money in the Bank which incorporated the use of two Money in the Bank ladder matches for both respective WWE brands, Raw and SmackDown. The participant who retrieves the briefcase suspended above the ring wins a contract, which guarantees a world title match at the time and place of the winner's choosing for up to one year, including the following year's WrestleMania. This lasted until 2010 when the Money in the Bank pay-per-view was introduced and thus the Money in the Bank ladder match was retired from WrestleMania.
Forbes named WrestleMania one of the world's most valuable sports event brands from 2014 to 2019, ranking it sixth with a brand value of US$245 million in 2019 behind the Super Bowl, Summer Olympics, NCAA Final Four, the FIFA World Cup, and the College Football Playoffs.
Commentators
For five of the first six WrestleManias, Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura served as the color commentators, while Bobby Heenan, Gene Okerlund, Lord Alfred Hayes, and others filled guest roles. For WrestleMania VII and VIII, Monsoon and Heenan provided color commentary. In the mid to late 1990s, the commentator team comprised Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, and Jerry Lawler. Since the brand separation in 2002, matches from the Raw brand have been called by Ross and Lawler; the SmackDown matches called by Michael Cole, Tazz, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, and Jonathan Coachman, and from 2006 to 2010, the ECW matches called by Joey Styles and Tazz. At WrestleMania 25, the first three-man inter-brand commentary team since the brand extension was introduced was used and consisted of Jim Ross, Jerry "The King" Lawler, and Michael Cole. The following year at WrestleMania XXVI, Jim Ross was replaced by Matt Striker. At WrestleMania XXVII, Jim Ross returned to commentate, along with Josh Mathews and new SmackDown color commentator Booker T; the sudden change of commentary was due to a singles match between regular commentators Michael Cole and Lawler. Howard Finkel, who is credited with coming up with the name "WrestleMania" in 1984, has served as the long-standing ring-announcer and has appeared at every event except WrestleMania 33, but since the introduction of the WWE brand extension, Lilian Garcia, Tony Chimel, and Justin Roberts took over as announcers for their respective brand's matches. Four French commentators were at ringside: Jean Brassard and Raymond Rougeau, Phillippe Chéreau, and Christophe Agius.History
1980s
The World Wrestling Federation staged the first WrestleMania on March 31, 1985, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The main event was a tag-team match between WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, accompanied by Jimmy Snuka against the team of Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff, who were accompanied by Cowboy Bob Orton. The financial and critical success of the event secured the company's status as the most successful professional wrestling promotion in the United States, rising above competitors such as the National Wrestling Alliance and American Wrestling Association. In attendance were business celebrity Sy Sperling and broadcasting executive Tony D'Angelo. WrestleMania 2 was held the following year and took place in three venues across the country. The Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, the Rosemont Horizon in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois, and the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles. They each featured multiple matches that led up to the main event; this saw WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan defeat King Kong Bundy in a Steel Cage match.A world indoor attendance-record of 93,173 fans was set at WrestleMania III, which was also the largest paying attendance in the history of professional wrestling at the time. The event is widely considered to be the pinnacle of the 1980s wrestling boom. To make certain that every seat in the Pontiac Silverdome would be filled, WWF decided to exclude the entire state of Michigan from pay-per-view access to the event, which made attending the event the only way for fans in Michigan to see it. The event featured Hulk Hogan defending the WWF World Heavyweight Championship against André the Giant and the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship match between "Macho Man" Randy Savage and Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat. The match between Savage and Steamboat would go on to be regarded as one of the greatest matches in WrestleMania history and is acknowledged by many as having "stolen the show".
WrestleMania IV was held at the Atlantic City Convention Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The event was an all-tournament event to crown a new WWF World Heavyweight Champion, with four non-tournament matches to fill between the gaps in the tournament rounds. The second round of the tournament featured a rematch of the previous year's main event between Hulk Hogan and André the Giant while Randy Savage went on to defeat Ted DiBiase in the finals to win the championship.
The next event, WrestleMania V, returned the event to Atlantic City, in which Hulk Hogan defeated Randy Savage for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship, which Savage had won the previous year. To date, this is the only time consecutive WrestleManias were held in the same venue. The event also saw the WrestleMania in-ring debut of Shawn Michaels, who would later go on to earn the moniker "Mr. WrestleMania".