Billing Displacement: Despite Randy Orton and Batista being the WWE World Heavyweight Champion and Royal Rumble winner respectively, the focus of the build to the main event of WrestleMania XXX was instead on Daniel Bryan potentially making it into a Triple Threat match. Conversely, the advertising heavily focused on Orton and Batista, with both men receiving TV spots focusing on themselves whilst Bryan was barely mentioned. The most likely reason for this was because Bryan originally wasn't supposed to be in the match, but plans changed after CM Punk walked out and the fans literally began threatening to riot and cause the event to implode in on itself if it didn't happen.
Tori has this towards her famous bodysuit at XV. Her intention was to make it look like the outfit was painted on, as she had done several photoshoots with animal print and body paint. She knew she had bombed when she saw The Rock and Vince gawking at her as she was about to go out.
Ashley Massaro was in tears after her match at 23, knowing full well how awful it was. She also had to compete with a broken foot.
The Undertaker really intended to retire at 33, but he was so dissatisfied with his performance that he returned to action a year later and wrestled for three more years.
Jey Uso admitted that he was dissatisfied with his much-criticized match with his brother Jimmy at XL, and revealed that the match was affected by time issues, as the original time alotted for it was cut due to a previous segment running over its alotted time.
Dyeing for Your Art: When Molly Holly heard that there wasn't going to be a Women's Championship match at WrestleMania XX, she offered to have her head shaved at the event. Thus a Hair vs Title match was booked, and Molly had her hair cut off live.
Executive Meddling: At X8, Triple H and Chris Jericho didn't want their title match to go on after The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan, feeling the latter was the true main event and deserved to go on last. Management insisted that the title match had to go on last.
Foiler Footage: It was confirmed that for WrestleMania 36 — the first-ever pre-recorded instance of the event — that WWE recorded multiple fake endings for a few matches out of fear that the recordings of the actual matches would be prematurely leaked.
Follow the Leader: In an interview, Stephanie McMahon noted that she wanted two clashing fanbases (Team Cenation and Team Bring It) for the build-up of the John Cena vs. The Rock match at WrestleMania XXVIII, not unlike Team Edward vs. Team Jacob in Twilight.
The famous turned infamous 93,000 attendance figure for the third event. There have been numerous claims that the quoted attendance figure, which established a world record attendance for an indoor event, was false and that the real attendance figure was only around 78,000. This is based on claims by Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter upon receiving information from events promoter Zane Bresloff, and that wrestling promoters (including Vince McMahon) were known to regularly inflate attendance figures to make things look better. While WWE and the Silverdome's management have always maintained that the 93,000 figure is correct, debate continues among wrestling fans as to what the true attendance was on the day.
It seemingly happened again, almost 30 years later, at WrestleMania 32. WWE reported an attendance of 101,763 in the AT&T Stadium, which surpassed the previous record. However, Meltzer again reported 93,370 as the fan attendance, and that it only totalled 97,763 people in the stadium if one included stadium personnel, WWE personnel, etc. Meltzer theorized that the rationale for exaggerating the number arose from WWE wanting to save face because they promoted from the start of drawing 100,000 people to the event.
The Iron Sheik was booked to win the Battle Royal at X-Seven because he said he was in no physical condition to take bumps - so he wouldn't have to go over the top rope.
Jay-Z and Beyoncé were scheduled to appear at XIX to have a live rap battle with John Cena. A scheduling conflict meant they couldn't make it in time. Fabulous was scheduled as the replacement but cancelled a few hours before the show.
Speaking of Playboy, 24's 'Bunny Mania' was supposed to have Candice Michelle as Maria's partner. But when Candice re-injured her clavicle in a match, she had to go back on the shelf and Ashley Massaro was chosen to replace her.
The Playboy tag match at XX was advertised as an Evening Gown match. But Sable had back problems going into the event, so it was changed to a regular tag match (and with the women in lingerie rather than evening gowns) to reduce her in-ring involvement.
WrestleMania 36, scheduled to take place at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, was moved to the WWE Performance Center after the COVID-19 Pandemic forced many people to ban large crowds to prevent spreading of the virus.
WrestleMania 37 became the first to have a rain delay to due to severe weather at the outdoor Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay in the opening moments. It wasn't until the 30 minutes into the show that the first match started.
WrestleMania often has at least one live musical guest. Usually a singer performs "America the Beautiful", and sometimes a band gives a wrestler an Entrance Music Power-Up, e.g. Motörhead, who've appeared twice, playing Triple H's music (though Motörhead's lead singer Lemmy hadn't correctly sung the lyrics to Triple H's theme in either of his two appearances), and P.O.D., who appeared at WrestleMania 22 playing Rey Mysterio's music. Here's a full list.
Also, the Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine embarrassing themselves at WrestleMania VI, pretending to be an actual group called "Rhythm and Blues." May very well be the worst musical performance ever to be recorded.
23's Women's title match between Melina and Ashley Massaro almost didn't happen. Ashley broke her foot while training for the match and they spent the entire evening not knowing if it would happen. They were finally told in gorilla position "Yeah, we can squeeze you guys in".
During the aforementioned rain delay at 37, various talent cut unscripted promos to kill time before the weather cleared.
Luna Vachon described her mixed tag at XIV to be one of these. Sable refused to learn how to take bumps, and as she had a Playboy photo shoot coming up, Luna was warned not to disfigure her in any way. She was outright told she would be fired if she did. She later called it the most choreographed match she ever had, though still had fond memories of it regardless.
It's a miracle that XIX turned out so well, due to the sheer number of problems backstage.
Kurt Angle was wrestling his match with a broken neck and was warned that he could be left paralyzed if he made a mistake in the ring. Such a potentially-paralyzing mistake did happen during the match... in the form of the botched shooting star press from Kurt's opponent Brock Lesnar.
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin had been hospitalized the day before and he too was advised not to wrestle, but this ended up being his last match in nineteen years.
Nathan Jones was booked to team with The Undertaker but disappointing performances at house shows led to him being removed from his match at the last minute. Jones still turned up during the match to aid 'Taker.
The Tag Team Championship match was relegated to Sunday Night Heat - despite featuring stars like Rob Van Dam and Kane - over time constraints.
A schedule conflict (see above) led to John Cena being left off the card completely.
WrestleMania 36 was put in serious jeopardy of being cancelled by either WWE or the city of Tampa due to the outbreak of COVID-19 making large public gatherings dangerous. WWE eventually settled for hosting the event over two days in the Performance Center, with some matches being pre-taped to reduce the amount of people in the building at one time and in advance of potential travel bans, such as one restricting Canadian residents like Brock Lesnar from flying to America.
WrestleMania 37 was again held over 2 nights due to COVID concerns but did manage to get into the previous year's planned venue at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa this time. The trouble comes in when a storm arrived an hour before start time, requiring the crew to prepare for a potential delayed start time. After hovering around for the pre-show, the storm came back over right as the event started, and matches were delayed by 30 minutes which they ended up passing with a bunch of unscripted promos.
Hulk Hogan insisted that the original ending to WMIX could not happen and that a face must come out on top. He actually told Vince that he would drop the belt clean as a sheet to Bret at a later date in exchange for what we got.... and then proceeded to refuse once he'd actually got the title. Vince was so furious that he instead ordered Hogan to drop the title back to Yokozuna in a very screwy fashion, and Hogan wasn't seen again in WWF/E for over 8 years.
Brodus Clay's dance segment at WM28 was set to be cut to make time for the main event. A nearby John Cena decided to take a "bathroom break", and gave Brodus his moment.
The other wrestlers in the 7 man ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship at 32 insisted that Zack Ryder be given a WrestleMania Moment. That Ryder lost the title on his first defense to The Miz on Raw the following night (aided by a confrontation between Ryder's dad, who was at ringside as part of the crowd, and Miz's returning wife Maryse) seems to indicate The Miz was the originally-planned winner.
The Street Fight was originally going to have Mick Foley as Vince McMahon's opponent. Mick turned the offer down, as he had retired from wrestling, and it became a match against Shane McMahon - with Mick Foley as the special referee. He later said how much he regretted not wrestling in the match, and came out of retirement for WrestleMania XX.
Triple H's match went though more than one planned opponent. It was originally meant to be against Shawn Michaels in Michaels's wrestling return since 1998, but reportedly Michaels showed up high on the Raw where the angle for the match was supposed to start, so it was nixed.note Michaels's return and his match against Triple H wouldn't happen until SummerSlam 2002, almost a year and a half later. Then it was planned to be a match between Triple H... and Mike Tyson in a boxing match, but when that didn't come to fruition, Triple H wrestled The Undertaker instead.
A pretty dark case of this, but Tommy Dreameradmitted on his podcast in 2019 that, in a major fit of depression after the end of ECW, he very briefly considered going to X-Seven with a gunnote The event taking place in Texas pre-9/11, this isn't actually as implausible as it soundsto kill Heyman and then himself on live PPV after Heyman had left Dreamer with tons of debt trying to keep ECW afloat. He was brought out of this thought by Jim Ross making a fateful phonecall informing him that he'd be brought in to WWE in a few months.
Dreamer: When ECW went out of business I was 29 years old. I had a lot of my money, my parents’ money, trying to float the company. Paul Heyman, who I thought me and him were super tight, he screwed me over big time. He was in the WWE, the whole time. I had turned down hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to WCW. And now was unemployed. I went from a $750,000 offer, and Paul Heyman crying to me, that if I leave ECW, it will go out of business. Meanwhile, he was getting a paycheck from WWE. I don’t begrudge him, but then I did. I was depressed as depressed can be. [...] At Wrestlemania, I was gonna hop the rail and I was gonna whack Paul E. in the back of the head right at the announce table, then I was gonna whack myself. The ultimate martyr, I was gonna hit my pose crack, boom, pull the trigger. Because I was that insane.
WrestleManiaX8:
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin was the first choice for Hulk Hogan's opponent. However, he didn't feel that Hogan would be able to keep pace with him in the ring and refused the match, so The Rock became Hogan's opponent instead. Stone Cold later said he regretted turning the match down, as the two of them never wrestled each other one-on-one.
Bret Hart was asked to be the special guest referee for the Triple H vs. Chris Jericho match for the Undisputed WWF Championship (this event being held in Canada), but Hart, still on bad terms with the company for Montreal, refused.
The Undertaker and Kane were supposed to reunite as the Brothers of Destruction at WrestleMania 21 to face Heidenreich and Gene Snitsky but plans changed. Instead, Taker faced Randy Orton while Kane participated in the inaugural Money in the Bank ladder match. Heidenreich and Snitsky in the meantime would compete in the pre-show battle royal.
The creative team back in 2005 had thrown in the idea that at WrestleMania 22 they could do Shawn Michaels vs. Eddie Guerrero. Reportedly, Vince loved the idea, neither men had fought each other before and they were set to start the build at that year's Survivor Series. Sadly it was not meant to be, as Eddie would sadly pass away before any further plans were made.
It's been alleged that Jeff Hardy was supposed to win the Money in the Bank Ladder match at WrestleMania XXIV, but he got hit with a Wellness Policy violation a few weeks before the show and had to give up his spot to Chris Jericho before he served out his suspension. The briefcase ended up going to CM Punk instead, which served as part of the foundation for his eventual rise to superstardom — which, ironically, involved becoming Jeff's Arch-Enemy the following year.
Sheamus and Daniel Bryan got hit with this hard during two consecutive WrestleManias. At XXVII, they were set to fight for Sheamus' US championship at the main show, only for it to be bumped to the pre-show, which instead morphed into a non-title battle royal which The Great Khali won. The two were later led to believe that their WrestleMania XXVIII encounter for Bryan's World Heavyweight Championship was to be a longer match, only for the powers that be dictate that Sheamus squash Bryan in 18 seconds. This notably irked the two men so much that they made the most of their eventual rematch for the title at Extreme Rules 2012 with a 2 out of 3 falls match.
WrestleMania XXX
As shown on Total Divas, two matches got swapped around in the running order. The Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal was moved earlier in the show, while the Divas Championship Invitational got pushed back. Unfortunately for the women, this meant that they had to follow The Undertaker's streak being broken.
CM Punk was supposed to enter a feud against Triple H heading to the event but walked out on the company after the 2014 Royal Rumble.
WrestleMania 32
Several wrestlers were injured heading into the event, derailing pre-planned storylines. Most notable being former WWE Champion Seth Rollins and major players John Cena and Randy Orton. Cena was able to show up to aid The Rock against the Wyatts.
Brock Lesnar's original opponent was supposed to be Bray Wyatt, which is why The Wyatt Family screwed him out of winning the 2016 Royal Rumble. It was changed to Dean Ambrose around the time of Fastlane, because Ambrose had done such a fantastic job with the build for the main event of the titular PPV (a triple threat between Ambrose, Lesnar, and Roman Reigns for number one contender to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, with the build mainly focused on Lesnar and Ambrose) that it was decided a match between them would draw more, and Lesnar's match with Wyatt was eventually brought forward to a WWE Network-only event, Roadblock. This later turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as Wyatt would join "InjuryMania" with a bad back, forcing his match at Roadblock on hold and causing it to be turned into a handicap match so Luke Harper could wrestle Lesnar instead. Ironically, Bray's injury turned out to be minor and he was back to wrestling in two weeks, while Harper later suffered a torn ACL and would be out for five to six months.
Big Show was originally supposed to face Shaquille O'Neal, of all people, at WrestleMania 33, which was teased all the way back at the previous event with Shaq appearing as a surprise entrant at the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and eliminating Show, which lead him to challenge Shaq at the Espys later on. However, the match was cancelled under disputed reasons; it was initially reported that WWE and Shaq's management couldn't come to an agreement on money, though Show would later claim that it was really because Shaq was self-conscious about his weight.note Shaq would later eventually have a tag team match in All Elite Wrestling that also involed Jade Cargill and Cody Rhodes, both of which would incidentally later appear (or in Rhodes's case, return) in WWE.
WrestleMania 35
The intended Raw Women's Championship Match match at WrestleMania 35 was supposed to be Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair. Becky Lynch was added because her popularity skyrocketed heading to the event. The storyline would lampshade this by initially setting it as Rousey vs. Lynch, then replacing the latter with Flair, before re-adding Lynch to make it a triple threat match.
The SmackDown Women's Championship also being defended was added last minute to give Charlotte some relevancy going in the match; Asuka was supposed to defend the title at the event and a number one contender's match that was originally scheduled was cancelled on the episode Charlotte won the title from her, with the top candidates for being the contender rumored to be either Sonya Deville or Mandy Rose.
Lynch would later reveal in her book Becky Lynch: The Man that the original ending for the match was for Lynch to force Rousey to submit with her Dis-Arm-Her armbar finisher, but Rousey flat-out refused, albeit not elaborating on her reasons other than claiming her mother would disown her (although the fact that Rousey became famous on her MMA career for being an armbar submission specialist probably had something to do with it).
Roman Reigns was originally scheduled to face Goldberg for the Universal Championship, but pulled out of the match over concerns of contracting COVID-19, especially since he's in an immuno-compromised state from his previous leukemia treatments. Braun Strowman ended up taking his place and won the match and the Universal Championship.
The SmackDown Women's Championship match was originally to be contested on a six-pack elimination instead of the five-way featuring defending champion Bayley, Lacey Evans, Tamina, Naomi, and Sasha Banks. This is because the intended sixth participant, Dana Brooke, was placed in quarantine a week before the event.
Rey Mysterio was supposed to be part of the card but was also placed in quarantine.
Becky Lynch later revealed in interviews that Shayna Baszler was originally planned to dethrone her as Raw Women's Champion, but management changed it in the last minute so Lynch would retain. Keep in mind that Becky was few weeks pregnant at the time; Lynch in fact was pushing for Baszler to win to allow her (Lynch) time off, both to allow her character to refresh and because she felt that something was off with herself, possibly referring to her pregnancy.
The André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal of that year were cancelled due to concerns over the amount of wrestlers that would've been in the ring at the same time; since then, the former has been moved to the SmackDown before WrestleMania (which since then has become a special episode established as the start of "WrestleMania Weekend") while the latter was discontinued. Among the ideas considered for the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal if it happened was a reunion of the The Nexus, with WWE contacting as many former members possible (one effect from it being re-signging Wade Barrett, albeit as a commentator), and for Hulk Hogan to win it, by having him appear as a surprise entrant.
The Raw Women's Championship match at WrestleMania 37 went through several potential participants. First, champion Asuka and Charlotte Flair began feuding after that year's Royal Rumble (after having formed a short-lived tag team and even winning the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship). Then, Lacey Evans inserted herself into the feud after seducing Charlotte's father Ric Flair, and challenged Asuka for the title at Elimination Chamber, with reports that she would win it so Charlotte would face her for the title at Mania. Then, all three women were taken out of action due to several issues: Evans was found to be pregnant in real life and so the Elimination Chamber match was cancelled, Asuka lost a tooth following an errant kick from Shayna Baszler in a match that forced her on hiatus, and Charlotte was outright pulled from WrestleMania due to medical issues.note Charlotte herself initially said that she tested positive for COVID-19, but people were puzzled by this since the disease's two-week quarantine didn't justify that Charlotte went off television well over a month before the event. Then, Charlotte's real-life fiancé Andrade said in an interview that the real reason for her absence was that a WWE doctor misdiagnosed her as being pregnant, and WWE officials refused to clear her for the event even after proving otherwise via personal tests. Asuka fortunately returned before expected, in time for the event, and finally Rhea Ripley made her Raw debut to challenge her for the title, which was the match that finally took place at WrestleMania.
Brock Lesnar was rumored to have a match against Gunther at WrestleMania XL, but Lesnar's reported involvement in the Vince McMahon sex trafficking scandal quickly put an end to that idea.
Working Title: The Colossal Tussle. Yes, really. Thankfully, Howard Finkel blurted out "WrestleMania" in a company meeting and the rest was history.
Miscellaneous trivia:
Despite being the Showcase of the Immortals, the event is no stranger to being inducted into WrestleCrap:
WrestleManias IV, IX, XI and XV got inducted in their entirety.
The WrestleMania X8 match between Edge and Booker T to decide who would win the right to star in a Japanese shampoo advertisement, which also happened to be both men's WrestleMania singles debutnote although Edge had previously appeared at the event as part of his tag team with Christian got inducted as part of the angle.
Triple H's feud with Booker T, another terribly racist angle which involved Triple H mentioning Booker's real-life criminal record and saying that "people like him" don't win world titles, only for Triple H to win their blowoff match at WrestleMania XIX.
The "Miss WrestleMania Battle Royale" won by Santina Marella from WrestleMania XXV.
Various terrible performances of "America the Beautiful" at the event were collectively inducted, as were a number of Triple H's dumbest and most over-the-top entrances.
Most damning of all, the entirety of WrestleMania 32 didn't just get an induction, it was the Gooker Award Winner for 2016.
Randy Orton's match against The Fiend at WrestleMania 37, which ironically (for all the wrong reasons) ended up being published on the site just moments before the announcement of Bray Wyatt's unexpected death on August 24, 2023.
◊ Chyna covered her in their match at X-Seven.
