10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE WrestleMania

Since its inception on March 31, 1985, WrestleMania has been the most important date on WWE's calendar. The mixture of wrestling's top stars, appetising dream matches, brushes with celebrity, and the overall majestic flair have made WrestleMania the pre-eminent annual event in all of the wrestling industry.

Stars have been made, legends enhanced, and moments have been etched our minds for the past 34 years, and all will continue to be seemingly forevermore.

The allure of the event lends itself well to curiosity, the history of WrestleMania always capable of astounding the interested mind. Even those who've seen every WrestleMania forward and backward a thousand times over (courageously subjecting themselves to WrestleMania 32 more than once) can still pick up a few tidbits of history that are a bit less commonly known.

As we prepare to feast on the 36th out of what figures to be an eternal series of grand spectacles, let us learn a little bit more about the WrestleManias that preceded it.

Since its inception on March 31, 1985, WrestleMania has been the most important date on WWE's calendar. The mixture of wrestling's top stars, appetising dream matches, brushes with celebrity, and the overall majestic flair have made WrestleMania the pre-eminent annual event in all of the wrestling industry.

Stars have been made, legends enhanced, and moments have been etched our minds for the past 34 years, and all will continue to be seemingly forevermore.

The allure of the event lends itself well to curiosity, the history of WrestleMania always capable of astounding the interested mind. Even those who've seen every WrestleMania forward and backward a thousand times over (courageously subjecting themselves to WrestleMania 32 more than once) can still pick up a few tidbits of history that are a bit less commonly known.

As we prepare to feast on the 36th out of what figures to be an eternal series of grand spectacles, let us learn a little bit more about the WrestleManias that preceded it.

10. Naming Wrongs

The persisting legend is that cherished ring announcer Howard Finkel was the man who came up with the term "WrestleMania", and given its timelessness, perhaps The Fink's birthday of June 7 should be set aside as an international holiday.

Coming up with event names is far from easy, and coining a name that carries the simple majesty of WrestleMania deserves all the credit you can muster. After all, the name could have been much, *much* worse.

During the event's initial planning stages in the late summer of 1984, Vince McMahon and a group of officials settled on a very peculiar name of (wait for it) The Colossal Tussle.

Yes, really.

Former wrestler-turned-McMahon confidante George Scott claims that he convinced his boss to reconsider, and eventually, Finkel's WrestleMania invention won out.

WWE ran events with rhyming names as MTV specials, including The Brawl to End it All and The War to Settle the Score, though those are admittedly much catchier than The Colossal Tussle. Ain't nobody pointing at a goddamn Colossal Tussle sign.

9. Do Or Die

These days, WrestleMania is big enough to sell out NFL stadiums with premium-priced tickets and travel packages, while also drawing fans to NXT TakeOver, the Hall of Fame ceremony, and the post-Mania episodes of Raw and SmackDown, making for a five day wrestling fiesta that draws more than 100,000 folks in total (a colossal hustle and bustle, if you will).

The weekend is such a big money winner, and you're not exactly fighting the odds if you wager on WrestleMania being profitable.

That was not always the case, however. When WrestleMania came into existence in the mid-eighties, McMahon was assuming a major financial risk by putting the closed-circuit broadcast together. So many eggs were in this basket that the nationally-expanding WWE stood to lose so much if the show were to fail, and most agree that WWE would have died had the show not met high expectations.

Some have said McMahon even put up his house to help finance the endeavor, while various wrestlers present even said McMahon openly admitted that this show was make-or-break. Spoiler alert: the show was a success.

8. No 'Mania For You

WrestleMania 4 is admittedly on the weaker end of the 'Mania spectrum, what with its bloated 16 match card (that sounds familiar...), and aside from Macho Man Randy Savage capturing the WWE Championship in the finale, there wasn't much else in the way of priceless moments.

However, WrestleMania was a hot ticket, and the fourth incarnation did 485,000 buys, up 21 per cent from the previous year, as people clamoured to see both the tournament, as well as the Hulk/Andre rubber match.

What's less known is that WrestleMania was ruthlessly used by McMahon as part of a hard bargain. When Jim Crockett Promotions entered the PPV game with Starrcade in 1987, McMahon counter-programmed by scheduling the brand new Survivor Series for the same night. As cable providers were left to choose which show to carry, McMahon earned those companies that if they didn't carry Survivor Series exclusively, they would not be allowed to air WrestleMania 4.

The threat worked - only a handful of cable providers in the Carolinas, and one in California, aired Starrcade, while every other American PPV provider went with Survivor Series, assuring themselves WrestleMania 4 in the process.

7. By The Numbers

We've mentioned how WrestleMania 4 set a 'Mania record with 16 matches, while its three successors each boasted 14 matches of their own. Other shows have had as low as seven matches (11, 13, 30, and 31), while the Iron Man Match-heavy 12 had a mere six.

Across the first 35 WrestleManias, not counting Kickoff and dark matches, there have been exactly 342 total matches at the event, which checks out to an average of 9.77 matches per PPV card.

Eight of the 35 WrestleManias have had exactly nine matches (the original, 8, 9, 10, 16, 19, 24, and 32), but only three have had exactly 10: 15, 26, and 33.

The Undertaker's total WrestleMania appearances accounts for somewhere around 8 per cent of the total 'Mania matches ever!

6. Fool's Gold

There have been great WrestleManias like 17, 3, and 30, as well as truly wretched ones, like 32, 15, and 9. Point being, WrestleMania can run the gamut when it comes to quality, and it's a crap shoot from year to year what kind of card you're going to get.

There is one constant among the 'Manias, though - you're almost always guaranteed a title change or two at the event. In fact, at 33 of the 34 WrestleManias, at least one belt has changed hands, be it World, Women's, Tag, or other.

So which one is the exception? That would be one of the more heavily-criticised WrestleManias, number 27 from Atlanta back in 2011.

Only two title matches made it to the main card, with WWE Champion The Miz and World Heavyweight Champion Edge retaining over John Cena and Alberto Del Rio, respectively.

The US title match between Sheamus and Daniel Bryan was moved to the pre-show, and ended up a Lumberjack-laden schmozz.

5. Losing The Game

In modern times, WWE has their wrestlers and announcers bray endlessly about "WrestleMania moments", moreso than wins and losses.

Sport in general reflects this sort of mentality, as making the viral video-worthy play takes precedent over whether or not your team wins or loses the damn game, but whatever.

To many fans, the end result of the match still carries plenty of weight, because otherwise: why even have the matches?

When it comes to the losing end of the spectrum, just who *has* lost the most matches in WrestleMania history? If you can believe it, it's the man who apparently does less jobs than a broken printer, per his vocal detractors: Triple H.

In all, NXT's founding father has 13 WrestleMania losses to go against nine victories. Four of those losses came in the final match of the evening, falling short in world title matches against Chris Benoit, Batista, John Cena, and Roman Reigns.

Helmsley broke the record of Kliq brother Shawn Michaels, "Mr. WrestleMania", whose retirement loss to Undertaker netted his 11th defeat at the event.

4. All I Do Is Win

If it's any consolation for "The Game", those nine wins are the third most in WrestleMania history, putting him just ahead of veteran stars like Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, and Kane, who each hold eight victories at the event.

And after Triple H defeated Batista in their Spice Girls karaoke contest at WrestleMania 35, he became just the third person in history to reach double digit WrestleMania wins.

As for the two ahead of Helmsley on the list, one should go without saying: The Undertaker, whose 24 wins at Mania will never be topped, at least not until Hunter starts winning matches in the distant future as one of those head-in-a-jars like on Futurama.

The only other individual to have reached 10 victories is John Cena. Since debuting at the event in 2004, Cena has amassed a record of 10 wins and four losses, having reached the tenth when he and now-ex-fiance Nikki Bella toppled The Miz and Maryse at WrestleMania 33.

3. Making Headlines

Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair will each forever be able to claim that they were the first women to ever headline a WrestleMania.

Before them, 35 different males have each been able to say that they worked in the main event of a WrestleMania, a number of them more than once. In fact, nine men in all have gone on last at WrestleMania on three or more occasions.

So who's main evented WrestleMania the most times? That would be none other than Hulk Hogan, who worked the final match in eight of the first nine 'Manias, going 7-1 in that stretch.

Triple H sits just behind Hogan with seven headline appearances, in which he went 3-4. The others that have each made three or Mania finale appearances include The Rock, Shawn Michaels, and John Cena with five main events each, The Undertaker and Roman Reigns with four apiece, and Steve Austin and Brock Lesnar with three apiece.

2. Dreams Come True

When Shawn Michaels won the 1996 Royal Rumble and earned a title match against Bret Hart at WrestleMania 12, the story focused on Michaels' "boyhood dream", his youthful goal of one day winning the WWE Championship.

To win your first World title at a WrestleMania has been daydream fodder for a couple generations now, and when some wrestler reconciles the dream in the fashion that HBK did, it makes for a very special moment.

On 23 different occasions, the WWE Championship has changed hands across the 35 WrestleManias (including twice at 9). However, only eight of those winners were capturing that belt for the very first time.

Joining Michaels in realising the first WWE title dream on the big stage include Randy Savage at 4, Ultimate Warrior at 6, Yokozuna at 9, Steve Austin at 14, John Cena at 21, Seth Rollins at 31 and Kofi Kingston at 35.

1. Big Money Matches

WrestleMania may not have been the first event that McMahon brought to pay-per-view (that would be 1985's Wrestling Classic), but since WrestleMania 2's foray into that medium, 'Mania itself has affirmed its Super Bowl status by accounting for the extreme majority of WWE's pay-per-view success.

Only six wrestling pay-per-views ever have done north of one million pay-per-view buys, and go figure, they're all WrestleManias.

The first to ever break the one million barrier was WrestleMania 17 in 2001, reaching 1,040,000 buys for Steve Austin's stunning heel turn. That record stood for just six years before being broken by WrestleMania 23, bill-boarded by the Donald Trump vs. Vince McMahon "Battle of the Billionaires", to the tune of 1,188,000 buys.

It was a third April Fool's Day WrestleMania that set the current high mark, WrestleMania 28 featuring The Rock vs. John Cena, "Once in a Lifetime". That did 1,253,000 buys which, thanks to WWE Network eliminating the PPV middleman, will probably never be broken by any other wrestling event.