10 Incredible Records & Firsts WWE Set At WrestleMania 40

5. Women Break New Ground

During the past decade, WWE has made a conscious effort to put women’s wrestling on a similar plane to men’s wrestling, establishing equivalent matches and titles and featuring them in more prominent roles and positions on the card.

However, at least one distinction eluded the women… until Sunday.

Rhea Ripley and Becky Lynch became the first women to open a WrestleMania in front of fans. With 40 Manias and 43 opening matches before an audience, a women’s match had never opened the show. Opening matches are often entrusted with feeding off the inherent energy of fans and further firing them up for the remainder of the night, and Ripley and Lynch put on a master class Sunday.

The only asterisk here is that both nights of WrestleMania 36 opened with women’s matches, though it should be noted that this pandemic era show was taped, so it’s entirely possible that they were recorded in a different order. Even if not, there were no fans in the Performance Center, making Ripley/Lynch a true first of its kind.