10 Amazing WWE WrestleMania 41 Stats, Facts & Figures

3. Say His Name And A World Champion Appears

WWE WrestleMania 41 Night 2 Joe Hendry Randy Orton
WWE

One of the fluffier, brighter surprises of WrestleMania 41 came when Randy Orton, whose scheduled opponent Kevin Owens dropped out due to injury, issued an open challenge for the night.

When the entrance doors parted and Joe Hendry appeared, WrestleMania history was made. Hendry became the first reigning world champion of another promotion to bring their title and compete at WrestleMania.

Of course, seeing a wrestler from another company and their title appear on WWE programming isn’t unprecedented, even at a signature PLE - Mickie James, Jordynne Grace, and Hendry all have appeared at the Royal Rumble sporting their TNA titles - but someone carrying a world title from another promotion into WrestleMania? Never happened before… until Sunday.

Hendry could continue to break new ground in WWE and/or NXT in the weeks and months ahead. Watch this space.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.