10 Fascinating WWE Facts About WrestleMania 37
WWE gets back in front of its "Universe" again as WrestleMania embraces a new normal.
History would have always been kind to WrestleMania 37, even if Night One hadn't ended up being one of the best WrestleManias in years and Night Two delivered comfortably one of the show's best ever headline bouts.
After over a year of WWE simply failing to effectively pivot to pandemic-imposed circumstances, they no longer needed to for their biggest show of the year. WrestleMania was at long last inside Raymond James Stadium underneath the almighty pirate ship, and though fans in attendance were split and sparse per rules at the time, it was the company's first big step back towards normality before making permanent normal in July.
Never had WWE felt any less tethered to reality than in the final years of Vince McMahon's creative stewardship, but for two nights the entire event was clearly as real as it got for a slew of wrestlers that had missed the chance to do the proper version of the thing they loved. Emotions ran high across the entire weekend, as did outside temperatures until things took a potentially devastating turn just hours before showtime...
10. The Return Of Unscripted Promos...
...sort of.
It was never planned for WrestleMania 37 to take place inside Raymond James Stadium after a one-year delay, nor was it accounted for that the weather might yet again threaten to derail the 'Show Of Shows' returning to the pageantry and spectacle robbed by the restrictions of the global pandemic. And yet, from one more setback, some innovation sprung forth.
With time to fill before the show could start properly, several wrestlers from the evening's biggest matches were drafted in to say their final words, and do so without the typical over-scripting that diluted and/or destroyed countless stories during Vince McMahon's final years. Not all of them went well naturally, but the ones that did found the wrestlers as the most real-feeling versions of themselves during a time that called for far more reality than WWE were typically willing to permit.
Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins (promoting their matches against Sami Zayn and Cesaro respectively) shone in particular, and though the break from the norm was initially edited off the Network version of the show, it can now be found again as "WrestleMania 37 Rain Delay", acting as a far more effective pre-show than the sterile Kickoff that aired minutes earlier.