10 Fascinating WWE WrestleMania 1 Facts

1. McMahon Openly Told His Wrestlers That It Was Make-Or-Break

Hulk Hogan Mr T
WWE.com

Indeed, WrestleMania was apparently a life-and-death proposition, a high-consequence gamble on the part of McMahon. He'd personally invested so much in the closed-circuit venture and the bold move to take a wrestling territory national. If the show had failed, so too would the World Wrestling Federation, and McMahon would have been ruined.

Tito Santana claims that McMahon openly admitted as much, saying in a 2015 interview, "[Vince McMahon] told us that he put all the marbles in one basket. He said tonight, we're either gonna make it or we're gonna go broke."

Hogan added, “I don’t know who had skin in the game other than Vince — he may have had investors — but I do know that everything he owned and loved and cared about, he put up on the auction block.”

With 19,000 strong in the Garden, and more than 400,000 fans across the country that bought into the closed-circuit airings, WrestleMania was a success, and WWE would live to see many more days.

Contributor
Contributor

Justin has been a wrestling fan since 1989, and has been writing about it since 2009. Since 2014, Justin has been a features writer and interviewer for Fighting Spirit Magazine. Justin also writes for History of Wrestling, and is a contributing author to James Dixon's Titan series.