10 Most Fascinating Stories In WrestleMania History

WWE arrived at the narrative, drawing power of the Undertaker's Streak several years after it took on a life of its own.

What's fascinating - and in retrospect, quite sad - is that it was all a byproduct of a philosophy that is somehow both timeless and lost. The Undertaker did not win at WrestleMania for all those years because Vince McMahon had presciently envisioned an attraction charged by decades of prestige. The Undertaker was, reductively, a very protected special attraction performer immune to shock value tactics and casual, inattentive booking. He won because an all-powerful supernatural character should win. Anything less was an atrocity of fiction, which is how we arrived at Bray Wyatt in subsequent years.

Apocrypha has it that Vince McMahon wished to end the Streak even in the years before it took on that important, definitive capital letter. He refrained, time and time again, as far back as 1995, perhaps as a result of the genius instincts that saw him monopolise the industry.

From logic and serendipity to something marketable in its heft and legacy, this story is a retrospective masterclass, in how a filler, nondescript 04:20 midcard attraction between an emerging star and a sliding veteran lives on as the genesis to WWE's artistic best and (aggregated) most lucrative story.

Wins and losses matter in pro wrestling, despite what Road Dogg will tell you. The cumulative effect of the Streak, and the integrity of WWE's modern roster, could not make that any clearer.