10 Obscure WWE WrestleMania Facts You'll SWEAR Aren't Real
3. A Dismal Showing
These days, WWE boasts two-day WrestleManias that draw tens of thousands of fans to both nights of the event, with total attendance pushing past the 100,000 mark.
Decades ago, WWE rarely eclipsed 20,000 fans for the single night Manias. Until WrestleMania X-Seven, which kicked off the era of stadium shows for Mania, WWF/E only surpassed 20,000 fans four times in its first 16 years (five times, if you count the combined audience from the three venues for WrestleMania 2).
One of those sub-20,000 shows was WrestleMania VII, which originally was slated to be held in the cavernous Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which could seat north of 90,000 fans at the time. Poor ticket sales (or security concerns due to Sgt. Slaughter’s portrayal of an Iraqi sympathizer during the Gulf War, depending on whom you believe) forced WWF to relocate Mania to the nearby Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
The claimed attendance for WrestleMania VII was just 16,158, a fraction of what the Coliseum holds. Worse, it was the worst attendance for a single venue WrestleMania, with even fewer fans than WM 37, which took place under COVID restrictions in 2021.
That means that WWF brass went from thinking they could sell out a 90,000-seat stadium in 1991 to moving locations and registering the worst WrestleMania attendance in the event’s history. You can’t make that stuff up.