10 Things Nobody Has Told You About WWE WrestleMania
1. 50/50
What follows is a subjective, qualitative assessment of every WrestleMania main event.
Your mileage may vary, but an attempt has been made to articulate the consensus. It would be asinine bad faith so suggest that something like the conclusion to 'Mania XXX was anything less than euphoric, just to craft an argument.
How many headline attractions did the business, commercially and or artistically?
Across 38 WrestleMania shows, incorporating the three-night 'Mania II and the recent trend of two-night events, WWE has promoted 43 main events. Of that number, 23 were worthy in some way, whereas a staggering 20 were not.
WrestleMania I - woeful match, business triumph. II - three not great main events, business failure. III, IV, V and VI all justified the retroactively imposed Golden Era tag (IV was hardly great, but delivered the happy ending). VII was a good bit of artistic business, but the event bombed spectacularly. VIII was botched beyond belief. IX is widely considered a disaster, even if the official semi-main is wildly underrated. X restored order to decent effect. XI bombed, but the main event itself over-delivered. XII bombed, and the match itself under-delivered. 13 was rotten. XIV was a monster of a success. The glory days continued at XV, but 2000, while savvy - Backlash 2000 was the most successful B PPV ever - was bang average in and of itself. X-Seven killed the business, but what a piss-up at the wake Austin Vs. Rock II was.
X8 bombed. XIX ended disastrously and was far from the best Angle/Lesnar pairing. XX - at the time - was a triumph. 21 did the business, if little else, to a record-setting degree. That gets a generous tick in the good versus dud column. 22, 23 and 24 were all great and very successful. 25 was as masturbatory as Triple H ever got. XXVI was seminal; if there's an opposite to that word, XXVII embodied it. XXVIII was as successful as 29 was an uninspiring diminished return. XXX and 31 both yielded awesome main events. 32 was a punishment. 33 was just sad. 34 was just desperate. 35 was heatless and botched. 36 was an uneven combination of resourceful "cinematic" and Paul Heyman Special cliché. 37 yielded two incredible triumphs. At 38, WWE both promoted one of the most magical returns in company history and yet another snoozer of a Heyman Brock formula match.
At WrestleMania, Vince McMahon promoted a main event dud 46.51% of the time, almost, in effect, going 50/50.
A fitting legacy for his career as a promoter.