Well, that may be a bit misleading - WrestleMania was always special. Though it wasn't the industry's first annual supershow, it was the first to mix glitz, glamour, and Hollywood with pro wrestling, and in only the show's third incarnation, it drew nearly 80,000 fans to Ford Field. Still, WrestleMania didn't have the reputation it has today. Now, the show is considered sacred, with wrestlers working their entire careers for a spot on the card and the company pulling out all the stops for huge matches months in advance. Every WrestleMania takes place in a stadium, with 60,000-plus fans from all over the world packing the venue and creating a truly unique atmosphere. In the early days, WrestleMania's main matches were hyped and promoted, but the card was full of filler - even until the Attitude Era, WrestleMania would host matches with no prior backstory. Furthermore, there wasn't the same level of emphasis on match excellence, leading to the wildly varying levels of quality between WrestleManias IX and XI and WrestleManias X and XII. Today, the company makes sure every match has heat behind it and that there's enough must-see action on the card.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
