9 Most Obscure WWE WrestleMania Records You Need To Know

4. Years Between First/Last Matches

The Undertaker WrestleMania 36 The Last Ride
WWE.com

These days, wrestlers are taking better care of themselves and having longer, more productive careers (from an in-ring perspective).

Consider that Hulk Hogan wasn’t yet 50 when he looked like the old, faltering legend facing The Rock at WrestleMania X8, and many wrestlers today are still considered in their primes well into their 40s. AJ Styles, CM Punk, Rey Mysterio, Bobby Lashley, Christian Cage, and Dustin Rhodes are in their late 40s/early 50s and still going strong.

That career longevity means it’s possible that wrestlers with 30-year careers (or at least still making semi-regular appearances into their 50s) could become the norm in WWE. As it stands right now, there are a handful of wrestlers who have managed to space more than a quarter-century between their first WrestleMania match and their most recent one.

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin first wrestled at WrestleMania 12, defeating Savio Vega. He would retire after WrestleMania 19 but returned at WrestleMania 38 to battle Kevin Owens, an impressive 26-year gap between his first and last Mania matches. However, he’s not the record-holder. The Rock ran up a 27-year span; he first competed at WrestleMania 13 against The Sultan (who later became Rikishi) and of course wrestled at last year’s Mania alongside his other cousin Roman Reigns against Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins.

None other than The Undertaker holds the record with 29 years between his first and final WrestleMania matches. Undertaker took his Mania bow at 7 against Jimmy Snuka and concluded his career in the Boneyard Match against AJ Styles at WrestleMania 36. What’s more impressive is that Taker was 26 at the time of his first WrestleMania and was four years into his career.

To break this record, someone like John Cena would need to compete at WrestleMania 50, or Austin Theory (who was 22 when he competed in his first Mania at 36) would need to hang around until WrestleMania 66. That’s almost too ridiculous to even imagine.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.