How WrestleMania Almost Killed WWE

In the grand mythology of contemporary mainstream professional wrestling, WrestleMania is painted as the definitive game-changer - the pivot point that transformed the industry from a regional circus into a global entertainment powerhouse.

WWE’s revisionist history treats the inaugural event as an inevitable success that the "World Was Watching" and indeed the one the business was waiting for. If you've seen one glittery highlight package, you've seen them all, and you know the beats. The first WrestleMania was a glowing, showbiz-and-star-studded triumph where Vince McMahon's enterprising gamble paid off and the world changed forever with Sports Entertainment immediately defined as the genre of wrestling strong enough to tear up the territories and own the conversation forever.

The truth, as is always the case in wrestling, is more complicated and thus often neglected. The reality of WrestleMania I is not just that it was a success but that it had to be a success. If it had failed, it might have taken WWE - or at least McMahon's vision of what he wanted to WWE to be - down with it. Long before WrestleMania made the likes of Las Vegas, Nevada (or even the slightly less glamorous Atlantic City, New Jersey) its home, the 'Show Of Shows' was a high-stakes roll of the dice where a lower number didn't mean losing a game - it meant game over.

At the end of the first show's main event, the game looked won. Hulk Hogan and Mr T embraced to the cheers of thousands of New Yorkers in a wired Madison Square Garden, creating a shot that defined what made the event special and highlighting was as much blueprint as blow-away great. It was, however, the result of more luck and chance than it looked, and piled the pressure on for the recognised leader in Sports Entertainment to do it over and over again for eternity. The template was now in place, and almost everything had been leveraged to make it so.

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