WrestleMania. The Grandest Stage of Them All. The Showcase of the Immortals. For 34 years, wrestling fans have been treated to the absolute mecca of professional wrestling events held by WWE, which have featured some of the greatest moments in wrestling history. Moments ranging from watching Hulk Hogan bodyslam Andre the Giant, or seeing Shawn Michaels repel from the ceiling on a harness, all the way to watching “Stone Cold” Steve Austin defeat The Rock after three Stone Cold Stunners and seeing John Cena be featured in well over ten WrestleMania main events in his career. The stories and moments that we have seen as wrestling fans on-screen or in-person throughout these events has been staggering, but more so than this, there are numerous stories that took place behind the scenes of WrsetleMania that have taken place that are not public knowledge, until now.
Some of these secrets are about wrestlers that took place before or after WrestleMania, and others took place right in front of our eyes during the event but we did not notice them. Some of these stories about how backstage politics have influenced WrestleMania events, and others are about the business-side of professional wrestling. Whatever the case may be, these secrets give us a window into backstage world of WWE, and many of them are things that we did not know before.
Here are Behind-The-Scenes Secrets From Every WrestleMania You Didn't Know:
33 WrestleMania I – Mr. T Was Scared to Wrestle
Professional wrestling can be a scary business, even if you are a member of the A-Team. Before entering the main event of the first WrestleMania, many measures had to be taken to ensure that Mr. T would not skip out on the heavily-hyped main event due to pre-match jitters. Reportedly, Mr. T was coming up with every excuse in the book to avoid stepping out to the ring – including saying that since his entourage was not allowed backstage meant that he could not compete - to the point that Hogan had to stand guard outside of his dressing room. Good thing there weren’t windows inside of the dressing rooms at Madison Square Garden, otherwise they would have had to chase him down the streets of New York City.
32 WrestleMania II – Real Heat Between Mr. T and Roddy Piper
While Mr. T may have been frightened to enter the ring during the first WrestleMania, he had gotten over his fear by the time WrestleMania II rolled around as he was scheduled to take part in a boxing match against Roddy Piper.
While the match was ultimately a critical flop, it was based off of the real life heat between the two stars, stemming from Piper’s dislike for Mr. T’s lack of wrestling ability.
Piper’s real feelings even came out during the match as he can be seen getting visibly irritated, even getting to the point of throwing his corner stool at Mr. T in an unscripted moment to show him his frustration. While Piper and Mr. T would ultimately reconcile their differences prior to Piper’s death in 2015, this match is an everlasting memento of how much they did not see eye to eye.
31 WrestleMania III – Ricky Steamboat Not Proud of the “Greatest Match Ever”
If any wrestler were asked to list a match that was influential to their career, it is highly likely that some would list the Ricky Steamboat versus Randy Savage classic from WrestleMania III, but one of those people would not be “The Dragon” himself. According to Ric Flair in his autobiography, anytime Steamboat would be asked about his feelings regarding the classic encounter, he would shrug and respond that it was “okay”. The reason Steamboat was so apathetic about the match is because Randy Savage was notorious for planning out the match step-by-step (allegedly even flying Steamboat out to his house to review the spots for the match), while Steamboat was more proud of matches he would call in the ring. There is no denying how important this match is to wrestling history, but in Steamboat’s eyes it was just another small notch on his belt.
30 WrestleMania IV – Ted DiBiase Originally the WWE Champion
The tournament to crown a new WWE Champion that was the center of WrestleMania IV was ultimately one of “Macho Man” Randy Savage’s greatest moments, as he was ultimately crowned with his first WWE Championship reign. However, he was not the first choice to win the tournament – Vince McMahon initially lobbied for “The Million Dollar Man’ Ted DiBiase to win the championship and begin a run as a heel champion. The plan was ultimately changed for Savage to win as a good-guy champion was needed in order to keep live attendance up during shows. In order to pacify DiBiase for not winning the tournament, he was given a consolation prize – his own gold-plated, jewel-encrusted Million Dollar Championship belt.
29 WrestleMania V – Shawn Michaels Wrestled Hungover
Shawn Michaels was known to have several problems when it came to various substances in the early stages of his career. While his problems and his backstage attitude weren't that big of an issue around WrestleMania V (he was still a tag team midcarder and didn't have backstage power at the time) he and Marty Jannetty still had their issues.
Only 23 years old at the time, Michaels exercised poor judgement. Married to his first wife, Theresa at the time, Michaels stormed out of their hotel room after an argument and hit the bar hard with his tag team partner.
The Rockers would stay out drinking until the wee hours of the morning, getting very little sleep on the biggest payday of the year.
After popping energy pills and drinking a lot of coffee, somehow Michaels pulled off a decent performance, with nobody noticing any signs of a hangover.
28 WrestleMania VI – Roddy Piper’s “Permanent” Paint
WrestleMania VI is most well-known for the epic encounter between Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior, but one of the more overtly racist moments in WWE history was a part of a forgettable match between Roddy Piper and “Bad News” Brown. Prior to the match, Piper painted half of his face and body in blackface, and proceeded to make racial comments towards Brown in an effort to spice up the match. Not only did these statements fall flat and make the audience uncomfortable, it appears that Andre The Giant played a prank on Piper and dumped out the special solution to take off the paint – Piper says,
“There was a special clear solution to take this special black off. When I got there, the lady started rubbing my cheeks and in about five minutes, I started bleeding.” Since the paint would not come off, Piper was left to wear the paint for the day after the event too until a proper solution could be sourced out.
27 WrestleMania VII – Location Changed Due to Poor Attendance
With a main event scheduled between Hulk Hogan and former patriot turned Iraqi-sympathizer Sargent Slaughter for the WWE Championship, the WWE ultimately changed their scheduled venue from the very large Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, to the much more modest Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
While the publicized explanation for this was due to the intense levels of heat and supposed terror-threats that the company had received towards Slaughter’s actions as an Iraqi-sympathizer during the height of the Gulf War, the actual reason for this was due to the poor trending ticket sales that WrestleMania VII had prior to the event taking place. While WWE has done a good job of spinning what could have been negative publicity, attendance numbers do not lie.
26 WrestleMania VIII – Ric Flair And Bret Hart Both Bladed Against Company Policy; Only Flair Was Caught
By 1992, the WWE was in enough trouble, as Vince McMahon had admitted that wrestling was pre-determined in order to avoid having to obtain combat licenses, and the infamous steroid scandal was right around the corner. In order to curb any edginess around the product, there was a strict no-blading policy. However, for Bret Hart and Roddy Piper's IC title match, they felt some color was necessary to bring a certain level of intensity to the match. Hart would cut himself, but managed to do so in a way that the blood looked like an accident. Hart would act upset and surprised backstage and was let off the hook.
However, Ric Flair would try the same thing during his WWE Championship match with Randy Savage. Unfortunately, Flair wasn't as subtle and the cameras caught him blading purposely, which led to a significant fine for The Nature Boy, while Hart got off scot free.
25 WrestleMania IX – Yokozuna "Went Home" Early
Let WrestleMania IX serve as a reminder that professional wrestling and togas do not mix – even in a world where we have seen some very poor WrestleMania matches, this is still considered to be the worst WrestleMania of all time for a variety of reasons, but it is mainly due to the fact that the main event between Yokozuna and Bret Hart was overshadowed by Hulk Hogan’s run-in and burial of Yokozuna’s first WWE Championship reign.
There's more to that story, as Bret Hart had different plans for the main event.
He had devised a match that would accentuate both he and Yokozuna's strengths, but Yoko went into the finishing sequence far earlier than initially planned. As a result, the match fell flat and Hart felt the match didn't help him prove that McMahon had made a big mistake backing Hogan over him.
24 WrestleMania X – The Ladder Match Ran Long, Forcing Cuts
The epic ladder match between Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon to determine an undisputed Intercontinental Champion is considered one of the most legendary matches in professional wrestling history. However it had its consequences. The match ran much longer than planned, as was typical with HBK classics. When HBK and Razor were given their cues to go home, they ignored it and kept going. As a result of their match going long, a 10-man tag match scheduled afterwards featuring Bob Holly, the 123 Kid, Jeff Jarrett and others, was scrapped.
While HBK and Razor weren't really punished for it, Randy Savage reportedly lit into them, scolding them for cutting into other performers' time.
Looking back on it as fans though, not many of us mind that 10-man tag getting scrapped for this classic.
23 WrestleMania XI – The Streak was Almost Broken
When The Undertaker’s legendary WrestleMania streak was broken at WrestleMania XXX, it created one of the most shocking moments in professional wrestling history (a bit more on that later). Now, imagine if that moment was never possible because “The Streak” never even came to fruition? Well, if the original plans for WrestleMania XI had gone through, then King Kong Bundy would have stopped one of the most historically significant pieces in wrestling history from ever occurring. Bundy was nearing the end of his career but was still an established star, so a win here would have assisted in bringing him back into the limelight, however the decision was made to have The Deadman go over. Imagine if The Streak had only been 3-1? Not exactly headline worthy.
22 WrestleMania XII – Shawn to Bret - “Get Out of My Ring”
“The Boyhood dream has come true for Shawn Michaels” are some of the most legendary words to be spoken at a WrestleMania following the historic Iron Man Match between Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart at WrestleMania XII. These words spoken by Vince McMahon over commentary ended up being the soundtrack to Michaels’ first WWE Championship win, and are continued to be used during video packages to this day. The words that we didn’t hear at the time were exchanged in the ring between Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and referee Earl Hebner – after receiving his championship belt.
While celebrating, Michaels instructed Hebner to inform Hart to “get out of his ring” (while using much more colorful language) because it was “Shawn Michaels’ time to shine”.
This was the beginning of the bad blood between the two men, which would culminate in a year long behind the scenes feud.
21 WrestleMania 13 – Hart And Austin Broke Company Policy
“The Attitude Era” is the most beloved era among wrestling fans due to its focus on outlandish storylines, sexuality and violence, but there has always been a debate on what the catalyst for this era beginning was Stone Cold Steve Austin ushered in the era, but there is one specific moment that stands out as one of the first times WWE outwardly focused on violence during matches, and it is often forgotten.
At this time, blading was still against company policy, but when Hart and Austin were booked to execute a double-turn, Hart felt Austin needed some color in order to make him look like the defiant, never-give-up babyface. Hart even recalls Austin having last-second doubts saying "maybe we shouldn't" before Hart said "too late!" as he proceeded to blade Austin. Hart and Austin managed to pull it off while making it look like an accident, and as a result, we got the iconic visual of Austin passing out in a pool of his own blood.
20 WrestleMania XIV – Michaels Hit With a Battery
The buildup towards WrestleMania XIV’s main event of Shawn Michaels versus Stone Cold” Steve Austin featured professional boxer Mike Tyson heavily involved as an enforcer to the match, but a big twist in the storyline occurred when Tyson revealed himself to be a member of the D-Generation X group. While the group is beloved now, they were despised in 1998 for their heel antics.
During a promo in Boston prior to the event, DX was in the middle of the ring spouting how much they were going to hurt Austin, and a fan got so agitated he/she threw a battery and hit Michaels directly in the head.
In response, Michaels returned backstage and refused to go back out to the ring. Imagine if that had happened during WrestleMania itself and he had walked out?
19 WrestleMania XV – Bart Gunn’s Punishment for Winning Brawl for All
One of WrestleMania’s worst experiments over the years was the Brawl for All Tournament – a boxing-type tournament where “tough-guy” wrestlers fought each other in unscripted fights with no professional wrestling involved. Allegedly, this tournament was created in order to give “Dr. Death” Steve Williams a vehicle to get himself over with the fans as a legitimate fighter, however he was eliminated early on by Bart Gunn, who had done nothing of note in WWE in several years.
As a result of him eliminating the office’s favorite to win the tournament, Gunn was given the “opportunity” to face renowned Heavyweight boxer Butterbean in a boxing match.
As one would expect, Gunn was knocked out very quickly and was released by the company shortly afterwards.
18 WrestleMania 2000 – Chris Jericho was Supposed to Main Event
While we now recognize Chris Jericho as “The Best in the World”, he was still cutting his teeth to get into the main event picture in WWE in the year 2000, and had yet to taste the spotlight of a WrestleMania main event. The main event of WrestleMania 2000 ended up featuring a fatal-four-way between The Rock, Triple H, The Big Show and Mick Foley vying for the WWE Championship, but Jericho was originally slated to be a part of this match.
As he discusses in his first book A Lion’s Tale, Jericho once saw an advertised billboard of himself on a WrestleMania poster with the rest of the main eventers, but was never contacted by WWE about it. Foley’s story of finally achieving a main event prior to his “retirement” was a great story, but there was not much that could have saved this main event from disaster.
17 WrestleMania X-Seven – Iron Sheik Won Battle Royal Because He Couldn’t Go Over the Top Rope
I’ve always enjoyed when WWE is able to poke fun at themselves for some of the strange gimmicks and storylines that they have featured in the past, and WrestleMania X-7’s “Gimmick Battle Royal” is a prime example. A Battle Royal featuring participants such as Kamala, Brother Love, Sgt. Slaughter and The Iron Sheik was put onto the show with the intention to “honor” some of WWE’s strangest wrestlers from the past. While the match itself was very short, it was won by former WWE Champion The Iron Sheik.
While it would make sense for a former world champion to win the match, the story goes that he only won because he was physically not able to go over the top rope.
Sorry Sheiky, I hope you enjoyed your win while it lasted.
16 WrestleMania X8 – Supposed to be Sting’s WWE Debut
When Sting finally debuted for WWE during WrestleMania 31, it was the fulfilment of one of professional wrestling’s greatest journeys – Sting was one of the WCW wrestlers that did not participate in “The Invasion” storyline the previous year, and fans were clamoring for him to join the WWE roster, specifically so he could wrestle The Undertaker. WWE was reportedly in direct talks with Sting during this time period to bring him in to the company, with Sting penciled in to face Kurt Angle at WrestleMania, but Sting eventually ceased the talks and would not join the company due to what he felt mistreatment of former WCW talent such as Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page, who had been relegated to mid-card status after starting with the company.
As a result of the talks falling through, Angle was placed in a random, forgettable feud with Kane at the last minute.
15 WrestleMania XIX - Nathan Jones was too Green
The Undertaker’s legendary streak is not without its own duds – for every classic that he had with Shawn Michaels or Triple H, he was also featured in matches that are not befitting of his legacy. WrestleMania XIX is an odd mark on his WrestleMania resume, as it was a handicap match featuring The Undertaker versus The Big Show and A-Train. The match was turned into a 2-on-1 affair when Taker’s partner Nathan Jones was attached before the match, leaving him to face the two giants alone.
The real reason; Vince McMahon saw him perform at a house show prior to WrestleMania and deemed that he was too green to perform at WrestleMania, so he was pushed out of the match.
I cannot say that I disagree with McMahon’s assessment, and it was certainly for the best.
14 WrestleMania XX – Large Curtain Above the Ring in Case of a Wardrobe Malfunction
While WWE has moved away from female gimmick matches featuring ladies in scantily-clad clothing, it was featured at a number of WrestleMania events. In an attempt to capitalize on Sable and Torrie Wilson’s joint Playboy pictorial, a match was made and billed as a “Playboy Evening Gown Match” pitting Sable and Torrie against Stacy Keibler and Miss Jackie, with the aim of the match to remove your opponent’s clothing to win. The match itself would certainly not win any technical awards, and was changed to feature the women wrestling only in their lingerie, which could feature a potential wardrobe malfunction.
In order to protect the women from accidentally exposing themselves during the match, a large white curtain was placed above the ring which would drop in case one of the ladies lost their clothing. Who says that WWE doesn’t look after their wrestlers?