There are pro wrestling shows, and then there’s WrestleMania. It’s the oldest continuously running annual PPV in the business and an annual showcase of WWE’s best and brightest. More fan watch WrestleMania live in the stadium than any other show, and more viewers tune in via pay per view or streaming on the WWE Network. The DVD release to follow is an annual best seller for the company, too.

Chris Jericho has explained in a number of interviews that while house show matches happen and are promptly forgotten, and while Raw, SmackDown, and other PPV bouts might be remembered longer but rarely make an impact, WrestleMania is where history is made. Fans spend much of each year speculating about the next show, and weeks to follow each event dissecting how it went. The best ‘Manias gets rewatched by hardcore fans as nauseam, while even the less impressive iterations nonetheless get revisited more often than the average B-PPV.

For as much history and discussion is out there about each WrestleMania, there nonetheless remain those behind the scenes facts that fans could have easily missed. Whether it was a change in creative plans, someone being disgruntled about his or her character’s direction, or something going wrong that WWE artfully worked around, the event is full of unique trivia.

The Showcase if the Immortals has a behind the scenes history that is truly fascinating. This article takes a look back across all thirty four WrestleManias to date to touch upon one fact from each of them that most fans don’t realize.

34 WrestleMania I - Roddy Piper Refused To Let Mr. T Pin Him

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The main event of the original WrestleMania represented a shift in how wrestling was portrayed in that era. Sure, Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, and Paul Orndorff were top stars of the day, deserving of top billing at a major event. But the fourth man in the tag team match was Mr. T, an actor who had never worked a match before. T was there to draw in casual fans and to entertain; he didn’t add to the credibility of the match, though.

Piper made a number of comments about not liking to work with T in that era. Included in these remarks was a note that he was originally asked to let T pin him but refused. Piper was notoriously protective of his image and took very few pins relative to the length of his career. Losing to a non-wrestler in particular was beyond what Hot Rod considered reasonable.

33 WrestleMania II - Bret Hart Suggested The Battle Royal Finish

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Bret Hart was nowhere near main event status at WrestleMania II, but he was the last man eliminated from a high profile battle royal match when Andre the Giant threw him over the top rope, onto tag team partner Jim Neidhart.

In Hart’s book, he recalled that he actually pitched that finish to Andre, who had all the power given his size and legendary status. Andre liked it and saw through Hart’s vision for a fun, memorable close to one of the better received battle royals in WrestleMania history.

32 WrestleMania III - King Kong Bundy Improvised

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WrestleMania III is best remembered for the iconic moment of Hulk Hogan body slamming Andre the Giant, and secondarily for the tremendous Intercontinental Championship match between Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat. After that, one of the more striking visuals was a unique six-man tag match that saw giants King Kong Bundy and Hillbilly Jim face off, each back by a pair of little people.

A particularly noteworthy spot at the end of the match saw King Kong Bundy drop an elbow on Little Beaver. Sources close to the match have indicated that Bundy was not actually supposed to hit that move, but rather get cut off. As someone who believed in realism in wrestling, when the opposing team missed its cue to make the save, he followed through with the elbow for the sake of realism, in the process purportedly injuring Beaver.

31 WrestleMania IV - A Referee Legitimately Got KOed

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Referee bumps are a pretty standard part of pro wrestling and facilitate all manner of chicanery in the ring as the ref misses a pin fall or the absence of an official facilitates outside interference. It’s rare for a ref to actually get incapacitated ,but that’s just what happened in a spot gone wrong during the match between Brutus Beefcake and The Honky Tonk Man at WrestleMania IV.

Referee Jim Korderas took a megaphone shot from Jimmy Hart to simulate the ref getting knocked out, but as the story goes, in bumping, he hit his chin on the mat and actually rendered himself unconscious. Hart apparently took some heat for the spot, though Korderas never blamed him.

30 WrestleMania V - The Ultimate Warrior Hurt Bobby Heenan

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WrestleMania V saw The Ultimate Warrior drop the Intercontinental Championship to Rick Rude. In the aftermath, he got some immediate revenge on Rude’s manager, Bobby Heenan, who’d helped him score the pin. Warrior gave Heenan his signature gorilla press slam.

While Warrior was never known as a particularly safe or graceful worker, Heenan claimed years afterward that Warrior was so careless with the move that he actually injured him there in the ring. Heenan would work a match later that night with Terry Taylor, and it’s unclear the degree to which he was selling his ribs as a committed worker, and how much pain he was actually in based on the bad bump.

29 WrestleMania VI - Diamond Dallas Page Made His First Appearance At A WrestleMania

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Diamond Dallas Page was one of the biggest stars in wrestling in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He was always a WCW guy in his prime, though, and only wrestled one WrestleMania match as a full time performer, opposite Christian at WrestleMania X8.

Twelve years earlier, though, Page made his first, largely uncredited appearance at ‘Mania. He allowed WWE to use his pink Cadillac for the Rhythm and Blues entrance, on the condition that he’d drive the car himself. It’s a historical anomaly that, long before most wrestling fans had any idea who he was, Page would make this cameo.

28 WrestleMania VII - Willie Nelson Shunned Sgt. Slaughter

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Sgt. Slaughter made the most dramatic turn of his wrestling career when he went from a patriotic hero to an traitor amidst the global tensions at the time. WWE has played up the heat of the gimmick, and while many fans suggest that WWE moved WrestleMania VII from a stadium to an arena based on lagging ticket sales, the company line has always been that it was a security measure based on how hot Slaughter and his angle as WWE Champion had grown.

Slaughter has commented in interviews that casual fans had even taken to treating him as if he really had betrayed the USA. In particular, he cited that Willie Nelson, who sang to open the show, openly shunned Sarge backstage.

27 WrestleMania VIII - Papa Shango Missed His Cue

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The main event saw Hulk Hogan wrestle what WWE suggested would be his last match, paired against rising top heel Sid Justice. WWE was in the awkward spot of wanting to send fans home happy but also wanting protect Justice, who looked to be a major presence in WWE for years to come.

The compromise solution was a shmozz finish with Hogan ostensibly having Justice beat, only for new heel Papa Shango to interrupt a pin attempt to cause a disqualification (after which a returning Ultimate Warrior would save The Hulkster for a final feel good moment).

By most accounts, Shango missed his cue. So, Hogan had Justice pinned, but without anyone there to make the save, Sid kicked out of The Hulkster’s leg drop and Shango’s time of getting involved in the match came across as far more random and nonsensical.

26 WrestleMania IX - Yokozuna Cut Out Key Parts Of His Match With Bret Hart

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The WrestleMania main event match between Bret Hart and Yokozuna was quite arguably the latter’s best singles match ever, as The Hitman worked a fast paced style to not only sell his giant opponent’s stiff offense, but actually create glimmers of hope that The Hitman could beat him.

As Hart tells it in his book, Yokozuna cut out a whole section of the match, though, which Hart was supposed to control most of. Hart suggested that Yokozuna was blown up from the pace of the match and unilaterally decided to cut out a segment that would have taken the match to the next level and made The Hitman’s character look stronger.

25 WrestleMania X - Shawn Michaels And Razor Ramon Went Over Time

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The best remembered, most influential match of WrestleMania X saw Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon go head to head in the first televised WWE Ladder Match. It was an instant classic, well executed enough to set up a whole new popular genre of match that carries forward to today.

Bret Hart wrote about the match in his book and cited that Michaels not only stole the finish, which The Hitman regretted having told him about from Ladder Matches in Stampede Wrestling, but also went over its allotted time. While the match was good enough that most fans don’t begrudge Michaels and Ramon for going over, Hart cited as the reason why the show’s scheduled 10-man tag team match never happened, and why the main event got short changed with only about 10 minutes to work with.

24 WrestleMania XI - Bob Backlund Messed Up The Finish

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WrestleMania XI saw Bret Hart and Bob Backlund blow off their rivalry. Previously, Backlund had snapped and turned heel on Hart to portray a new, crazed heel character who went so far as to unseat The Hitman for the WWE Championship at Survivor Series. Here, the two of them were cast in an I Quit Match.

The way Hart tells it in his book, the match was to close on Backlund screaming, “I quit!” to mark a definitive end to their rivalry. However, the Crossface Chickenwing hold that Backlund had popularized, and Hart used to finish him off in this match, was legitimately painful and Hart suggests Backlund was in enough pain to forget what he was supposed to say, and yelled “Yes!” to the question if he gave up, rather than actually saying I Quit, which was supposed to be the only way the match could end.

23 WrestleMania XII - Bret Hart Resented The Build To His Iron Man Match

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WrestleMania XII featured a truly unique main event—a rare one hour Iron Man Match, pitting veteran world champion Bret Hart against ascendant star Shawn Michaels. WWE aired vignettes that showed each man preparing for the marathon performance, showing Michaels as young and spry. Meanwhile. Hart’s training captured him back home in Canada, in ways he considered less than flattering.

The Hitman’s side of the vignettes showed him getting stretched by his elderly father in the Hart Family Dungeon, and gingerly running across a snowy landscape. As he discussed in his book, Hart thought he was depicted as old, slow, and weak in these promos.

22 WrestleMania 13 - Bret Hart And Steve Austin Didn’t Want To Wrestle Each Other

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The WrestleMania 13 match between Bret Hart and Steve Austin is widely considered one of the very best in WrestleMania history. However, according to Hart’s book and subsequent interviews, it wasn’t the match he wanted, both because he felt his story with Stone Cold was played out and because he expected Shawn Michaels to put him over at the show. For Austin’s part, he has copped to being unenthused about at least the match’s I Quit stipulation, because he wasn’t a submission oriented wrestler with a signature hold.

Michaels would pull out of in ring performance leading up to the show, though, and WWE shuffled the deck to assemble this match. Despite the participants’ trepidations, there’s little question it turned out to be a masterpiece.

21 WrestleMania XIV - WWE Put Its Fortunes On The Back Of Mike Tyson

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WrestleMania XIV was a pivotal one for WWE. They were lagging behind WCW in the Monday Night War ratings, but had gathered momentum with an edgier product, and acts like Stone Cold Steve Austin and DX exploding in popularity. On the night when Austin would win his first world title in the main event, WWE made a big gamble on Mike Tyson.

Tyson was a lightning rod for mainstream attention , and the general sense from insiders is that WWE poured enormous resources into getting him booked for the event to get eyes on their product. With the extra viewership and media coverage Tyson channeled, WWE put forth its hottest storylines with well produced vignettes to lead into big time matches. While the Monday Night War would extend another three years, many consider this show, with the attention Tyson drew, to have been a pivotal turning point.

20 WrestleMania XV - Bart Gunn Felt Extra Training Messed With His Head

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Bart Gunn surprised fans and management when won the Brawl For All tournament, which included KOing presumptive favorite and main event prospect Steve Williams. In the follow up to that victory, WWE booked Gunn for a shoot boxing match at WrestleMania XV against heavyweight star of the day Butterbean.

To be fair, as a decorated, experienced pro boxer with a with a weight advantage, Butterbean was probably going to win this fight no matter what. Still, Billy Gunn has indicated in interviews that WWE hooked up Bart with professional trainers to get ready for the big match, and that their instructions got in his head and threw him off his game. Even if he would have lost anyway, Gunn didn’t feel that he’d fought his best fight in this scenario.

19 WrestleMania 2000 - X-Pac Maneuvered Out Of A Match With Chris Jericho

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In a visit to Steve Austin’s podcast, X-Pac discussed that he could be difficult to work with during certain periods of his career. He specifically cited an example of WrestleMania 16, around the prime of his career, when he claims to have been offered a match with Chris Jericho. According to X-Pac, he shot down the idea because he thought there was still more money to be made in his program with Kane.

The result was a lackluster tag match at ‘Mania pitting X-Pac and The Road Dogg against Kane and Rikishi. Jericho undoubtedly got the better end of that deal, working a Triple Threat with Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit.

18 WrestleMania X-Seven - Steve Austin Immediately Regretted his Heel Turn

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The end of WrestleMania 17 saw Steve Austin turn heel to beat The Rock for the WWE Championship. In a supremely meta moment, Austin and long-time rival Mr. McMahon toasted with beers to in kayfabe celebrate their new alliance, and to symbolically toast winning the Monday Night War over WCW.

However, in the WWE produced documentary about Austin’s life and career, he admitted that despite having wanted the heel turn going into Houston, he immediately regretted it. The fans of that era simply didn’t want to boo Austin, and that was all the more true of the fans in his home state of Texas for ‘Mania. It turns out Austin’s instinct was probably right. Despite doing great ring and mic work as a heel in the months to follow, that run both stopped his face momentum and never really caught heat with the fans, largely squandering how hot he’d been.

17 WrestleMania X8 - Steve Austin Was Not Happy With His Position

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WrestleMania X8 saw multiple dream matches go down. Everyone remembers The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan as the biggest marquee showdown, but the show also featured the face of WWE’s Attitude Era Steve Austin squaring off against WCW’s New World Order founder Scott Hall. There’s a way in which Austin vs. Hall could be spun as a main event caliber match between very big names.

Austin didn’t see it that way.

With Chris Jericho defending the world title against Triple H, and Rock facing Hogan, Austin cops to feeling as though he, at best, had the third biggest match on the show, which was a spot not befitting the guy who had won three out of four of the preceding WrestleMania main events. He has said that his position on this card was one key sign post in him ultimately walking out on the company a few months later.

16 WrestleMania XIX - Nathan Jones Got Pulled Because He Wasn’t Ready

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WrestleMania XIX was to include a tag team match of epic proportions with The Big Show and A-Train on one side of the ring, up against fellow big men The Undertaker and rookie Nathan Jones. However, in an angle shot shortly before the match, Jones was revealed to be knocked out backstage, making it a handicap match.

The Deadman gave a game, fast paced performance that delivered about as entertaining of a match as this was going to be. In the end, Jones gave the assist when he finally made his way to the ring. Word leaked that the match was built around the company not ultimately feeling like Jones was ready for primetime, and working the injury angle rather than having him embarrass himself in front of a WrestleMania audience.

15 WrestleMania XX - Molly Holly Volunteered Her Hair To Get On The Card

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Molly Holly rose to fame in WWE during the tail end of the Attitude Era, and saw through the era to follow which were generally leaner for the women’s roster. The company steered into a focus on hiring pretty faces whom they could train to wrestle, over experienced grapplers and athletes who took the craft seriously.

Holly has noted in interviews that, just to get on the card with the Women’s Championship at WrestleMania XX, she had to volunteer to get her head shaved. The gesture made an enough of an impression to get her wish, as she lost to Victoria and consequently got a live haircut.