WrestleMania

WrestleMania is an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment since 1985. It is billed as the promotion's annual flagship event.

WrestleMania is to WWE as the Super Bowl is to the NFL, in the sense that it is the most important event of the year in sports entertainment. It is the largest and longest running of all major wrestling events in the world and has been described to be "The Grandaddy of Them All," "The Showcase of the Immortals," and "The Grandest Stage of Them All."

It along with the Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and the Survivor Series events are the original four annual WWE pay-per-view events. From 2004 to 2007, the four events were the only events to bring together the RAW, SmackDown!, and from 2007, ECW brands together.

History
The first WrestleMania was held by the then-World Wrestling Federation on March 31, 1985 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It is also a commonly held misconception that the first WWF pay-per-view was November 1985's The Wrestling Classic, a tournament held at the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, Illinois. However, the first WrestleMania event was available on pay-per-view in some markets. Elsewhere, it was first shown on closed-circuit television. WrestleMania was not the first annual wrestling supercard to be broadcast on CCTV. Starrcade preceded the event by two years. For the first WrestleMania, promoter Vince McMahon began cross promoting with MTV and several celebrities like Muhammad Ali, Liberace and Cyndi Lauper appeared during the build up to and at the event.

WrestleMania 2 was held the following year, and took place in three venues; the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, Illinois and the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California. Each venue had one main event match with a large undercard. This was the only WrestleMania to have three venues.

WrestleMania III saw Hulk Hogan defeat André the Giant to retain his WWF Championship. The event was claimed by the WWF as setting a reported indoor attendance record of 93,173. To make certain that all 90,000 seats at the Silverdome would be filled, the World Wrestling Federation decided to exclude the entire state of Michigan from pay-per-view access to the event. This made attending the event the only way for fans in Michigan to watch the pay-per-view. It is the largest North American indoor crowd to witness a sporting event. Although this number is sometimes disputed, the event is still widely considered to be the pinnacle of the 1980s wrestling boom.

After a controversial rematch between Hulk Hogan and André the Giant for the WWF Championship, the title was declared vacant. At WrestleMania IV, the event featured, among other things, a tournament for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship which was won by Randy Savage.

WrestleMania VI marked the first time the event was held outside of the United States. It was held at the SkyDome, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. WrestleMania X8 marked the second occurrence, and was again held at the SkyDome.

WrestleMania VII was originally supposed to be held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, however, it was decided to move the event to the adjacent Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. The World Wrestling Federation's reason for the venue change was because a threat had been issued towards the company. The company has since held on to this claim. The Undertaker also made his WrestleMania debut at this event, defeating Jimmy Snuka. Since then, The Undertaker has been undefeated in all of his WrestleMania matches. As of WrestleMania 23, his record is currently 15-0. John Cena and Rob Van Dam have the second best record at WrestleMania at 4-0 each.

WrestleMania XII featured as its main event, an hour long Iron Man match where Shawn Michaels defeated Bret Hart for the WWF Championship after the match continued under sudden death rules following a 0-0 draw.

WrestleMania XIV was mostly remembered for the start of the first WWF Championship reign for Steve Austin. His victory in the main event, against Shawn Michaels (who performed despite his own severe injury), is often cited as the "official" beginning of the Attitude Era. WrestleMania X-Seven is considered as the event that concluded the same era for the WWF and the pinnacle of the 1990s wrestling boom. WrestleMania XIX marked the first WrestleMania event since the introduction of the brand extension along with the company's name change to World Wrestling Entertainment.

WWE celebrated their 20th event, WrestleMania XX, again at Madison Square Garden. Along with it was the reintroduction of the WWE Hall of Fame, with an annual induction show held the night before WrestleMania.

At WrestleMania 21 the concept of the Money in the Bank ladder match was introduced as a six-man ladder match that featured a briefcase suspended above the ring containing a contract that guaranteed the winner a World Championship match at any time and place of their choosing within one year of winning the ladder match. The Money in the Bank ladder match was also held at WrestleMania 22 as an interpromotional match again at WrestleMania 23 as an interpromotional eight-man match.

Since 1993, the winner of the annual Royal Rumble match has received a guaranteed WWE Championship match at that year's WrestleMania. Then with the creation of the World Heavyweight Championship in 2002, the winner has since been able to choose to receive World Heavyweight Championship match instead. However, with the introduction of the ECW brand the possibility for the winner to choose to receive a ECW World Championship match at WrestleMania 23 was also added in 2007.

As of February 15, 2007, ticket sales for WrestleMania 23 stood at over $5 million USD, with more than 63,000 tickets sold (the attendance for the event would end up to be 80,103). This makes WrestleMania 23 the highest-grossing pay-per-view in WWE history as well as the highest-grossing event in North American professional wrestling history, shattering the previous record of $3.9 million USD ($6.1 million CAD) held at WrestleMania X8.

Celebrity involvement
Over the years, WrestleMania has been subjected to celebrity appearances, some of them going further than just attending the event.

The main event of the first WrestleMania was littered with celebrities. The ring announcer was former Yankees manager Billy Martin, the timekeeper was the famous entertainer Liberace who was accompanied by The Rockettes, and the special enforcer was Muhammad Ali. Also, Mr. T of the TV show The A-Team competed in the main event alongside tag team partner, Hulk Hogan.

Mike Tyson appeared at WrestleMania XIV as the special guest enforcer for the WWF Championship match between Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin. Tyson made the three count, and thus wound up awarding the title to Austin.

Some celebrities have accompanied wrestlers to the ring such as Cyndi Lauper (for Wendi Richter), Ozzy Osbourne (for the British Bulldogs), Ice-T (for The Godfather and D'Lo Brown), Alice Cooper (for Jake Roberts), Pamela Anderson (for Diesel), and Jenny McCarthy (for Shawn Michaels). At WrestleMania 23, Donald Trump made his fifth WrestleMania appearance managing Bobby Lashley in a match against Umaga (managed by Vince McMahon) where the losing manager would get his head shaved.

The event has also featured live musical performances. Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Robert Goulet, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire, Little Richard, The DX Band, Boyz II Men, Ashanti, Boys Choir of Harlem, and Michelle Williams have each had their turn singing America the Beautiful before the show (except for Goulet, who performed O Canada at WM VI). Meanwhile acts such as Motörhead, Limp Bizkit, Saliva, The DX Band, Run DMC, Salt-N-Pepa, Ice-T, Drowning Pool and P.O.D. have also performed theme songs for the wrestlers live. Triple H has notably had his entrance theme performed live four times, by the DX Band, Motörhead (twice) and Drowning Pool.

On occasions, the celebrities themselves may participate in the matches. One of the three main events at WrestleMania 2 was a 20-man battle royal pitting several NFL superstars against the wrestling superstars including the eventual winner, André the Giant. Lawrence Taylor faced Bam Bam Bigelow in a singles match and won after a forearm off the second rope. Mr. T had two matches, first teaming up with Hulk Hogan against Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper the inaugural WrestleMania, followed by a Boxing match at WrestleMania 2 against Roddy Piper. Mr. T won both matches with the second by disqualification. Professional boxer Butterbean was challenged to a (legitimate) Brawl for All Boxing match by Bart Gunn at WrestleMania XV. Butterbean knocked Gunn out in about 30 seconds. The Big Show faced sumo wrestling champion Akebono in a worked sumo contest at WrestleMania 21.

At WrestleManias XIV, XV and 2000, Pete Rose was involved in a short feud with Kane with each appearance ending with Rose receiving a Tombstone Piledriver or Chokeslam from Kane. The San Diego Chicken was also used during this feud.

As a part of their appearances at WrestleMania, both Pete Rose and William "Refrigerator" Perry (who participated in the WrestleMania 2 battle royal) were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame under their celebrity wing.

Video box sets
Several VHS and DVD box sets have been released over the years:
 * In 1994, a VHS set with WrestleManias 1-X was released.
 * In 1997, a VHS set with WrestleManias 1-13 was released.
 * In 1998, a VHS set titled "WrestleMania: The Legacy" with WrestleManias 1-XIV was released. The set was re-released in 1999, this time including XV.
 * In 2005, a DVD set titled "WrestleMania: The Complete Anthology" with WrestleManias 1-21 was released; this marked the first time WrestleManias 1-XIV were released on DVD in Region 1. The set was re-released in 2006, this time including WrestleMania 22.
 * In 2007, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the event, WWE released a special "Championship Edition" DVD of WrestleMania III. The two-disc set includes the event itself, another version of the event that includes pop-up facts, pre-event interviews and extra matches from notable shows such as Saturday Nights Main Event.