Four Decades Strong: The Fascinating Evolution of WWE's WrestleMania

On April 6 and 7 in Philadelphia, thea href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/show/wwe-monday-night-raw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"WWE/aUniverse will present WrestleMania, a larger-than-life Premium Live Event that arguably puts other major sporting events (like the NFL's Super Bowl) to shame. It will be a pageantry of lights, sounds, unforgettable matches, and countless iconic moments./p p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6aFgLHrMBuY?si=ASPJOhFJjnH-AQcS" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pBut it wasn't always like this./p pFor More WWE:brstronga data-entity-href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/jade-cargill-reflects-on-her-wwe-royal-rumble-debut" data-entity-title="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/jade-cargill-reflects-on-her-wwe-royal-rumble-debut" href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/jade-cargill-reflects-on-her-wwe-royal-rumble-debut" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"Jade Cargill Reflects on Her WWE Royal Rumble Debut/abra data-entity-href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/all-the-2024-wwe-premium-live-events-and-when-theyre-happening" data-entity-title="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/all-the-2024-wwe-premium-live-events-and-when-theyre-happening" href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/all-the-2024-wwe-premium-live-events-and-when-theyre-happening" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"Here's When You Can Catch All The WWE Premium Live Events of 2024/abra data-entity-href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wwe-rhea-ripley-announces-engagement-buddy-matthews" data-entity-title="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wwe-rhea-ripley-announces-engagement-buddy-matthews" href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wwe-rhea-ripley-announces-engagement-buddy-matthews" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"Rhea Ripley Breaks the Hearts of the WWE Universe, Announces Engagement/a/strong/p pWrestleMania has come a long way from its a data-entity-href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wrestlemania-history-who-competed-first-show" data-entity-title="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wrestlemania-history-who-competed-first-show" href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wrestlemania-history-who-competed-first-show" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"humble roots in 1985/a. The event has changed and evolved in many significant ways, and today,strongemUSA Insider/em/strongis examining the evolution of the annual mega-event, highlighting five groundbreaking changes WWE has instituted over the years. These are WrestleMania's most prominent and influential changes from the last four decades!/p div class="listicle-heading" h2span class="title"The Switch From Closed-Circuit Television to Pay-Per-View/span/h2 div data-embed-button="media" data-entity-embed-display="view_mode:media.embed" data-entity-embed-display-settings="[]" data-entity-type="media" data-entity-uuid="eda67220-06cf-414d-a7f6-2da70fba8117" data-langcode="en" class="embedded-entity"div class="media__image" style="max-width:862px" div class="media__image-wrapper" div div img loading="lazy" decoding="async" fetchpriority="low" src="https://www.usanetwork.com/sites/usablog/files/styles/scale_862/public/2023/03/first-wrestlemania-mr-t-hulk-hogan.jpg" width="862" height="575" alt="Mr. T Wrestles "Rowdy" Roddy Piper While Hulk Hogan Cheers" typeof="foaf:Image" /div /div /div div class="media__metadata" div class="media__metadata-wrapper" span class="media__caption" Hulk Hogan (right) shows enthusiasm as television's Mr. T, his partner in a tag team wrestling match, gets "Rowdy" Roddy Piper up on his shoulders for a slam to the mat during Wrestlemania on March 31, 1985. /span span class="media__credit"Photo: Getty Images /span /div /div /div /div /div pThe first few WrestleManias were primarily broadcast across closed-circuit television, which meant that the WWE Universe couldn't simply watch the historic events from the comfort of their homes. Instead, fans had to travel to special event centers like local theaters and complexes that specifically showed the event. Imagine if fans today could only watch WrestleMania 40 at their local movie theater. It would be a fantastic experience, albeit a little impractical. (To be fair, a few select markets could access the event on pay-per-view, but primarily, WWE counted on closed-circuit television in the early days ofa href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wwe-hall-of-fame-2024-every-inductee-wrestlemania-40" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"WrestleMania/a.)/p p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SlTEUimyLSY?si=049Pf3AX72Pj6VYj" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pOne of thea href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wwe-smackdown-is-coming-to-usa-network-on-fridays-in-2024" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"most significant changes/aWrestleMania has undergone was WWE's decision to move exclusively from closed-circuit television to the pay-per-view model. Almost overnight, the event was accessible to a larger swath of rabid fans, leading to more eyeballs enjoying the product and WWE becoming more popular by the day./p pThere's nothing like enjoying live WWE action from your couch, surrounded by other enthusiastic members of the WWE Universe, perhaps with a delicious cold beverage (or two) in hand!/p div class="listicle-heading" h2span class="title"Targeting Major Sports Stadiums to Host the Event/span/h2 div data-embed-button="media" data-entity-embed-display="view_mode:media.embed" data-entity-embed-display-settings="[]" data-entity-type="media" data-entity-uuid="390e4a61-ff1d-46f8-984f-1f62fc4f9ab7" data-langcode="en" class="embedded-entity"div class="media__image" style="max-width:862px" div class="media__image-wrapper" div div img loading="lazy" decoding="async" fetchpriority="low" src="https://www.usanetwork.com/sites/usablog/files/styles/scale_862/public/2024/02/wwe-wrestlemania2.jpg" width="862" height="575" alt="Wide look at the packed stadium during Wrestlemania 40" typeof="foaf:Image" /div /div /div div class="media__metadata" div class="media__metadata-wrapper" span class="media__caption"/span span class="media__credit"Photo: WWE /span /div /div /div /div /div pThe year 2001 marked an important milestone ina href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wrestlemania-history-who-competed-first-show" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"the history of WrestleMania/a: it was the first time the event took place in a professional football stadium. When WrestleMania 17 came to Texas, the Reliant Astrodome was the perfect venue for kicking off a new era of WWE. Seventy thousand fans packed into the Astrodome – the ideal backdrop for some of the greatest WrestleMania moments in history./p p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r8e_HCf18Hw?si=uD_Bhpn2gFUATMHU" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pSince that fateful night, WWE has targeted major sports stadiums to host the annual event. Gone are the days of WrestleMania taking place in ho-hum basketball arenas designed to hold less than 20,000 people – WrestleMania now commands raucous crowds of 50,000-plus annually, and modern NFL and MLB stadiums are the ideal venues. In many cases, WrestleMania is held in open-air stadiums, creating an even more immersive and unforgettable atmosphere. Who doesn't love a good sunset during a particularly intense match?/p pOf course, holding WrestleMania in humongous, roofless professional sports complexes is tempting fate to a point – the event is constantly threatened by severe weather. Philadelphia isn't the mildest city, weather-wise, so WWE officials are surely crossing their fingers that thea href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wrestlemania-40-wwe-2024-where-when-location-details" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"weather behaves on April 6 and 7/a!/p pWrestleMania 37 Night One was famously delayed by rain in 2021 – a situation the WWE Universe hopes doesn't happen in 2024:/p p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6qaDjElUNxE?si=gx2ndSIh6TirN50w" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div div class="listicle-heading" h2span class="title"Turning WrestleMania into a Two-Night Affair/span/h2 div data-embed-button="media" data-entity-embed-display="view_mode:media.embed" data-entity-embed-display-settings="[]" data-entity-type="media" data-entity-uuid="ce2b8f92-2dc0-482d-8dbb-e15e0f3c3406" data-langcode="en" class="embedded-entity"div class="media__image" style="max-width:862px" div class="media__image-wrapper" div div img loading="lazy" decoding="async" fetchpriority="low" src="https://www.usanetwork.com/sites/usablog/files/styles/scale_862/public/2023/03/wwe-raw-after-wrestlemania.jpg" width="862" height="575" alt="A four-way split image of Cody Rhodes/Roman Reigns/Charlotte Flair/Rhea Ripley" typeof="foaf:Image" /div /div /div div class="media__metadata" div class="media__metadata-wrapper" span class="media__caption"/span span class="media__credit"Photo: WWE /span /div /div /div /div /div pKudos to WWE for realizing what fans have known for decades – one night is just not enough to featurea href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/5-bloodiest-wrestlemania-matches-wwe" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"all the matches and drama/aWrestleMania should feature on an annual basis!/p p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LLgho7rNaeY?si=IIf8QHDywFuNgC_G" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pThe 2020 edition of WrestleMania posed a logistical challenge for WWE officials. With the whole world essentially in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a WrestleMania without fans in attendance didn't seememepic/emenough for the WWE Universe. To make up for the lack of fans and general atmosphere, WWE came up with the idea to stretch out WrestleMania 36 to two nights of action instead of the traditional one evening./p pIt was a risk; would fans buy into two consecutive nights of WWE action? Would the match quality suffer as a result? WWE took a major chance, effectively changing how WrestleMania was presented to the world./p pTo say it paid off is an understatement./p pDue to the event's overwhelming success,a href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/main-event-match-wrestlemania-history" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"WrestleMania/aofficially became a two-night affair from that point onward. The WWE Universe now looks forward to morea href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wrestlemania-history-the-most-heartbreaking-losses" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"unforgettable WrestleMania moments/athan ever before. If there's one thing we can say about how the pandemic changed our lives for the better, it's how WrestleMania is presented in the modern day./p div class="listicle-heading" h2span class="title"The Pivot From Pay-Per-View to a Streaming Model/span/h2 div caption="The WrestleMania ring" data-embed-button="media" data-entity-embed-display="view_mode:media.embed" data-entity-embed-display-settings="[]" data-entity-type="media" data-entity-uuid="cb70d825-1262-4664-bee8-8b500b21a3eb" data-langcode="en" class="embedded-entity"div class="media__image" style="max-width:862px" div class="media__image-wrapper" div div img loading="lazy" decoding="async" fetchpriority="low" src="https://www.usanetwork.com/sites/usablog/files/styles/scale_862/public/2023/08/wwe-wrestlemania-presale2.jpg" width="862" height="575" alt="Drew McIntyre on. the top of the rope holding a belt while a large Wrestlemania logo can be seen behind him" typeof="foaf:Image" /div /div /div div class="media__metadata" div class="media__metadata-wrapper" span class="media__caption" pThe WrestleMania ring/p /span span class="media__credit"Photo: WWE /span /div /div /div /div /div pWe can't stress how significant WWE's move from pay-per-view to streaming was. When the WWE Network was introduced in 2014, it changedemeverything/em. Suddenly, the WWE Universe could watch – live, mind you – Premium Live Events, usually reserved for pay-per-view for free via an inexpensive monthly streaming subscription./p pFor the first time, WrestleMania would be ostensiblyemfree/emfor millions of fans. That's a far cry from the $50-plus rate WWE would charge fans to watch via pay-per-view, and conventional wisdom suggests it opened the door for countless people toa href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/how-to-make-a-wwe-fan-watch-royal-rumble" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"get hooked on WWE/adue to the inexpensive barrier to entry. In hindsight, it was a genius change.emMake WrestleMania affordable for all/em. Imagine that./p p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Lys0CCm0fc?si=8SnIID9YXe-D19QC" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pIn 2024,a href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/how-to-watch-wrestlemania-40" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"watching WrestleMania/ais more affordable than ever, thanks to all WWE Premium Live Events being broadcast ona href="https://www.peacocktv.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"Peacock/a! For only $4.99 a month, fans can witness the biggest WrestleMania of all time on April 6 and 7, in addition to countless hit shows, movies, and other special events. It's incredible how quickly we forgot about the WWE Network when Peacock came into the lives of countless wrestling fans!/p div class="listicle-heading" h2span class="title"The Decision to Feature "Part-Time" WWE Superstars/span/h2 div data-embed-button="media" data-entity-embed-display="view_mode:media.embed" data-entity-embed-display-settings="[]" data-entity-type="media" data-entity-uuid="f4529f3b-2586-4ecc-bbb8-348a84dfd7cb" data-langcode="en" class="embedded-entity"div class="media__image" style="max-width:862px" div class="media__image-wrapper" div div img loading="lazy" decoding="async" fetchpriority="low" src="https://www.usanetwork.com/sites/usablog/files/styles/scale_862/public/2024/01/wwe-the-rock-roman-reigns5.jpg" width="862" height="575" alt="The Rock returned to RAW on New Year's Day 2024" typeof="foaf:Image" /div /div /div div class="media__metadata" div class="media__metadata-wrapper" span class="media__caption" The Rock returned to RAW on New Year's Day 2024 /span span class="media__credit"Photo: WWE /span /div /div /div /div /div pYour future is only as solid as the foundation you've built over the years, and WWE has made a conscious effort in the last decade to embrace its past – especially during WrestleMania season!/p div data-embed-button="related_content" data-entity-embed-display="view_mode:node.embed" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="ed818c2d-6789-4963-9cd3-d28a9abdd79a" data-langcode="en" data-entity-embed-display-settings="[]" class="embedded-entity"h2 class="headline" a class="embed-in-feed" href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/wrestlemania-history-the-most-heartbreaking-losses" These Are the Most Heartbreaking Losses in WrestleMania History /a /h2 /div pThe decision to feature WWE Superstars from the past – as well as the men and women currently tearing it up on Raw, SmackDown, and NXT – has been controversial, but it's paid off in a big way. Thanks to this initiative, the WWE Universe has seen beloved Superstars likea href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/dave-bautista-mental-health-struggles-wwe-career" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"Dave Bautista/a,a href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/stone-cold-steve-austin-feud-kevin-owens-timeline" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"Stone Cold Steve Austin/a, and The Rock step back into the world of sports entertainment and become involved in some of the hottest storylines in WWE./p p/pdiv class="embed-code-other embed-code-youtube"iframe loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" src="about:blank" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r4GsnL6rj14?si=dPZNkGQCtWfWIZnb" class="optanon-category-13" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 560 / 315;"/iframe/div pThis conscious decision to feature "part-timers" comes to a head at WrestleMania 40, which willa href="https://www.usanetwork.com/usa-insider/the-rock-cody-rhodes-roman-reigns-drama-explained" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"see The Rock prominently involved/ain the evening's main events. We don't know what will transpire in Philadelphia, but we do know that absolutely anything is possible when The Rock is around!/p pemYou can tune in to/ema href="https://www.peacocktv.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"emPeacock/em/aemto watch WrestleMania on April 6 and 7. In the meantime, catch up on all things WWE Universe on/ema href="https://www.peacocktv.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"emPeacock/em/aem./em/p