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Without a shadow of a doubt, WrestleMania is WWE's biggest show of the year.
It is a celebration of a year's worth of wrestling that showcases WWE's best. From its epic storylines to its larger-than-life production value, WrestleMania truly is the Grandest Stage of Them All. The spectacle of the event is unmatched in all of wrestling, but it's not a perfect show.
WWE has held some truly classic editions of the Show of Shows in the past, with WrestleManias 17 and 19 instantly coming to mind. The last one to truly fit that description might be WrestleMania 31, which took place in 2015. WWE has not hit those heights with recent 'Manias, although some of them came close.
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The company does tend to make a few booking errors at WrestleMania, and some of these mistakes are much more prominent than others. The consequences of these errors have varied over the years. Some of them affected the entire event while others did not factor too much into the fans' overall enjoyment of that year's show.
Here are five big mistakes WWE made at each of the past five WrestleManias.
#5 WrestleMania 32: WWE mishandled Roman Reigns' win
WrestleMania 32 was supposed to be one of the greatest shows in WWE history. The company had grand plans for the event, which was set to take place in front of a record-breaking crowd at AT&T Stadium. However, several top stars got injured, and they subsequently missed WrestleMania.
Without key main event stars like John Cena and Seth Rollins, WWE stumbled into a predictable headliner for WrestleMania 32 between Triple H and Roman Reigns. The storyline was telegraphed in its entirety once it was announced that Reigns would defend his WWE Championship in the 2016 Royal Rumble Match.
Triple H made a "surprise" return one month after The Big Dog savagely attacked him. The Game won the Royal Rumble and claimed the WWE Championship in the process. Reigns then challenged The King of Kinga at WrestleMania 32, but the fans were completely against the former champion at the time.
WWE didn't even have a crutch to fall back on, like Rollins and the Money in the Bank briefcase at WrestleMania 31. Instead, Reigns and Triple H put on a 25-minute snoozefest that ended exactly the way everybody had feared. The show concluded with a standard babyface victory for Reigns that motivated 100,000 fans to boo him relentlessly.
This development was the result of WWE's failure to repair Reigns' damaged reputation after WrestleMania 31. Other top bouts like Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon and Brock Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose weren't great, either. But the main event of WrestleMania 32 left a very sour taste in the fans' mouths.
#4 WrestleMania 33: Randy Orton's WWE Championship win was forgettable
Unlike the previous year's main event, Bray Wyatt vs. Randy Orton was an exciting prospect as the WWE Championship match at WrestleMania 33. Their storyline had plenty of time and effort put into it, with Orton famously infiltrating The Wyatt Family and destroying it from within.
But at WrestleMania, everything fell apart. Instead of a violent brawl, Orton and Wyatt put on a dull affair that wasn't worthy of the Showcase of the Immortals at all. It should have been a brutal fight, given after personal The Viper made the feud when he burned Wyatt's house down.
The in-ring action wasn't the only issue with this match, as the creative surrounding the match proved to be detrimental, too.
WWE projected videos of moving insects on the ring canvas whenever Wyatt did his spider walk. They were creepy, so this effect could have worked, but none of it mattered in the end.
Orton simply put Wyatt down with an RKO. This loss was the most damaging defeat of Wyatt's entire WWE career, and it ended his first world title run with a whimper.
WWE should have ended this fantastic story with a bang, either a double turn or with Wyatt stepping up as a main event star. Neither of those outcomes happened, and as a result, the WWE Championship match remains the least memorable part of WrestleMania 33. Hopefully, The Fiend can right this wrong at WrestleMania 37.
#3 WrestleMania 34: A 10-year-old child won the RAW Tag Team Championship
WrestleMania 34 started off brilliantly, and it was so close to being an all-time great event. Show-stealing performances from Seth Rollins, Charlotte Flair, and Ronda Rousey were coupled with in-ring returns for The Undertaker and Daniel Bryan. But the final hour of the event let the fans down in a big way.
The much-anticipated showdown between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura went on for too long in front of a tired crowd. The fans woke up for the main event between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, but they simply chanted insulting things and completely derailed the match.
Lesnar winning might have been the right result at WrestleMania 34, simply because the fans were all expecting Reigns to win the Universal Championship. But between the two world title matches, WWE made a decision that will go down in history for the wrong reasons.
The company booked a 10-year-old boy named Nicholas to become a Tag Team Champion.
The Bar defended the RAW Tag Team Titles against Braun Strowman and a mystery partner - the aforementioned 10-year-old boy. Aside from the novelty of this match, putting a serious title on a child at WrestleMania was a huge mistake. This moment instantly devalued the RAW Tag Team Championship.
This outcome was also a major disappointment, as WWE had previously hyped up a big reveal for 'Mania. Strowman, who was red-hot at the time, should have been put in a much more prominent spot at the event. He could have been involved in the match with Lesnar and Reigns.
Instead, Strowman was paired with a novelty act, so WrestleMania 34 suffered as a whole.
#2 WrestleMania 35: Kurt Angle's retirement match was a huge disappointment
WrestleMania 35 was another good edition of the Show of Shows, but there were a couple of issues with it. The main problem was its excesssive length, but that shortcoming has also affected the other WrestleManias on this list. Still, WWE did fairly well from a booking standpoint at the event.
Seth Rollins, Kofi Kingston, and Becky Lynch all won the top titles in WWE at WrestleMania 35.. The botched pinfall at the end of the women's triple threat does not deserve to be on this list, as it wasn't a booking error. But the one glaring creative mistake at MetLife Stadium that night was Kurt Angle's lifeless Retirement Match.
The legendary star faced Baron Corbin in his last match, and the future King of the Ring winner was an underwhelming choice to end Angle's career. The WWE Hall of Famer himself stated that he wanted to wrestle John Cena in his farewell match at WrestleMania. But Vince McMahon turned him down in favor of the blowoff to his long feud with Corbin.
The fact that the match happened toward the end of the show further detracted from what should have been a memorable moment for the Olympic gold medalist. The former WWE Champion lost to Corbin in around six minutes in front of an apathetic crowd. As a result, Angle's historic career ended in the most disappointing way possible.
A match between Angle and Cena would have further stacked an already loaded card, and WrestleMania 35 would have been much better for it.
#1 WrestleMania 36: Charlotte Flair should not have won the NXT Women's Championship from Rhea Ripley
It is difficult to truly criticize WWE for WrestleMania 36, considering the company did the best it could at the beginning of the pandemic era. WWE pulled off a great show without live fans, as the event was filled with great wrestling, big moments, and two amazing cinematic matches.
Still, there were a few creative issues with last year's WrestleMania, like the unnecessary addition of some matches to fill both nights. WWE was hamstrung by the absence of several top stars, such as Roman Reigns.
But the most high-profile booking error from the Performance Center showcase was one that wasn't fully clear until the subsequent weeks and months played out. Charlotte Flair defeating Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women's Championship concerned some fans at the time, but there was a real upside to this outcome.
The Queen could have used her star power to elevate NXT and give it a boost in the ratings. But nobody truly benefitted from Flair's time there because WWE decided to use her on RAW and SmackDown, too. She was overexposed across all three brands during her time as NXT Women's Champion.
Charlotte Flair didn't even put anyone over on her way out of NXT because she dropped her title in a triple threat where she wasn't pinned. This entire ordeal damaged Rhea Ripley as a character, too.
So with the benefit of hindsight, Flair's victory over Ripley was clarly WWE's biggest booking error from WrestleMania 36.
What other mistakes do you think WWE has made at the past five WrestleManias? Sound off in the comments below.
