Ranking every WWE WrestleMania of all time: Where each of the 42 events lands after latest edition

The massive spectacle has been entertaining wrestling fans over four decades

Brent Brookhouse

Apr 21, 2026

1:43 pm ET

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30 min read

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Since 1985, WrestleMania has been the premier event in professional wrestling. Every year, WWE swings for the fences with events that feature top stars, and often, stars from outside the world of wrestling.

With decades of WrestleMania history, there are obvious highs and lows in terms of event quality. Some events also provide a higher quality of "WrestleMania Moments," or events that define not only the event itself but the careers of the men and women who take part.

Recent years have seen how wildly the event can swing from fantastic to below average. WrestleMania XL in 2024 was as good as the biggest wrestling show on Earth can get, but the following year's WrestleMania 41 was a major backslide with a poorly constructed event and an unsatisfying payoff to the biggest storyline of the year.

This year's WrestleMania 42 proved that the good and the bad can live together in the same event, with Night 1 leaving fans feeling disappointed before Night 2 produced a series of fantastic matches and memorable moments.

How do you rank a two-day event with one down night followed by a fantastic one? That's our job, and we now have placed WrestleMania 42 into our ranking of all WrestleManias ever.

Let's take a look at the rankings to see where WrestleMania 42 landed.

42. WrestleMania IX

Match worth watching: Shawn Michaels vs. Tatanka

Despite a recent WWE documentary propping WrestleMania IX up as a great and revolutionary event, the card is undisputedly one of the low points in WrestleMania history. The Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez is terrible, Razor Ramon is wasted in a sub-four-minute match with Bob Backlund and Hulk Hogan wins the world title from Yokozuna moments after Yokozuna beat Bret Hart to capture the belt was the promotion giving in to its worst instincts. WrestleMania IX is the worst WrestleMania in history. Even the best match on the card, Shawn Michaels vs. Tatanka, is nothing memorable.

41. WrestleMania IV

Match worth watching: Randy Savage vs. Ted DiBiase

WrestleMania IV gets overlooked too often in conversations about the worst WrestleMania ever, but it really is an abysmal event, and I say that as someone who rented the double VHS regularly as a child. There are no stand-out matches despite a tournament filled with big names, but there are plenty of truly awful matches scattered throughout, such as Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude phoning in a first-round time limit draw that saw more than seven minutes spent in rest holds. Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant were matched up in the quarterfinals one year after their epic WrestleMania III clash just for a double disqualification in less than six minutes. Even Savage vs. DiBiase in the tournament finals doesn't scratch the surface of what those two men were capable of, though it's worth watching simply to see Savage get his moment.

40. WrestleMania II

Matches worth watching: The British Bulldogs vs. The Dream Team, Terry & Hoss Funk vs. Tito Santana & Junkyard Dog, Ricky Steamboat vs. Hercules Hernandez

The second edition of WrestleMania tried to amp everything up, with the event being held in three different cities, which gave the whole experience a very uneven feeling. While there are some solid matches, there are also some truly terrible bouts scattered across the three cities. Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper in a boxing match was terrible and even being held in a steel cage couldn't save the main event between Hulk Hogan and King Kong Bundy from being a titanic disappointment.

39. WrestleMania XV

Matches worth watching: Steve Austin vs. The Rock

This was the first of three WrestleManias headlined by Austin vs. Rock. It was also arguably the worst of their three WrestleMania matches, though still a perfectly good match. Beyond Austin vs. Rock, the only other memorable things from WrestleMania XV are The Undertaker hanging Big Boss Man at the end of their terrible Hell in a Cell match and Brawl for All winner Bart Gunn being brutally knocked out by Butterbean in a boxing match.

38. WrestleMania XI

Matches worth watching: Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel, Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Lawrence Taylor

The problem with this show is not Bigelow vs. Taylor being given the main event slot over the excellent Michaels vs. Diesel title match. That decision made sense given how desperately WWE was looking for anything to get the biggest event of the year any mainstream attention during a real low point for the promotion -- and Taylor did his job well in a pretty entertaining main event. The problem is that, beyond the top two matches, the rest of the card was simply bad. The lows weren't as low as WrestleMania II or IX, so this event ranks slightly higher.

37. WrestleMania XXVII

Matches worth watching: Triple