WrestleMania is a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the promotion World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), formerly known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). The events feature wrestlers from the promotion's roster competing in a variety of professional wrestling match types, performances with pre-determined outcomes between wrestlers with fictional personalities that are portrayed as real for the entertainment of the audience. The WrestleMania franchise debuted in 1985 with WrestleMania I, and has been produced annually since then. WrestleMania XXVIII is the most recent production.
Aside from professional wrestling performances, celebrity involvement has been a major key in the production of WrestleMania events. WWE involves celebrities in the WrestleMania events to gain more hype and media attention for the event, in this way receiving more attraction to the event, pay-per-view buys, and ticket sales. The celebrities involved with WrestleMania events have come from a range of occupations, including singing, acting, professional boxing, and modeling, and usually appear in non-wrestling roles, such as singing, promoting a subject, or managing wrestlers at ringside. There have been exceptions, however, in which celebrities have had a professional wrestling role.
One of the first celebrities to appear at the first WrestleMania was Mr. T, who wrestled in the main event in a tag team match with Hulk Hogan. Aretha Franklin appeared at the third WrestleMania and sang a rendition of "America the Beautiful." Franklin appeared 20 years later at WrestleMania 23 and sang another rendition of the same song. At times, WWE has inducted celebrities into their Hall of Fame. For example, Chicago Bears defensive lineman William Perry wrestled in a match that involved other NFL football players, and he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a "Celebrity Inductee" in 2006. Another celebrity was Mike Tyson, who appeared at WrestleMania XIV and was originally planned to enforce the ringside area, although he was involved in a physical altercation with Shawn Michaels (Michael Hickenbottom). Pete Rose has made the most celebrity appearances at WrestleMania, with four overall appearances. Overall, there have been 99 celebrities involved at WrestleMania: 32 athletes, 29 musicians, 19 actors, and 20 others from different backgrounds.
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, celebrities, involved, wrestle and/or mania:
“Love’s boat has been shattered against the life of everyday. You and I are quits, and it’s useless to draw up a list of mutual hurts, sorrows, and pains.”
—Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930)
“Weigh what loss your honor may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmastered importunity.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Passengers in 1937 totaled 270,000; so many of these were celebrities that two Newark newspapers ran special airport columns.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“Two months dead, I wrestle with your name
Whose separate letters make a paltry sum
That is not you.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)