The 20 Greatest WWE WrestleMania Moments Since 2000

WWE will present WrestleMania 36 on April 4 and 5, hosted by former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and emanating from the company's Performance Center as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The unprecedented two-night extravaganza is, in itself, another magical moment created by the company on its grandest stage, but it is preceded by two decades of unforgettable memories, matches, Superstars and moments that have helped define The Show of Shows.

In preparation for another event strewn with unforgettable instances, relive these 20 moments that helped wrestling's most prestigious night evolve into an annual Showcase of the Immortals.

At WrestleMania X-Seven, the top three teams in all of wrestling wrote the latest chapter of their story in a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match.

And despite being a five-star classic lauded as one of the greatest in the event's history, there is one moment that stands head and shoulders above everything else.

Late in the match, Edge scaled a ladder and delivered a spear, driving Jeff Hardy 15 feet to the mat below.

The moment popped the crowd in Houston, leaving the fans in awe. Edge sold the spot fantastically well, and it remains in nearly every highlight reel centered on WrestleMania.

Not since Edge defended the World Heavyweight Championship against Alberto Del Rio in 2011 had the top prize on either Raw or SmackDown opened up a WrestleMania.

In 2019, though, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman marched to the squared circle and demanded that The Beast's defense of the Universal Championship get underway immediately so he could get out of East Rutherford, New Jersey, as quickly as possible.

Seth Rollins acquiesced and received a major ass-kicking for his troubles. Before the bell even rang, Lesnar brutalized The Architect around the ringside area, beating him down and looking every bit the dominant competitor he had been up to that point.

The action then moved into the ring, and Rollins caught The Beast Incarnate with a low blow. A series of Stomps followed, and Rollins did the unthinkable by defeating Lesnar in mere minutes.

The Architect swung the universal belt overhead, celebrating the moment as the fans erupted at the unexpected developments right out of the gate. It was an unforgettable moment and another example of Rollins ruining Lesnar's night at The Show of Shows.

For three years, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin waged war against the corruption and megalomania of the evil Mr. McMahon. Their battles for supremacy in WWE powered the company past WCW in the Monday Night Wars and brought unprecedented audiences to the sport.

By 2001, though, Austin's desperation to regain the WWE Championship led him to take drastic action.

Unable to put The Rock away in their much-anticipated main event of that year's Showcase of the Immortals, he joined forces with an interfering McMahon to defeat The Great One. Then, in a moment that brought an end to the Attitude Era as we had known it, Austin shook McMahon's hand.

The incredible sight brought the greatest 'Mania ever to a jaw-dropping end and ignited a decade of change in WWE.

A wrestler's first match is a nerve-wracking experience, and a first match on The Grandest Stage of Them All can be overwhelming. For Ronda Rousey, though, it was an opportunity to prove she could make the leap from MMA to WWE seamlessly.

Teaming with Kurt Angle, she battled Triple H and Stephanie McMahon in what was the most anticipated match of the WrestleMania XXXIV card. Unflinchingly badass, Rousey tossed The Billion Dollar Princess around the ring with judo throws and unloaded on The Game with a flurry of rights and lefts that popped the crowd.

Ultimately, she tapped McMahon out with an armbar and put an exclamation point on her first official match in professional wrestling.

On a night when she had to hit everything with precision, she did just that and set herself up for a rookie year to rival Angle's.

Moments after losing a lackluster main event to Roman Reigns, The Undertaker stood in the center of the squared circle and looked out to the fans in Orlando. He removed his trademark hat, took off his long leather jacket and left both stacked neatly in his place.

From there, The Phenom walked up the ramp and disappeared from the stage.

It looked like one last farewell from one of the greatest characters to set foot inside a wrestling ring. After years of speculation, the company's only remaining outlaw had taken his last ride into the sunset.

As time would tell, it wasn't Undertaker's final match nor his last appearance, which somewhat diminished the effect of the moment. Still, there is no denying the emotion of his departure that night and its place among the best WrestleMania moments of the last two decades.

For Edge, WrestleMania 22 represented the culmination of years of hard work and the opportunity to establish himself a main event singles star.

For Mick Foley, it was a chance to create the WrestleMania moment that had eluded him throughout his Hall of Fame career.

Together, the greats produced a fantastically violent, brutal and disturbing hardcore match that saw Edge's spear to Jeff Hardy from five years earlier and raised it, incorporating fire into the equation.

In the most memorable moment of the night, Edge sprinted across the ring and delivered a spear that drove both him and Foley threw a table engulfed in flames on the arena floor.

The Chicago audience popped, then watched in awe as Edge crawled over and pinned his opponent to secure his most significant win to date. 

Blood pouring into his eye, thumbtacks still embedded in his back, Edge limped out of the AllState Arena in Chicago a made man, while Foley could also revel in the fact that his legacy had been secured.

WWE champion Kurt Angle entered his WrestleMania XIX showdown with Brock Lesnar suffering from a serious neck injury in need of surgical repair.

By the end of their grueling match in the then-SafeCo Field in Seattle, it was The Beast who would be reeling from a head injury, with his place in WrestleMania lore cemented thanks to a botched high-risk maneuver.

With Angle downed courtesy of an F-5, Lesnar looked to the ropes. Moments later, he launched himself off the top with a Shooting Star Press but failed to realize the 1996 Olympic gold medalist was too far across the ring to connect.

Lesnar's head and neck drove into the ground in a spot that would have done considerable damage to a regular athlete. He suffered a concussion but left the event with the top prize in the sport and his first win on wrestling's grandest stage.

One year after delivering what many consider the greatest match of all time, Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker were tasked with replicating it in the main event of WrestleMania XXVI.

This time, though, not only was The Deadman's unbeaten streak at stake, but so was the legendary career of The Heartbreak Kid.

While not up to the level of the year before, the match they crafted was a roller coaster of emotions, with each man desperate to preserve what was most important to them.

Late, when it became obvious he had thrown everything he could at The Phenom but was simply unable to defeat him, a defiant Michaels mocked his opponent, daring to put him down.

The Undertaker did so, ending HBK's career at the show he had become so synonymous with.

It was less the match and more the long walk into retirement that remains etched in the minds of fans, though. Michaels, content with the fate that had befallen him, walked up the WrestleMania ramp, waved goodbye to the fans and took his final bow as a full-time in-ring competitor.

The events that proceeded the conclusion of WrestleMania XX have forever altered its place in wrestling history, but there is no denying the raw emotion of Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero's championship celebration.

Long, arduous roads to the top of the industry brought the competitors to Madison Square Garden for the most important night of their careers.

After successfully defending the WWE Championship against Kurt Angle, Guerrero joined the triumphant new world champion Benoit in the center of the ring for a warm, tearful embrace. Two stars so closely linked, their friendship well-documented, shared what had been an inconceivable moment just 12 months earlier.

Confetti fell from the ceiling, the New York crowd gave thunderous ovations and, for a moment, all was right in the wrestling world. 

WrestleMania 21 may have featured a five-star class between Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle, but it was the rise of Ruthless Aggression and two breakout stars that defined the extravaganza.

John Cena and Batista entered the event with championship aspirations. The former set his sights on John "Bradshaw" Layfield's WWE Championship while Batista eyed up his mentor, Triple H, and the World Heavyweight Championship.

Both rode a freight train of momentum into the event, defeated their established opponents and emerged from Staples Center in Los Angeles with the top prizes in their respective brands.

More importantly, they represented the company's concentrated efforts to introduce fresh faces to the product.

For four years, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Triple H told a story that engrossed fans.

From the five-star classic that started it all, through Michaels' retirement and The Game's attempt to avenge his friend at WrestleMania XXVII, fans hung on every chapter produced by the trio.

It was only fitting that they would be sucked in by the final chapter at WrestleMania XVIII in Miami.

Inside Hell in a Cell, HBK officiated the final confrontation between his best friend and one of his greatest foes. In the process, he would help make the brutal encounter another brilliant piece of storytelling that saw him resist the urge to interfere before finally downing The Phenom with Sweet Chin Music, only to realize even that would not break the spirit of The Deadman.

Like his friend two years earlier, a defiant Triple H mocked his opponent and quickly paid for it on the end of a Tombstone piledriver.

Undertaker won the match, but it was the post-match embrace shared by three of the greatest stars from a bygone era that remains the highlight of the event.

For Kofi Kingston, 11 years of hard work and dedication, frustration and disappointment, manifested itself in a WWE Championship match against Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35. His unexpected rise led to a groundswell of support from fans who wanted desperately to see the beloved babyface capture the top prize in the industry and payoff his journey on the grandest stage known to pro wrestling.

He did just that, overcoming obstacle after obstacle and defeating the tenacious Planet's Champion to emerge with the gold.

Celebrating the win with a tearful Xavier Woods, an exuberant Big E and his children, Kingston was the most popular and buzzed-about Superstar in all of WWE.

And rightfully so.

The greatest match of all time took place at WrestleMania 25 in Houston's Reliant Stadium when The Undertaker defended his undefeated streak against Shawn Michaels in a piece of art fueled by high drama and an audience hanging on every move.

The trading of finishers, the well-timed near-falls and the facial expressions of the performers helped elevate the match beyond a simple battle for supremacy and into the realm of all-time-great live theatre.

The despair and desperation that set in on both men as they tried to put their opponent away only to be amazed when they kicked out at two was captivating.

The jaw-dropping finale, which saw Undertaker catch Michaels mid-flight off a moonsault and deliver his Tombstone piledriver to finally end the threat to his storied win-loss record, was the perfect exclamation point on a match full of "Oh my Gods!" and "You've gotta be kidding mes!" 

On that April night in 2009, two of the greatest to lace a pair of boots saved their absolute best for wrestling's most prestigious night, and the result was a match that will define their careers forever.

A dream match no one ever expected to see headlined WrestleMania XXVIII as The Rock returned home, both to WWE and Miami, to battle the man who took his spot atop the industry years earlier, John Cena.

The real animosity between the two, coupled with some excellent storytelling and expert production pieces, helped make the match feel like a genuine must-see event, not unlike most major boxing fights.

With the audience split, the world tuned in to see a back-and-forth battle for bragging rights that concluded when Cena became too confident and mocked The Great One's People's Elbow. As he hit the ropes, Rock nipped up and delivered a Rock Bottom to earn the win.

A dejected Cena watched from the ramp as Rock celebrated his successful homecoming and fans realized the magnitude of the dream match they had just witnessed on wrestling's grandest stage.

While WWE constantly hypes its most prestigious event as the be-all, end-all in sports entertainment, few matches encapsulate the spectacle quite like this showdown.

Shawn Michaels' idolization of Ric Flair was no secret as WrestleMania XXIV arrived, nor was his desire to preserve the lasting memories of The Nature Boy by putting the legendary figure out to pasture at The Granddaddy of Them All.

HBK intensified his rivalry with a defiant Flair leading into the show, vowing to "Old Yeller" his idol, mentor and friend at the event. The 16-time champion, hellbent on proving he could still go, promised to turn in the greatest performance of his career and kick Michaels' ass.

Accompanied to the ring by the pomp and circumstance befitting a performer of his excellence, Flair gave everything he had left in him, all the way up to some devastating Sweet Chin Music from the Heartbreak Kid.

Sensing the end was near, Flair rose to his feet, his fists raised. Michaels stood in the corner, remorse across his face, and uttered the words, "I'm sorry. I love you," and delivered one last superkick to put an end to Flair's career.

The moment, enhanced by Michaels' theatricality and the very real emotion surrounding it, genuinely left fans in tears.

On a night promoted on the back of Floyd Mayweather and headlined by The Undertaker's return to the main event of a show he was synonymous with, it was the long walk away from the squared circle and into immortality by Flair that stole the show.

For the first time ever, women headlined WrestleMania in 2019.

Raw women's champion Ronda Rousey, SmackDown women's champion Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch battled in a high-stakes, winner-takes-all Triple Threat match at the top of wrestling's most important card.

The historical significance of it all was huge, particularly when you factor in WWE's attempt to crown The Man the top star in the industry at the same time.

Lynch would win the match and stand tall, her place atop WWE established by way of her victory over Rousey.

As she stood in the center of the ring with her two titles held overhead, one could not help but think Lynch's win was as much for women in the sport as it was the culmination of her own personal journey.

When viewed in that light, the moment becomes all the more significant.

The Immortal. The Great One.

WrestleMania X-8 brought with it one of the greatest dream matches in history as Hulk Hogan squared off with The Rock, Icon vs. Icon, in the real main event of wrestling's most prestigious event.

A raucous audience in Toronto's SkyDome watched as two of the most beloved, charismatic and theatrical performers in sports entertainment captivated with a story of epic proportions.

Hogan rose to the occasion, turning in his best and most meaningful performance in years while The Rock proved he had evolved into the greatest showman in the industry.

The younger competitor won the match, but Hogan stole the headlines, basking in the adulation of the fans and sparking a nostalgic comeback that would culminate a month later in a WWE Championship win.

In 1988 and '89, Donald Trump and Vince McMahon came together to co-promote WrestleManias IV and V from Trump Plaza in Atlantic City.

In 2003, Trump's successful The Apprentice reality show brought him and McMahon together again for an enormous WrestleMania 23 main event.

Dubbed "The Battle of the Billionaires," the industry giants put their dignity and hair on the line. With Umaga representing the WWE chairman and Bobby Lashley competing on behalf of the future President of the United States (surreal, huh?), not to mention special referee "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, the stage was set for one of the greatest accomplishments in event-marketing ever.

The match drew what was, at the time, the largest pay-per-view audience as fans tuned in to see which billionaire would have his head shaved in front of a worldwide audience.

The answer? McMahon, who sold the indignity of it all to perfection and appeared utterly humiliated as he limped to the dressing room, still covered in shaving cream.

The moment made worldwide news and provided the event, and McMahon's sports-entertainment empire, with the crossover media attention it so craves.

Since August 2013, Daniel Bryan had seen his quest to become WWE world heavyweight champion stunted by Triple H, Stephanie McMahon and The Authority.

The beloved underdog, backhandedly labeled a "B+ player" by his employers, had been screwed over and beaten down so much that some believed he would simply never get the championship moment they knew he deserved.

That all changed at WrestleMania XXX, a show that became as much about his conquest as anything.

In the night's opening match, Bryan defeated Triple H, overcoming a shoulder injury and interference from The Game's vindictive wife, to do so. Later, in the show-closing bout, Bryan survived a Batista Bomb-RKO combo through an announce table to become champion.

The sight of 70,000+ fans cheering in unison as Bryan hoisted the WWE and world heavyweight title overhead remains one of the last truly great "feel good" moments the company has produced and, furthermore, proof that the WWE Universe does still have a say in what goes on in front of the cameras.

While Money in the Bank was introduced to the WWE Universe at WrestleMania 21 in 2005, it had never been cashed in by a Superstar on wrestling's grandest stage prior to 2015.

It was only fitting, then, that a decade after it made its debut, the coveted briefcase played such an important part in the closing moments of the sport's greatest night.

WrestleMania 31 was headlined by Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar, a match the WWE faithful had little interest in as it was meant to be the coronation of Vince McMahon's latest handpicked star, Reigns. Recognizing this and understanding the need for a full-time heel it could build shows around, McMahon and the creative team threw the audience an unexpected curveball.

Just hours after losing a grueling match to Randy Orton, Seth Rollins rushed the ring, handed over his Money in the Bank briefcase and successfully cashed it in to become WWE champion. The Architect outsmarted Lesnar and former Shield teammate Reigns to stand tall on the WrestleMania stage, bringing that night's show in Santa Clara, California to an end with an exclamation point few saw coming.

To this day, it ranks among the greatest show-closing moments in WWE history.

Even with WrestleMania 36 slated to take place in front of no fans at the WWE Performance Center, there will never be another uneasy silence cast over The Grandaddy of Them All like that in New Orleans when Brock Lesnar pinned The Undertaker's shoulders to the mat and ended his 21-year undefeated streak in 2014.

For so long, WWE had relied on that streak as a storyline crutch that it seemed almost impossible that anyone would conquer it. Hence the shock that fell over the Smoothie King Stadium as The Phenom lay motionless in the center of the ring, with Lesnar wearing a mile-long smile across his face.

Social media and mainstream news outlets picked up on the story and treated it akin to the New England Patriots falling short of the perfect NFL season in 2007. It was a major ordeal and a moment in time that left even the most knowledgeable fans and insiders stunned.