WrestleMania 36 was a 2020 two-part professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and streaming event produced by WWE, held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw, SmackDown, and NXT brand divisions. It was the 36th annual WrestleMania and was the first major professional wrestling event to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic that began in mid-March. As a result of the pandemic, the event was filmed on March 25 and 26, 2020, at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida with no audience and was the first WrestleMania broadcast as a two-night event, airing on Saturday, April 4, and Sunday, April 5, 2020. National Football League (NFL) player Rob Gronkowski served as the host of the event.
The event was originally scheduled to take place solely on April 5, 2020, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida and was to air live. In mid-March, all WWE programming for Raw and SmackDown was relocated to the Performance Center training facility with no audience and only essential staff present due to the pandemic, which made WrestleMania 36 the only edition of WrestleMania to be held without a live crowd and to air on tape delay. Taking advantage of the format, two cinematic matches—a "Boneyard match" and a "Firefly Fun House match"—were filmed offsite in an atypical, cinematic style. In June, Florida lifted restrictions on paid spectator attendance at sporting events, but to a limited venue capacity, with the next year's WrestleMania 37 moved to Raymond James Stadium, which adopted much of the buccaneer-themed marketing originally used for WrestleMania 36, including a similar logo. After WrestleMania 37 was held with a limited venue capacity, WWE resumed live touring with full capacity crowds that July.
The change to a two-night broadcast became permanent, with the format also expanding to SummerSlam beginning with its 2025 installment. On pay-per-view, the two productions were sold as individual shows, with both available as a package deal. This would also be the final WrestleMania to livestream on the American version of the WWE Network, which merged under Peacock in April 2021. This was also the first and only WrestleMania to promote the NXT brand, after it became recognized as one of WWE's three main brands in October 2019. Following WrestleMania 36, however, the NXT roster was largely kept separate from Raw and SmackDown's due to concerns over the pandemic with NXT's events held at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida. NXT then moved to the Performance Center in October, as Raw and SmackDown had moved to a bio-secure bubble called the WWE ThunderDome, before NXT reverted to being the company's developmental brand in September 2021.
The card comprised 18 matches which were divided between the two nights, including one match on each night's Kickoff pre-show and a dark match on the second night. In the main event for Part 1, The Undertaker, partly returning to his "American Bad Ass" character for the first time in over 16 years, defeated AJ Styles in a Boneyard match, which was ultimately Undertaker's final match. In the penultimate match, Braun Strowman defeated Goldberg to win SmackDown's Universal Championship. Strowman was a replacement for Roman Reigns, who pulled out of the event amid concerns surrounding the pandemic, and this would also be Goldberg's last WrestleMania match before his retirement in 2025. In other prominent matches, Becky Lynch defeated Shayna Baszler to retain the Raw Women's Championship, John Morrison defeated Kofi Kingston and Jimmy Uso in a triple threat ladder match to retain the SmackDown Tag Team Championship for himself and his absent partner, The Miz, and Kevin Owens defeated Seth Rollins in a No Disqualification match. In the main event for Part 2, Drew McIntyre defeated Brock Lesnar to win Raw's WWE Championship, after which an impromptu dark match occurred in which McIntyre retained the title against Big Show, which was shown on the April 6 episode of Raw. In the penultimate match, "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt defeated John Cena in a Firefly Fun House match. In other prominent matches, Edge defeated Randy Orton in a Last Man Standing match, which was Edge's first singles match since April 2011, and in the opening bout, Charlotte Flair defeated Rhea Ripley to win the NXT Women's Championship for a second time, which was the first and only time that an NXT championship was defended at a WrestleMania.
The event was generally well-received by critics and fans, largely praised for its creativity in adapting to the pandemic. The Boneyard and Firefly Fun House matches were met with high praise for their uniqueness and cinematic approach, while the SmackDown Tag Team Championship match, Owens vs. Rollins, and the NXT Women's Championship match also received favorable reviews. Criticism was directed mainly towards both the WWE Championship and Universal Championship matches for being too short and repetitive, and Edge vs. Orton for being too long.
Production
Background WrestleMania is WWE's flagship professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event, having first been held in 1985. It was the company's first pay-per-view produced and was also WWE's first major event available via livestreaming when the company launched the WWE Network in February 2014. It is the longest-running professional wrestling event in history and is held annually between mid-March to mid-April. It was the first of WWE's original four PPVs, which includes Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, referred to as the "Big Four". WrestleMania was ranked the sixth most valuable sports brand in the world by Forbes in 2017, and has been described as the Super Bowl of sports entertainment. Much like the Super Bowl, cities bid for the right to host the year's edition of WrestleMania.
WrestleMania 36 was the fourth WrestleMania to be held in the U.S. state of Florida, after WrestleMania XXIV in 2008, WrestleMania XXVIII in 2012, and WrestleMania 33 in 2017. The event featured wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brand divisions, as well as NXT—although some NXT wrestlers had appeared in WrestleMania's previously annual battles royal, this was the first WrestleMania to promote the brand, following NXT becoming one of WWE's three major brands in September 2019. National Football League (NFL) player Rob Gronkowski, who had recently signed with WWE, was announced as the host of WrestleMania 36. Gronkowski last appeared for WWE during the WrestleMania 33 Kickoff pre-show. "Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd was the official theme song for the event.
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
Announced on March 7, 2019, the event was originally scheduled to take place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida on April 5, 2020, and was to air live. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, other wrestling promotions began to cancel or postpone their shows in an attempt to prevent further spreading of the COVID-19 virus. This became true after the National Basketball Association (NBA) suspended its season after two of its players tested positive for COVID-19 which caused a massive ripple effect, effectively shutting down the vast majority of the sports world within five days. In speaking with the Tampa Bay Times regarding how this outbreak could affect WrestleMania 36, WWE's Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon said "The health and safety of not only our fan base, but also our superstars, really does come first ... We don't want to put anyone in a bad situation ever, regardless of the circumstance. Those are not risks worth taking". WWE's Executive Vice President of Special Events John Saboor further noted that they were constantly monitoring global events. A meeting was held by Tampa officials on March 12 to determine the fate of WrestleMania 36; it was decided that the event would still proceed as planned, barring that the situation did not worsen in a week's time. Hillsborough County Commissioner Les Miller further stated that if the situation was not any better by the following week, they would "pull the plug" on WrestleMania 36 if WWE did not do it themselves. WWE then stated that there was a contingency plan ready in case the event was canceled.
On March 16, WWE announced that the event would be held at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida with only essential personnel in attendance, as with all other WWE weekly programs during the pandemic. WWE then announced that WrestleMania 36 would be split into a two-night event, on April 4 and 5. The re-location effectively made it the third WrestleMania to be held in the city of Orlando, behind XXIV and 33. Many viewers also saw this expansion to two nights as WWE taking an idea from New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), which held its Wrestle Kingdom 14 event on January 4 and 5 earlier in the year. Marketing of the event subsequently emphasized the change in format, with the new tagline "Too Big for Just One Night". WWE also produced a commemorative shirt reading "I Wasn't There", a spoof of their "I Was There" shirts of previous WrestleManias.
It was then reported by PWInsider that WWE were pre-recording several episodes of their weekly programs (with the exception of the live broadcast of the March 23 episode of Monday Night Raw) for future broadcasts, as well as WrestleMania itself, between March 21–26, marking the first WrestleMania to be pre-recorded rather than live. WrestleMania's tapings at the Performance Center were held between March 25 and 26. It was reported that WWE had filmed post-WrestleMania episodes of Raw and NXT after production wrapped on WrestleMania, before taking a two-week break.
In an interview with TV Guide, WWE's Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy & Development and part-time wrestler Paul "Triple H" Levesque explained that the "unique" pre-recorded nature of the event gave them the opportunity to experiment with new production elements and settings (as opposed to being confined to the ring), such as the "Boneyard" and "Firefly Fun House" matches, which were done as cinematic matches. The Boneyard match was filmed at a custom-built set on location in the Orlando area (about a 40-minute drive away from the Performance Center), while the Firefly Fun House match segments were all taped at WWE's then-headquarters, Titan Towers in Stamford, Connecticut, using props and set pieces from their storage facility. In lieu of a live performance of "America the Beautiful" to open the show as per tradition, a montage of performances of the song from past editions of WrestleMania was shown instead.
Changes in participation The card underwent changes due to injuries and issues that arose related to the ongoing pandemic. Triple H confirmed that due to the circumstances, nothing would be held against any of the wrestlers who missed the event. He also stated that all of the talent competing were there in a voluntary capacity. However, this had already been planned before the changes in format and location brought about from the pandemic.