WrestleMania is the biggest show on the WWE calendar. Indeed, with 38 years in its history, it’s the longest running annual event for not only the company, but professional wrestling on the whole. To this day, the show continues to play host to historic moment including title changes, career-changing victories, great matches, celebrity appearance, and more. As such, it’s little wonder that WWE makes a big deal out of it when it announces the city WrestleMania is headed to. Fans plan travel around it, and local communities gear up for a huge weekend in which not only WWE, but a cast of smaller promotions take over. But particularly since WrestleMania 35 proved the need for a two-night format, and it has since become the norm, might WWE try splitting WrestleMania between two different cities?

WrestleMania 2 Established The Possibility

WrestleMania 2 was not the best received WrestleMania, and given 36 years have now passed since it went down, it tends to get lost to the sands of time. However, the event did establish an early precedent that WrestleMania could be staged across multiple cities, with different legs of the event happening in Uniondale, New York, Rosmemont, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California.

The second WrestleMania was a technical feat for its time. Shifting between arenas arguably wasn’t worth it in the end for those challenges, and given most fans only got about an hour of live action, after which they watched the rest of ‘Mania on a screen (if they stuck around at all). However, now that WrestleMania has two nights, the idea of splitting them between two different stadium crowds is more feasible. Moreover, having two more legitimately separate nights of WrestleMania would help resolve any lingering questions around whether night one’s main event “counts” as a WrestleMania main event for headlining its own, distinct stadium show, just as it was easier to sell Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper, the WWE vs. NFL battle royal, and Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy each as legitimate main events in 1986.

WWE Has The Chance To Roll The Dice If It Splits WrestleMania Venues

Having two separate WrestleMania cities in the same year would open up some interesting gambles for WWE to partake in. There are those fans who will only travel so far for a WrestleMania, or only attend one in relatively immediate driving distance. Holding two separate nights of WrestleMania in separate cities might then draw two stadiums with fuller attendance, and no need to reduce pricing to offer a discount for buying tickets for both shows.

Related: WrestleMania 38: Why Night One Was Best (& Why Night Two Was Better) There’s also the possibility of experimenting with a less-established market, giving some slightly smaller markets like San Antonio, San Diego, Charlotte, or Denver their first crack at hosing a WrestleMania, and seeing how they pan out, while a more established market has the other night. Moreover, splitting cities could also mean one city gets the SmackDown before ‘Mania, and the other gets the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. One could get an NXT arena event, while the other gets the Raw after WrestleMania, too.

The Limitations Of Splitting WrestleMania Venues

Having WrestleMania occur in two separate cities would necessarily entail some fundamental differences to how WWE operates, and potential limitations. From a bottom line perspective, there are real advantages to concentrating events like SmackDown, the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, an NXT special, and the always eventful Raw after WrestleMania to the same venue for setup purposes, and to not have to worry about building stages and coordinating logistic in two separate large-scale stadiums. Also, creatively speaking, to coordinate travel, and to appropriately advertise for the local markets, it would be important to decide well in advance which night of WrestleMania would get which matches.

While these reasons in and of themselves, probably wouldn't stopping WWE from splitting WrestleMania across two venues, the financially driven factors in particular may be enough for WWE not to entertain the idea.

Should WWE entertain splitting up WrestleMania across two cities in the same year? The true answer probably comes down to practical considerations it’s difficult to know from an outsider’s perspective. Nonetheless, the possibility does produce some intrigue. Twice as many fans may have the opportunity to enjoy WrestleMania in-person in this context. Moreover, as fans who attended SummerSlam live in 2021 reported, it's not out of the question for some die-hard fans to hop a flight between nights of wrestling, as some did to attend CM Punk’s return at AEW Rampage in Chicago before attending WWE’s PPV in Las Vegas. Time will tell if WWE considers this the right option for them.