The History and Evolution of the WWE WrestleMania Logo

After previously looking at the history and evolution of the logos for SummerSlam and Royal Rumble, it’s only natural to take a look at WrestleMania next.

No. This is not an April Fool’s joke. There are actually some interesting things to look at when talking about a logo that has only been tweaked over the years, rather than undergoing massive redesigns.

With 37 of these logos to look at, let’s dive right into it with the one that started it all:

This is the foundational logo that has stood the test of time. Elements of it have changed, but the general concept remains the same, with the W and M capitalized and having the bars on the sides with “restle/ania” between. Obviously, things like the WWF logo have been altered and we’d actually even see a different font once in a while.

WrestleMania 2 is a strange logo. It’s the same as the previous year, without the purple background and with a 2 behind it. However, I’ve always been curious why there are 4 lines for the 2, rather than either 2 or 3. To me, it makes more sense to go with 2 just because that’s the number of the event, but 3 would have also worked, as it took place in 3 different markets in a simulcast.

Also strange was how WWE abandoned this numeric style and decided to go with Roman numerals the next year and for a long while going forward:

The first logo, without the purple background, simply had III attached to it. I assume they decided to go with it being on the right rather than behind it like the 2 in WrestleMania 2 because it aligned with the bars of the W and M.

This was repeated with WrestleMania IV and onward for several years, with the next real variant coming with WrestleMania VII and VIII:

Both 7 and 8 (above) have a warp to them with the number underneath. They’re essentially the same as what we’ve seen before, even down to the purple outer glow, but someone found a warp tool on their editing software and decided to give it some flair. Thankfully, they didn’t just emboss everything.

WrestleMania IX goes back to a straight logo, but adds some extra adornments to go with the location of Caesars Palace:

This was the first time of what would become a regular deal with the location having some sort of influence over the logo. We’ll come back to that.

Whoever was fond of the warp function decided to go even crazier with WrestleMania X, giving it an appearance of almost a waving flag. Personally, I like the X behind it, but I’m not at all a fan of the warped text.

WrestleMania XI went for a different sort of effect on the perspective side of things and decided to abandon the more traditional gold and silver color scheme for a straight-up black on top of the purple. Chances are, you don’t remember this logo, or most of this card outside of the main events:

Then, WWE decided to be bold. With WrestleMania XII in Anaheim, they played off the 20th Century Fox logo for a more Hollywood feel. I can’t look at this logo and not have that theme stuck in my head:

WWE abandoned the Roman numerals for WrestleMania 13. While I think XIII would have worked fine, The Undertaker in the main event and the idea of the unlucky number 13 makes sense to me. The branding itself, though, is rather bland, with the generic black 13 above an all-purple logo with some texture to it:

I think 13 could have been much better, but at least it isn’t as strange as 14:

This one is even hard to read. You can’t really tell it’s #14 quite that easily and I can’t think of any inspiration for the cubic nature of it.

At least things are more natural with WrestleMania XV:

It’s nowhere near my favorite logo, but it’s simple and effective. The XV sits well. I’m not big on the M having the part on the left jutting out, nor do I think the metallic effect is great, but it’s a good enough design.

Unfortunately, WWE then decided not to dub the next event “WrestleMania XVI” or “WrestleMania 16”, but “WrestleMania 2000”

Technically speaking, if WWE is “Then, Now and Forever”, then in 1963 years, when the 2000th WrestleMania takes place, they won’t be able to call it WrestleMania 2000 because of this.

Awful. I hate the new font. I hate the 2000. I hate everything about this and I hate that this started a trend of being different for the sake of different.

X-Seven? You couldn’t call it 17 or XVII? The logo itself is fine, albeit a little hard to read with the particular effects they’ve chosen. I actually quite like the placement of the subtitle and the adjustment of the font where the S isn’t wrapped around anymore (although I did like the old R).

The “X-Seven” name is just awful, but it’s not even the worst it gets, as the following year, we got this:

Now, WrestleMania 18 or WrestleMania XVIII is not even X-Eight, but X8 and in a scratchy font. This is terrible and tries way too hard to be cool. It’s my least favorite iteration of any branding for WrestleMania purely because of the X8. The logo is a little easier to read than the previous year, but entirely ruined by not just having XVIII in a more traditional font instead.

WrestleMania 19 was a step in the right direction:

Now that’s better. It is easy to read, the Roman numerals are back, the font is crisp and the colors are nice. I wouldn’t have wanted it to stay like this forever, but I do like this quite a bit.

Even better, in my mind, is WrestleMania 20:

This is rock solid, and not just because it has a more rocky texture. The XX is simple and comes to a jagged point, which, combined with the top part, makes this look like a diamond. That’s fantastic design.

I would like it even better if the WrestleMania part was straight and some of the stroke effects were toned down a bit, but this is one of the absolute best designs in my opinion.

WrestleMania 21 is, unfortunately, one of the worst. We’ve got a rather generic WrestleMania text, but with an unnecessary arch.

The 21 is too much. The 1 is barely a 1 because of how fat it is, so that choice of font is awful. “Goes Hollywood” gets more of a focus than WrestleMania, too. I’m not at all a fan of that one.