WrestleMania unequivocally marks the biggest event in wrestling each year and, as such, winning a world championship at the show is one of the greatest feats a pro wrestler can aspire to.
It's a strange thing to think about someone who is going to achieve that feat losing his last match before the big win, let alone losing that match at the very same WrestleMania. Believe it or not, that phenomenon has occurred five times.
Hulk Hogan
The first man to lose a match at a WrestleMania, then come back in the same event to win a world title was Hulk Hogan, in what was probably the worst received instance of this happening.
WrestleMania 9 saw The Hulkster work his first WWE match in a year teaming with Brutus Beefcake to challenge Money Inc. for the tag titles. The Mega Maniacs went down on a technicality, dropping the bout by disqualification.
The end of the night would live on in infamy as Hogan returned to the ring for an impromptu (and nonsensical) title shot against the newly crowned WWE Champion Yokozuna. Seconds later, Hogan would score the pin to launch arguably his least popular title reign ever.
Bret Hart
Fans wouldn't have to wait long to see someone lose a match then win a world title in their second outing at the same WrestleMania as it happened again the very next year. Bret Hart, whom many felt WWE had done dirty when he dropped the belt only for Hulk Hogan to pick it up and run in 1993, became just the second man to pull off this specific series of events in 1994.
In a shocker, The Hitman dropped a pin to his younger brother Owen in a sensational opening match at WrestleMania 10. A beaten down Hart would rally for his main event, Royal Rumble-earned title match with Yokozuna at the end of the night—a masterstroke of booking to elevate Owen to become a credible number one contender to Bret's new reign in short order.
Seth Rollins
Though it only took one year for the second man to lose one WrestleMania match only to win the world title in his second the same night, it would be over twenty years before it happened again.
WrestleMania 31 saw Seth Rollins put on a show-stealing performance in defeat against Randy Orton early in the event. Little did anyone guess that The Architect would come back to do something even more memorable at the end of the night, using his Money in the Bank briefcase to crash the main event and steal the WWE Championship from Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns, already deep into their title showdown.
Damian Priest
Nine years later, Damian Priest walked into WrestleMania 40 as a tag team champion, but his reign wouldn't survive a six-team Ladder Match on WrestleMania Saturday.
It was a shocker when Señor Money in the Bank came back in the immediate aftermath of the WrestleMania Sunday opener to cash in on a compromised new World Heavyweight Champion, Drew McIntyre, to take the belt off him.
The most shocking factoid of all about Priest going from defeat to triumph at WrestleMania 40? He wasn't the only man to do so that year as another star traveled a deceptively similar road.
Cody Rhodes
Damian Priest lost in a high stakes tag team scenario on Night One of WrestleMania 40, only to win a world title the next evening.
So did Cody Rhodes.
WrestleMania 40 saw an unusual situation as Rhodes teamed with Seth Rollins to battle Roman Reigns and The Rock, with match stipulations for the next night's main event on the line. The Bloodline brethren prevailed Saturday, only for The American Nightmare to get the last laugh on Sunday.
The journey Rhodes underwent in 2024 had lots of parallels to Priest's, but, all considered, it is perhaps even more similar to that of Bret Hart 30 years earlier. Both told the tale of the most popular wrestler in the company enduring real hardship only to come back for perhaps the greatest victory of his career at the end of the night, pinning an Anoa'i family heel world champion, and parading around the ring on the shoulders of fellow babyfaces to close out the night.
