Dave Meltzer has called WrestleMania 17 the greatest WWE show ever… but his own ratings tell a different story.

Across five decades, Meltzer has evaluated nearly every major wrestling match using his well-known five-star scale. Those ratings have effectively become the sport’s version of a “Rotten Tomatoes score,” shaping how fans, wrestlers, and even companies evaluate quality.

So, what does it say about the history of WrestleMania?

To find out, I analyzed every WrestleMania by averaging Meltzer’s ratings across the entire card. It gives a sense of overall quality of in-ring performance of each show, while largely ignoring the significance or spectacle of it. 

The Best and Worst WrestleManias, According to Dave Meltzer

For this, I averaged every match rating on each WrestleMania card (counting duds as 0). A clear pattern emerges:

Top WrestleManias by Average Meltzer Rating

1. WrestleMania 40 — 3.519 (13 matches)
2. WrestleMania 42 — 3.519 (13 matches)
3. WrestleMania 39 — 3.417 (14 matches)
4. WrestleMania 31 — 3.250 (8 matches)
5. WrestleMania 41 — 3.250 (13 matches)

Worst WrestleManias by Average Meltzer Rating

1. WrestleMania 5 — 0.661 (14 matches)
2. WrestleMania 4 — 0.781 (16 matches)
3. WrestleMania 8 — 0.889 (9 matches)
4. WrestleMania 15 — 1.139 (11 matches)
5. WrestleMania 2 — 1.299 (12 matches)

The biggest takeaways:

• WrestleMania match quality has dramatically improved. Modern WrestleManias dominate the top of the list, early WrestleManias are the bottom. Workrate has clearly gotten stronger, especially on the undercards where scripting has gotten tighter and expectations have been raised.
• WrestleMania 17 is… the 22nd best Mania ever? Ironically, Meltzer himself has said that WrestleMania 17 is the greatest pay-per-view WWE ever produced. And yet by his own match ratings, it stands dead in the middle, dragged down by The APA and Tazz vs. Val Venis, Bull Buchanan, and The Goodfather, Chyna vs. Ivory, and the Gimmick Battle Royal. 
• WrestleMania 19 is the most improved WrestleMania ever. If you are judging it by how much better it is to the shows around it, WrestleMania 19 is the clear winner. It scores sixth all-time, with an average score of 3.056. But it’s head-and-shoulders above the WrestleManias that preceded it—the five previous Manias had an average score rating of 1.706.

The Best and Worst WrestleMania Performers Ever, According to Dave Meltzer

Shows are great, but how about individual wrestlers? For that I looked at every wrestler with at least five WrestleMania matches and calculated their average Meltzer rating, while excluding Battle Royals. The results:

Top WrestleMania Performers by Average Meltzer Rating

1. Sami Zayn — 4.050 (5 matches)
2. Shawn Michaels — 4.018 (14 matches)
3. Kevin Owens — 3.964 (7 matches)
4. CM Punk — 3.917 (9 matches)
5. Rhea Ripley — 3.917 (6 matches)

Worst WrestleMania Performers by Average Meltzer Rating

1. Big Bossman — 0.500 (5 matches)
2. Jake Roberts — 0.656 (8 matches)
3. Hulk Hogan — 1.136 (11 matches)
4. Roddy Piper — 1.150 (5 matches)
5. Trish Stratus — 1.167 (6 matches)

Interesting. But I wanted to go deeper and look at who actually delivered when it mattered most: in the main event. 

For this, I defined “main event” as the final match on each card (or, for two-night WrestleManias, the final match of both nights). I then filtered for wrestlers who had at least three main event opportunities.

Top WrestleMania Main Event Performers by Average Meltzer Rating

1. Shawn Michaels — 4.200 (5 main events)
2. Roman Reigns — 4.083 (9 main events)
3. Brock Lesnar — 3.750 (4 main events)
4. Steve Austin — 3.750 (3 main events)
5. The Rock — 3.708 (6 main events)

Worst WrestleMania Main Event Performers by Average Meltzer Rating

1. Hulk Hogan — 0.607 (7 main events)
2. John Cena — 3.000 (6 main events)
3. Triple H — 3.286 (7 main events)
4. Undertaker — 3.313 (4 main events)
5. Randy Orton — 3.500 (3 main events)

The biggest takeaways:

• Shawn Michaels is clearly Mr. WrestleMania. It’s not even close. Fourteen matches, with an average match rating of over 4-stars, and he was particularly strong in his five main events. Incredible.
• Hulk Hogan is… the worst in-ring WrestleMania performer ever?? His main event score in particular is so much lower than the next-worst in John Cena. Hogan’s negative-4 match rating for the WrestleMania 3 main event tells the whole story: terrible in-ring with a very limited Andre, but it's arguably the most iconic WrestleMania main event ever. Spectacle over substance, brother.
• Undertaker’s performance took off when “The Streak” became a storyline. The Undertaker’s streak became a focal part of his story at WrestleMania 21, when he fought Randy Orton. Up to that point, he was 12-0 at Mania, but with a dismal average match rating of 1.458. From WrestleMania 21 onward, he went 11-2 with a 3.558 average match rating, including seven matches rated 4-stars or higher.

The biggest takeaway: In-ring performance tells a very small part of the story. Case-in-point: does anybody believe that Sheamus vs. Matt Riddle at WrestleMania 37 is a better match than Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock at WrestleMania 18? 

Of course not. But Meltzer gave Sheamus-Riddle a 4-star rating; Rock-Hogan a 3-star rating.

This isn’t just about picking on this rating system, which all told does a decent job of measuring in-ring performance. Instead, it makes the bigger point that wrestling isn’t actually about who wrestles the best. 

It’s about who connects best with the fans. That’s exactly what inspired me to write my book, which judges wrestling through the impact it has on the WWE Universe. 

All that said, curious about your reactions. Is Hogan overrated, as Meltzer’s ratings claim? Is Sami Zayn low-key underrated? Is CM Punk truly the heir apparent to Shawn Michaels’ Mr. WrestleMania throne?

If you guys wanna see more, I have a women and cruiserweight design too.

I think these are his top 4 and good examples of good Seth merch.

This definitely fails the bar test

Seeing as how they didn't wanna go to the WWE show because of the excessive prices, maybe TNA could be worth it for like 35-60 bucks. Lol