As WWE announced Philadelphia as the venue for WrestleMania 40 on July 27, wrestling fans from the city rejoiced for the return of the high-voltage event to the metropolis. Along with WrestleMania, Philadelphia will also be hosting Friday Night SmackDown, the 2024 WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony and Monday Night Raw at the Wells Fargo Center.

However, memory is still fresh on the minds of WWE fans when their city missed out on hosting the 31st edition of the event in 2015. The 40th edition of the event will also mark the end of a 23 year absence of WWE from the city, as it was in 1999 when WrestleMania last took place in Philadelphia. But, why was the event not organized in the city for two decades? Let’s find out.

Also Read: How Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field landed WWE WrestleMania 40

As mentioned above, Philadelphia came close to hosting the WrestleMania in 2015. However, WWE officials chose Santa Clara in California for the event that year and reports emerged later accusing the city officials of behaving casually with the WWE authorities regarding the event.

“The city of Philadelphia was reportedly very close to landing WWE’s WrestleMania 31 but the main reason they didn’t is because of the way they approached the bidding process. WWE felt like Bay Area officials were more inviting and wanted them to be there. Philadelphia officials approached the situation like they were doing WWE a favor by having WWE in their city,” a report from Pro Wrestling Mania read.

The city also missed out on the 2016 edition of WrestMania, when WWE decided to hold it in Arlington, Texas. However, they were not so casual when bidding for the hosting rights of WrestleMania 40 opened, putting in an early bid to catch attention of the WWE officials.

WWE also confirmed that Philadelphia did not bid to host the event in 2015 or 2016 by issuing a statement later.

“While Philadelphia expressed a great interest in hosting WrestleMania in 2015 and 2016, the fact is the city did not submit a formal proposal because the facilities necessary to host ancillary events weren’t available. Philadelphia remains a strong market for WWE in all aspects of our business,” the statement read.

WrestleMania has generated close to $1.50 billion in cumulative economic impact for host cities in the last 10 years, and it is time Philadelphia experienced it first-hand itself.