Road to WrestleMania Tournament

:Road to WrestleMania redirects here. Road to WrestleMania might also refer to the video game WWF Road to WrestleMania.

The Road to WrestleMania Tournament is a professional wrestling tournament hosted by World Wrestling Entertainment to determine a number one contender for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania.

The tournament so far has been held twice, once from the brand in 2005 and one from RAW brand in 2006. Both tournaments were held as a reaction to the Royal Rumble winner being of a different brand (RAW's Batista in 2005 and SmackDown!'s Rey Mysterio in 2006).

It is noted that the Royal Rumble winner, who so far has been from the other brand, could use a contract "loophole" to switch brands and challenge the WWE Champion. In the case of the 2005 tournament, general manager Theodore Long mentioned that that if that was the case, the match would be a Triple Threat match between the champion, the Royal Rumble winner and the tournament winner. The case was never mentioned in the 2006 tournament.

In both tournaments there was a match that was fought to a double count-out. In the 2005 tournament, Kurt Angle received a bye and went straight to No Way Out, ultimately losing in the end. However, when in the 2006 tournament The Big Show and Triple H were both counted-out in their semi-final match, interim general manager Vince McMahon decided to place them both in the finals in a Triple Threat match against the winner of the semi-final between Rob Van Dam and Chris Masters.

Also, the 2006 tournament was the first tournament to feature a superstar being replaced. Shawn Michaels was replaced by Shelton Benjamin when Vince McMahon announced that Michaels would retire on the next edition of RAW and that his "retirement party" would be mandatory. Ultimately Benjamin lost to the Big Show.

For 2007, there wasn't a tournament to determine the #1 contender for the WWE Championship (The Royal Rumble winner The Undertaker decided to face World Heavyweight Champion Batista). Instead, there was a triple threat match on the February 5 edition of RAW between Shawn Michaels, Edge and Randy Orton to determine the #1 contender. Shawn Michaels won the match.

2005

2006

Shelton Benjamin replaced Shawn Michaels, by order of Vince McMahon.

Both men were allowed to qualify for the final, by order of Vince McMahon.

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