As we all know, the beginning of April this year marked WrestleMania week and I was one of the lucky 75,000 that actually managed to get to go to the event! Travelling over 4,500 miles I managed to watch some of the best events I have ever been to, and see some of the most shocking events. The lead up to WrestleMania always starts with WWE Axxess, so let’s start there.
WrestleMania Axxess
WrestleMania Axxess is an absolute fantastic interactive fan experience. Fan expos have always been a big deal with professional wrestling, but the Axxess events before WrestleMania are always in another world.
There are numerous activities to participate in, as well as WWE Superstar signings. Since I had already seen most of the activities at WrestleMania 28 in Miami, I decided to mainly shoot for the superstars. Now the thing with this is that while the superstars are advertised, they never tell you which superstar will be when or where. There were two slots available, 6-8pm and 8-10pm. I went on both Thursday and Friday, but just had the standard entry tickets both times. No meeting John Cena or Randy Orton for me.
On the Thursday, after considering which queue to join for ages, I finally jumped into a queue that ended up being for Roman Reigns. Unfortunately, due to time constrictions, I got to the front of the queue and he got replaced by the one and only Brad Maddox. As I was there anyway, I got his signature, although he didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on. Probably disheartened by the droves of people that left to chase after Reigns. After a disappointing start, it ended on a high note, by meeting the Hall of Famer Bob Backlund, who was just fantastic to meet, and very humble, along with meeting Charlotte Flair, Sami Zayn and Cesaro. They were in the NXT section of the Axxess event, and this was the highlight of the evening. The crowd in the queue were really entertaining and Sami and Cesaro were lapping it up, and you could see how much they were enjoying it, compared to the likes of The Shield, who throughout Axxess seemed fairly disinterested with the entire event.
On Friday, I managed to meet Dean Ambrose, who was cool, but as I previously stated, wasn’t in the best of moods, I imagine due to him and the other members of The Shield having less time on the show than the Divas. After that, there was a furore surrounding The Wyatt Family, who were scheduled to be attending the event, but weren’t out for the first batch of signings. I hopped into a queue that had Alexander Rusev in because a lot of us thought that they could be coming to that stand, but WWE blindsided us and put them on a stand which was advertised by Totino’s Pizza Rolls, which hadn’t been getting much love with regards to superstars over the past two days. Everyone who was interested in signings literally sprinted to see them, so the queue was fairly full by the time I managed to get over there. Either way, I managed to meet the Wyatts and Bray and Luke Harper were really cool. Once again, they were loving the attention and adulation from all the fans. Erick Rowan seemed to be a bit quieter and was a bit less amused by everyone who had attended.
Value for money wise, those two tickets cost me $100, but honestly it was money well spent. Meeting the superstars is a fantastic thing to do and most are incredibly nice guys. VIP tickets would have run you $95 per event, and Exclusive VIP would have run you $175! The only three you needed to pay that money for were Batista, Cena and Undertaker. Most sold out online straight away though.
All in all, Axxess is a fantastic part of WWE culture and I would highly recommend anyone that goes to WrestleMania in the future to take part in this.
WrestleMania XXX
I don’t even know where to start with WrestleMania. The entire event was superbly put together from start to finish. The crowd was lively but was by no means a sell out. A few seats dotted around the stadium were left empty, from what I could see even on the lower levels, but obviously, the event had an amazing turnout. The stage looked magnificent. Easily better than the one they had set up for WM28.
Each match individually was well performed and scripted. As the card had less matches than usual, there was a lot more time in each big match to unveil more of a story, as you saw with Daniel Bryan vs. HHH, John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt and the main event featuring Batista, Orton and Bryan.
The opening to the event was of course incredibly over, and what an iconic moment to see Hulk Hogan, The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin all in the ring at the same time. While the segment as a whole didn’t amount to a whole lot, it was just amazing to be in their presence. Also, Hulk calling the Superdome the Silverdome drew tremendous heat from the crowd.
The big shock of the night obviously came when Undertaker lost and the Streak was gone forever. No-one in the arena saw it coming. It was an awe inspiring moment when Brock hit that third F-5, and the entire crowd chanted “…1…….2…….” and then stopped, expecting Taker to kick out. When Chad Patton’s hand landed for the three count, you could have heard a pin drop for a second, before the entire crowd burst out with disbelief and more than a few expletives. Many people there said it would be their last WrestleMania, because it just won’t be the same without the Streak, and I agree that it won’t be the same. Even I thought maybe Undertaker was too injured to kick out, or it would be restarted. Until the Divas came out, many of us in the Superdome thought that something would happen to maintain the Streak, but alas, nothing did.
Those poor Divas. They scrambled a match together through chants for the Undertaker and boos aimed at them with the misguided anger the crowd held for the end of that match.
The main event went as expected, with Bryan finally triumphing over The Authority and Evolution to win the title, against all odds. It obviously sparked the massive YES! chant that WWE was hoping for, but a few people were still less excited by the finish due to the fall of the Streak.
The losers in WrestleMania were obviously The Shield. Of course they got to have a squash match against the New Age Outlaws and Kane, but for all their hard work all year round, they got less than three minutes on the grandest stage of them all.
By the end of the event, almost everyone had even forgotten about SCSA, The Rock and Hogan at the start. Everyone’s minds were on Undertaker and Daniel Bryan.
No doubt one of the best WrestleManias ever held.
Monday Night RAW
As always, only about one in six people from WrestleMania get to go to RAW the next night, so it is reserved for the most passionate of fans. Of course, the post WrestleMania crowd has a reputation to live up to, and of course, we did.
So many chants happened throughout the course of the night. My personal favourite would have to be “John Cena sucks” to the tune of his entrance music. Amazing reaction for Wade Barrett as well, making his in ring return. The YES! chants didn’t die down any time Bryan was in the ring and as you saw on TV, he loved it.
Paul Heyman’s promo regarding the Streak was fantastic. And when Cesaro became his latest guy, the crowd went nuts. That might just be my personal highlight of the night. It was either that or Paige debuting and winning the Diva’s title. I have been a massive Paige fan for a while now, and expected her to make big movements when she did debut, so to see that was fantastic. Regarding Cesaro, the man deserves it so much. Arguably the strongest guy in the WWE, as well as one of the hardest working, he could go as far as he wants this year. The run with Heyman really makes me want to wish for a match where he ends up facing Brock Lesnar. That’d be huge for him.
The action was lively, but there was a lot of talking and adverts from what I felt. Having to see a guy dressed in a cape screaming “Uno Mas!” at somebody to make them eat sour stuff every 15 minutes was quite annoying.
Round Up
The week surrounding the wrestling was fantastic. Saw a few WWE Superstars out and about in town as well. New Orleans is a great city and I have no doubt that it will be added to the WrestleMania cycle.
Regarding the events I did not attend, namely the Hall Of Fame ceremony and WrestleCon, I heard from numerous people that the Hall Of Fame was very well done, but WrestleCon was very unorganised. Also Edge dropped out at the last minute, with no reason given as to why. Another story that I heard is that while most superstars were gracious out in the real world, Fandango (Johnny Curtis) treated fans with absolute disregard. I heard numerous people asked him for autographs in a club and he brushed them off or got in their faces about it. That didn’t happen to me, just people I met.
Now I realise I have not mentioned Ultimate Warrior at all during this article. I felt he deserved more than just a paragraph about an event. I saw Warrior during WrestleMania and RAW obviously, and then again at the airport the next morning after RAW. When I touched down back in London to hear that he had passed away, I was more than shocked. His final promo is something that I consider haunting due to the nature of the circumstances. Ultimate Warrior was a legend and an icon, and he will always be remembered. Rest In Peace Ultimate Warrior!
All in all, for me, I felt that this was the best WrestleMania I could have attended. I have likely seen what is Undertaker’s last match, as well as Ultimate Warrior’s final hoorah with the Hall Of Fame. I feel blessed to have been able to attend, see what I saw and meet the people I met.
Anyone who ever holds any reservations about attending WrestleMania, drop all of those right away. It is far and away the best event I have ever been to and I hold it in such high esteem for the way WWE treats it’s fans. I highly recommend you all attend next year, I know I’m going to try to.
– By Dan Lloyd