Wrestlemania Experience

Hey Scott, been a big fan for a long time. I live 2 miles from the Meadowlands, so figured going to one of the Axxess events and WrestleMania was too good to pass up, and figured I’d give you some info on what went down. I went to the Saturday 1:00 Axxess event at the Izod Center, and got VIP tickets for a Randy Orton meet and greet (I’m an Orton mark, sue me). We got there and took a walk around the concourse and they had some cool exhibits – a bunch of title belts on display, an opportunity to climp the Money in the Bank ladder with a cardboard cutout Dolph Ziggler, HHH was the first VIP signee from 1-2:30, so we waited in the crowd and they interviewed Jerry Lawler and watched some matches (mostly NXT wrestlers and divas) until it was time to line up to meet Orton at 2:30. When it was time to meet Orton, he signed an 8×10, shook his head, said hello and good luck, and got a pic with him. He was friendly enough and showed genuine appreciation (at least as much as you can while signing autographs for 300 people).
Afterwards we got a tour of Raw behind the scenes, and Sgt Slaughter was there to greet us on the set of where they normally interview people. He was friendly and was actually talking to a US army member in front of us, which was pretty cool. We got to see Vince’s actual office, the “office” backstage area that they use to film backstage segments, the men’s locker room, seamstress room, and makeup room. At the end we got to visit the gorilla position and got to take a picture on and walk down the Raw ramp (they set up a lot of stuff since Raw is taking place there on Monday anyway). There was about an hour left, which included more matches, and then CM Punk and Paul Heyman came out (dressed in suits, obviously on their way to the Hall of Fame right when this was finished). They talked some smack to some girl on some guy’s shoulders giving them the finger, and kept referencing to her during their 15-20 minutes out there. It was your basic Q & A session, but you can tell they really enjoyed it. The afternoon ended with a Heath Slater VS R-Truth match. The next day was Wrestlemania. We got to our seats around 5:30, with the pre-show starting at 6. Right away there was a large “Cena sucks” chant. Our seats were in section 233, which wasn’t bad, except one of the giant pillars holding up the Statue of Liberty above the ring was directly in my line of sight of the middle of the ring, so I found myself looking up at the video screen a majority of the night. $240 to watch on a giant video screen! Pre-show was pretty boring, until the IC title match, which was also pretty boring, but at least it was a match. The opening was pretty strange with no “America The Beautiful”, and the 6 man tag match started things off. Sheamus got a decent pop, Orton’s pop was one of the biggest of the night, and The Shield winning also got a pretty big reaction. Ryback/Henry was whatever. Bryan got probably the biggest pop of the night after the match doing his “YES!” chant. Jericho got a big pop, Fandango got a bunch of “you can’t wrestle” chants until the match actually started. Next was P. Diddy and everyone in my section was booing him hard. The biggest reaction during Del Rio/Swagger was a loud “We want Ziggler!” chant. Otherwise, the match was pretty heatless. When Del Rio detained and we realized Ziggler wasn’t cashing in, there was booing. We had heard a rumor that Living Colour was going to be playing CM Punk down to the ring since they were playing the Irving Plaza the night before, and it was awesome. Punk easily was the most over wrestler the entire night and got the biggest pop based on his entrance. The Undertaker entrance, especially at a Wrestlemania, is awesome to experience live. Easily this was the match of the night, as I knew Taker would win, but they even had me expressing some doubt at the outcome, which is really all you can ask for an Undertaker match at Wrestlemania. HHH vs Brock was HEATLESS. I mean, you could hear a pin drop during the first 15 minutes of that match. Clearly they should have just kept the 8 man mixed tag, even if for a 30 second match, because the crowd was nowhere near ready for this one. Especially since everyone knew HHH would win, there were some loud “boring” chants. The crowd started getting into it a little more once Brock F-5’ed HBK, but otherwise we couldn’t care less about it. The entrances were more interesting than the match. They introduced the Hall of Fame class, and then literally 10 seconds later, Cena’s music hit to massive boos. I was expecting a video package beforehand, but I mean we did get a video package hyping it in between every other match on the card, so at least they did us that favor. Rock came out and was the clear face, at least based on entrances.  The match was great to experience live, and based on that I felt it was better than last year’s match. However, not sure how it played out on TV. Cena won, and once again, boos rained down on Cena. Cena and Rock shook hands to even more boos, and then show’s over.
Overall I had a good time, as Wrestlemania was something I always wanted to experience live. I included some pictures, not sure if you can post them in the blog but if you can, feel free. Just felt I would share my experience being there.