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SUNDAY April 5th
It's Wrestlemania Sunday, which means it's the last real day in Wrestlemania city.
We head over to AXXESS, which is packed. I wander around taking photos and putting them up on our social media as the morning goes on. The memorabilia room is just awesome and now features a lifesize statue of Bruno Sammartino. I am guessing this will be annual thing to honor the greats and if and when WWE opens their physical Hall of Fame, these will be awesome pieces for fans to see and take photos with.
The NXT booth is also extremely lively with Adam Rose dancing around and Sami Zayn actually giving out grapes to fans. Of everyone who signed that I observed at AXXESS, the NXT talents seemed to be the happiest and most outgoing (as opposed to reserved and professional).
AXXESS was awesome. I'm glad I took a second trip around.
I get calls that Sting is teasing a Wrestlemania 31 appearance at Wrestlecon. Of course he is. He knows how to play the game.
I am overjoyed to hear that things ran perfectly at Wrestlecon the second day. One of my regrets is not getting back over there.
We return to Mother's for lunch. There was a long line but it's beyond worth the wait.
Then, after a short rest at the hotel it's onto Wrestlemania. I run into the same Elite from Montreal again and chat with him as we head to the Dome. Getting into the venue, which can sometimes be a dicey situation when you are dealing with 75,000 plus fans, was actually really simple and quick...until you entered the Stadium. I don't know if it was the area my seats were in but there seemed to be massive confusion and the the tunnels were bursting with far more people than it was designed to hold. It was pretty much the worst experience I ever had just walking to my seats for an event. I literally get to my seats and decide I am not getting up for the remainder of the evening. It was that bad getting in.
As always, the production is off the charts. The stage is impressive as hell. The MVP's for WWE are, as always, the production team. Before the show, the crowd was really electric and was looking to have a good time. There were some pretty sizable "CM Punk" chants before the show as well. Sorry guys, Punk won't be here.
The Four Way during the pre-show was just great. It started off a little flat as it takes awhile to get used to watching wrestling in such a huge environment where the sound travels up and doesn't hit you right away, but once they got into their groove, the crowd was loving it. Just awesome work from the Real Americans and The Usos. I only wish Goldust and Cody Rhodes had been in the match. Great stuff.
The opening video with Mardis Gras, WWE style was great, especially the footage from old Manias CGI'd in. When we heard Rock was in town and I asked what he was doing, I was told, "something special" which I wrote on the site early Sunday morning. Boy, was it ever. Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin and The Rock pretty much paying tribute to the past of Wrestlemania by being in the ring at the same time for the first time. The crowd was NOT happy about Hulk Hogan saying they were in the Silverdome, but once The Rock and Steve Austin turned it into a running gag, they were enjoying it and it actually made Hogan more likable in a way. I can't even imagine what the hell Dixie Carter was thinking hearing that massive reaction for Hulk.
Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H was off the charts. First of all, I was loving being in the Superdome because that's where the best Ricky Steamboat vs. Ric Flair match took place in 1989. I don't know that we will ever get anything comparable to that match ever again, but if we were, this was going to be the place and the bout as HHH is the biggest Ric Flair fan who ever lived and Daniel Bryan is certainly a babyface that you can compare to Steamboat in a lot of ways. I loved the HHH entrance to death, especially the Tron-inspired laser lights and the huge throne with the hot NXT girls. It was spectacle that enhanced great wrestling, almost like an old school Jim Crockett PPV. The match was booked perfectly as Bryan needed to win clean and he did, but the attack after also enhanced his underdog persona. Perfection.
The Shield vs. New Age Outlaws and Kane was more a passing of the torch squash than anything else. It was about showing that the new generation were legit and here to stay and everyone did their job perfectly.
Cesaro winning the Andre the Giant Battle Royal was another step in showing that the future is now and that scene of him bodyslamming Big Show out of the ring was a brilliant homage of Hogan vs. Andre I thought. This was far better than I expected going in and there were really good spots including the miracle Kofi Kingston save from elimination. If WWE is going to make this an annual feature, I am all for it. This match was a lot of fun. CESARO!!
I really loved the hell out of Bray Wyatt vs. John Cena, although if I had my way. Cena would have lost as well to keep the theme of the new generation going. The match had an interesting reversal. Live, you could hear adults chanting, "Let's go Wyatt" and lots of kids responding, "Wyatt sucks", sort of a reversal of the usual Cena dueling chants. This was in a lot of ways, the best Wyatt showing to date, as he went toe to toe with the top babyface in the company and even more importantly, made him scared of Wyatt. Wyatt's entrance was off the charts, by the way.
During the WWE Hall of Fame recap, there was a MASSIVE pop for Paul Bearer as he's originally from the Gulf Coast area. Everyone received a nice reaction but Lita and Warrior were the stars of the moment. By the way, how great is it to see Howard Finkel hit 30 years of Wrestlemania appearances?
There will be a lot said about Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar in the years to come and other than the Montreal Screwjob, it may be the most debated finish in wrestling history, but I thought it was the most bad-ass booking decision WWE could have ever made. If ever anything was going to signify that it was a nice time and era and nothing was sacred anymore, it was the loss of the Undertaker at Wrestlemania 30. I wouldn't have booked it myself, because the idea was unthinkable, but man, what a message that sends to the fans and to the wrestling industry that anything can and will happen. Live, it was a completely different story in the reactions vs. how it came off on TV. When the Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar match ended, you literally had 75,000 fans all curse in shock at once. There were no real pop as much as if was just utter, complete disbelief as everyone was looking back and forth at each other and to the stage, waiting to see where the swerve was and whether it was a botch. While the announcers sold it on The WWE Network that the match was over, live, there was no bell and everyone was waiting. It wasn't until the 21-1 graphic came up on the screen that the Dome realized something had truly just taken place. A huge "Bullsh**" chant broke out. It quieted down and everyone sort of sat there, numb, after Undertaker sold the ending. They then gave him a big standing ovation and chanted "Thank you Taker" while others just booed. There were some fans I saw who left after Taker lost and there were two women in the crowd (not together) who I saw crying after the loss. This took the fire out of the crowd and they didn't return until halfway through the main event. I now know what it was like watching Bruno Sammartino lose to Ivan Koloff and for an entire arena to sit there in stunned silence.
The Divas invitational was a cluster but I mean that in the best way possible. They had to go out there under the worst of live crowd circumstances and try to have the best match of their lives. I give them all a lot of credit but I don't think the audience was even able to process what they had just seen at that point. I thought the end, where AJ stole the tapping out, was awesome.
Daniel Bryan vs. Batista vs. Randy Orton was a hell of a ride as WWE did everything possible to make you worried that Bryan wasn't going to win. Between the HHH run-in, the teased stretcher job and the two on one odds, Bryan really did end up with the biggest come from behind underdog win in Wrestlemania history. You couldn't help but smile for him during his long post-match celebration, including greeting several members of his family at ringside. Confetti was everywhere. Fireworks were going off and the guy who used to main event in the Murphy Rec Center just brought the house down in the Superdome. How awesome is that to see?
Leaving the show, I expected all sorts of crazy Yes chants but it didn't seem that way. I really think the Taker loss really ripped some of the heart out of the audience for the latter parts of the show.
During the main event, I start getting texts and calls that Undertaker has been rushed to the hospital. I relay the info to Dave Scherer and he breaks it during the Mania post-game show. I tell him to send the word I will do a Hot News Hotline.
I return to the hotel and attempt to record my Hotline. I am mentally fried and it takes 20 attempts to get it right. At one point, I say restaurantmania during the opening. I am mentally fried and if you ever get to hear any of the outtakes, quite pathetic. I summon the energy to actually record for 20 minutes and even though I repeat the same story about Christian twice, I am done. I post it and immediately go to bed. It is 1 AM local time. My 4:40 AM shuttle to the airport will be here soon enough.
At 4 AM, I shower and head downstairs. As we wait for the shuttle to arrive, this gorgeous blonde wanders up to us, obviously drunk. She's wearing a Daniel Bryan shirt. She stands there staring at us. "Are you OK?" I ask. She finally asks us if she's at the Lafayette Hotel. She's been wandering around for an hour lost as her friends abandoned her on Bourbon Street. She's from Canada and doesn't know the area at all. Jesus, nice friends! We tell her where her hotel is and she stumbles off but not before turning around and screaming "YES!" at us.
One last memory of Wrestlemania City before we head home.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
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