10 Things You Only Learn Attending WWE WrestleMania Live
Get your passport, hit the airport, but you've got to sort out your own transport.
When you attend WrestleMania live, you can see why the roster puts up with it.
You can also see why, since the show drew to a rain-drenched close, no less than three performers have purportedly requested their release. The 'WWE Universe', held hostage by the incompetent transportation arrangement, were eventually allowed to escape. Sasha Banks, Luke Harper and Alexander Wolfe may not see that Uber for a while; Vince McMahon is behind the wheel, and ironically, his fiendish contractual small print and unadulterated greed both drives his roster away and leaves them stranded.
You can make a game of it, to pass through the time of the Kickoff show. Provided you are cruel of disposition, there is certain schadenfreude to be had. Which WWE talent is the most pissed off? Which talent is WWE most apathetic towards?
The answer to that question was Maria Kanellis, who was very swiftly eliminated from the Women's WrestleMania Battle Royal. "Hey, how'd you like your taste of the MetLife, ya sack of sh*t!" Vince roared from gorilla.
That's the Kickoff. The promise of the main WrestleMania show proper must make every performer resolve to do everything in their power to impress, because the most magical of matches at WrestleMania 35 cast its triumphant star as the biggest on the planet...
10. The Real Reaction To The Real American
At WrestleMania 35, Alexa Bliss promised a WrestleMania Moment with one click of her fingers. And, with one click of her fingers, she summoned the Immortal Hulk Hogan from the back.
Now, what you can hear and see on the WWE Network broadcast is a deafening wall of sound and a vista of outstretched arms, all pointed to the sky, in the direction of that dead child he made up to sell a novelty record. It looks, for all the world, like an entire stadium is riding a wave of nostalgic sensory overload.
In reality, there was a caveat to that pop, in that it wasn't unanimously positive. Myself and several others added to the din with a note of incredulity. I popped, because Real American is a euphoric ultra-cheese banger of pure triumph - but there was a guffaw in there, too.
I appreciated the sheer audacious balls on WWE to immediately re-embrace Hulk Hogan on the WrestleMania stage, even if I can never again look at my childhood hero through the same, six year-old lens. Others were less conflicted; a very audible smattering of boos were not picked up by the mics in the upper tier.
This is specific to WrestleMania 35, but this must happen most years; in a stark inverse to the RAW after WrestleMania, the vocal minority is muted on the Grandest Stage.