4 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 29
Jersey Royals.
The penultimate WrestleMania before Vince McMahon deemed the event too old to show its age also betrayed the marketing - the New York aesthetic (and more on that later) was leaned upon heavily despite the event's actual New Jersey location. They'd follow this exact pattern with 2019's return to the venue, unabashed in their abandonment of New Jersey for the good of the tourist dollar.
That's what the show had morphed into by then anyway. Tourism fodder. A meeting place for lots of similar people with similar hobbies to meet for similar activities culminating in the 'Show Of Shows', as part of a wrestling tourist's dream holiday.
Just a year shy of the WWE Network launching and reframing the narrative yet again, 2013's event was another massive swing and even bigger miss for the even-more grandiose version of the 'Grandest Stage'. In 2012, the gamble paid off with a monster buyrate - the company couldn't replicate that either.
(Want more WrestleMania Ups & Downs? We got 'em: I, 2, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, 13, XIV, XV, 2000, X-Seven, X8, XIX, XX, 21, 22, 23, XXIV, 25, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII)