10 Things We Learned Attending WWE WrestleMania 40 Live

That wrestling is best experienced live goes without saying, but when you attend events the size of WrestleMania, it almost becomes gospel.

There is nothing like the shared exchange of energy between the performers and 70,000+ fans. Middling matches become good, good matches become great, and great matches become all-timers. In-person connection cannot.

I am, at times, a jaded fan, as anyone who has been watching since 1992 has the right to be. I prefer a hard-hitting, grittier style of wrestling to that which WWE typically purveys. I like a tangible sense of animosity, and don't always care for bombastic ring entrances and video packages when sitting at home, watching on the couch, either turning my eyes to my phone or fast-forwarding through them 90% of the time.

But at WrestleMania, I had the greatest time yeeting with Jey Uso, screaming "YEAH-uh!" whenever LA Knight so much as moved a muscle, screaming myself hoarse for Cody Rhodes, and bouncing energy back and forth with my colleagues and our new friends sat around us in Lincoln Financial Field.

Vibes are everything at WrestleMania. Great technical matches mean little if the mood isn't right and the mana ain't flowing. This is a universal truth of live professional wrestling, of course, but it's extra critical at WrestleMania, where it'd be easy for those in the upper decks to feel disconnected from the action otherwise.

Fortunately, WrestleMania 40's vibes were just right.

- AM