10 Things We Learned From Attending WWE WrestleMania 37 Live

That's it. WWE fans will have to wait another year for the sports entertainment version of Christmas known as WrestleMania to come back around, and what a night it was.

From starting out with the fan-favorite 'Fiend' losing in an anti-climatic way to ending with two other heroes being pinned simultaneously by Roman Reigns because Roman Reigns always wins, WWE once again delivered another 'Mania chock-full of both good and terrible moments. There was also no limit to the over-the-top production, pyro, pageantry, and banter.

Your friendly writer here was lucky enough to see his very first 'Mania at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. However obvious, it's much different to attend 'The Biggest Event of the Year' in the flesh than it is to watch it at home.

Even after watching wrestling since The Undertaker debuted, your writer was still surprised to find out quite a few things at WrestleMania 37 weren't quite as expected, sometimes for better or worse. Aside from making sure to book everything early and to bring a poncho in case you're inside of an open stadium during a severe thunderstorm, there's quite a bit you can learn from going to 'Mania alive.

Here are the main things your writer here picked up on during his time at WrestleMania 37 night two...

Given the dynamic of the "ongoing global situation," there was never any intention of maxing out Raymond James Stadium's capacity for WrestleMania 37. With around 25,000 fans each night (according to WWE), it would have made sense for the company to find creative camera angles to make the crowd more visually dense or to actually show off some of the emptiness as a way saying, "Hey, we followed the CDC guidelines and still put on a show."

Instead, if you were sitting on the side of the arena facing the hard camera, you might have been thrown off by the people sitting around you... largely because they weren't actually people.

With pod seating, small groups of seats were intentionally left vacant to establish social distancing. For the one side of the arena, not only were the spaces between pods filled with phony fans, but they were also placed in the seats for which WWE never sold the tickets. How would this writer know WWE didn't end up selling the tickets? The seats that were never meant to be available were zip-tied shut, and some of the cardboard cutouts were in seats that were not restrained.

WWE has always exaggerated their crowd size, but in the past, at least they only lied about the living, breathing fans. To get even, though, numerous fans decided to sneak their new cardboard buddies out of the arena, and it didn't seem like security was bothered at the slightest.