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.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
