Let's Get Ready To Rumble! Wrestlemania XXVII

So this post is about Wrestlemania, nothing really hockey related. Ron Hainsey and Evander Kane were planning to attend, but that's all they hockey your are gonna get in this post. If you don’t smell what I’m cooking, I have two words for ya…SKIP IT! I’ve loved wrestling since I was a very small child, just ask my uncle who I have down for the count in this picture.

I never believed in Santa, but when I found out wrestling was fake, I was crushed. I still remember it, I was like 7 years old. My mom is a nurse and was sleeping for her night shift. I was watching some local wrestling on tv and this guy got busted open and was bleeding every where. I ran into her room “Momma, momma, the guy on TV is bleeding!!!!” She saw what I was watching and said “That stuff is fake anyway!!” Crushed.

I’ve been to many live wrestling events ranging in size and talent from a high school gym in Mississippi to the Super Dome in New Orleans. Wrestlemania though is the pinnacle, the best there is (ever was and ever will be). The Showcase of the Immortals. Etc etc. I have always wanted to go. In 7th grade I won tickets for me and my best friend to go watch the coverage of Wrestlemania II (geez, that means that was 25 years ago!!) at the Mobile Civic Center. That was as close as I had gotten…until last night! Of course I had known that Wrestlemania was coming for months and months, but didn’t do anything about it until like 4 days before the event, then decided I MUST GO! I haven’t followed wrestling in years, but knew most of the big players…HHH, the Undertaker, John Cena, and Ray Mysterio Jr. The icing on the cake…the return of the Rock!! Finally the great one has come back to wrestling! The cherry on top of this was that Stone Cold Steve Austin was acting as guest referee for a match between Jerry the King Lawler. I get tickets from Stub Hub and convince Shauna to go with me and we are off! I knew the night was going to be filled with awesome when 5 miles from the arena we see this Jersey Shore reject guy walking down the street (away from the event) carrying a WWE belt. A few seconds later as we are jamming to Run DMC, we look over and there is a guy driving a mini van wearing a Lucha Libre mask…NICE!

As we get closer to downtown, of course the traffic is ridiculous. The only thing worse than the traffic is parking. What is usually $5 is now $20 and we are talking like 5 or 6 blocks from the event! We are on Northside and decide to park across from the Biergarden Restaurant. We were going to eat there anyway and this parking was in a great location to exit. After eating we made our way to the Georgia Dome and that’s when the real show began!! We saw countless lucha libre guys. Dozens (and dozens) of people with signs. As we got closer to the Dome, we saw signs of a different kind.

Another of their messages.

At first I thought it was a crazy street preacher. Then I realized it was some guy yelling Rock catch phrases. Then I realized it was BOTH! The crazy street preacher was yelling that everyone was going to hell for going to Wrestlemania. He was yelling at the fan “THE ROCK IS YOUR GOD. THE ROCK IS YOUR GOD.” The fan said “No, my God is Jesus Christ.” They went on for a bit and then the fan said “If you can’t smell what the Rock is cooking, I’ve got two words for you….”and of course everyone around, including me, did Degeneration X crotch pump and yelled “SUCK IT!” That was probably the outstanding moment of the night for me. On the way to the entrance I saw people dressed as Doink the Clown, Roddy Piper (kilt days), and Brett Hart.

We enter the building and make our way to our seats. WOW! I knew we had cheap seats but I had no idea. The seats were seriously on the moon. The guy outside was wrong about Jesus, he was in the building. Our seats were like 6 rows behind his throne. Actually, our seats didn’t exist. Well the existed, they were not accessible. We get all the way up there and our seats are roped off and covered for the event lighting.

We show our tickets to the usher, he looks confused and goes to consult his boss. He comes back with the solution…”sit where ever you want in this section.” We agree to do this once, fortunately seats 1 and 2 are open on Row 24, so we park it. I didn’t bring my camera to the event. Part of me wishes I had. The other part knows that knowing how this night went, I would have probably dropped it down the stairs. Fortunately Shauna had her phone and we have some craptastic phone pics! That tiny patch of white is the ring. This is our view.

That larger blur on the screen is the Rock…or so they tell me.

Gee, I bet that stage is cool, wish we could SEE IT. Oh and you know how Wrestlemania always has pyrotechnics? Not so cool when they are FIVE FEET in front of your face. I think it singed my eyebrows off. Not only are fireworks in front of your face terrifying, after they are done there is a ton of smoke and heat. It's like a last jab at us for having cheap tickets. You can't see some parts of the the ring area for the smoke!

So we saw the lumber jack match that the Great Khali won. We watched Edge defeat Alberto Del Rio and bust up his car. One very cute note, the two little Mexican kids in front of it were having so much fun, even though they were like the only 2 people in our section pulling for their fellow Mexican. The 7 year old was talking smack to the guys beside us, too. We saw Cody Rhodes defeat Ray Mysterio. That was probably my favorite match. Mysterio is fun to watch even from up there. We saw Big Show, Kane and friends defeat the Corre. I was looking forward to seeing CM Punk and Randy Orton fight, because they are both HOT! I was going to make a sign that said “Have a drink with me, Punk” (he’s a straight edge) but didn’t have the time. We’d been there for 2.5 hours, seen 5 of the 9 matches and the people whose seat we are in show up. WTF? Where have you been?? So we tell the Usher we want to speak with his boss. His boss apparently works in the 7th level of hell. So we have to go from the moon to the center of the earth. If you’ve been to the Georgia Dome, you know it’s full of ramps. Down down down we descend. While we are going down, I hear Stone Cold’s theme music erupt over the speakers. Great, that’s the one thing I really wanted to see. As we are going down, we realize our usher doesn’t know where he’s going. We aren’t going to meet his boss, we are going to customer service and he doesn’t know where it is. Down down down some more. He is super tall and walks like the place is on fire. So we chase him into the bowels of the Georgia Dome and finally get to Customer Service. We NEVER meet his boss. The lady in Customer Service is sympathetic to our plight, but doesn’t give us the upgrade we are hoping for. Now we have to walk back up to the moon.

We are now level with the floor seating of the event. They have the large black curtains hanging so you can’t see the action from the concession area, but there are few little peep holes. We decided to just stand around and peep in through the openings to watch the rest of the Stone Cold match. I got to see the King and Stone Cold drink some beers at the end of the match. Booker T came in, got the Stone Cold Stunner and Stone Cold rode off on a camo 4 wheeler. Hell yeah.

We could see the stage from where we were now and it was SUPER awesome. We decided to hang out and watch the intros of the Undertaker and Triple H. They did not disappoint. After seeing all the flames in the Undertaker’s intro, I was wondering if anyone was left alive up in our old seats or if they all burned to death. There were over 71,000 people in the Georgia Dome watching this event. We decided to head out early and avoid the mass exodus. We discussed that if it weren’t a “school night” it would be really cool to park it some where and watch the chaos unfold. We missed the final two matches, the Snooki match and the main event where the Miz defeated Jon Cena. It was worth it. We felt like we were running from a tsunami. All in all, I didn’t have nearly as much fun as I had hoped. Honestly I kind of felt like I wiped my ass with $75. I went though. I’ve been to Wrestlemania and I have my souvenir cup to prove it. The little girl in the picture would be very happy!

Me at the event. Note I'm rocking a Thrashers shirt!