I Took My Fiancée to WrestleMania XXX

Pro wrestling fans: never not "going for it." Photos via the author.
My relationship with professional wrestling is a lot like Michael Corleone’s relationship with organized crime in The Godfather III. Every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in. When I drove to WrestleMania in New Jersey last year with a buddy, I was able to justify that decision by convincing myself that I was motivated by nostalgia, irony and a careless disregard for disposable income (I opted for nosebleed seats, which were about 80 bucks each, but ringside tickets will set you back a few grand).

Once those tickets had been purchased, however, I found myself watching wrestling on a weekly basis again just so I would know all the storylines going into the event. Again, because of irony, and nostalgia, and not at all because a big part of me still thought wrestling was awesome. Much as I sometimes deny it, I’m actually kind of a ‘mark.’ That’s wrestling lingo borrowed from old time carny speak and a term used by wrestling promoters and performers in reference to audience members. It’s since been appropriated by Internet Wrestling Community enthusiasts (the IWC) and used to describe mega fans who are overly-invested in any one wrestler or the product in general.

Although my girlfriend previously had zero interest in the ‘sport,’ she started to watch it with me occasionally. And guess what? She became a mark, too. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that this outlandish spectacle of costumes and theatric violence spoke to her, a former roller derby girl. By the time I was headed to Jersey, she was actually a little jealous and disappointed that she wasn’t going, too.

And that’s how I ended up going to WrestleMania for a second year in a row, this time in New Orleans and with my fiancée in tow (how could I not propose?).

I arrived in NOLA on a Friday afternoon. The city was buzzing with activity and St. Paddy’s Day levels of public intoxication. Although Friday evening in the French Quarter is probably party central throughout the year, WrestleMania XXX (as in the 30th edition, not the pornographic parody) had kicked things into overdrive. With festivities spread over the entire weekend leading up to Sunday, many like myself had already arrived in town.

We checked in at our hotel and headed over to Jimmy J’s Cafe, a spot I had scoped out in advance of the trip. The sole waiter there told us there was a table in the back if we wanted it, but we’d have to put up with a rowdy group of drunk guys who were cursing quite a bit. I looked in their direction and saw that they were all wearing wrestling related t-shirts.

“Yeah, it won't be a problem,” I told the waiter.

I could deal with them. These were my people. These were adult men who still cared about wrestling. And don’t kid yourself, there’s a lot of them too. In its 30-year history, WrestleMania has been held at several Super Bowl-sized venues and has drawn similar, if not larger, crowds. Think of it as a massive sporting event combined with the best and most hyper-specific geek culture convention that’s ever existed.

In the year leading up to the big event in the Superdome, I became more of a super fan than ever before, partially because, in explaining various facets of pro wrestling to my girlfriend, I was reminded of why I became enamored with this insanity in the first place. How at 9 or 10 years old, sick in bed, I was flipping through basic cable and landed on it. I didn't know what was going on, or who the wrestlers were, but the sight of men hitting each other with chairs and garbage cans was something that clicked with me.

At that time, the industry was on the verge of entering a big money period marked by sex, vulgar language and explicit violence. Kids loved it. Today, the product offered by the WWE is sanitized and family friendly. Blood, bad words and boobs have been replaced by anti-bullying campaigns, role model wrestlers and Scooby Doo crossover films.

The affable speech impaired crime-solving canine was on hand for the whole weekend at

Axxess, the official accompaniment event to WrestleMania, taking place at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Centre. Axxess is like a shrine to the WWE, complete with exhibits full of vintage memorabilia, a ring for exhibition matches and, naturally, more merch to buy. Although the WWE would be pumping a bunch of cash into New Orleans’ constantly recovering economy, they were making away like bandits themselves, charging fans $55 just to enter Axxess for a period of a few hours. Thousands were willing to do it, all for the chance of getting to meet and greet their favourite performers. The masses outside of WrestleCon.
In stark contrast to Axxess was WrestleCon, a non WWE-organized gathering of indie league wrestlers and old timers located directly across the street in a much smaller venue. A true wrestling geek’s fantasy, WrestleCon featured guests such as Internet darling Colt Cabana, who recorded a live episode of his podcast The Art of Wrestling, for which I’m a huge mark.

I spent most of Saturday at WrestleCon, but I was still curious about Axxess. Thankfully, it cost nothing to enter the ‘super store’ located directly next to Axxess. I casually walked through the doorway between the store and Axxess while staff members were busy checking other people’s tickets. Did I sneak in without paying? Yes. Am I proud of myself? Yes.

I took full advantage of the situation, getting a free sample of Totino’s Pizza Rolls (the only pizza roll endorsed by the WWE) and posing for a free picture with Scooby. It was all so wholesome (except for the Totinos). I missed the raunchiness of the late ‘90s. Where were the posters of a nearly topless Sable? Where was the barbed wire? Where was the crotch chopping?

Fortunately, this was New Orleans, and Bourbon Street was teeming with the kind of debauchery that served as a perfect antidote to WWE’s PG propaganda. On the nights leading up to WrestleMania, the party street was full of the same kind of boozed-up fans I had encountered at Jimmy J’s.

Many were dressed up as their heroes, with Hulk Hogan cosplay being the most common sight. All of the fake Hogans in the world, however, couldn’t prepare me for the Bourbon Street scene of a diminutive South American in full Hulkster regalia, posing alongside a quiet skinny guy dressed up like the Undertaker. Of course, they were charging for photos.

The view from our seats.
Like the rest of WrestleMania weekend, everything on Bourbon Street is a cash-grab, from the gift shop beads to the over-priced slices of pizza and the Lucky Dogs you WILL buy because you’re hammered. While many fans were already sporting large plastic bags full of pricy merchandise they had purchased earlier in the day at the WWE super store, they were still more than willing to drop considerable coin on huge novelty cocktails in and outside of sleazy bars.

The sickly sweet drinks only served to further fuel the wrestling fervor. There was constant chanting of ‘YES,’ a show of support for a wrestler named Daniel Bryan who would be in one of ‘Mania’s main events. It was a fun experience of bonding and togetherness amongst the fans but even I thought it was getting tiresome pretty quickly. I sympathized with the locals who didn’t give a rat’s ass about wrestling.

‘NO!’ screamed a stripper on break, standing in the doorway of Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, in response to the never-ending chanting.

The chanting is something you need to experience in person to properly understand. It’s well and good to watch pro wrestling on TV and write it off as stupid and juvenile but try not getting pumped when 74,499 people around you are chanting the same word over and over again, all in support of the same person. I was raised Catholic and I haven’t been to mass in years, but if church was more like this, I’d probably still be going. Fireworks would help too.

And if you don’t want to be a sheep and chant what everyone else is chanting, you can yell and scream whatever the hell you want. For no apparent reason, the guy sitting next to me at ‘Mania started rhythmically screaming “Balls made of pussy” at no wrestler in particular.  Although I later found out this was a reference to Archer, it still made very little sense.

“I guess the world isn’t ready for it,” he said, disappointed that his chant was catching on with no one.

The vast majority of adult fans know that the fighting is choreographed and the outcomes of the matches are predetermined, but we’re fine with this fiction and we’re fully vested in the narrative. It’s often ham-fisted and the acting and dialogue doesn’t hold up to Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, but the story lines are equally epic and offers new episodes all year. In that sense, WrestleMania acts as both a season finale and premier, constantly offering closure on drawn-out storylines and bringing new characters and feuds into the spotlight.

Earlier in the week, while at the Dallas airport waiting for our connecting flight to New Orleans, I sat down next to a fellow fan named Michael and asked him about how he was hoping ‘Mania would play out.

“I'd like to see the show end with everybody chanting ‘YES’ and Daniel Bryan holding up the title,” he said. “And of course, I don't want to see the Undertaker’s streak end, especially to Brock Lesnar.”

Michael would see his first wish come true but would be forced to bear the gut wrenching agony of witnessing the legendary Undertaker lose to the former UFC champion. It was the Undertaker’s first loss at WrestleMania and if you can’t understand just how big of a deal that is, just look up reaction photos from the event. Even Jon Stewart marked-out about the match during a recent episode of the Daily Show. It was wrestling’s ‘Red Wedding’ moment.

While we were watching the match (which occurred around hour four of the five hour event), my fiancée turned to me and said, “If they have Undertaker lose, it’s going to be the worst decision ever.”

When she said it, I thought she was naïve for even entertaining the notion, no way could he lose. Then, as if she jinxed it, it actually happened. I was torn between wanting to be a smart ass and being legitimately upset.  I wanted to laugh at all of the fans who stood there silently, mouths agape, staring at the ring in disbelief. I didn’t want to care that a fictional character purported to have supernatural powers had been vanquished by a really ripped MMA guy. But in all honesty, I was pretty crushed. As soon as the match was over, my fiancée got up to use the restroom. When she came back several minutes later, everyone was still standing in silence.

A random guy on the street who spotted my Undertaker t-shirt the next day encapsulated the sentiment of many:

“I’m still hurt from last night man… still hurt.”

The end of the Undertaker's fabled winning streak would have been the most shocking development to come out of the event had the Ultimate Warrior not dropped dead in real life at age 54 of a massive heart attack, only three days after being inducted into the WWE’s Hall of Fame. Suddenly, the scripted ending to a scripted streak didn't seem as important in the grand scheme of things.

When shit gets real and actual people die outside of storylines, pro wrestling starts to lose some of its luster. Over the last 20 years, a crazy number of wrestlers have died in their 30s, 40s and 50s, mostly due to the abuse of steroids, prescription pills and illicit drugs. But it’s the unusual cases that get to me, like Owen Hart falling to his death during a stunt or the suicide of Chris Benoit after he killed his wife and son in 2007. I almost stopped watching completely after the later incident.

While the passing of the Ultimate Warrior wasn’t, perhaps, quite as tragic as these other deaths, the timing was still pretty jarring. I had seen him in person on three consecutive days before his demise. I had seen people buying his official, marked-up t-shirts and masks.  I had seen him with his wife and two young daughters.

Wrestling is for me, apart from anything else, an escape. If I have a shitty day, diving into the ridiculous, fantasy world of big dudes throwing each other around makes things better. It’s my happy place. When wrestlers die, however, especially as a result of sacrificing their bodies for this ‘fake’ sport, I’m reminded that real people are needed to make this silly world possible.

Sure I miss the attitude of the late 90s, but the current family-friendly WWE is also committed to the health and wellness of its roster like never before. I hope that will ultimately lead to less tragedy. I can live without endless cleavage, geysers of blood and salty language if that means I also don’t have to deal with wrestlers constantly dying and other depressing realities. There are enough smug and condescending people out there trying to push me away from wrestling that I don’t need the industry itself to do any additional pushing. Because if I’m not pushed away, I’ll never need to be pulled back in. I’d just be a mark for life, and I’m OK with that.  @wallygoodtimes