My First Wrestlemania

With the announcement (and then deletion of said announcement) by the governor of Pennsylvania that Wrestlemania was returning to Philadelphia, I figured now was a good time to talk about my trip to this year's Wrestlemania in Philadelphia. It was an excellent story at the beginning that seemed to become a disaster the more it went on.

I had never been a Wrestlemania before. For most of my life I was never able to afford the trip, then when I was making the kind of money I needed to go on the trip, I was working jobs that didn't give me enough time off to go. The type of jobs where you get 3 hours of paid time off per biweekly paycheck and even then I to balance my use of vacation time and sick time. Fortunately, I finally work for a company that not only provides me with enough time off to take trips to Philadelphia and other cities to enjoy live wrestling shows, but allows me to work from anywhere so I can maximize my travel opportunities.

Late last year, I started looking at the possibility of going to Philadelphia. How much were flights? Is Philly an expensive city? Could I find an affordable hotel somewhat close to the stadium? I ended up making an Excel file to break down all the potential costs of going. I put the idea on hold for a bit. I already had a trip planned out for Los Angeles for AEW Full Gear and thought it would be best to wait until I was back to see how much I spent and how much I could afford for a trip to Wrestlemania. It wasn't so much the cost to fly there and stay for a few days, or how much it would cost for tickets, but I wanted to make sure if I was going to Philadelphia for the first time in my life that I could make the most of it.

November came along and I headed to LA to meet my friends for a weekend of wrestling and visiting Universal Studios. While we were there, the topic of Wrestlemania came up again. One of my friends was going for sure. He had already secured front row seats (lucky bastard). Another friend and I started discussing the possibility of getting a suite since his girlfriend and my wife were likely going to go too. We left LA with a pretty good plan for making a Wrestlemania trip work. When I got home, I ran it by my wife, who always reminds me I don't need to ask permission since she knows how carefully I track our budget and that I would know best whether I could afford to go. However, she said she had no desire to go to Philly, so it was all for me.

So it was finally settled, I booked my flight, hotel, and even a rental car. A few days later I ended up finding a more affordable and even nicer hotel, although I had my reservations about the place as it only had one review online but it was a good one. Even their website barely had any pictures. I called them up to get a better idea about why there was so little information on them. Apparently, they had just opened within the last couple of months but everything sounded on the up-and-up, so I stuck with it. I booked a room for my friend and his girlfriend at the same place. They arrived the day before me so I was praying they'd get to the hotel and not find out it was some shithole. Thankfully, they said it was really nice. When I got there, nice was an understatement. I probably would have paid twice what I paid for room like that. Separate living/kitchen area and bedroom. Even had a washer and dryer in case you needed to do laundry, which I've never seen in a hotel.

Before I get into all the details of my trip, I should mention that I started to have severe back pain while on my flight there. I have a back injury from back when I was in the Navy that flares up now and then. I could go a year or two with no pain then it comes back out of nowhere. This particular period of pain actually started back in January when I traveled to Las Vegas to see Impact Wrestling relaunch as TNA. As I was checking into my room, something pulled in my back. It hurt most of the trip, but the pain was manageable. However, the pain continued at various levels for months and even now as I write this, the pain is still there. I know this part of the story sounds totally irrelevant, but I promise it plays a big part in the events of that weekend.

Now when I said I wanted to make the most of my trip to Philly, I mostly meant taking in as many wrestling shows as I could. A lot of wrestling fans know that many independent wrestling promotions run shows the weekend of Wrestlemania in the same city to capitalize on all of the wrestling enthusiasts coming into town, me being one of them. When I arrived in Philadelphia, I got my rental car and immediately headed to Penn's Landing where GCW was hosting The Collective, a three day event with shows from multiple wrestling promotions from around the world. PROGRESS, TJPW, DDT, DEFY, and more. I was going to the venue before the hotel to see Josh Barnett's Bloodsport.

For those that may not have ever seen Bloodsport, its a mix of wrestling and MMA. The ropes are removed to give it more of an MMA feel by taking out the ability to run and jump around. The competitors are all professional wrestlers that have been seen in numerous wrestling promotions. Some are in their normal wrestling gear while others are dressed for a fight. There are no pinfalls, just knockouts, submissions, or referee stoppage. This particular Bloodsport event was special though. For the first time ever, contracted WWE talent would be involved. Shayna Baszler, who had a stellar MMA career before stepping into a wrestling ring, was announced as a participant. Another participant who wasn't announced, Charlie Dempsey, was an NXT talent and the son of the legendary William Regal. Dempsey inherited his father's technical wrestling talent which made him an excellent fit for this event.

But it wasn't the event itself that got people talking, but who was in the crowd. Multiple WWE superstars showed up to support Shayna and Charlie. I was sitting on the stage and noticed people kept looking in my direction, which was the opposite direction from the ring. I turned around to see Tegan Nox, Candice LaRae, and Katana Chance standing just a few feet behind me. What happened next still cracks me up. My wife messages me an article that was just posted showing CM Punk was at the show. When I looked at the picture in the article, I realized that was right where I was sitting, so I turned around and sure enough, Punk was a couple of rows behind me. He knew people had spotted him but tried to keep a low profile so the focus remained on the show. Still, here is the closest thing I have to a selfie with Punk.

I had tickets to attend the DDT show that evening, but after getting to my hotel and talking to my friends, I decided to skip out on the show to see some of the city and have dinner with them. Found out later that Chiitan got involved in a match and I was bummed I missed out on it because I started following Chiitan after their appearance on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. I still had a lot of wrestling to go see that weekend so I figured missing out on one show so I could rest up was probably for the best.

The next morning I got up early to go see the TJPW show back at The Collective. Originally, I had bought tickets for TJPW and the PROGRESS show immediately after, but when I saw House of Glory and Wrestling Revolver were running a joint show at the same time across town, I decided to buy tickets for that. I ended up losing out on the money for the PROGRESS tickets, but I was ok with that decision. TJPW was great and I wish I could have stayed for the whole show, but I had to head back to the hotel to pick up my friends for the HOG x WR show.

The show was actually in a church, and not just a random convention hall that was used as a church, but a steeple and stained glass church. This made the show even better whenever wrestlers cursed and the crowd would remind them we're in God's house. From top to bottom, this card was great, but the main event between Mustafa Ali and Amazing Red was truly special. I've had the good fortune to see Red compete live many times and I'm never disappointed. The best match to me though was Masha Slamovich and Speedball Mike Bailey. There were several TNA Knockouts in attendance to see Masha pick up the win against Speedball, which may have been my match of the weekend.

Once the show was over I had to head back to Penn's Landing for Joey Janela's Spring Break. My friends actually ended up getting tickets to ROH Supercard of Honor, and one of them who had bought VIP front row tickets for all of The Collective shows said I could take his seat for Spring Break. I was so excited to be sitting that close to the action for what was guaranteed to be an insane show.

Now this is where I come back to the whole back pain thing I mentioned earlier. I was getting sore from all the back-and-forth traveling but was still feeling good enough to attend this last show of the evening. However, when I arrived and found my friend's seat, I saw it was at the end of a row which ended up being a problem. I should mention I'm not a small guy. Not a big guy, but I can fit in my own seat wherever I'm at. But the guy next to me was a big dude. I have nothing against big people as I've had my own struggles with being overweight, but when someone is too big to fit in their own seat, some accomodations should be made. Unfortunately, this wasn't going to happen, so I ended up only being able to sit on half my seat. As the show went off, the pain in my back got worse and worse. I didn't want to be rude to the guy next to me as he was very friendly, but not being able to sit comfortably in my own seat was putting me in a really bad spot. Eventually, the pain got to be too much and I had to leave with 2-3 matches still left on the card.

The next day was a busy one. I was feeling a bit better when I woke up. I threw on a pain patch, put a couple more in my backpack and headed to Wrestlecon in downtown Philadelphia. As I mentioned before, I rented a car because I knew it would save me money on having to use Uber or Lyft to get around, but driving in Philadelphia was the most stressful driving I've ever done in my life. Everyone honks at you for any tiny inconvenience, even the cops. The lanes switch from multiple lanes to single lanes and back again. Are you in a turning lane or a lane that goes straight? Who knows? You certainly won't until you're 10 feet from the intersection. I swore to myself that I would never drive myself again in a city I had never been to first.

Wrestlecon was a lot of fun. I had the opportunity to meet so many wrestling legends that I've enjoyed watching for years. Lex Luger, Sgt. Slaughter, Ted DiBiase, RVD, and more. I got in line to meet the Hardys, but after half an hour and the line not moving at all I decided I needed to move on. Jeff apparently likes to have long conversations with every fan, which is absolutely awesome, but not great when there's limited time to get everyone through the line. My favorite moment was meeting Trish Stratus and Lita. Trish was easily the nicest wrestler I've ever met. Just genuinely enjoyed talking to every fan in line. I even heard security outside when I left talking about how nice she was. Lita was just as nice and seeing her and Trish talking to each other without actually speaking was hilarious. They know each other so well that they really do seem to finish each other's sentences. I walked away with one of the coolest pieces of memorabilia I own today after getting their autographs.

Once I was done at Wrestlecon, it was now time for me to start moving towards Wrestlemania. I dropped all of my stuff off at my car and took a shuttle from the Wrestlecon hotel to the stadium area in Philly. I had purchased a VIP package for Wrestlemania, so I was lucky enought to attend a tailgate party at Citizens Bank Park. This was such a cool experience being in a baseball park with no game going on. There were several food vendors and all the food and drinks came with the cost of the ticket. The weather was rather insane though. It was super windy and cold. I spent half the time trying to find areas to stay out of the wind while eating the various meals I picked up around the stadium. There was some really cool wrestling memorabilia on display and WWE brought in some of their superstars to talk to the crowd. I had a great time.

From there I walked over to Lincoln Financial Field for Wrestlemania. This is basically when the shitshow started. The crowd to get in was massive, but there was a bar off to the side of the gates that some people decided to go have a drink at while they waited for the gates to open. With the pain in my back starting to increase, I felt like this was the best place to wait it out. I grabbed an overpriced beer and stood at (heavily leaned on) a table while having a nice conversation with a father and daughter that had come all the way from Ireland for the show. It was a nice chat to help pass the time as I had no desire to wait in that crowd to get in.

After the gates opened and half the crowd had entered, I made my way in that direction. My seats were about four rows back from the main floor seats, so before heading that way I went to the merch stand. While the lines weren't long, the wait was as the staff working the stand were really slow in getting people checked out. It was ok though because I had a fun time talking to all the people in line with me. I felt bad for the older lady standing next to me as all she wanted was to buy a hoodie since she was so cold from the high winds blowing through the stadium. If I had a jacket I would have offered it to her until we had the opportunity to make a purchase, but I was waiting to buy a hoodie myself.

I finally made my way down to my seats. What an incredible view I had. It was so hard to believe I was there. I've been a wrestling fan for over 30 years and always wanted to go to Wrestlemania and now I was finally there. It's like the first time I ever went to Disney World. Just one of the core memories you carry with you for life. I just sat down and took it all in. Every match could have been terrible and I still would have had an amazing time.

Now at this point though, things started to get ridiculous. I had originally wrote out all the details of what happened but then realized I was taking too much attention away from the show and focusing on the negative. All I will say is that fans who buy a ticket to a show should stay at their seats and not use it as an open invitation to stand in walkways and block other peoples' view of the show. Same goes for security guards. They are supposed to be there to control the crowd, not spend the whole time watching the show and obstructing the view of all the fans who paid to be there. Ok, rant over.

All of that drama aside, the show was amazing. My favorite match by far was Sami Zayn vs Gunther. You could feel the emotion from the crowd throughout the whole match and Sami winning led to what I thought was the biggest pop of the night. I think Rhea may have got the second biggest pop. Her entrance kicked off the show with a crazy amount of energy. Seeing the introductions of Rhea and Becky Lynch on the big screen and in person with the sun setting on the stadium felt surreal.

About halfway through the show my back was in an insane amount of pain. The chairs at the stadium were made of the cheapest plastic and I just could not get comfortable. At one point, I stopped standing when everyone else did because I couldn't physically handle it. I came to the unfortunate realization that if I didn't leave before the rest of the crowd, I wasn't making it out of the stadium as I wouldn't be able to handle the stop-and-go movement as everyone was leaving. I made the difficult decision to leave after the introductions for the main event. But this is where things got really bad.

When I got outside of the stadium, I realized that police had blocked off several blocks around the area so traffic couldn't go through. This meant that I'd have to walk to a spot where an Uber or Lyft could pick me up from. The pain as I walk was excruciating. At some point the pain eventually turned to numbness and I was basically dragging myself along. I walked about half a mile in that condition but was finally able to get to a spot to call for a ride. I was so grateful for the ride at that point I think I gave the driver a tip twice the amount of the actual fare.

The next morning I knew I wasn't going to be able to do much. I called my friends and told them I'm going to have to skip out on Night 2 of Wrestlemania which really sucked because I was more excited for that card than for the Night 1 card. I didn't want to miss the show though so I started looking up places around town that might show it. I ultimately decided the easier option would be to go to a store and buy a Roku so I could watch from my room and order dinner. This ended up being a smart decision as my friends told me they waited almost 90 minutes to get an Uber after the show that night, and that was after making the same walk I made the night before. I'd probably would have ended up in the hospital if I tried to go, so silver linings and all that.

For my last day, I had tickets for the WWE fan event at the convention center. I was feeling better after resting all day the day before, so I decided to try some touristy stuff before heading to the event. I parked downtown and walked over to the Liberty Bell, which funny enough was closed at the time, so I snapped some pictures around the area and took off.

At the fan event, I was lucky enough to meet one of my favorites, Kevin Owens as well as Xavier Woods. He thought my Up Up Down Down tattoo was dope. There were lots of photo opportunities with memorabilia and set pieces from different WWE shows, including an amazing tribute to Bray Wyatt. While waiting in line for autographs, we were entertained by Pat McAfee hosting his ESPN show live and interviewing Cody Rhodes, John Cena, Miz and R-Truth. I would definitely attend this event again.

The funniest thing about this day was that the solar eclipse was set to happen that afternoon, so in order to avoid any issues with traffic I took off for the airport a bit early. Also, I was kinda paranoid that I might accidentally look at the sun while driving and blind myself. Same paranoia keeps me away from quicksand. Ridiculous. I know.

I got to the airport and walked around all over trying to find the correct security checkpoint to go through. When I finally made it through and stopped to put my shoes and belt back on, I was stuck behind a family of four. All I could see was this guy towering over me. At first I thought it might be the father of the bunch, but it was actually the son. And that son ended up being Kevin Owens' son and Kevin was standing right there in front of me only about an hour after I just met him. I'm usually really nervous about asking wrestlers I run into in public for picture, and since he was with his family I decided not to bother him. Plus his son could probably easily bonk me over the head and I'd be out.

I passed by a few other wrestlers while heading to my gate. All of them looked like they were trying to avoid being seen and I can't blame them. I spotted Ricochet who was clearly doing his best Carmen Sandiego impression to hide in plain site. Other indie wrestlers didn't bother trying to hide. They enjoyed fans coming up to talk to them. This is certainly not a dig at WWE wrestlers vs indie wrestlers, but I imagine WWE talent spends a lot of their time away from the ring doing promotional work and just want a break from it while doing their normal people stuff, so some of them try to fly under the radar. I have no problem with that, especially when there are those crappy fans that are only there to get merch signed so they can resell it.

Speaking of which, there was one guy I saw when I arrived in Philadelphia hanging around the airport with a big binder of stuff for wrestlers to sign. I see this guy again while waiting for my flight home, lurking around trying to find any wrestler he could. Those fans are the absolute worst. They are the reason I get nervous about approaching any wrestler for a picture or autograph because I don't want to be mistaken for one of those fans who are just trying to make money off of them. Apparently this particular douchenozzle was spotted by someone who knew him and made a big scene while calling out his behavior. It was enough to get security involved but one of the guys was boarding his flight so the dispute came to an end without anyone getting hauled away.

Still, if you go to airports to wait for wrestlers to get pictures and autographs, even if they are just for you, please reevaluate your life choices. If you're at the airport for a flight and happen to bump into one, then I feel like it's fine to politely ask them for a selfie or an autograph, but only if it's clear you aren't disrupting them. People that go to the airport to seek out wrestlers is borderline stalking in my book. If you're a wrestling fan, be a fan and let these wrestlers travel in peace. Don't show up to stop them as they are getting to or leaving the airport, that's just not cool.

After enjoying a beer and a meal while spotting X-Pac on his way out of the restaurant (didn't want to look like I was running out on my check to get a selfie) I boarded my flight home. Here's where the worst of the trip happened. We sat on the runway for about an hour, given no update as to why. The weather was fine so it was confusing why we waited so long to leave. It wasn't until I arrived at Dallas for my connection home that I found out what was going on. In addition to thunderstorms going on all day there, they had flights grounded for a period of time during the solar eclipse, causing massive delays. I knew it was very likely I was going to miss my connection, but to rub a little salt in the wound, I could see my flight backing out of the gate as our plane was pulling in.

After stepping off the plane, already knowing I was in for a terrible night because my connecting flight was the last one scheduled for the day, I headed to the customer service counter. I spent an hour and a half in line waiting to find out my options, which there were very few. Best they could do was get me on standby for 9am the next morning, so I took it. However, due to several people flying into Dallas to witness the eclipse (it was in the area of totality) all of the hotels nearby were booked. On top of that, I couldn't get my luggage, so I decided my best course of action was to sleep on the floor in the airport. I wouldn't say I slept so much as I passed out for a few minutes at a time. Trying to make yourself comfortable on an airport floor with a bad back that's been killing me all weekend was not easy at all.

The next morning I watched the standby list hoping to get a seat. The gate attendant told me there was only two seats available and I was third on the list. I watched as they called the first person, hoping for a miracle. Well, miracle happened because the second person never showed up to the gate, so I got the last seat on the flight home. When I got back, my wife arrived at the airport with some medicated patches. We're in Colorado so she got the good stuff that I needed desperately. When we got to the house, I unloaded my stuff from the car, played with our pets for a few minutes then immediately passed out. What an adventure!

So with all the highs and so many lows, would I do it again? Absolutely! I learned a lot on that trip about all the things going on during Wrestlemania weekend so I can be better prepared for the next time. For one, I'm definitely not driving in Philadelphia again or any city I'm not already familiar with. The cost of an Uber definitely outweighs the stress of driving myself around in unfamiliar territory. Second, I'd definitely plan things out better as far as scheduling. Now that I know what indie shows were worth going to, I can make a better decision on which ones I choose to go to next time and which ones to skip out on. While I did go to a few good shows, there were also a bunch of others that I missed out on. Third, I know where not to sit now at Wrestlemania and plan to spend less next time on seats that may be a bit further back but have an unobstructed view. Finally, I'd take more time to see the city I'm in. I had limited my free time by planning to go to too many shows and didn't have time to enjoy any tourist attractions.

I am already planning for Wrestlemania 41 in Las Vegas. It's a shorter flight for me, somewhere I've been before, and now I have a plan based on my last experience. I booked my hotel as soon as the dates and location was announced. I made sure the hotel was within walking distance of the stadium so traffic or getting a ride won't be an issue. I'm hoping this time I'll be able to enjoy myself more and make up for the lost time and opportunities I missed out on before, and even if I don't, there's still Wrestlemania 42.