WrestleMania: ‘The Grandest Stage of Them All’

By Brandon Medina

WrestleMania 33, the wrestling industry’s biggest event of the year, took place at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida on April 2.

This year’s WrestleMania featured wrestlers such as Randy Orton, Triple H, John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns and The Undertaker, who all work under World Wrestling Entertainment.

Andrew Marks, a WWE fan from Carrollton, Texas, said he has been a fan of the sport since he was young and believes wrestling is an important part of pop culture.

“Everyone likes professional wrestling, whether they admit it or not, at one point in their life it was important to them,” Marks said.

Randall Chancellor/Flickr

Last year’s WrestleMania 32 was held in Arlington, Texas at the AT&T Stadium and broke multiple WrestleMania records, including the attendance record with 101,763 people, the ticket revenue record with $17.3 million, 2.5 million mentions on Twitter on the day of WrestleMania, and a record breaking $170 million generated for the Dallas and Arlington area, according to an article in Forbes magazine.

This contributed to the WWE having one of its best years in 2016 as the company generated $729 million in total revenue and had 15.1 billion views on their social and digital videos of WWE content.

Wrestler Big E Langston at WrestleMania in 2012. Godiseven/Flickr

“As a business it’s one of the most well-run businesses in the entire world, they dominate ratings every Monday night, their merchandise sales are through the roof, and the WWE network has brought insane popularity and money,” Marks said. “It’s a well-run business and it always has been.”

Michael Tonne, a fan from San Antonio, Texas and amateur wrestler, said WWE makes sure they are known in pop culture with great promoting.

“If you’re trying to make it far you have to promote yourself, and WWE does a great job of doing that,” Tonne said. “The WWE promotes itself to where you will hear about them whether you like it or not.”

Tonne and Marks both said they understand why people are so skeptical of the WWE, but expressed how important it is to see a live WWE show for people curious about the wrestling industry.

“People like watching people compete even though it’s scripted, choreographed, and planned out, people like entertainment and competition and wrestling is both of those things,” Marks said. “It is a drama and gives you great entertainment like a television show and it gives you the competition of watching sports.”

Josh Vasquez, a recent fan of the WWE from Uvalde, Texas, said he has been watching wrestling for three months, but after his first live event, he never misses a show.

“I love the drama of the story lines, it is engaging and makes you hate or love the wrestlers, as well as the interaction with the fans, really it’s all about the WWE atmosphere,” Vasquez said.

WrestleMania 33 was the first WrestleMania Vasquez had ever seen and he said it definitely met his expectations.

“WrestleMania is everything you expect and more, it blew my mind,” Vasquez said.

The Undertaker in 2009. Vishal Somaiya/Flickr

One WrestleMania 33 story that has stuck with fans is The Undertaker’s retirement. The Undertaker, real name  is a wrestling legend and retired after WrestleMania 33 with a 23-2 record through 25 WrestleMania matches.

“I feel bad for the unborn wrestlers of tomorrow because nobody will see a legend like that, he is the Michael Jordan of the wrestling industry, we are lucky to have witnessed greatness,” Vasquez said.

Tonne said that if a person is into wrestling or not, WrestleMania is a must see spectacle in sports entertainment.

“It is a whole bunch of people just like you that love the same thing you love, getting along and having a good time,” Tonne said. “WrestleMania to me needs to be on everybody’s bucket list.”

WrestleMania 34 will be hosted in 2018 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.

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