411Mania’s Countdown to Wrestlemania XXVI 03.16.10: The WrestleMania Experience – WrestleMania 24

Graphic By Meehan

Hello 411 world, I’m JT. Some of you may know me, most of you… well, probably don’t. I’m about 1/53,437th as famous as the Old Spice commercial guy (don’t hate). Anyway, its 411’s Annual Countdown to WrestleMania time and I am BACK with the sequel to 2008!

Shortly before WrestleMania 24 which I was attending, for this very feature I presented my recalling tale of attending WrestleMania 23, which was loads of fun. I decided not to do the same for the WrestleMania 24 countdown since I wasn’t going to the historic 25, but the brass felt it would still be a decent piece for the countdown, so here we are a year later. Basically that is me saying that if it sucks, blame Ashish.

Okay, where to start! I’ll try to keep this as short yet as descriptive as possible so that you don’t feel like you’re reading a novel, but knowing myself and JP’s history of columns it’ll end up being 13 pages long…

Side note: This weekend was attended by myself and JP Prag, THE most positive writer on the internet. That ego inflated Jeff Small was also there, but in a different group. This – much like WrestlMania 23 – was more of a WrestleMania weekend experience than strictly the big show.

A bit of back story quickly. During pre-WrestleMania planning, JP was in contact with the people from Midway (makers of the long awaited and oft-delayed at the time TNA Impact game), and they agreed to give him a screening of the game in return for a review on 411. So I’m on the way to the airport on Friday, and I get a call from JP. As it turns out, the Midway guys were going to be at the iMPACT taping that Friday night, and invited us out there and said we could get into Universal free of charge ($70 a day) with one of TNA’s press passes. Taping started at 7, my flight landed at 5:40, so we figured plenty of time.

Side note, I was sitting in a 3 seat-per-row section of the plane, and the two people next to me were a set of hot, Asian twins. This trip is WIN already!

I arrive in Orlando, get my luggage, and JP picks me up in a swank rented convertible (Chrysler Sebring) and we head to Universal Studios. We get there about the same time as the Midway guys, and they begin to lead us into the arena. Since we were press though, we were not going in the front. We headed around and through the soundstage you see on iMPACT sometimes (I believe it’s like soundstage 21 or 22 or something?). As we are doing this, we come within about five feet of Traci Brooks, who was warming up backstage (turned out she had a match a few minutes later). Let me again pause to say that the camera – be it video or still frame – hates Traci Brooks for some reason. The woman is beyond gorgeous. Trust me and anyone else who has ever been around her in person… …except Steve Cook; that guy is clearly biased.

Anywho, we walk through the backstage area and enter the arena through the “run in” entrance walk passed and say hello to Dixie Carter (we’ve met her before, and as an FYI she was sitting two seats from Vince Russo) on our way to our seats that were approximately six feet from Don West and Mike Tenay. Basically, we were in the production seats that you don’t see much on television (producer, water bottle person, ring announcer, etc sitting there until needed). We were also about twenty feet from the ring. We also happened to enter during the Christian Cage/Rhyno vs. AJ/Tomko match, so bonus, I saw my boy.

Our view, as well as Vince Russo

The main event of Sting vs. Storm ended, and we headed out through the LAX entrance. As we’re standing there waiting for one of the Midway guys to get there, I hear this “WAY TO GO STING!” and turn my head just in time to see Sting walk passed me towards the back (I literally could have sneezed and made contact), so that was cool.

Just an FYI, I had no alcohol at this point. iMPACT zone if family friendly and does not sell any beverages during the show. BOOOOO. Also, as it turns out, we made television.

On IMPACT

So we leave the show, and I snap a few pictures of Universal. I also finally got a beer .

From here we head over to The Lexington, a very nice hotel in downtown Orlando where the Midway guys were staying. I called them on the way over because I wanted to know what their beer of preference was, so that I could pick some up for them as a bit of a “thank you” gesture for getting us the great seats at iMPACT. I was told “No, no. We have a fridge full of beer and a counter full of alcohol and it all has to be gone by the time we get on the plane Sunday”. FAIR ENOUGH, GOOD SIR!

So we get to the hotel, and the surplus of alcohol is everything they said it was. So I begin to knock out beers, and they show us the iMPACT game. The thing is awesome. JP wrote a review on it, but basically it at the time had the best graphics I have ever seen on a wrestling game. We are talking down to AJ Styles chest hair and shit. We played that a bit and then talked to the guys about the game. They wanted some suggestion and feedback but to be honest they had pretty much nailed it. My most constructive suggestion was “if you can get Kurt to pull down the straps before applying the Anglelock, BEST GAME EVER”. The game was fun, but it was JP who had to review it, so I made sure my main concern was helping these guys with their critical alcohol situation. We left, I picked up beer, and off to the hotel for the evening (it’s like 1 a.m. at this point).

Saturday we started off (and by started off, I mean after JP had gone and had breakfast, hit the gym, and spent time in the pool, arriving back to a waking me at maybe 1 p.m. and getting into the beer supply) by seeing some of Orlando, and eating at a nice little indoor/outdoor type restaurant located on a strip of restaurants near one of the locals parks. Good food, good company, good times.

Then, it was HOF time. Parking was sweet and we actually ended up parking about 100 yards from the Arena (same arena RAW was to be at btw). We were early so we spent a few minutes outside of the arena having our picture taken and returning the favor with various tourists/fans. Our seats weren’t the greatest, but certainly better than the obstructed-view-two-feet-from-the-ceiling seats we had last year.

Our seats at the HOF

They had beer so naturally the drinkfest continued. The Hall of Fame was great. I am telling you right now to purchase the WM 24 DVD so that you get the entire affair. Rock opened the show as somewhat of an emcee, and let me tell you within 60 seconds of opening his mouth he had the entire crowd right back in the 1999 palm of his hands. He showed that even three years rusty he has more charisma in his left pinky than 90% of the WWE Roster. Plain and simple, he killed it. His interaction with the crowd was phenominal. The entire Rock/his mom/Father-Grandfather induction thing lasted about 90 minutes (as opposed to the 10 they showed on TV!) and was spectacular.

Seeing the others get inducted was fun too, but we all know everyone was there for Naitch. After his five minute standing ovation, he opened his mouth and didn’t stop for about an hour and a half. I could have listened to him go on for hours more to be honest. It was kind of funny, Triple H was getting booed because some guy would come from the back and whisper something to Trips, then he would have to walk up to Ric and whisper something to him (like “Ric we gotta wrap this up”) or something, and the crowd would give him shit for that. Even funnier was that Ric would pause, listen to his whisper, give him a nod, turn back to us, and keep right on going with what he was saying, completely no-selling the guys in the back. Beautiful. It was….. well it was something else. It’s something I still haven’t taken time to fully absorb and at this point all I know is that it’s probably the third greatest thing I’ve ever witnessed at a live event.

Afterwards, back to the hotel and BACK TO THE BEER! Saturday night was pretty uneventful as we knew Sunday would be a big day.

Got up on Sunday, and shocker, THE BEER DRINKING COMMENCED! We then headed off to Universal Studios again, as we were meeting a couple of 411ers for brunch before the show. Brunch was fantastic, and afterwards JP did a little sight seeing at Universal while I went with one of the 411 guys to the SportsZone (bar) and continued drinking. JP eventually made his way there, and we were off for the show. As soon as we got there, we discovered that our entrance to our seats was located right next to a beer stand and smoke area (outdoor arena so it’s really all a smoke area), so bonus for me.

Our view from WrestleMania 24

First thing I will tell you is my phone died before the show started, that will be important later. The show itself was great live, and Ric Flair/Shawn has since become the second greatest thing I have seen live; yes the match was great, but the sentimental value of it is why it is placed so high. There isn’t much to say about the show in general; I mean, to anyone that goes its a fantastic time and this was no exception. As an added bonus for me, there were enough smokers in our section that it was determined early nobody gave a shit if we smoked from our seats as opposed to leaving the section and entering the outer portion of the arena. BEER WAS ALSO A PLENTY AS IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW.

So the show ended, and the way the crowd dispersed, myself and JP were separated. He ended up making it to the car, I did not. Keep in mind I have no phone so that’s why this was a problem. I knew I was close to the hotel though so I figured walk it. I begin to walk, and I come upon this mobile home (with wheels) converted into a chicken shack. A woman there is nice enough to use her phone to call me a cab (can’t get JP’s number, phone is dead) and in return I buy her and her son …eh… dinner… at 11:00 p.m. So I sit and wait for my cab, and it never shows. So I continue to walk.

Now, I’m walking home (good buzz…gooooooooooooood), dead phone, and now I am out of cigarettes. I happen upon a gentleman who says “hey, there’s a bus stop like a block up”. Sweet. Sure enough, the bus stop was there. However, there were also 500 other people from the show standing there waiting for it. I knew it would be quicker to just walk, however this allowed me an opportunity to bum a couple of cigarettes, which I promptly inhaled because the buzz was strong.

I continue walking, dead phone, no cigarettes, and now the added bonus of having to pee. At this point, I could vault into a story involving a gay club, a trip down memory lane with a pack of Newports, the hottest Asian woman I’ve ever seen and a great cab ride home, but we’ll just say that the next part of the story I’ll get into was walking into the hotel room around 4 in the morning to an awake JP who actually waited for me an hour at the car before heading back to the hotel. He probably should have been more pissed than he was, but I guess part of it was relief I hadn’t been shot or kidnapped …or arrested.

Finally, it was time for sleep (after a couple beers of course); although I attest to this day that Small pounded on our door at around 4:30 a.m. in a drunken stupor (who else would it be, he was three doors down from us) and simply forgot he did so by the time he saw JP at the pool the following day.

The next day, we checked out what I’m told is the largest Miniature golf course in Florida. Thing was awesome, not much to add there.

After that, it was back to the Hall of Fame Arena for RAW.

Our seats at RAW

The only real obvious note here is that we saw the Ric Flair Farewell Address. It was… everything it should have been. To this day I still haven’t been able to fully register exactly what it was I witnessed. I think I probably said it best in HH # 136:

“The whole farewell address was really overwhelming. It’s almost too much. You’re standing there watching, but even in the moment can’t fathom what you’re seeing; almost as if your mind and body just cannot absorb the intensity of what is going on. As I said earlier, when you’re standing there LIVE watching Ric Flair’s farewell address no more than 50 ft from you, you stand up, you clap non-stop until your hand hurts, and you WOOO until your throat gives out, you take it all in, and on the ride home you try to grasp the greatness of what you just saw. Period. To do otherwise is just a flat out disservice. That farewell address was easily the single greatest thing I have ever seen at a live wrestling event.“

As it turned out, we made it on TV for the live RAW broadcast.

Us on TV!

There was naturally beer drinking once we got back to the hotel, but we had an early morning ahead of us so eventually sleep was imminent.

Tuesday we awoke and headed to Miami. JP did most of the driving and I managed to throw in a pitiful hour or so of driving, somehow managing to struggle to stay awake despite having 80 mph winds flowing through my face and being in charge of a two-ton vehicle. Meh, I blame the beer. We arrived at our hotel, and the view we saw out our window made us contemplate skipping the SmackDown/ECW tapings altogether.

In the end though, we decided to go. After all, we were here to take in the entire WM weekend. I will give the tapings the same treatment I did last year. We went, we saw, yippee. It was fun, but we were both utterly exhausted at this point. Again my vertigo was beyond reason, but there was beer for that. The one thing I will note is that they showed the highlight video of Flair’s farewell address, and we made it on that as well. So, since I’m sure you’ll see that 100 times over the next 10 years, know that JP and JT are forever embedded in the annals of WWE history!

We were spent. We made it home, crashed, got up the next day, had a really fantastic parting meal at a little Italian place called Mamma Mias in Hollywood, Florida, hit the airport, caught our respective flights, and headed home. JP the poor bastard had to work the next day. I on the other hand had four days off for recovery; a much, much needed four days. For anyone wondering how JP can hop back into the swing of things and I need a half week to re-cooperate, five words: Beer. He doesn’t drink any.

Overall I had a fantastic time. Anyone and everyone we encountered, from fans to locals to staff were all really great, and it was a pleasure to yet again hang with JP for a few days. I had no initial plans to attend WM Quarter Century last year nor to attend this year, but somehow I suspected as October grew closer, I’d get a phone call from JP, or an email from the New Zealand crew, and would somehow find myself doing it all over again someday. I would be lying if I said JP hadn’t sent out feelers on the big show in two weeks. It’s tempting, damn tempting with that card. I guess we’ll see if I have an article up next year.

Until then…