Stew’s WrestleMania 41 Live Attendance Review

I’ve never been a big user of the term “Bucket List”.

That said… if I had such a list, or if I even used the terminology and applied it to things I really wanted to do with my life, attending a live WrestleMania would long have been on it. So imagine my joy when, several months ago, it became apparent that I would get to go to the Showcase Of The Immortals for the first time ever!

(and given how much tickets cost to this event, likely my only time ever, ha!)

Two of the closest friends of my wife and I are something of Las Vegas pros. They head out to Sin City several times per year for work purposes, for sheer pleasure, and to visit family. They have long wanted a reason to take us on a vacation to Vegas and show us all of the fun that they get up to. So when they realized ‘Mania was happening there… well, it was simply kismet, right?

We got our tickets, booked our flight, and the trip was on!

I’m not much of a picture taker, but here you go: from Las Vegas’ airport!

On Thursday the 17th of April, we flew out to The Neon City on a direct flight from [somewhat] nearby Akron Ohio. We had a trip that was split up into two parts: we would spend the first three days of the vacation in Downtown Las Vegas at The Circa hotel and casino. On Saturday, we packed up and headed to The Strip to spend Saturday through Tuesday in The Palazzo. So the wife and I got two different ends of the Vegas experience.

Downtown works as a nifty little bridge to The Desert Oasis. It’s not THE STRIP, but you get a lot of the glitz and glamour regardless. The most noteworthy aspect of downtown was Fremont Street, a covered avenue full of casinos and bars, and one that has constant live entertainment. Oh, and you can apparently zipline across the length of it, but we did not end up doing that because that’s not my wife’s speed. Fremont serves as the Vegas Appetizer in preparation for The Strip. Like… “Here’s what were have to offer, but much smaller in scale. Go ahead and dip your toes!”.

And dip our toes we did, as we spent our first evening at Miss Behave’s Mavericks, a variety and burlesque show. Very entertaining stuff, and if you find your way downtown in Las Vegas sometime, I highly recommend it. They have a hula hooper who wears a chicken costume! And I’ve always been wow’ed by hula hoopers. What can I say? I’m an easy mark. But that will become more apparent in a bit.

Our friends are big into playing the casino games; Amanda and I, not so much. I personally am a big fan of my money being where it is, especially early on when we played a bit with our friends and realized how quickly the machines can make $40 disappear! Our first gambling Vegas gambling experience was pretty embarrassing. Oh, slot machine emblazoned with the Seattle Seahawks logo, why did you have to betray me?

I would end up doing better a little later on when I realized our hotel was giving away Match Play chips if you showed them your WrestleMania tickets. So with fifty bucks in match play, I headed to the roulette table, bet $50 on Red twice and came out ahead! Take that, City Of Lost Wages!

I can totally see the allure of gambling now. Or maybe just roulette. I could have sat there and bet on Red all damn day. You get to watch the little ball spin around until it finds a home in one of the segments; it’s the best, guys. But I have WILLPOWER! So I just played my match play money and moved on.

I do still want to play Roulette more nowadays, though. I wonder how much a table costs. Maybe I just want to spin the ball around.

Across the days in preparation for WrestleMania Saturday, I ended up seeing a few WWE stars in our hotel–most notably Shawn Spears (and his wife, the former Peyton Royce of the IIconics) and Sheamus. I didn’t have it in me to bother them, as I figure they are going about their lives and trying to enjoy themselves, and they’ll have a hundred other schmucks like me coming up to them to tell them they want pictures or something. My friends were ashamed of me, however.

(Though I could have talked to Shawn Spears about how I once interviewed his boy Tyler Breeze for the Stew World Order podcast and maybe gotten him to agree to come on, too. Missed opportunities, alas!)

On Saturday, we moved down to The Strip and holy hell, unless you live in New York City or, like, Tokyo or something, that has to be a culture shock. It’s just lights and energy and goings-on 24/7. We immediately headed out to the WWE Superstore and spent some time shopping around there. I bought a commemorative T-shirt, even though I already had my shirts picked out for the weekend.

One for each night’s main event!

After coordinating the wives’ plans for the next two nights, my buddy Joe and I headed to Allegiant Stadium for WRESTLEMANIA NIGHT ONE!

Obviously, Night One was something of a two-match show, with the bookends being the highlight points. In the show’s opener, “Main Event” Jey Uso took on GUNTHER for the WWE World Championship. I’m pretty sure that Jey Uso is still on his way to the ring for that affair, and he takes the prize for Longest Ring Entrance of the weekend, but who cares? The crowd was super into Yeeting with him as he entered the fray.

(I even got Joe, who really doesn’t care for Jey Uso, to Yeet along with everyone else)

The match itself was fine, but it was all a segue to get to its own climax: Jey tapping GUNTHER out and winning the title to another round of emphatic and supportive Yeeting. This was, as they say, a WrestleMania Moment, and WWE will have footage of this to show for years to come. I don’t agree that it’s quite on the level of Daniel Bryan’s YEStleMania moment, but you can’t deny the fans are into Uso.

After Jey’s triumph, night one settled into a bit of a lull. There was a tag team title change, as The New Day defeated The War Raiders. And Jade Cargill took 9:20 to defeat Naomi in a match I predicted disaster for if it went over 5:00 (though, to be fair, disaster was averted and the bout was fine).

The next highlight of the evening was LA Knight’s United States Title defense against Jacob Fatu. I didn’t expect much out of this one aside from a hot crowd, but I thought both guys put their working boots on and had a really entertaining match. Jacob won, thus setting him up for a run that I predict will last potentially longer than a year. Modern WWE sure likes its long championship reigns, and this guy could be ready for a record-breaker.

El Grande Americano had a match with Rey Fenix that did not really move the EGA storyline ahead at all, but it was something. And these two super talented dudes were given less time to work with than Jade and Naomi!

Next up, Charlotte challenged for Tiffany Stratton’s championship, and I am reminded that I do not really know which woman’s title in WWE is called what. We’re just calling this one Tiffy’s Title. This match was… not ideal. But Tiffy retained, which was pretty swell!

Here’s what I think I learned, though: the boos for Charlotte? Almost definitely piped in. They are so sudden and so much louder than anything else, and they don’t always seem to match the visual reactions of the crowd around me. I think WWE is so afraid that Charlotte might play to silence that they would rather lean into her heel act and pipe in noise for her. But that’s just my speculation.

Regardless, the next match up was the main event: Seth “Freakin'” Rollins vs Roman Reigns vs CM Punk (led to the ring by Paul Heyman). And if much of the night had been spent in lull, there was no worry of that here, as the entire stadium buzzed with energy the entire half-hour-plus that this went on. The crowd in attendance alternated from CM Punk chants to Roman Reigns choirs to singing Seth Rollins’ music. It was constant energy! And when Seth and Heyman turned heel to win the contest, the crowd didn’t seem that bothered and kept right on cheering.

(or maybe that was just my perspective because I’m a huge Seth Rollins fan. See the T-shirt above)

You know what’s fantastic, by the way? Pacific Standard Time. WrestleMania Night One ended, Joe and I waited for a cab back to The Palazzo, and by the time we reconvened with The Amandas (did I mention both of them are named Amanda?)–they went out to see the Magic Mike show and emphatically give it two thumbs up–it was still only 9:00pm!

And 9:00pm in Sin City might as well be four o’clock in the afternoon, so we changed and headed back out, this time to The Neon Museum. It was a good trip, if during a chilly night, and we saw two very drunk people get engaged in front of the old Stardust neon sign. I hope those crazy kids have a [adjective] life together, but I really want to know what was so romantic/meaningful about that sign.

The next day, we got up and walked The Strip for a bit, planning more goings-on for the evening after Night Two of WrestleMania. And then in the early afternoon, we made our way back to Allegiant Stadium for more wrestling festivities!

Night Two was, on the whole, a lot more energetic than Night One. Not that the entire show had that Rollins/Punk/Reigns buzz, but there was no real lapse in crowd power, either. It opened with the women’s title match with Iyo Sky defending against Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair. And, seeing as how this is Vegas, I would have bet half my money on Rhea and the other half on Bianca. I really didn’t imagine I’d see Iyo–my favorite of the three–retaining.

And then she did! It was the first of three times during Night Two that something got a huge reaction out of me, as I jumped up and raised my arms in joy as she hit the Over-The-Moonsault and pinned Belair.

The second match for Night Two saw Drew McIntyre defeat Damian Priest in a very entertaining Sin City Street Fight match, and this was oddly the only bout on either show to have a gimmick affixed to it (unless you count Triple Threats and a Fatal Fourway as gimmick matches).

Speaking of Fatal Fourway matches, the third contest saw Bron Breakker’s Intercontinental Title reign end at the hands of “Dirty” Dominik Mysterio in a match that also had Finn Balor and Penta involved. Dom’s win–as reminiscent to Iyo’s as it was (Dom was posted on the top rope, much like Iyo was, while some stuff happened, then he jumped off into his finisher, much like Iyo did, to steal the win)–was the second moment of jubilation for me.

The third would be moments later when Randy Orton’s mystery opponent was revealed to be Joe Hendry. Joe was squashed by The Viper, sure, but look: this was an affair that only helped everyone involved. Randy looked strong going into his next program against John Cena; Joe Hendry got to have a moment on WRESTLE-FRIGGIN’-MANIA, and who saw THAT coming? I’m sure he was THRILLED to lose a three minute match to Randy there! The crowd got to pop huge for the guy, and WWE found out he is super over, even with a crowd the size of WrestleMania’s.

Would I have LIKED to have seen Hendry get ten minutes and really show out against Randal Keith? Sure! But to the people saying this hurt Joe or “buried” him or whatever: I don’t see it. Joe will be fine when he signs with WWE next year. This was basically a try-out.

AT WRESTLEMANIA.

Who gets to have one of those?!

After Hendry’s WrestleMania Moment, we got a too-long Logan Paul/AJ Styles match that was fine. And then we got Becky Lynch’s long-awaited WWE return, which was simply another “pop the crowd” moment. And it worked; I popped, even though we all knew it was coming. Becky and Lyra Valkyria got to enjoy a one-day tag title reign before Becky would turn heel the next night and betray her friend.

And then the main event: Cody Rhodes taking on John Cena. What to say about this one?

Well, it had a terrible ending. And even the ride there was just Okay, with the whole thing only lasting less than 22 minutes for a WrestleMania main event. And of those 22, It felt like 10 of it was committed to the lame ending that saw Travis Scott-NOT The Rock, but RAPPER TRAVIS SCOTT–get a full ring entrance to interfere to help Cena win.

Part of the interference saw Cody look like an absolute schmoe who refused to clock Cena with the title belt, so Cena just kicked him in the balls and did that same thing to Cody.

Man, remember several years ago when Bayley refused to use a weapon on Alexa Bliss, and it made Bayley look like a lame-o idiot? Well that’s what WWE did to Cody… only in the main event of the Grandaddy Of Them All.

Not that the fans cared. We got to see Cena win his 17th world title live, and those in attendance were heavily pro-Cena on the night. After the cameras went off and Cena headed to the back, he got a solid “Thank You, Cena” chant.

And that was it for WrestleMania. A kind of a bummer final match to a two-night show that I actually really enjoyed a whole damn lot. Look, I’m not dumb: I know that folks are down on this ‘Mania, but I had an absolute blast seeing one in person for the first time ever. Jey’s win was great. The night one main event absolutely ruled. The women’s three-way was the second best match of the whole shebang, and I marked out for Iyo winning. McIntyre/Priest was quite good. Dom won a great match to catch his first main roster singles title. Joe Hendry appeared! Becky Lynch came back!

I’m not going to let an underwhelming night two main event soil a solid weekend of the grapples for me. Have there been better WrestleManias? Undoubtedly. But that doesn’t impact how good of a time I had in live attendance to this one.

Especially when that was not even all! We still had another 9pm arrival to the hotel and an evening in The Neon City. And then one more night before we flew home on Tuesday. Our last night was going to be out at a karaoke bar/casino, but that started later than we thought it did, so we caught a cab and headed to the Luxor–which is the pyramid shaped hotel/casino across a bridge from Allegiant Stadium–instead to go to The Play Playground, which is kind of a big adult game set-up. We played some games and then headed back to our hotel to catch some Z’s before flying out the next morning.

So where do I land?

Well the vacation itself was a 10/10. Between ‘Mania and everything else to do in Las Vegas, I had endless amounts of fun. And we barely scratched the surface on what all there is to do in Sin City! But it was a blast. I’d love to go back sometime. If I could only attend one WrestleMania, there are better shows to have seen, but few better places to hold one and spend just shy of a full week.

Until next time… take care!