WRESTLEMANIA ROCKS
Crowds cheer as fireworks explode at WrestleMania 33 at Camping World Stadium Sunday. If you are a wrestling fan, you know that Orlando was the center of the universe Sunday night as match after match proved as entertaining as they were sporting. If you weren’t plugged into the megaevent, here are just a few things to know. First, it was a sellout with 70,000 attending. And what did the crowd see? What did they not see? After all, The New England Patriots’ Rob Gronkowski got a drink thrown in his face by Jinder Mahal, so Gronk jumped into the ring to help Mojo Rawley win the match. Dean Ambrose retained the Intercontinental title by defeating Baron Corbin. And Neville retained the WWE cruiserweight championship. Shane McMahon leaped all the way across the ring to kick a trash can into AJ Styles’ face. RAW’s Bayley kept her championship in an emotional elimination match. Oh, and John Cena asked Nikki Bella to marry him.
WWE serves up big taste of business side
WrestleMania’s eclectic mayhem comes at you hard, a mix of lights and music, with a sensory overload that hits you like a punch to the gut.
It is brilliant for marketing purposes and the coffers of the Central Florida economy.
The Super Bowl of professional wrestling came to town for a smorgasbord of events, culminating with a lineup of super heroes and villains doing battle inside the confines of Camping World Stadium on Sunday.
How could you not love The
Big Show, The Undertaker and The Mayor, trading haymakers and fists of fury?
OK, The Mayor — aka Orlando’s Buddy Dyer — wasn’t officially vying for world domination in WWE’s famous squared circle, but he was in the mix among 75,245 fans — the stadium record for the event — who also were amused, bemused and smitten by what he has seen over the last week.
“Humble, kind, polite,” Dyer said before the start of the show, noting the authentic humility he’s encountered from the stars at various events, including a VIP party at the Mezz in Orlando Saturday night. He took photo with the Big Show, who posed for a lot of pictures over the weekend.
The Big Show joined a number of other stars — including Bayley and Tyrus — at Florida Hospital for Children on Wednesday for a compassionate meet-andgreet with sick children.
Organizing officials counted 24 events — including five live shows that will extend beyond Sunday to Monday Night Raw and Tuesday Night Smackdown — that puts some muscle in Orlando’s image as a Mickey Mouse kind of town. Those are fighting words.
WWE brought the power of a combined 750 million Twitter followers on various platforms, a visiting entourage of fans encompassing 62 countries and all 50 states, and an estimated gate of $17 million.
“This isn’t a single-day event,” said John Saboor, executive vice president of special events for WWE and an Orlando resident. “You’re welcoming the universe for a week.”
Saboor hopes that his influential squeeze helps bring WrestleMania to Orlando on a rotating basis. It’s been here once before, in 2008.
“We’re at the point where we’ve been to every destination city,” Saboor said. “We know who does it well and cities who have done it better than well. … We’re quickly figuring it out.” Hint: Orlando gets it. Insert snicker here from cynical fan: “Don’t you know this stuff is all staged? Fans are all a bunch of yahoos.”
Um, no. Those who know better include Forbes magazine, which has named WrestleMania one of the 10 most valuable sports events in the world for the third consecutive year, ranking behind the Super Bowl, Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics and FIFA’s World Cup.
That eclectic mayhem drives an eclectic crowd. Sunday’s mix included guys taking turns wrestling shirtless in the dirt outside the stadium, with a referee monitoring the action, to men in coats and ties in a VIP tent.
That included Gov. Rick Scott and Dyer in a mixand-mingle featuring sushi, scallops and shrimp. This was Scott’s first WrestleMania, but as a guy who has built a political platform on bringing business to Florida he is up front in lobbying efforts not only to bring back WrestleMania to Central Florida but possibly move WWE headquarters from Connecticut to Central Florida.
But enough business talk. This is pro rasslin.
“Size and scope and storylines,” said Jason Siegel, president/CEO of the Central Florida Sports Commission.
Shane McMahon was flying all over the place Sunday night, despite losing to AJ Styles. Bayley defended her RAW women’s championship in a thrilling Fatal 4-Way, with Sasha Banks, Charlotte Flair and Nia Jax.
There was even a Rob Gronkowski sighting. Gronk has become a nomadic Animal House Bluto at many of America’s highprofile sporting events, including the Daytona 500. He was part of the Battle Royal shenanigans, won by Mojo Rawley.
As for the rest of the night, I was absolutely stunned that The Big Show was eliminated early in the Battle Royal. But I was even more surprised that my Upset Special didn’t prevail.
I had big money on The Mayor.