WrestleMania XXVI, Part Five

It has been roughly 10 months since I last blogged, but in those 10 months, a lot has changed in my life—all for the better. (Don't worry, I didn’t get married or impregnate an unsuspecting woman or anything stupid like that.) As much as I would like to elaborate, I do not like leaving stories unfinished, so even though WrestleMania XXVII in Atlanta has already passed, here’s the continuation of my WrestleMania XXVI trip with Andrew.

For those wondering, I kept rather detailed notes of our trip. At the end of every night, I'd spend a good half-hour scribbling the day’s events on a notepad. It’s been over a year since the trip, and going back through the scribbles, I'm reminded of how much the trip reminded me of Das Boot. Because there was nothing to do in Phoenix, there were long periods of, "So what do we do now?" And then, out of nowhere, there’d be moments of sheer excitement and joy (mostly at the WWE events).

One year later, I still have no desire to go back to Arizona for any reason. And why should I? I’m sure the 4 days we visited are about as good as the state can get.

Now… WrestleMania XXVI. Sunday, March 28, 2010.

Excited for the day's festivities, I woke up at 8 while Andrew slept. I couldn’t believe that we were going to another WrestleMania. Hell, I still couldn't believe we were in Phoenix.

The Bell Hotel had the most modest breakfast setup ever: a few cereal dispensers, a toaster, Danish in a see-through container, a waffle-maker, a coffee maker, and a few pitchers of orange juice and milk. For our entire stay there, I ate several bowls of Chex and milk. Andrew always had a coffee with toast and/or Danish. For WrestleMania, we figured we wouldn't be eating until after the show, so we ate up as much as we could before hitting the road.

We left for the University of Arizona Stadium around 10, even though the event didn't start until 3:30. We didn't want to risk traffic or face any hassles with parking.

On the way, Carrie Underwood's "Temporary Home" started playing, and I made the mistake of telling Andrew how much I hated the song. Rule of thumb with Andrew (at least with me) is that if you don't like something, don't tell him, because chances are, he will love whatever you hate. And it's not just to spite you; Andrew has very specific tastes, so if he loves something, it's genuine. And he will spare no expense to make sure you know he supports something.

In this case, he showed his support for Carrie Underwood by singing "Temporary Home" down the I-17. I think I wept in pain for the first time in years.

Shortly after we left Arizona, the state's controversial immigration laws made headlines. I don't want to brag, but Andrew and I knew the state was losing its marbles beforehand when we parked for WrestleMania. We followed the signs and ended up at a nearby Westgate mall, which charged $30 for event parking at any nearby venue. The mall is next-door to the Jobing.com Arena, where Paul McCartney was performing that night. I thought it was rather funny he was there since I was going to see him days later at the Hollywood Bowl.

Anyway, when we parked, we got a voucher that stated if we spent $20 at the mall, we'd get $20 back from parking. Since we had hours to kill, Andrew and I thought it was a good deal, and we spent $10 each on movie tickets at the AMC. We saw "Repo Men" starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker. It was a good popcorn movie about humans renting mechanical vital organ replacements, and what happens if they fail to make payments on them. We couldn’t help but make fun of the title, which reminded us of a ridiculous wrestling gimmick from the early 90s.

We took our AMC receipt to the parking redemption office, which was really an empty storefront with one lady sitting inside with a pouch full of cash. She gave us $30 back instead of $20, and although we questioned the amount, she insisted that she was supposed to give 30 back. We shrugged and ran off to the stadium before she realized that she let us park for free.

"Those are the kinds of people running Arizona," I said to Andrew. We basked in the glory of our free parking victory until we saw the long line heading into the stadium. Normally, I'd fume at the idea of lining up for any event when there's assigned seating, but we knew that standing in a line was the most exciting thing to do in Arizona at that time.

As soon as we got in, we got caught in a huge cluster of bodies going in all directions. The geniuses running the stadium thought it'd be brilliant to put a merchandise stand, a concession stand, and the bathrooms right in front of the main entrance. One lady started having a panic attack, and rudely pushed through everybody. Andrew tapped me on the shoulder and said, "let's follow this wreck." And we did all the way to our seats.

I've said before that WrestleMania is the Super Bowl of wrestling, and the least you can ask for is a seat on the 50-yard line. Well, we got 'em. They weren’t ringside, but excellent enough, considering we didn't buy the tickets until several months after they were released. I'd never been in a crowd that large before (72,219), so it was fun to take in all the energy and anticipation before the event started.

I was extra curious to see how the entrance stage would be set up in a venue as large as the UoP Stadium. The WWE went with an Aztec theme this time, with a huge pyramid of video screens going up one whole end of the stadium. The entrance ramp went all the way to the 50-yard line, where the ring was built under 4 steel grids that formed another pyramid of lights and speakers. I was impressed, and couldn’t wait to see everything up and running.

Before the pay-per-view started to broadcast, we got a pre-show match in the form of a 26-man battle royal. Santino Marella, who we met at Axxess two days before, was the fan favorite of the bunch. The crowd booed loudly when he was eliminated by Finlay. Andrew and I were most pleased when a Japanese wrestler, Yoshi Tatsu, won the match. Nobody knew who he was, but that didn’t stop us from giving him a rousing ovation.

It was during the battle royal that I realized who I was sitting by: an armrest stealer. Some fat kid wearing an orange John Cena T-shirt kept stealing my armrest. Being the ass that I was (and still am), I had no compunction elbowing him off. Hey, the kid has to learn manners somehow. Andrew and I had to wait 21 years to attend our first WrestleMania. That kid had to wait what? Nine, ten years? Please.

During the battle royal, I also noticed that the stadium had a retractable roof, which was the bane of many fans on the opposite end of us; they got lots of sun in their faces whenever the roof was open. I felt sorry for them. The sun was so bright, I could only see a splash of white on the other end. Of course, Andrew laughed at them. Who cares? We were at WrestleMania! Again!

On the large video screens, a countdown started, and before we knew it, :05… :04… :03… :02… :01…

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NEXT: The wait is OVER!