Date: April 5, 2009

Location: Houston, Texas

Anticipation Levels: High

On April 1, 2001, I attended an event called Wrestlemania X-Seven. At the time, I just assumed it was another PPV that just happened to be in Houston. My little brother was making a big deal to my parents about getting tickets to the show which would be hosted in front of 67, 925 people in an old dilapidated baseball stadium called the Reliant Astrodome. My parents, myself and my brother got some $45 tickets to sit behind the titantron of Wrestlemania and watch the show through some binoculars. I loved the event and was on the edge of my seat especially for the main event. I had no idea that the event I just went to would be considered one of the greatest PPV's, if not the greatest pay per view of all time. I remember buying $6 hot dogs, going to the restroom during the Gimmick Battle Royal, watching the TV screen during the hardcore match when Raven, Big Show, and Kane were beating each other in the back, and of course cheering my 11 year old marky self for the Rock at the main event. Sadly, I don't have many memories of Wrestlemania 17 because we didn't take many pictures and my fuzzy mind prevents me from recalling every single thing of an event that I thought was just another event. I'll eventually upload the few pictures that were taken at the event on here just so I can prove that I did attend the greatest PPV of all time. I'm not Mr. King after all.

I eventually got out of wrestling one year later largely in thanks to my favorite wrestler of all time Stone Cold Steve Austin no longer wrestling for the WWE. Fortunately, he apologized at the Hall of Fame a couple of days ago about his walking out incident, and I forgive him. Back to the story, I got back in to wrestling in October 2004 and ever since then I've been looking forward to the day Wrestlemania comes back to Houston. Every Wrestlemania that I have watched, I saw the promo videos for where next year's event will be hosted. Chicago, Darn! Detroit, Crap! (Hindsight, I was right about Detroit being crap. J) Orlando, Aww man! And then it was that I saw the glorious message on a wrestling website. WRESTLEMANIA 25 COMES TO HOUSTON! I was stoked, and was looking forward to getting my tickets as soon as they went on sale. Fast forward one year later, and here I am, a 19 year old freshman college student going to an event I've wanted to go for a long time. So after all that spiel, let's get this story started.

I arrived at the stadium at about 3:15 PM and the gates opened at about 3:30. The place was packed, and I swear I have to question some of these people's sanity. One guy had two $300 replica belts on, A Rey Mysterio mask, a Hulk Hogan bandana, and a Wrestlemania 25 jersey, which I must admit looked pretty nice, not worth the $30 though. A lot of people also made note of the pro-Shawn Michaels signs I had with me including "The Deadman Dies Tonight!" and a "16-1" sign. I got lots of support and lots of hate, playful hate though. As I was making my way up the escalator of Reliant Stadium, which is a far nicer and newer stadium than the Astrodome, I noticed that the ticket stub I printed out mentioned I was in the VIP Riser section. Looking at the Reliant map, I had assumed I was on the second floor, so I immediately thought to myself, I was going to be on the inclined seats of the first floor. To my surprise, I was wrong. In fact, I'm glad I was wrong, because I was really close to the ring, basically on the floor on an extremely small incline, supposedly the Riser. How close was I, you ask? Really close!

I was only 6 rows away from the $755 seats. The problem with floor seats though is that when something interesting happens, people tend to stand up and block your view of the action, especially when they decide to hold up signs. Inside the stadium I met a lot of people, including Bill and Doug, who are actually pretty nice in real life, and the Sign Guy. So with all the people, might as well get to know the people I'm sitting next to. There were New Yorkers behind me who had gone to Wrestlemania 1 and Survivor Series 2002, a couple of Aussies in front of me, a little kid with a John Cena autographed shirt (Lucky Sun of a Gun), and the guy sitting to the right of me from Toronto. That's right Toronto, me and my 16-1 sign were not going to get along very well with him. But we did. He was crazy hardcore, he had supposedly gone to Wrestlemania 6, 18 (I asked him why he was so quiet for the main event), 23, 24, and 25. My God! How do people afford to go to all these events? So as the event gets started to our shock, MizMo vs. Colons went on first as a dark match. I immediately felt the paying PPV customer's pity as the match had been advertised on Pay Per View. Anywho, it was a good match and people seemed to enjoy the Colons winning. Now the event started.

We got a fine looking Pussycat doll to sing "America the Beautiful", afterwards we got a sweet intro video and then the show started. Money in the Bank was the first match, and I don't know how it came off on TV, but we the crowd were booing CM Punk and wildly cheering for Christian to win. I don't have to tell you all that the match delivered and was probably on about the same level as last year's match. Not as good as Wrestlemania 21's Money in the Bank but better than 22 and 23. Next on the card was Kid Rock. I immediately turned to the guy next to me why they are wasting PPV time on Kid Rock. The fact that he went on FOR TEN MINUTES STRAIGHT was completely ridiculous. It didn't help that a lot of people seemed to enjoy the singing except for me. Oh and Kid, get rid of those stupid glasses and end your career already, no one "wants to be a cowboy" and it's not Summer! Needless to say, the next match on the card was the Divas match. The match was dull but Santino, err I mean Santina winning got the crowd to pop for him/her. His post match antics were hilarious. However, I have to think of the day when this transvestite gimmick will eventually wear off and when he will be actually treated as a serious threat. He has the makings of possible future main eventer, now whether Vince sees that or not is another question, but Santino will need to become credible sooner rather than later.

Up next was the Legends match, and I'll admit, I had absolutely zero expectations for this match. Piper and Snuka were eliminated and then came the good stuff. My God! Steamboat wrestles so much better than some of the pieces of crap on the payroll *cough*Vladimir*cough* and the "You Still Got It!" chant was well deserved. Anyway lots of Jericho fans, including the Toronto guy sitting next to me, figures, and Chris winning was actually good for the business. Afterwards we were all waiting for the glass to break and for Stone Cold to come out and totally destroy Jericho. We were all severely let down, when all that happened was a confrontation between Rourke and Jericho. Oh well, Hardy vs. Hardy was next. The Toronto guy tried to start a "Let's Go Hardy" chant. Oh sneaky, sneaky! Matt won a good to great match with a sick Twist of Fate on a Steel Chair. It's simple but so effective and it looked nasty. Next was Rey Rey vs. JBL, short but harmless, next.

Now was the match most people were looking forward to. Most people that I had talked to said they were looking forward to two matches, "Randy Orton vs. Triple H" and "Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker". From Shawn's opening chorus to the final Tombstone, the crowd was alive for what I thought was the greatest match I have ever seen, maybe it'll even best Chris Benoit vs. HHH vs. HBK for Match of the Decade. I don't know, but it's definitely up there.

Houston was torn 50/50. And that crazy Toronto guy was always trying to be louder than my HBK chants, what with his "You Screwed Bret" chants. I politely told him Bret screwed Bret. At the end of the match though he said that that was the greatest Wrestlemania match he had ever seen live since he's been to so many. Match was excellent. The New Yorkers sitting behind me said that the following two matches were going to have a tough time following that show. Sadly, that was the truth.

The Hall of Famers segment was great and Austin got a massive pop, him riding around in the humvee was a nice touch. I also got a great pic of Stone Cold drinking beer in the ring. The Triple Threat match was nice and the Army of one thousand Cena's was a great touch, since he always seems to get the best entrance, 50% of the crowd still booed him though. Crowd popped for the big spots was quietly mostly throughout the match.

Then came the main event. So with the excellent build up it got and the fact that Randy Orton and Triple H hated each other so much, they were going to pull out all the stops and have balls to the walls action, Right?! WRONG!! I love Randy Orton, but he was just not on the ball today. Me and several Orton fans, there were a lot tried to get the crowd up to start chanting "RKO", what happened, the crowd didn't stand up, and why, because these two were in a horrible excuse for a Mania main event. What a weak match! And the fact that Triple H won in the end just totally no sells Orton's Rumble win. Orton was not right, but Triple H easily wins Worst Wrestler of the Night. You have a chance to go all out, and you just put Orton in to a corner and start doing basic kicks and punches. What the hell?! The crowd wanted to start a wave, but it never caught on. Triple H winning did get a big pop though.

In the end, my Toronto friend summed it up best, most Wrestlemanias are one match shows. Unlike X8, some of the other matches delivered as well, not just the one big match. However he said, although this was better than 23, it was worse than 24, and I agree. So eight years later, I attended another Wrestlemania. The fact that they didn't bring up the fact that WWE had been to Houston before for historical significance was kind of a head scratcher. Even more of a head scratcher was the crappy order of the matches, and the fact that we got NO BACKSTAGE SEGMENTS! No Slick and Cryme Tyme, No King Booker and freaks, no Festus ring antics, no Edge awesome insults to the fans. Just pure matches. And although I am fine with it, it leaves a lot to be desired for the perfect Wrestlemania experience. One thing I will commend the WWE for is the fact that they actually used all four hours of PPV and did not pull that ending thirty minutes early crap that they pulled at Wrestlemania 23.

So was this better than Seventeen? No. Was this one of the top five Wrestlemanias of all time? No. Was this one of the top ten Wrestlemanias of all time? Yes, and I can probably make a case for it. All complaints aside, I mostly enjoyed Wrestlemania and if given the chance I'd do it again, because there's no substitute for the live experience. It was fun and it beats the crap out of doing college work on a Sunday Night. So what did you guys think of the show? Did you guys happen to see me?

I have lots of Wrestlemania 25 pictures available on my facebook account here…

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=104119&id=604434898

See you later guys!