Saturday 10 April 2021

Give me a “Hell Yeah!” for WrestleMania weekend

An Alexa Bliss collectable figure.
It is something sports writers are looked down upon for admitting, but I had moments in my life where I fantasized about working for the WWE.

There is no way in hell I would ever be one of the wrestlers on camera. Even in my days where I was in my best physical shape, I would not survive tryouts or boot camp workouts at the WWE Performance Center.

During a first workout, I would be one of those that would have asked to be excused to go to the washroom and promptly leave the premises – never to be seen on that site again.

The in ring talent in WWE are incredible athletes who do amazing choreographed and often dangerous stunt performances. They do an amazing job telling stories in entertaining scripted matches that have pre-determined outcomes.

WWE is great live theatre, and that is the bottom line.

Early on in my sports reporting career, I always imagined throwing a resume at the WWE to try and become part of that company’s creative team or get a position as a photographer. I imagined being able to travel the world with WWE while getting paid reasonably well with that position.

Those visions kind of faded away after my third season covering the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers for the Medicine Hat News in 2006-07, when the Tigers won their fifth WHL title. From there, I was really focused on covering hockey.

Alexa Bliss and “The Fiend” have great merch.
WWE and sports entertainment’s professional wrestling was one of my rediscoveries during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. For about the last 16 years, being a sports reporter has been my life consuming thing.

I have usually been so busy usually on the WHL, U Sports, CJFL and SFU18AAAHL circuits that I really didn’t have time for other interests. During normal times before the pandemic, I might watch one movie or play one video game of Madden Football during a course of a calendar year.

Growing up, I watched the WWE (then WWF) a tonne. Of course during the 1980s wrestling boom, the favourites were Hulk Hogan and the “Macho Man” Randy Savage.

In high school, the favourites became Bret “The Hitman” Hart and The Undertaker.

During my days at the University of Regina, I still kept following WWE despite a busy schedule. It seemed most of my friends with the University of Regina Rams and the University of Regina Cougars men’s teams kept tabs on the action there.

The WWE during that time was in its “Attitude Era” and was involved with the “Monday Night Wars” with WCW. The “Monday Night Wars” ended in 2001, when WWE acquired the trademarks, video library and some contracts of WCW.

Favourites during that time were “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, “The Rock” and the NWO stable.

Around 2004, I really drifted away from following the happenings on WWE. I would catch it casually from time to time, but that was about it.

Things changed on Jan. 11 episode of Monday Night RAW when Alexa Bliss came into my life, and she shot a fire ball into the face of Randy Orton. All of a sudden, I was hooked, and I had time to be hooked.

A popular Alexa Bliss T-shirt.
Of course, Bliss, who real name is Alexis Kaufman, is arguably the most attractive female performer on the WWE roster, so that opened up the avenue for some good-natured teasing from friends.

I quickly researched using YouTube and Google searches the feud involving Bliss and Bray Wyatt, who goes by alter-ego persona “The Fiend,” and Orton.

I enjoyed Bliss’s current dark super-natural persona, and checked out her clips during her heel run as “the Goddess,” where she became a two-time WWE Women’s Smackdown Champion and three-time WWE RAW Women’s Champion. I learned about her baby face run with Nikki Cross as WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions.

I was really impresses with the range of Bliss’s acting abilities, which can be best shown on the YouTube video “Transformation ofAlexa Bliss: WWE Playlist.”

That video really showed the range of her acting abilities, especially over the last seven months where the storyline saw her morph into her dark super-natural persona.

I do remember seeing clips of Bliss hosting WrestleMania 35 in 2019, and I remember hearing she had been battling concussion injuries around that time. A thought ran through my head to not get too interested, because I probably wouldn’t get to see her in action.

I’m glad it worked out I did get see her in action in WWE. I checked out her back story and saw she overcame a life-threatening eating disorder at age 15 and took part in a variety of sports growing up.

She loves coffee, everything Disney and being from Columbus, Ohio, the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets.

I am also amazed that she is able to hang in with WWE standing 5-foot-1, which created her “Five Feet of Fury” nickname.

Overall, I rediscovered how much good escapism WWE provided. Soaking in escapism in moderation in these crazy times is a good thing.

Along with Bliss’s exploits, I’ve enjoyed seeing that Orton is still as good as he ever was. I’ve gotten a laugh over the comedic duo of The Miz and John Morrison.

I’ve marveled over the sweet suit game WWE Champion Bobby Lashley has. He looks so ace in a suit.

I’ve even checked out WWE’s competitor in AEW and have enjoyed the product there as well.

From that point, I got reintroduced to the fans that make up the WWE Universe. I was floored by how many millions of followers the WWE performers have.

Some in WWE Universe have thousands and even tens of thousands of followers on the fan accounts they’ve created.

My personal favourite is the @Era_of_Bliss account on Twitter which has over 22,000 followers. If you haven’t followed it, it is definitely worth a follow.

Other fan accounts do incredible art work like the one operated by Christian Heard under the Twitter handle @KingOcho3K. The guy is super talented.

The WWE Universe’s passion is amazing. It would be safe to say the passion of WWE fans is equivalent to that of European soccer fans.

For the WWE Universe, the excitement on Saturday is like what NFL fans have for Super Bowl Sunday as WrestleMania weekend began.

For the second straight year, WrestleMania ran over two nights. This was also the first time in 13 months fans returned to a live WWE show outside of a couple of hundred supporters that take in shows from the company’s NXT brand.

There were no fans at WrestleMania in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That meant the 2019 WrestleMania at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, that attracted 82,265 spectators was the last one of those events to have a crowd.

On Saturday night, the WWE sold all 25,675 tickets they were allowed to sell at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. Before the show, the WWE roster came out to salute the crowd, and WWE kingpin Vince McMahon offered the WWE Universe a thank-you for the support during the COVID-19 pandemic and a welcome to WrestleMania.

All the matches were crowd pleasers.

Among the highlights, rapper Bad Bunny spent months training at the WWE Performance Centre and he turned heads and delivered in the ring with tag team partner Damian Priest. Their match win over The Miz and Morrison will likely pick up media attention outside media outlets that follow the WWE.

The night ended with the hair whip heard round the world as Bianca Belair became the new WWE Women’s Smackdown Champion defeating Sasha Banks. Belair used her lengthy tied up hair to whip Banks near the end of the bout, and the sound was painful to hear.

The two burned the house down with their stellar main event performance.

The WWE Universe is likely heading to bed getting all energetic and excited for Sunday’s closing day of WrestleMania.

Bliss is on for night two taking the side of “The Fiend” in his match against Orton.

The main event sees Edge face Daniel Bryan and title holder Roman Reigns for the WWE Universal Championship in a triple threat match. It is crazy to think this is a main event after Edge and Bryan overcame career-threatening injuries and Reigns won a battle against Leukemia over the past 10 years.

Overall, I found the value of having another interest to follow outside of covering events in the WHL, U Sports, CJFL, SFU18AAAHL and working with the local sports scene in Saskatoon.

When the COVID-19 pandemic passes and the world becomes closer to what it was pre-pandemic, I admit I am not sure how much I will continue to follow the WWE, but I will be more motivated to continue to check out the company’s live shows on TV.

Alexa Bliss and Rob Gronkowski WWE figures on display.
If things work out, maybe I will get tickets to live event, whenever the WWE starts touring the world again.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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