Dot Net reader Isaac Hernandez attended WrestleMania 32 in Dallas, Texas and sent the following report.
I just read the take from another reader and didn’t have nearly the same experience, so I thought I’d share mine. We arrived about 1 p.m. local time. I didn’t see any logic in standing in line. We sat in some shade by the ramp where the wrestlers enter. We saw Nikki Bella. At about 2:30, we realized the Cowboys team store was open and my friend is a big fan so went to check it out. They had it stocked with WWE gear, which was cool. I wanted to find a shirt that I couldn’t find my size in at Axxess, still no luck. They closed it at 3:00 p.m., I presume because they intended to let people in, and we were ushered out by a very grumpy employee.
AT&A Stadium is kinda like Dodgers Stadium in that they only let you enter through certain gates depending your ticket. If you don’t know this or don’t notice it on your ticket, you could presumably have been standing in line for hours, walk up, and be at the entirely wrong gate. I saw this happen multiple times. Anyway, at 3:30 the crowd outside became restless. We were in another shaded area. We overheard that there was a malfunction with the ticket scanners and that’s why the doors weren’t opened at the appropriate time. About 4:10, the gates were opened. So we got in about 4″30 because we noticed that people were staying in their single file lines and not fanning out as they approached the metal detector wand which had like 4 or 5 gates. So we just crossed the huge single file line and stood in a short line. Hey, not my fault, people. It wasn’t long before it filled in behind us.
Once in we found our seats which were very close to our entrance. The concessions are stupid expensive and the service was awful at the stands. That was the last of my negative experiences.
Our seats said limited view due to being at an angle near the stage, so we were worried going in. I think they’ve learned by now because we had a great view about 3 sections up, and 2 sections over if you are facing the stage . That place is huge, TV doesn’t do it justice. The Jerry-Tron 5000 is huge, TV doesn’t do it justice. We were still at the stands when the pre-show started but none of us other than my son cared about the Ryback match. We made it back for the end. I saw the Divas match, but I don’t recall anything standing out. Everyone seemed to get into the Dudley’s match, but it seemed everyone was cheering the heels and were irritated when the babyfaces had the table spots. My son hates the fireworks.
The ladder match was great live, it seemed everyone got into it and by that time it seemed everyone had finally gotten in. Jericho’s entrance lost some of its touch because of all the light from the huge skylight in the roof. I’m a huge Jericho fan and was a little annoyed. I was at the Rumble in ’13 where he got that huge pop and that entrance was way better. The crowd seemed split on who to cheer for. Think everyone was coming down from the ladder match but got into it after a while. The ending seemed to catch everyone off guard which I’m always a fan of.
During the end of the Jericho match, they brought out the huge cereal box, it was kind of distracting. There were crew guys in there hiding that tipped it over from our angle you could plainly see them, then The New Day ran out from the gorilla position. The League of Nations entrance was lame as was the match.
The legends part was fun to be a part of. The only bad part of the Hall of Fame was that on the Tron they had a graphic instead of a live shot. So as they had our backs to us it was hard to tell who was who. First we thought Godfather had the pimp coat on until he was announced, so then we assumed it was Snoop Dogg, then he was announced and had completely forgotten about Michael Hayes.
The Snoop Dogg and Charlotte entrances were cool live. Then I went to the bathroom and to charge my phone so I could still take pics and videos of the last few matches. I got to see it and realized how much I didn’t miss Michael Cole because they had the network feed in the concourse.
That Triple Threat was awesome though and my son and friend said the moonsault looked great live.
Undertaker’s entrance live is really awesome. My son had the Shane McMahon shirt and his entrance was fun. “Money” fell from the ceiling. That spot off the cell was freaking nuts live, and I don’t envy how sore he is today. It seemed everyone had their phones out and got more and more antsy the higher he got.
The battle royal was weird live. We don’t watch NXT so we had no idea who THE FREAKING WINNER WAS. I had to email Jason Powell just to find out since there wasn’t a graphic or anything after he won. It was the low point of the night, and it was the second time I missed stupid Cole.
The Rock’s entrance was fine. We had a bad angle of the sign but it was still cool. Besides Jericho, Bray Wyatt’s entrance was the one I was looking forward to most. It was awesome to be a part of! I still love Bray and didn’t mind him getting fed to the Rock. The match with Erick Rowan was weird. My kid loves John Cena and I love to boo him. Man, that dude gets a hell of a reaction either way.
Again, we had a pretty terrible view of Stephanie McMahon’s riser, so we watched Triple H’s entrance on the Tron. We saw Roman Regins, who we dislike anyway, and stayed for in-ring introductions to hear and help boo Regins and took off. They had some merchandise stands after the show outside which had “I broke the record” shirts which my friend got. I’ll just take a pic of it and add me too, on my Facebook. We parked at the baseball stadium and that was still $30. Inside the stadium was $60 and I wouldn’t be surprised if those people are still trying to leave if they stayed to the end.
Closer parking ranged from $50 to $40 and was glad we could all walk because even $30 seemed insane to me. Saw the end of the show on the network on my phone and felt we didn’t miss out on anything. It was our first of hopefully a few WrestleMania experiences and we were more than satisfied. Our Axxess experience was a little underwhelming, but we think that was due to it being the one that ran simultaneously as the Hall of Fame. A great weekend and a great experience to share with my son and best friend, who are both big fans as well.
That might be the best written arena report I’ve ever read.