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"People bring their entire families and stay 8 or 9 days in the host city, renting cars, staying in hotels and eating at restaurants," Matthews says. Besides all the benefits to his city, Matthews admits his personal association with the sport: He grew up watching it with his brothers.
"Wrestling was on TV on Fridays and Saturdays," Matthews remembers, "so we'd get away with it being on for a half hour before my mom would turn it off because we always took what we saw on the tube and quickly translated it to the couch — you know, just doing things that boys do. I was the youngest but I held my own because I was a big boy." He laughs. "Still am."
Historic Stage
When Reigns and Lesnar step in front of the crowd at Levi's Stadium, they will become a part of a rich and colorful history of bigger-than-life personalities. The WrestleMania ring, dubbed "the showcase of the immortals," offers the best chance for a wrestler to cross over into the mainstream and become a part of popular culture.
One of those classic moments, burned into wrestling's collective consciousness, came when Hulk Hogan slammed Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III in front of 93,173 people at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1987. The event, billed as "the biggest main event in sports entertainment," held the attendance record for the largest indoor sporting event in North America until 2010.
"I actually tore both biceps getting him up. I've got holes here and here in each arm," Hogan says, flexing his famous 24-inch pythons and pointing to two divots in his muscle. "Nowadays if you tear a bicep you get it fixed and are walking around in a sling for four or five months, but back then you just kept going."
As is the case with most wrestlers, it's hard to tell when Hogan is giving you honest recollections or decades-old story lines. The performers live in a culture of half-truths and exaggerations that take on lives of their own. Hell, some people still wonder whether or not there were really more than 93,000 at WrestleMania III, but that doesn't stop Hogan from telling you he didn't even plan on slamming Andre that night, because he wasn't sure if the Giant was going to let him win and his only concern was "getting out of there alive."
When asked if Andre was drinking before their big match at WrestleMania, Hogan looks confused. "When wasn't he?" Hogan jokes, shrugging his massive shoulders. "But that was normal. It was like drinking water for him. It was no big deal."
When there's no crowd and the cameras are turned off, the 61-year-old Hogan, who has undergone nine back surgeries, walks with a noticeable limp. He comes from a different era of wrestling, where the good guys and the bad guys maintained their in-ring characters on the street in order to "protect the business."
"This business is predetermined, but it took us a while to get to the point where we'd admit it," Hogan says. "When I started in the wrestling business, the first day, they broke my leg. That was the mentality; if some young kid was interested in becoming a wrestler, you'd just run his ass off."
Nearly three decades after his WrestleMania III moment, Hogan is yet to be "run off." Brought out to Levi's Stadium to promote the on-sale ticket party for WrestleMania 31, Hogan's big personality still draws big crowds.
Diehards, with a Vengeance
Outside Levi's Stadium, the first man waiting in line to purchase tickets collapses from a seizure before the seats go on sale, leaving the line of die-hard fans behind him shocked.
"He was just really excited about everything. He told me he worked all day and came here right after, without eating," one fan who got here early says, as paramedics attend to the fallen man, who is foaming at the mouth.
Ticket-holders who survive the line are treated to a party featuring a Q&A session with Hogan. The Hulkster relies heavily on the handrails as he climbs the steps to the side of the stage. But when the lights hit him and the crowd roars, the wrestling icon still shines.
"One more match! One more match!" the crowd chants.
The Hulkster strikes one of his iconic bodybuilding poses. He's been campaigning for a comeback match against his friend and spiritual successor as the new face of WWE, John Cena, for quite some time.
"The Immortal" Hulk Hogan raises the mic to his famously mustached mouth and shares something he says McMahon always told him, "Never say never, brother!"
The crowd erupts.
For every fan favorite, there needs to be a bad guy for the good guy to pound on. Sgt. Slaughter, the real-life-Marine-sergeant-turned-pro-wrestler, would become just that for Hogan at WrestleMania VII in 1991.
In the story line leading up to the main event match against Hogan that year, Slaughter's character turned heel, betraying his country and becoming an Iraqi sympathizer during the height of the Gulf War. The fans weren't happy about it, to say the least.
"I had to wear a bulletproof vest at the time because of all the death threats and bomb threats," Slaughter, whose real name is Robert Remus, says of his life outside the ring during the feud.
Earning the crowd's ire was merely a sign of Slaughter's success. The turncoat was accomplishing his goal of getting the crowd to despise him by using about every trick in the book. He celebrated Saddam Hussein's birthday, even baked the dictator a cake. Slaughter stomped on the good guys with boots he said Hussein personally mailed him. The wrestler ditched his Marines outfit and dressed head to toe in Iraqi military garb. He asked infuriated crowds to stand at attention for the Iraqi national anthem. There was even a manipulated photograph depicting Slaughter straight chillin' with Hussein himself.
"That showed one time," Slaughter says with a chuckle, "and then Vince came to us and said, 'We're not doing that again!' We almost lost half our sponsors and TV stations."
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