It may have taken a while to pack 101,763 people into AT&T Stadium, but the WWE set a new WrestleMania attendance record Sunday. The Super Bowl of wrestling did fail to reclaim the indoor sporting event attendance record it held for 23 years before that belt was snatched away by the 2010 NBA All-Star Game at the Death Star. But no basketball game has ever featured The Rock, flanked by Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, firing a flamethrower into the air.
As far as attendance numbers go, WrestleMania 32 also failed to match the NFL regular season record, set in 2009 at the House That Jerry and Arlington Taxpayers Built. But no crowd has ever cheered a touchdown the way 100,000 wrestling fans roared at the sight of Shane McMahon falling 20 feet from the top of a cage and crashing through the announcers’ table.
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.@shanemcmahon off the top of the steel cage! #WrestleMania pic.twitter.com/APEFHwTJal
— WWE (@WWE) April 4, 2016
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And while 101,763 can’t touch the 199,854 who were reportedly in attendance for the 1950 World Cup Final in Brazil, no soccer player ever celebrated a goal with the triumphant flair of Stone Cold Steve Austin–the former North Texas football player, looking like redneck royalty in a “Dallas 3:16” T shirt–chugging beer from the turnbuckles minutes after his vanquished foes rolled out of the ring.
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STONE COLD! #WrestleMania pic.twitter.com/4qZgCxSEp9
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 4, 2016
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WrestleMania 32 may have also set another record that surely doesn’t exist in most sports, or in most record books: Brock Lesnar delivered 13 suplexes (Jerry World’s enormous screen counted them off) to opponent Dean Ambrose.
It’s hard to top professional wrestling in terms of sheer spectacle and fan enthusiasm. Even when that enthusiasm is being channeled into an overwhelming cacophony of boos directed at Roman Reigns, your new WWE heavyweight champion of the world.
