Wrestlemania 34: Five Days of Wrestling, Food, and One Extra Day We Didn't Plan On

WrestleMania 34 Weekend in New Orleans

Five Days of Wrestling, Food, and One Extra Day We Didn't Plan On

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

In April of 2018, Catrina and I headed down to New Orleans for WrestleMania weekend with our friends Jeff and Jess. By this point it had become a bit of a tradition for the four of us, as we'd made the WrestleMania trip together before in Dallas, New York, and New Orleans, so returning to the Big Easy felt like coming back to familiar ground. We stayed in a cute little Air Bnb nestled behind another house in the Garden District, the perfect home base for a long weekend of wrestling and good food.

When we weren't at an event, we ate and explored our way across the city. We hit Courtyard Brewery for a few drinks, grabbed incredible food at Cochon Butcher, and took in the sights at Mardi Gras World, where all those enormous parade floats are built. Breakfast at the Red Dog Diner and a stop at Central City BBQ kept us fueled, and of course we couldn't leave without a box from District Donuts. New Orleans is a food town through and through, and we did our best to sample as much of it as we could.

The wrestling started with NXT TakeOver: New Orleans, which Jeff and I went to, and it turned out to be one of the best shows of the whole weekend. Adam Cole won a wild six-man ladder match to become the very first NXT North American Champion, Aleister Black captured the NXT Championship, and Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa tore the house down in their unsanctioned grudge match. Three new champions were crowned that night, and the whole building was electric from start to finish.

We also dove into the independent side of the weekend at WrestleCon. Jeff and I caught House of Hardcore, the indie event running as part of it, where we got to see Joey Ryan, the legendary Rock and Roll Express, and a bunch of others put on a show. Wandering WrestleCon itself was a blast, and I got to meet a bunch of old-time wrestlers, including "Mean Gene" Okerlund and Ricky Steamboat, a childhood favorite of mine, which was a real bucket-list moment.

Then came the main event: WrestleMania 34 itself. The night was packed with unforgettable moments, from Ronda Rousey's incredible in-ring debut to The Undertaker returning to answer John Cena's challenge. Charlotte Flair ended Asuka's long undefeated streak, Daniel Bryan made his emotional return to the ring after being medically cleared to wrestle again, and Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns closed out the show in a brutal main event. Being there in the Superdome for all of it was everything we'd hoped for.

The weekend rolled on with Monday Night Raw, and we figured we were heading home Tuesday morning. But when we got to the airport, storms down in Florida had other plans, and we ended up stuck in New Orleans for another day. As it turned out, a lot of the wrestlers were stranded in that same airport, since so many of them live in Florida too. So we grabbed a room for the night, made the most of the bonus day, and headed to SmackDown to wrap up one of the best wrestling weekends we've ever had.