WrestleMania 33: Orlando both a great and horrible venue for the show of shows

Orlando is a logical place for WWE to stage its biggest event every few years, but that doesn’t make it the best one.

If you’re fortunate enough to make it to WrestleMania more than once, you’ll quickly pick up on the fact that every host city gives it a different feel. Sometimes, the WWE’s annual showcase seems to take over an entire metropolis, even in a place as sprawling as Houston.

Other times, it’s just another show, albeit a big one, that doesn’t seem to have too much of an impact on the environment around it. WrestleMania 29 comes to mind, partly because MetLife Stadium isn’t even in New York City, but also because the Big Apple is what it is — there’s always something else going on.

Then there’s Orlando, the site of Sunday’s event. It exists somewhere in-between the two extremes as a WrestleMania venue, at once both a fantastic and somewhat and undesirable place for the showcase of the immortals.

Let’s start with the positives. The WWE is wisely leaning into Orlando’s reputation as theme park central even harder this time, billing the event as “The Ultimate Thrill Ride” and building what appears to be a mini amusement park as the set (even the super long ramp to the ring kind of brings to mind lengthy queues at Magic Kingdom). It’s undeniably awesome to have some of the WrestleMania Week events in and around Orlando’s theme parks, which was definitely the case back in 2008 and not so much this time around.

Orlando also has plenty of venues to host the smaller promotions that end up turning any WrestleMania host city into the de facto center of the pro wrestling universe. But this, too, is a mixed blessing. Despite not being as big as other cities on the current WWE rotation for its premier event, Orlando isn’t exactly the easiest place to navigate.

That brings us to the place where WrestleMania is actually taking place, Camping World Stadium. It’s by all accounts a decent stadium after being renovated a few years ago, which is a good thing because when WrestleMania XXIV rolled into what was then the Florida Citrus Bowl, it was without question the worst facility used to put on a WrestleMania in the all outdoor stadium era. It was old, still had plenty of bleachers instead of real seats (and still does, as far as I know, up in the higher sections) and simply lacked things like elevator capacity to get people up and down from the press box.

(As a side note, because it had so few amenities, some of the talent was wandering around up on the press box level, which had been divided up into an area for family and friends, after their parts on the card were finished. That was cool even if accidental.)

Parking was a nightmare, and even though the WWE encouraged people to use public transportation, it’s not like there was a ton of that to use to get to the stadium at the time. Covering WrestleMania XXIV for another outlet at the time, I ended up parking in what was essentially a dubious looking vacant lot along with a surprised group of Canadian journalists.

If the Camping World Stadium renovation is as good as reported, then perhaps some of these concerns are no big deal in 2017. What hasn’t changed is that like New York, there’s a lot going on in Orlando besides WrestleMania. By size alone, it should be the kind of city that simply gets absorbed by the pageantry, hitting you with it as soon as you arrive, but that’s difficult when Disney World and Universal Studios are nearby.

And yes, you can certainly make it a WrestleMania/amusement park combo trip, but one hopes you’re receiving a large tax refund to think about something like that.

Next: WrestleMania 33 preview and predictions

What it boils down to is this: I love Orlando and I love WrestleMania. I have fond memories of WrestleMania XXIV. But two things that are great on their own don’t always mesh perfectly to make something better, and this is a combination that doesn’t quite turn out to be everything you might imagine.

Now New Orleans, on the other hand …