WrestleMania 42 is taking over Las Vegas this weekend.
But there’s been a fair amount of noteworthy Detroit flair among three days of festivities.
What celebrities attended WrestleMania 42?
WrestleMania long has brought out the celebs (even dating to WrestleMania III at the Pontiac Silverdome, when the likes of Aretha Franklin, Alice Cooper, Bob Uecker and Mary Hart were in attendance).
Saturday’s Day 1 of WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas was no exception.
Among tens of thousands of fans packing into Allegiant Stadium was Detroit Lions Pro Bowl running back Jahmyr Gibbs, who also was in attendance for WrestleMania 41 in Vegas last year. (Sadly, he wasn’t shirtless, so we didn’t get to see that new Sonic back tattoo.) Good on Gibbs for restraining from shot-gunning a beer Saturday night, unlike San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle.
What did Dennis Rodman say at his WWE Hall-of-Fame induction?
Former Pistons “Bad Boy” Dennis Rodman was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on Friday night, in the celebrity category. He was honored for his brief run as a heel with the New World Order back in the 1990s.
In his brief induction speech Friday, Rodman paid tribute to the late Hulk Hogan, his running mate (and occasional tag-team partner) during the nWo days. Rodman, ever the eccentric then and now, once famously missed practice during the 1998 NBA Finals so that he could wrestle a match with Hogan.
When did Hulk Hogan body-slam Andre the Giant?
For the first time, the WWE inducted an actual match into its Hall of Fame, and what better way to start that tradition than with Hulk Hogan’s epic body-slamming of Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III before more than 90,000 at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1987?
“When we booked the building, they didn’t tell us that a week before us, the Pope’s gonna be at the Silverdome, and then three days before us, the Rolling Stones are gonna be there,” legendary wrestling manager Jimmy “Mouth of the South” Hart said at the induction gala Friday. “Hulk leads over to me and says, ‘Jimmy Hart, what do you think about it, man?’ And I said, ‘Hulk, I think we can outdraw the Pope, but I don’t think we can outdraw the Rolling Stones, baby.'”
‘Twas a helluva story. But it was a bit off with the facts. WrestleMania III was in March 1987, and the Pope’s visit was that September. And the Pope did outdraw WrestleMania III, 93,682 to 93,173. (As for the Rolling Stones, they played the Silverdome in 1981, 1989, 1994 and 1997, but not 1987.)
Here’s the induction montage video for the famous Hogan-Giant match, which, if you look closely, features a screen shot of The Detroit News front page from late March 1987.
When is WrestleMania 42? How do you watch WrestleMania 42?
WrestleMania 42 is a two-day event, with Day 1 on Saturday, April 18, and Day 2 on Sunday, April 19.
You can watch WrestleMania 42 on ESPN cable and streaming platforms.
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Lions’ Jahmyr Gibbs attends WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas
Reporting by Tony Paul, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
