WWE News: New Jersey Transit blames WWE for 'Hell on Earth' post WrestleMania travel delays
What's the story?
There are several reports of travel chaos coming from attendees of WWE's WrestleMania 35 which too place in New York, New Jersey with it allegedly taking over four hours for some people just to get home to mainland New York from New Jersey. Now NJ Transit has blamed WWE for the 'hell on earth' travel chaos.
In case you didn't know...
WWE's biggest show of the year, 'The Showcase of Immortals', 'The Grandest Stage of Them All' may have been one of the best they've ever done this year, Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch and Kofi Kingston all won and the rest of the 16 match card thoroughly delivered.
However, the sixteen match did have it's downsides as it meant that the event went on for a whopping seven and a half hours. For me in the UK it ran from 10pm in the evening until 5.30 am the next day.
The heart of the matter
Robbie Fox of Barstool Sports has written an article describing the journey home after WrestleMania as hell on earth.
Becky Lynch pinned Ronda Rousey around 12:30am (entirely too late for WrestleMania to end), Carrabis and I made our way towards the exits, and realized within twenty seconds that we were in for a rough one. Not only was it cold, and starting to rain, but eighty thousand people had the same idea as us – calling Ubers back to the city. We called them, and called them, and called them, and called them, to a mix of “All Ubers are busy right now, please try again later!” notifications
Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez started their WrestleMania edition of Wrestling Observer Radio with a personal story of what a nightmare it was to get home, indicating that tried to walk away from the stadium to get an Uber, but ended up having to go back.
But what was the cause of all this chaos? Wrestling Observer have reported that NJ Transit spokesperson Jim Smith released a statement that blamed WWE for their decision to extend the show until 12:30am without letting them know in advance.
"The primary factor contributing to the post-event delays was the WWE’s decision to extend the event to 12:30 a.m., which had significant operational impacts on the evening. NJ Transit was not informed of this decision until late last night,"
WWE released a general statement themselves apologising for the travel delays
"We regret any inconveniences fans may have experienced with mass transportation after the event.”
For some those will be hollow words
What's next?
Last year's WrestleMania in New Orleans seemed to go off without a hitch, but as soon as I saw Metlife announced as the venue for this years' WrestleMania I remember seeing people commenting about the traffic chaos that would ensue. If people could've seen this coming a year ago then so should have WWE and NJ Transit.
Were you at WrestleMania this year? Did you get home okay? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!