A Tough Crowd

The Arrowhead Pond parking lot was crammed with Ford pickups and SUVs. The arena itself was crowded with 16,800 kids--and their escorts--carrying homemade posters with everything from “Wrestling Is Not Fake” to “Someone Stole My Sign.”

It was Sunday, and Royal Rumble ’99 had come to town.

The wild event began with a simple announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, DX proudly presents . . . “

During three hours, a few dozen pro wrestlers were slingshotted through the ropes, an ambulance was hijacked and an out-of-control wrestling match ended in a women’s restroom.

All of it--captured on the arena’s giant monitors--was accompanied by swelling chants from the worked-up crowd.

The favorite wrestler was “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, whose rattle-snake logo and “3:16” slogan seemed to be on every other T-shirt. (It took a few tries to clean up his language, but one 16-year-old boy from Tustin explained that “3:16” in this context means “you get beat up . . . harshly.”)

Austin lost to the unpopular Vince McMahon, the brains behind the World Wrestling Federation. Empty beverage cups were thrown into the ring, ricocheting off McMahon and his bouncers.

The outcome of all this? McMahon will face the Rock in the upcoming Wrestlemania. “The Rock won the belt from Mankind in an ‘I-quit match,’ where there are no disqualifications and no count-outs,” explained a boy, 13, from Orange. “They keep at it until someone says, ‘I quit.’ ”