Utahns anxious for return of WWE to Vivint Arena

SALT LAKE CITY — The WWE franchise is making its return to Salt Lake City on Feb. 3 for Monday Night Raw, which has fans and local pro-wrestlers alike buzzing about the event and reminiscing how they became fans of pro-wrestling.

It will be just the third time WWE has come to Utah for a televised event since its inception, and the first time in over a decade. Raw will be nationally broadcast live on the USA Network from Vivint Arena, which is a larger arena than the Maverik Center, which is where WWE events were held in the past.

WWE is known to have a cult-like following across the world, and although Utah is not a major market, that hasn’t stopped professional wrestling leagues from scheduling the Beehive State on tours of the United States. In addition to WWE, All Elite Wrestling is holding an event at the Maverik Center in March.

Although it does not draw tens of thousands of fans regularly, Utah’s independent pro-wrestling scene is thriving. There is Devotion Championship Wrestling located at The Gateway in downtown Salt Lake City and Ultra Championship Wrestling-Zero, the most popular wrestling spot in Utah, which consistently sells out its 200-seat venue in Salt Lake City. UCW is also a wrestling school that offers training tutorials.

Owner Steve Neilson has been working with local wrestlers for nearly two decades, sending his first student to perform at a WWE event in 2007. Now, he’s sending four more of his proteges to the Big Show, so to speak. Four UCW wrestlers will be cast as extras when Raw comes to town.

Trai Ballard was given a ticket to the Salt Lake Raw event for Christmas. Only now, instead of scanning his ticket with the crowd, he’ll be one of the four walking through the talent entrance with the likes of Randy Orton and Seth Rollins. It’s a dream come true for the 23-year-old Ballard, who has been a fan since he was a newborn — his mother learned that watching wrestling on TV soothed the crying baby.

"It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, 'Ballard said. "All of my friends growing up wanted to play in the Super Bowl or the World Series, all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life is be a professional wrestler."

Ballard, whose stage name is Trey Matthews, has been performing for four years and takes his craft seriously. Each week, he trains for four days and watches 10 hours of wrestling between Monday’s Raw, Friday’s SmackDown, and other televised wrestling on Wednesdays.

"It’s pretty much constantly on at my house. It’s more or less all I watch," Ballard said. "If I’m not watching it live, it’s on DVR and I turn it on the second I get home from wrestling training."

All of the hard work and preparation is beginning to pay off — he’s the reigning heavyweight champion of the UCW and now has the opportunity to fraternize with WWE performers when they come to town.

For fan Josh Whitaker, who will be attending Raw, he’s also been hooked since he was a young boy growing up in Salt Lake City.

"For a 7- or 8-year-old kid, it was everything you could want: it was action, it was comedy, it was all that stuff," he said. "It got to the point where I would watch it every Monday night. My mom would have to leave the house — she would have to go take drives because she couldn’t handle it ... it wasn’t her cup of tea."

Whitaker admits his friends tease him for being such a devout fan of WWE, still the "red-headed step child of the entertainment industry." He said, typically, WWE shares a similar demographic of fans of NASCAR and monster truck rallies; however, he doesn’t think that’s always a fair characterization.

"I grew up with it," Whitaker said. "To me, it’s a show. People get oddly obsessed with shows like 'Game of Thrones' and what not. As a kid, I got oddly obsessed with wrestling."

Whitaker credits WWE for giving him something to aspire to become. Particularly in recent years, he believes wrestlers have realized how much of their demographic is kids, so they want to provide an example of good role models. The wrestlers he watched on TV growing up, although not always angels, were in great shape, wore nice suits, and had lots of money, among other attributes.

"As a kid coming into his own, looking for some confidence, these guys were confident and they were big and athletic. That’s exactly what I wanted to be growing up," Whitaker said. "They really helped mold me and my mentality."

Professional wrestling and the WWE have also helped shape modern sports marketing, said Jonathon Tichy, the consul of the Czech Republic to the State of Utah. He said wrestling introduced the notion of access to the athlete where you get to know and hear from them directly.

"There was this fan interaction, not directly, but you felt this connection to them as people," Tichy said. "I think that started a trend that developed into the way we look at sports marketing today."

Tichy grew up watching American Wrestling Association on Saturdays with his dad and carries on that tradition with the WWE and his son, who he plans to take to Raw in Salt Lake. He used to attend wrestling events at the Salt Palace and was taken aback even then by the family atmosphere. He noticed the arena was full of other dads with their kids.

"The atmosphere was just crazy," he said. "I’ve been a Jazz season ticket holder forever, but the excitement and the electricity in the arena for wrestling back then was every bit as much as going to a Jazz game. It was loud, it was raucous, it was a ton of fun."

Tichy, who practices law in addition to his job as consul, agrees with Whitaker that WWE is not just for the blue-collar working class.

"I think it can speak to different people differently," Tichy said. "It’s certainly not high-brow entertainment the way going to the Eccles Theatre is, but there’s still a place for it — it’s good clean fun."

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