In middle school, Shaler Area graduate Carlo Prati enjoyed watching WWE wrestling. As he got older, that interest faded, until one day his son Luca asked him about wrestling.
“My son came home one day (and said) all these kids at school were talking about wrestling,” Prati said. “I was like, ‘I used to watch wrestling.’ He started getting really into it. I told him about how I used to go to shows and told him about some of my favorite matches. On the Peacock app, you can watch any WWE live event you want so he has been able to watch some of the shows I was at.”
A few months ago, Prati, who is the Video Director at North Way Christian Community, and his son entered a contest run by WWE where they were asked to design a t-shirt for the SummerSlam pay-per-view event. Because the event was being held in Cleveland, Prati figured it would be a good idea to base the design on the city.
“Since they were doing it in Cleveland, it’d be pretty easy to make some sort of design that would go towards the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” Prati said. “We made sure we were hitting both boxes of the WWE and Cleveland represented.”
Prati and Luca went back and forth, sifting through several drafts of the t-shirt. Ultimately, they decided on an orange, guitar shaped design with “SummerSlam Cleveland” featured in the middle.
Prati found out that he and Luca had won the contest in the middle of a routine family shopping trip.
“We were as a family running errands, and my phone rang. I looked down and it said, WWE emailed me and it was like the headline was you won the WWE SummerSlam contest. And I just turned around and showed Luca the phone and he was screaming,” Prati said.
As a reward for winning the contest, the Pratis received hotel accomodations, two front row tickets to Smackdown Friday night and then two front row tickets to SummerSlam Saturday night. They also had their shirt design sold in merchandise booths around the stadium.
“We saw the shirt in the store and people were wearing it. It was pretty weird seeing it. We were like, I know who made that shirt. It was cool.”
Prati arrived in Cleveland on Friday morning prior to SmackDown, the first of the weekend’s two WWE events. As they checked into their hotel, they were greeted by several familiar faces.
“We checked in, went to our room, and then when we came downstairs to walk around, I just started noticing wrestler after wrestler coming in and out,” Prati said. He later learned they were staying in the same hotel as all of the wrestlers.
The next day was SummerSlam. When they got to the stadium, representatives from WWE asked Carlo and Luca to do an interview that would be shown in the stadium. When their faces popped up on the big screen, the crowd went wild.
“When they announced us as the winner, (the crowd) started chanting ‘Luca’ nonstop,” Prati said. “It was wild. When we got inside the stadium on Saturday, they showed us on the big screens and everything. It was a pretty crazy experience.”
Luca, who attends Shaler Area Elementary School, agreed. For him, the interactions with the WWE stars were among his favorite parts of the experience.
“We got to meet lots of people,” Luca said.”It was just really fun. I got an armband from Jey Uso. I brag about it a lot.”
According to his dad, Luca’s favorite wrestlers are Rey Mysterio, Seth Rollins, Jey Uso, and Cody Rhodes.
“We got to meet Seth Rollins, and Jey Uso gave Luca his arm sleeve after his match so I think he jumped up on his favorite list,” Prati said.
As for SummerSlam, Carlo and Luca got to see a memorable show. The pay-per-view saw four new champions be crowned, with the likes of Gunther, LA Knight, Nia Jax, and Bron Breakker all claiming titles.
The fun didn’t stop on Saturday night, however. Carlo felt he had to make Luca his own Instagram account.
“Everybody that took a picture with him was like, ‘Let me know what your Instagram is.’ So we were posting it on Instagram, and they were all resharing. He was over the moon — like, ‘oh, this person really just sent that out to all their followers,'” Prati said.
Prati, who played soccer when he was student here and served as an assistant soccer coach after he graduated, serves as Fox Chapel’s girls’ soccer head coach. Last season, his team won the WPIAL 4A championship and he was named Coach of the Year in his section.
He said winning a WPIAL title was probably more difficult, but winning the WWE contest holds a special place as well.
“They’re both pretty awesome. I think the WPIAL was a little bit harder,” Prati said. “I enjoyed the WWE one because I got to spend it with Luca.”
