[PICS AND LOGO CREATED BY CATHERINE PEREZ].
WARNING: This column is pretty fucking
long. It is an account of an entire weekend,
after all. Don't like it? Well, there's not much I can
do for you. Please accept this gift of absolute
nothingness.
Holy shit, she's back~! That's
right, TWF Crab Nebula, it is I, Catherine Perez, here
to bring you good tidings, a big WrestleMania 25 Weekend
Column, and loads of fucking commas! This could have
been up earlier, but my first effort at this column got
completely freakin' wiped out by my Acer laptop, which
died on me sometime around the 8th or 9th. It was
horrible. My world had fallen through my ass that day.
Either way, there's a lot to go over, so do yourselves a
favor and grab a Coke (or beer... or Absinthe for you
freaky international goth types), plant that ass on a
couch, and enjoy as I take
you...
ON THE ROAD TOWARDS THE END OF THE ROAD TO WRESTLEMANIA...
ROAD.
While I've decided not to
go into the days leading up to WrestleMania Weekend
(they turned out to be not so fantastic), I'd like to
inform all my fans, especially those of you who prefer
the city to the country, to never move to Kansas,
Oklahoma, or Texas. I flew into Kansas, stayed in
Oklahoma for a couple of days, and rode shotgun for
eight hours on Interstate 45 in Texas, yet I saw nothing
but fucking grass and cows! Moooo, moooo,
MOOOOO!!! Dear GOD. Very cool at first, since I don't
see many cows up in Massachusetts unless I'm riding near
the MSPCA, but once the car rode by Cow #324, I was fed
the hell up. I hate cows. That Burger King meal I had
that weekend had me feeling pretty vindicated. Take
that, you multiple-tittied fiends who can't read this
column! What are you going to do now that I've
besmirched the good name of the cow? Probably eat more
grass. Good choice.
I
should also mention that, while I already didn't like
the stuff, I hereby LOATHE any and all Country music.
Every song on the classic Country stations sounded like
the theme to Jackass, and every contemporary Country
station sounded like Shania fucking Twain. Well,
howdy-ho! It's the number 1 Country music station in
Ennis, Texas~! OH WAIT, IT'S JUST TAYLOR GODDAMNED SWIFT
AGAIN. Why couldn't they at least play some Johnny Cash?
I like Cash. Boy Named Sue is kick-ass.
Actually,
I did enjoy eating at J.R.'s restaurant in Norman,
Oklahoma on the 2nd. The rare wrestling memorabilia all
over the walls -- his Hall of Fame plaque, some
wrestling tights, tons of pictures -- was pretty awesome
to ogle at as I fed my face. I'd have taken pictures,
but, you know, I was eating. It was delicious, thanks~!
Now I understand why J.R. loves his barbecue sauce so
much, 'cause that's some tasty fucking sauce. What else
is there to say about J.R.'s? Add a bit more breathing
room in those booths for those of us who aren't
blessed with a mild case of Anorexia, perhaps?
YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAT, J.R.~! Anyway, moving
along...
So, yeah, on Friday,
I checked into Houston's four-star, fancy-pants Hyatt
hotel. Houston resembled Boston, so that was pretty
sweet, too, since I was sick to death of grass and cows.
I walked in there with my luggage, looked around and
thought to myself, "Hey, this is pretty fucking snazzy!"
It was on that word, "snazzy", that my fellow wrestling
fans began to stampede into the hotel, prompting some
businessmen and assorted staff members to turn their
heads and stare, aghast, as the hotel's classiness was
violently sucked into a nearby abyss. What the hell was
Chris Parks doing standing there anyway? Ahem.
Unfortunately, my room was booked on the 16th floor, at
the very end of the hallway in 1627. Before I could get
up there, though, Samuel L. Jackson tried to bribe me
into checking into a penthouse suite with an $800 bottle
of Cognac. Wait, wrong story. And I apologize for such a
sad movie reference.
That
same Friday, I headed out to WWE's April 3rd Axxess
event (I believe it was Day 2), which I had to purchase
a ticket for since the WrestleMania Package didn't
provide one for that day. After standing in line for...
let's say half an hour or so, we were all on our way
into Axxess~! At the entrance was a shitload of ENORMOUS
Superstar banners. I'm telling you, Attack of the
50-Foot Orton has GOT to be added to the WWE Films
agenda. It'd be awesome; he'd RKO skyscrapers, punt some
city trolleys to kingdom come, and kiss some fine, tiny
bitches with those unnaturally wet lips of his, and then
there'd be an awesome cameo from the Power Rangers - all
played by MVP - and that fat, pasty, white head, Zordon
- played by Kane. Joey Styles can be Alpha 5, but I
digress.
At this event, I got to take a picture
with Jillian Hall and Rosa Mendes (whom I couldn't, for
the life of me, recognize until about an hour later when
I passed by the sign at the end of the line that read
'JILLIAN HALL and ROSA MENDES'). Jillian's 'new' face
wasn't quite the shock to see in person as it is in
pictures. Well, okay, it kind of was. One thing that I
learned over the weekend is that these WWE Divas look
exactly the same in person as they do on TV (not
necessarily in WWE's photoshopped pictures). I didn't
really care to have gotten a picture with these two,
since Divas are the last people I give a rat's ass about
when I watch wrestling, but I was following the person I
was with, and she made a bee-line for anything
Diva-related. I won't be showing you that picture,
because it just about killed my self-esteem for the day.
Jillian and Rosa were pretty nice, even though we just
said hello. I also got to see WWE's annual video game
challenge, in which various Superstars come out and,
yep, play THQ's Legends of WrestleMania. It was
fantastic getting to see the likes of CM Punk, both Ted
DiBiases, Dusty and Cody Rhodes, and Beth Phoenix, but
to stand there in that huge crowd to watch them fiddle
with their controllers was quite boring. Fortunately,
there were some humorous quips from Ted Jr., in which he
asked why his dad's head wasn't as huge in the game as
it was in person. Ted Sr. let his son know that he still
wasn't worth nearly the same amount of cash his dad is,
then let out his famous laugh. I didn't stick around for
much more of the challenge after the first
round.
There was quite a bit to look at at this
convention; autograph sessions (I'm pretty sure I saw
Jeff Hardy seated at one of the tables, and Torrie
Wilson at another), the giant Hell in a Cell cage
engulfing a wrestling ring with Hornswoggle's house
under it, Undertaker's Graveyard, a small Superstar art
gallery, and an area for little kids. The ring in the
middle of the convention was hosting a slew of trivia
and Superstar impersonation contests, among other
things. I think the best part of the day was when I got
to see Edge's fine self answer some fans' questions in
the ring. Triple H and Shawn Michaels also showed up in
all their DX-like glory, which caused the entire Axxess
convention to rumble as fans abandoned their places in
line all over the place and stampeded towards the ring,
screaming their asses off as the DX theme blared over
the speakers. Personally, I found it hilarious when the
line to meet Jillian and Rosa was practically dwarfed by
half.
Speaking of 'dwarf', it was FANTASTIC to
find that the Rey Mysterio life-size cardboard stand-up
figure stood at a good 6 feet tall (and it was standing
in front of a fucking fence. What racists.). It was
great to see one guy take a picture of his friend
kicking the figure right in the flat, cardboard balls.
Actually, if that guy's reading this, send your picture
to me~! I also got a picture of these two guys who were
dressed up as The Rockers. The outfits were just
awesome, and Janetty was the happiest anyone had seen
him since a couple of days before on April 1st when
Vince McMahon decided to call and rehire him, only to
laugh heartily and add, "You really fell for it?! April
Foooools~! HAHAHAHA!" before hanging up. Jannetty then
lost his own smile. You know, until Axxess. He found it
in Hornswoggle's House.
Day 3 of Axxess was more
of the same as far as the little exhibits went, only I
got to meet one of my absolute favorites, CHRISTIAN~!
And I got his autograph! I'd have gotten a picture with
him, but apparently my camera is impossible to turn back
on once it goes idle after three minutes. I wish you
could hear the sarcasm there. I don't think I need to go
into how mad I was about that, but at least I got to say
hi to Captain Charisma... and he flashed that cute
little smile of his at me~! It was like a fangirl's
dream come true. I also got CM Punk's autograph! Our
short meeting went a little something like the
following:
Me: (watching as Punk signs
my WrestleMania program)
Punk: (finally
looking up as he passes the program back to me)
HI~!
Me: H-hi... (cue the moronic
smile)
Egh, I should've said something cool
like, "Hey, good luck on Sunday~!" or "Hey, sweet
t-shirt! I'm a Marvel Comics fan myself~!" I know, I'm a
social retard.
I got a picture with Melina,
which, again, I won't be putting up because my fragile
self-esteem was compromised for a second time. After the
picture, she asked me if I was having fun, to which I
replied with a really fucking weak "yeah~!" I did want
to ask her where she got her sweet top, though, but I
assumed it was way out of my price range anyway.
According to WWE.com's Axxess photos, Gail Kim was
signing autographs somewhere, and Joey Styles was
hanging out at the little Call Your Own Match area, but
I completely missed them somehow. Actually, I missed a
ton of people because the place was just so huge and
swamped with people. Some of those: Evan Bourne (whose
face is every bit as hilarious as on TV, from what I saw
during a match he had sometime around that weekend),
Charlie Haas, Josh Mathews, Matt Striker, and Santino
Marella - I was pretty bummed about not getting to see
him. I did, however, get a nice replacement when some
guy entered the Superstar imitation contest in the main
ring and pulled off the best Santino impression of all
fucking time. Trust me, it was amazing - he nailed
everything from the accent to the cockiness to the
mannerisms - and I'm sure anyone who was there would
agree. While I'm on the topic of imitations, I'd like to
request that no one ever imitates Macho Man Randy Savage
ever again. Every single attempt I saw was atrocious,
and the guy hosting the contests even admitted to being
that much closer to ending his life every time someone
failed at it. No, it's not as easy as walking
around saying everything twice, hollering "ooh yeah",
and commanding the crowd to "snap into it" as you twirl
your finger in the air. Either way, Day 3 was my
favorite of the Axxess sessions.
After the
session was over, we all got in line for the Midday
Madness autograph session. Unfortunately, this turned
out to be a bad experience for me. Take a second, if you
weeeel, to imagine me walking around Axxess for four
hours in a pair of Converse shoes, shoes that aren't
exactly the pinnacle of comfort. After walking for four
hours, we all had to stand in line for Midday Madness
because it had started immediately after the Axxess
session. Buh?! No half-hour break to rest my feet? This
line turned out to be one of the two worst of the entire
weekend to stand in. The other? I'll get to that in a
bit. Early into the wait, we all got to see Mr. Kennedy
escorted to a nearby bathroom. He and the crowd shared
some dueling KENNEDY~!'s before he went in to do his
thing. When he came out, some dudes near me asked him if
he had washed his hands. Har har! Kennedy answered with
some staring before he quickly threw on a pair of
sunglasses, put a hand up and shielded his face from our
looks, and bolted down the hallway to some boos. He then
turned and gave us this gem before leaving: "There are
only two kinds of people in the world who wear
sunglasses indoors: blind people and assholes. And I'm
not blind." I wish I had gotten a picture, but my
camera's batteries were total Walgreens-bought shit and
I was saving them up for the actual autograph
session.
What followed was what I think was an
almost two-hour wait in that line. We all stood there,
our feet aching (judging from my own feet and some of
the complaints I overheard), waiting to enter that damn
room so we could get our autographs. After the first
hour and fifteen minutes, someone pointed out that the
people who were standing in front when we had only
arrived were in the back of the line in the actual room.
Wait... did he just say there was a line in that second
room? I craned my neck, and, sure enough, there was an
ENORMOUS FUCKING LINE in the second room! We were
standing in a line to get into a line! After standing
for a total of five hours, I was damn near losing it.
Even though there was a steady stream of people leaving
the autograph session with their signed swag, the
Reliant Center employees were literally letting in about
six people every fifteen minutes to that
room.
When we FINALLY went in, a lot of us were
shocked at the sheer magnitude of the line before us. It
looked the world's busiest DMV or something. About half
of the people in the first couple of rows of the line
were sitting on the floor, so I followed suit for a few
minutes. We didn't even know who was signing autographs
aside from Mr. Kennedy. This British guy behind me joked
about how they'd switch out all the cool Superstars and
we'd get autographs from the likes of Mike Knox and
Dolph Ziggler. I did manage to catch a glimpse of Rey
Mysterio, Great Khali, and Maryse - who was seemingly
really playing up her heel character with a smidge of a
bitch attitude and this smug cunt look on her face. One
guy yelled out to her, "YOU'RE HOT!", to which Maryse
replied with, "I know." Mr. Kennedy would keep reminding
the giant crowd what waited for them at the front of the
line by hollering, "Kennedy~!" at random intervals.
Before long, my feet were absolutely screaming in pain,
and I had to fucking get out of there. On the other
hand, I wanted to stick around and at least get a
picture of Mysterio for my younger sister before
leaving. At one point, a small "THIS LINE SUCKS~!" chant
broke out in front of me, which at least got those of us
in the back to laugh. Then, from what I heard, the
wrestlers got switched for others, and a couple dozen
people left within minutes. When I couldn't take the
pain in my feet anymore, I booked it the hell out of
there and headed back to the hotel to rest and get ready
for the Hall of Fame show. From what I overheard between
many people at the Midday Madness signing, this was the
most poorly planned autograph session of the last three
WrestleMania weekends. I'll be honest; to me, no
autograph is worth feeling like my feet are parting like
the Red fucking Sea. At least the Brit couple were
funny. And I learned a valuable lesson that day:
Converse high-tops do not make great walking
shoes.
That night, the Hall of Fame ceremony was
being held at the... um... some venue there (What? I'm
not from Houston!). It was amazing! Firstly, there were
seats~! Not that it entirely mattered since we all spent
a good portion of the show on our feet, clapping.
Speaking of which, there was one bit of an awkward
minute or so where the APPLAUSE sign got stuck and we
were all clapping nonstop until we collectively realized
that the fucker broke. At the start of the show, Todd
Grisham warned that fans should be respectful and not
heckle the wrestlers, or they would "be removed
immediately." Coming from Grisham, his warning lacked
the intimidating seriousness that it needed. As they
showed the wrestlers and their families being seated,
the cameras got a look at John Cena, who was very
audibly booed. Awesome! I thought I was going to be the
only one booing him. Apparently, someone failed to
enforce the dress code that was mentioned in e-mails
that went out to those who bought WrestleMania packages.
While some of us wore nice dresses and suits and
whatnot, just as many people slapped on their best jeans
and Stone Cold t-shirts. I won't even get into how
ridiculous I thought Michael Hayes looked. He could've
at least ponytailed his hair. Anyway, my favorite
inductees were Koko B. Ware, Ricky Steamboat, and, of
course, Steve Austin. Koko's bird kept trying to snatch
his speech papers away, which was met with laughter and
awwws. Stone Cold's induction was just as kick-ass as I
had expected it to be, though I did think the crowd
reaction could've been louder. Quite a few people booed
Cena sharing some beer with Austin at the end. What the
hell was the point of that? Wait, don't answer that.
Totally disregarding that I had to watch a lot of the
show from the giant TV and that one of the straps on my
dress fucking ripped on me, this was a great
show.
The last day of Axxess was pretty boring.
WWE carted out the likes of Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Ron
Simmons, and Afa the Wild Samoan for autographs, which
didn't interest me at all (hey, I'm just telling it like
it is). There's just something about that look on
Duggan's face that irks me greatly. The Mouth of the
South, Jimmy Hart, was in the main ring helping to emcee
the little trivia contests and whatnot that took place.
I pretty much hung around this area for the entire
four-hour session, especially since Mr. Kennedy was
going to be coming out for some Q&A business. There
was another Superstar imitation contest where this one
guy absolutely nailed Paul Bearer. Um, not like that.
Pig. The Bearer impression was the only highlight of
this contest full of failed Hogans, Austins, and
Savages. Kennedy finally made his way out, and I was
pretty happy to had stuck around since I had a nice,
up-front view. Of course, a couple of little asshole
kids kept pushing and pushing until they had hijacked my
spot. Bastards. There was an attempt to read a question
written by some little kid that stated, "This
WrestleMania is my most best WrestleMania ever." Not
realizing it was written by a kid at first, Kennedy
shared a laugh with Hart and the other guy over "most
best", with Kennedy jokingly stating, "Yeah, this is my
most best WrestleMania, too." To make up for it, they
brought the kid into the ring and had him act out
Kennedy's self-introduction. It was adorable, especially
the kid's weak little "...KENNEDYYYY!" I spent the rest
of my time on the phone with my sister, so I didn't
catch much else from this Axxess session other than achy
feet and a $4 Sprite. Dear God, was everything
overpriced. Some girl told me at the session that she
couldn't believe a sausage on a stick was damn near $8.
I jokingly replied that it was $5 for the sausage, and
$3 for the stick. Good stuff, I'm telling
you.
Finally, that night was WRESTLEMANIA 25~!11
It was the show we'd all been waiting for, and,
shockingly enough, the wait to get almost 73,000 people
into their seats was NOWHERE near the fucking fiasco
that getting a couple thousand people some autographs
was. Go figure. So, yeah, I found my seat in about
fifteen minutes, and they weren't too bad~! I could see
the ring just fine and everything... if everyone was
sitting down, that is. The seats were shit when everyone
stood up. Some assholes would even stand up on their
seats and obstruct everyone's view, which would prompt
some of the people in my section to yell out, "HEY. SIT
THE FUCK DOWN." Four guys in the seats in front of me
were beyond fucking ecstatic to be at WrestleMania that
they'd continuously hug and high-five each other, and
scream, "OMIGAHHHH WE'RE AT WRESTLEMANIAAAAAAA!!!" One
of them, in a clearly drunken little mood, kept punching
himself in the face in delight. Needless to say, I was a
bit shocked at their behavior, but I won't deny that
they added to my own excitement.
Nicole
Shit-Singer Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls
sang at the top of the show after Carlito and Primo won
the unified tag titles in the night's dark match. Way to
bump the unification of the prestigious(-ish) tag titles
off the show itself. Anyway, I guess I looked like quite
the bitch when I was the only person in my section
booing her as she was introduced, but I at least gave
her a friendly golf clap after the song. Don't ever let
people tell you I'm not nice! Right, so the show
officially kicked off with the Money in the Bank ladder
match, which we were all pretty amped up for. While I
couldn't see the wrestlers making their way to the ring
until they actually reached the ring (unless I looked up
at the giant 'trons), the four crazy dudes in front of
me kept me quite entertained by singing everyone's
entrance theme at the top of their lungs. There's
nothing like hollering, "THIS FIIIIRE BURRRRNS...
AAAAALWAAAAYSSSS!!!", I'm telling you. CM Punk and
Christian got the loudest cheers as they headed to the
ring. From what I could see, most of the crowd was
behind Christian for the duration of the match, booing
anyone who'd come between him and the briefcase, even
Punk. From what I was told, Michael Cole had made a
stupid comment about how Kane could "very well be" the
fan favorite of the match. How do you even come to that
conclusion when guys like Punk, Christian, and Kofi
Kingston are in the same ring? The spot where
practically everyone but Mark Henry was jumping off the
top turnbuckle to the outside was incredibly awesome.
Shelton also pulled off a sweet suicide dive off the top
of the ladder somewhere during the match. Kofi, I think,
had the most impressive performance in the match, but I
really did want Christian to win. Great match
anyway.
The Kid Rock performance wasn't exactly
something I cared to see, and I'm sure I'm speaking for
a large portion of the WrestleMania crowd. Quite a few
people took off for a snack/bathroom break. I've never
liked the guy's music, so to have to sit through a
mash-up of his singles was mind-numbing to me. Now I can
say that Kid Rock was my first ever concert experience,
and I'm very sad about that fact. Many people let me
know that, on TV, the little spot where he raised his
microphone for all of the crowd to sing along
hilariously went over like a fart in church. For the
record, a lot of people sang along, but it just wasn't
loud enough to get picked up by any microphone. I've
gotta remember to watch the footage for a good laugh.
Then came this enormous outpouring of Divas who danced
their way to the ring. This caused a big moment of
confusion, as there were no individual entrances, no
introductions, nothing. Twenty-five nameless Divas
entered the ring, and we were all left to guess the
surprise entrants on our own. Not a damn soul recognized
the past Divas, like Sunny and Torrie Wilson, who were
eliminated really fucking quickly. Molly Holly was
there? That's news to me! The match itself was fucking
terrible. Twenty-five years of WWE women's wrestling was
tossed into the shitter to give Santino, in drag, the
crown (not that I gave much of a rat's ass considering I
really don't like WWE's women's division). Sure, we
thought it was pretty funny, since a lot of the crowd
was pro-Santino once we all caught a glimpse of him.
Santino's little sexy dance was just brutal, though. I
could just imagine Michael Cole forcing out that
dipshit, cuntbag laugh of his over at the announce
table.
Chris Jericho vs. the Legends really
wasn't much of a match at all until Ricky Steamboat
tagged in and showed everyone that he could still go.
The crowd was eating up every move Steamboat hit. Hell,
we got the guy to wrestle the next night on Raw AND earn
himself a nice Backlash payday because of our reaction
and "YOU'VE STILL GOT IT~!" chants. Jericho eventually
won the match and proved that he was better than the
Legends, a point that was thrown right out the fucking
window when Mickey Rourke went in and knocked Jericho
out with a single punch. Piper, Snuka, and Steamboat
(who still wrestles better than some of the younger guys
on the WWE roster) couldn't put Jericho away, but Mr.
I'm-Only-A-Wrestler-In-The-Movies took him out with a
simple left hook? God, if only the Legends had known
that Jericho's Off switch rested on his chin, they
could've saved themselves the embarrassment of losing a
3-on-1 match.
Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy had this
great spot where Matt was lying on a table with another
table over him. We were all on our feet to witness Jeff
dive off and go through both tables. Jeff even missed a
20-foot leg drop, which must've obliterated his ass
cheeks in the worst way. Matt ended up sticking Jeff's
head in a chair and hitting a Twist Of Fate for the win.
Pretty sweet, if you ask me.
JBL lost a less than
25-second match against Rey Mysterio, who showed up to
WrestleMania as The Joker. A lot of us were going nuts
over the costume. The match itself, obviously, was
nothing worth writing home about. JBL ended up quitting,
much to the delight of the crowd. We sang a little "Na
Na, Hey Hey, Goodbye" as Jibble made his way to the
back. Honestly, I'm still hoping for Jibble's return to
the announce table.
We were already cheering
loudly during the video package on Undertaker vs. Shawn
Michaels since we watched Michaels prepare his grand
entrance by entering the little cherry picker and
getting raised to his starting position. We knew we were
in for an awesome entrance once the white light and the
smoke started up. Undertaker came up from a stage door
to fire and darkness and other Hellish stuff. It was way
too cool. The match that ensued was the best match of
the entire show, and just about the coolest match I've
ever seen. The fact that I was watching it live made it
all the sweeter. I loved participating in the dueling
chants and screaming out, "HBK~! HBK~!" The spot where
Undertaker hit the suicide dive on the cameraman was
just awesome. The crowd was going completely insane
during all the near falls and the finisher attempts. The
Stadium practically EXPLODED when HBK kicked out of the
Tombstone, and when Taker kicked out of the second Sweet
Chin Music. One of my favorite spots was the Tombstone
countered into a DDT (FUN FACT~!: The DDT is my favorite
wrestling move). The ending that had HBK's Moonsault
countered into a Tombstone was icing on the fucking
cake. As much as I was rooting for Michaels to pick up
the win, I cheered the shit out of Undertaker's win. His
17-0 record is definitely well-deserved, especially
after that match that had me and the crowd SCREAMING any
time someone would do so much as kick out. I'll say that
about 90% of the crowd stayed on their feet for the
entire match, and those who kept sitting down looked
like they were playing fucking Musical Chairs with all
that stand up-sit down-stand up business. What an epic
match.
As many people have stated, after
Undertaker/Michaels, the crowd pretty much died off for
the rest of the show. Edge vs. Big Show vs. John Cena
was next. Cena, like Kid Rock had done around the
beginning of the show, kicked the entire crowd through a
time warp into 1999 - 2000 as a shitload of fake Cenas
filed out from the back a la Eminem to Basic
Thuganomics. It was the scariest shit I've ever seen in
my life. Clearly, these scary Cenas all came from WWE's
Cena/Orton clone factory, FCW (Freaky Clone Wrestling,
if I'm not mistaken). Either way, we all cheered pretty
loud for the brief return of Basic Thuganomics. In a
freaky moment, all the Cenas waved their hands at their
faces as the Real Slim Cena came out to half angry boos
and half ecstatic cheers. There was this big group of
people wearing anti-Cena shirts that I'm sure had seats
close to the ramp, from what I heard. I wonder if they
showed up on TV? Anyway, the match had a lot on its
plate having to follow up Undertaker and HBK's match,
and the result was, in my opinion, kind of
underwhelming. It was a good match even though the crowd
was kind of quiet for a lot of it. One thing that stood
out, though, was when Cena had Show and Edge up at the
same time for the F.U.--er, sorry, the ATTITUDE
ADJUSTMENT. Sure, on TV, I can't help but roll my eyes
as the announcers try to shove THE SHEER POWER OF JOHN
CENA down everyone's throats every time he puts some
ginormous wrestler on his shoulders, but seeing it live
is, I swear, a completely different experience. Even I
found myself standing up and exclaiming, "No fucking
WAY~!" Still don't care for it on TV, though. Can we get
some scientists to determine why stupid feats of
strength are really cool in a live setting? I need to
know!
WWE honored the 2009 Hall of Fame inductees
after the match. Terry and Dory Funk, Bill Watts, Koko
B. Ware, Kevin Von Erich, Howard Finkel, and Steve
Austin all came out. I'm sure you can guess who got the
biggest pop. Austin disappeared from the segment, but
came right back out in some more comfortable clothes,
riding an ATV around the ring as the entire crowd went
nuts. You know, as immensely loud as the crowd was, I
was kind of surprised that the cheers weren't as
deafening as I'd imagined it would be. Austin shared a
beer with J.R., and then chugged some more. It was
pretty awesome; my first-ever wrestling event, and I got
to see Stone Cold himself. SUCK ON THAT. After all that,
Lilian Garcia announced that 72,744 was the night's
attendance number. It certainly fucking looked like
it~!
The main event, Triple H vs. Randy Orton,
suffered from a small shortage of crowd reaction,
unfortunately. Personally, I was too damn exhausted to
invest my emotions into the match after almost four
hours of screaming and whatnot. We'd do the occasional
Triple H and RKO chants and stand up to check out the
big spots of the match, but, well, you saw it on TV. I
read somewhere that this match had a lot of missed
spots, but I couldn't tell from my seat. Most of the
crowd cheered for Trips, but I'll be damned if I didn't
notice that a huge portion of the crowd was disappointed
with Orton losing. Shitloads of people were flocking out
of the doors as Triple H celebrated in the ring, but I
think that was more of a leaving before the giant crowd
caught up at the parking lots thing than a Fuck You,
Triple H thing.
Judging from my own hearing, and
don't you dare doubt me even though I have failed a
hearing test back in high school, I believe the biggest
pops went to Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Austin, Ric
Flair, Triple H aaand... Jeff Hardy? Sounds about right,
I think. Biggest heat went to Cena. Seriously! That guy
got an incredible amount of boos that night! Well, he
probably got the 2nd loudest boos of the night. Biggest
heat also went to Chris Jericho, Randy Orton, JBL, Edge,
and CM Punk after he picked up the win.
I
couldn't for the life of me find my ride after being
left stranded at the Stadium, so I had to take an
hour-long ride back to the hotel with a bunch of
Make-A-Wish kids. It was cute, but, Christ, those kids
could TALK. They seemed to not notice that the bus was
moving at a snail's pace due to the heavily congested
traffic, but instead thought that the Reliant Stadium
stretched out for miles. So adorable. All in all,
although lots of people told me that the show was quite
lackluster on TV, I've never had more fucking fun in my
life. My first ever wrestling event, and it was
seriously the coolest show I've ever been witness
to.
So yeah, that does it for my WrestleMania Weekend experience
NOVEL. Make sure to send me some feedback on this, and maybe some good pictures
if you attended the show too~! I'm in the process of uploading all my pictures
to a Photobucket account, so I'll get that link out when it's ready. Also check
out the
main
page for some
fantastic TWF goodness! I'm Catherine, and I'm out like
a white guy at a jumping tournament.
Catherine
Perez is a proud owner of three e-mails from WWE's legal
department, which she regularly prints out for when all
the toilet paper runs out. She was the first
person to call the Ghostbusters after witnessing
something strange in her neighborhood, and is thus
immortalized in a song that was made popular four years
before her birth. Catherine enjoys collecting
vintage WWF t-shirts, painting on her clothing, and the
smell of crushed dreams in the mornings. She also shot
J.R.