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| Myself at WWE Raw, after all these years! |
My first taste of the WWF was probably the 1991 Survivor Series (the one where the relatively new bad guy The Undertaker beat Hulk Hogan to win the title), and it was great to have two different companies to watch. But WCW was always the easier one to watch as it was on free television, and we didn't have Sky.
As the years went on I found myself watching WWF more. Around 1995 a lot of former WWF wrestlers like Hulk Hogan jumped ship to WCW and it got really silly for a while. I was 12 and even then I knew it was a bit crap. But at the same time, the WWF was having its 'New Generation' era, spearheaded by Diesel, and that left a lot to be desired also.
The next year, however was the year things started to change for the WWF. The 'Stone Cold' era started, and things started to get a little edgy. And as a teenager it was the perfect fit, regardless of all the nWo stuff starting to happen in WCW (which had long since finished airing on ITV at this point.)
With the help of school friends who had Sky, I was able to keep on top of all the weekly activities of the 'Attitude' era, and when finally I had enough money to pay for it myself, I got the dish on the side of the house, and was able to watch it all, and stay up and watch the Pay-Per-View events live as they happened.
As I started to get older though, other things (mainly music) started to take over. The thing that really got me into rock music was actually the wrestlers theme songs, and the songs they used to advertise the big events. That's where I first heard bands like System Of A Down and their like.
But throughout all the years watching it, I never went to see it live. I wanted to, sure. But the cost made it seem like a crazy dream, and by the time I was earning the kind of money to make going viable, I was heavily into music and going to every gig under the sun.
For reasons I can't even remember (and it was only 12 months ago), I decided to watch Wrestlemania last year. And while it wasn't as good as it used to be (mainly due to the fact that the product is marketed towards kids, and there is no serious competition) I still found it watchable, and found myself watching the monthly PPV event, then eventually back to watching Raw every week.
So when tickets went on sale for the Wrestlemania Revenge Tour last November, myself, my friend Michelle (and her Mum!) decided to go, and we finally got tickets. Should be worth mentioning Michelle and her Mum had also been watching it for years, but had never been to a live event. And even cooler was that our collective first time was being filmed for television!
A bit has changed in the last year in the WWE. Whilst it still caters largely to kids (there's only blood if it's a mistake, there's no steel chair shots to the head), there's a lot more for adults. It's become edgy again, but only within the parameters of still being family-friendly. Although saying that, the word "shit" has been used on television quite a lot, and the F-bomb was dropped at this years Wrestlemania!
And in recent weeks, former UFC champion Brock Lesnar has returned, making things very interesting, although due to his light travel schedule in his contract, he wasn't at the show at the o2.
Anyway, what started as a brief introduction to myself and wrestling (seeing as I have never mentioned it on here before), has turned into a War and Peace sized tome, so onto the actual event itself...
To say we arrived a bit early at the o2 Arena was a bit of an understatement. With the doors to the arena itself opening at 6.30pm, we rolled into the car park just after 1. But there's plenty to do at the venue, so we figured there would be plenty to pass the time. But once you do the British Music Experience, there's really not, unless you catch a film at the enormo-screen they have. But we didn't.
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| Our view as CM Punk enters the arena. |
Once we were let in, we found our seats pretty quickly. And they were far better than expected. Once we turfed out the teenagers who were sat in them that is! Got Michelle's o2 Priority membership to thank for them. Once we were settled, we headed to merchandise stand where I picked up a CM Punk shirt which was a pretty steep £25, and a bottle of Bud that cost £4.80. That stung.
While we were waiting, we, and the other people in our row, were kept amused by the sight of a large, pervert looking fellow writing a sign very slowly in the seats below. This turned out to read 'Kelly Kelly You're My Sexy Baby', surrounded by hearts. If that wasn't repulsive enough, he then handed said sign to a young boy who proudly held it up when the Diva came out. Shudder.
The action started at 7.30, and as it normally goes we got a dark match first. A dark match is one that doesn't air on television, and the first one of the night usually is for brand new talent to get a shot, and this was no difference, and we got a first look at developmental talent Dean Ambrose. Very short match, but he was good on the mic.
After that, we had a couple of matches that would be shown on Superstars later in the week. One was with the Diva's, who for the most part are notoriously naff, but we did get a good match between R-Truth and Jack Swagger, the latter who I never had much time for on TV, but he was pretty good live!
After a few minutes break, we were informed that we would be filming a "live cut-in" so we had to all get up and act appropriately crazy. I can only assume this was used as a pre-show tease on the USA network. In hindsight that is. At the time I had no idea what was going on.
Then after announcers Michael Cole (hated) and Jerry Lawler (loved) came out, so did Mark Henry for the first match of the Raw show proper, where he was facing CM Punk for the WWE title in a no countout, no disqualification match. To add to my slight confusion, we were then told we were "going live" (we weren't live at any point, I should add, it was all pre-taped and shown in the States later that night) for Raw. Then the regular pyro and Nickelback music hit, leading into the entrance of Punk who the crowd went suitably nuts for.
The show continued with breaks for ads in the arena, and vignettes in the backstage area. Watching the show back, we only saw a few of them. Which was just as well as some of them were embarrassingly bad!
The taping itself ended with the beloved-by-kids-hated-by-everyone-else John Cena against WWE returnee Lord Tensai. Tensai used to be known as Albert, and we let him know we remembered constantly with the "Albbbeerrrt" chants. Once that was done, we had another dark match, which pitted CM Punk against Chris Jericho, who got a huge reaction.
This didn't last much more than 4 or 5 minutes before Bryan ran in (restarting the "YES!" chants all over again), then some of the wrestlers we hadn't seen throughout the night, culminating in seeing Randy Orton, who along with Sheamus sent the crowd home happy by taking out the bad guys.
Having never been to a live show before, I really didn't know what to expect, but I loved it. I was wondering whether I was really going to be standing up and cheering, booing or dancing badly (in the case of 'Funkasauraus' Brodus Clay) but I did, and really want to go again!
The WWE are back in November, but that month is a little busy for me, but next year I'll be back. It may sound steep, but it's £50 well spent. And if you ever told the 1991 version of me that I'd be seeing it live the same year as I go to New York, I think his head may explode!
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