WWE 8/25/12 recap (image heavy as always fyi)
Yesterday started off kind of shaky. I stayed up late proofreading Proving Capable, my latest monster Ricardo/ADR fic, just to wake up at 7 AM with a headache. Thankfully the combo of Tylonel and Saturday Morning Slam (IE: Heath Slater lol) helped kill it and I felt fine by the time I was getting yelled at for groceries. Once I got home from that, I finished posting Proving Capable and began last minute sign making. That went ok, mostly, till I realized that a bottle of bubble bath I lazily left on my bed (working on maybe 3 hours sleep here, remember lol) had been leaking slowly into my bedspread for the past few hours. But no harm done, I left it to dry.
Things turned around by the time we left; had to look around for somewhere to park but got there after the doors had opened. Agreed with bro that I should wait until intermission to get my merch because the table looked insane. It was maybe a little better by intermission but, geez, WWE, I'm beggin' ya, make your intermissions longer than 15 minutes please. lol.
Before we got in, the National Guard were walking around, hanging things out to people who wanted them and Rob got them to toss me this:
Got inside, got our souvenir cups:
Got inside and some guy and his son had taken our seats, confusing us both. We thought maybe we were wrong and walked to the other side but when we found they were seats number 18, we knew we were supposed to be back where we had been, and when he saw us coming, he got up and left with his son. We ended up behind a guy and girl, he wearing a Rock shirt and her wearing a Cena shirt. Pretty much writes itself, yeah? Our seats were pretty great. The ring from where we were at:
The entrance ramp (Which I'm still surprised by the titantrons. lol So used to houseshows without, it floored me when I first saw it)
Sat for a little bit (during which time I found out bro doesn't like Zack Ryder, Heath Slater, OR Ricardo Rodriguez. DISOWNED! lol) and the show started with the National Guard swear in ceremony (which people seemed quietly respectful towards until the line about following the governor of Illinois' command was mentioned and some guy behind us yelled out "OH YEAH OF COURSE!" Stay classy, dude.) and the national anthem.
First match was Tyson Kidd vs Tensai. Typical match between the two, Tensai dominated for awhile, Tyson got the roll-up victory, Tensai got snappy with the referee and he ran out of the ring until Tensai left. No Sakamoto to abuse so eh.
Second match was Jack Swagger vs Big E. Langston, my first time of seeing Langston. Langston won.
It happened when Langston was leaving-- Wade Barrett ran down and beat him up, then got into the ring and promo'd that he was going to have a match later in the evening. And it'd be our choice if it was a Peoria street fight (lol) or a 2 out of 3 falls match. 2 out of 3 falls got a sizeable amount of boos, everyone wanted a street fight.
Layla vs Aksana for the diva's title happened next. Lots of Aksana trying to curry the crowd's favor over Layla, who would then mock her. Heh. Layla won.
And this amused me on Aksana's entrance, it looked like they misspelled her name but I realized later that there's a part of the Titantron not visible from where we were sitting, I guess.
The next match was David Otunga vs Alex Riley. Gads, they gave Otunga a whole presentation for his posing. Worst. Thing. Ever. Special music, lighting, and he kept posing for about a minute until finally Alex saved us. =\ I caught my brother aiming his camera at Otunga while he posed and was just like, SERIOUSLY?! He claimed he wasn't taking a picture of it... mm hmm. Lol. Alex won!
Short promo on the screens from Primetime Players saying that the only good thing to happen in this miserable town (Hey! Cheap heat alert! lol) would be their winning the tag titles tonight.
So Primetime Players vs Kofi/Truth for the tag titles. The champs had single entrances and R-Truth even rapped, it'd been a long time since I saw him do it. I imagine Lil Jimmy is in one of these pics somewhere:
Pre-match sheningans, Darren made a big show of combing out Lil Jimmy's hair for awhile... then WHACK! Slapped him out of the ring to Truth's horror, heh. Match started with Kofi getting beatdown till the tag to Truth, who held his own for a bit but got overwhelmed. Kofi tried to help but thrown to the outside, Truth then threw Titus out to join him just to get rolled up by Darren. He had his foot on the bottom rope but Titus recovered enough to push it back off, the ref didn't see it, and they won the tag titles.
Or not. AJ's music hit and she skipped to the ring, staying on the apron as she asked if the crowd saw what she saw-- that Titus had pushed Truth's foot from the rope. Everyone cheered yes and she decreed that the match would thus restart.
Kofi and Truth re-entered the ring, hit their moves and did a double pin on Primetime Players.
Truth got a mic and explained to the crowd that Lil Jimmy was sad from earlier, and asked if we wanted to help cheer him up. Agreeable cheers and he urged us, on the count of three, to all say "I ACCEPT LIL JIMMY!" Peoria's an agreeable sort so three times in a row... 1...2...3... I ACCEPT LIL JIMMY! Then Kofi took the mic and paused for a little bit before saying, "I ACCEPT LIL JIMMY!" He and Truth hugged and Truth danced his way out of the ring. Haha.
Intermission followed this. Hey, WWE, you might want to lengthen your stupid intermissions a little, eh?! I went to get my stuff and the line was still kinda nuts. I was still in line when I heard the action begin again, and I was seriously considering bailing but I waaaaaaaaanted my shirts so bad. So I stayed until the woman finally waited on me, handed me my stuff, counted my money, and then I had to try to find my way back to the floor, then our section. I ended up stuck in a dead end that didn't take me to the floor, had to backtrack and try again, then walk a bit to get over to our section. Damn~ I ended up missing the first five (or more. I'm not sure) minutes of Wade Barrett's street fight against Curt Hawkins, of course. =( FML lol. But got there in time to see the final bit of it, when kendo sticks were introduced to it and a table. The crowd was pretty pro-Hawkins, especially when he brought in the table.
Unfortunately for him, this would be his downfall as Wade would regain the upperhand, slamming him into his own table for the three count.
Well. What I saw of it was good, anyway, lol. Everyone agreed; Hawkins got a decent round of applause when he left.
The next match was announced for the US title so I prepared myself. As I said earlier in the week, my goal was to antagonize Antonio Cesaro. And I had (I think, translations pending) the perfect sign to do it. Like I said, last minute sign creation done while sleep deprived... so it's not the best it could've been, but it got the point across:
Well, he came out and he was there with Aksana and... he was lookin' towards our section and he started glaring at my sign. To make sure I wasn't seeing things, I nudged Rob. "Was he just glaring at my sign?" "Ah, yes, he was." Victory! Heh. Later on Rob said he was probably trying to figure out what it said. lol. Well, either way, I got his attention. So, his opponent for the US title ended up being this man:
Lots of Broski chants and Let's go Ryder, woo woo woo, chants. Cesaro tried to use the ropes to win at one point, then Aksana jumped up on the apron (Girl to the side of me yelled "AKSANA IS A HOESKI" at this point and I had to lol at that) but the ref made her get back down. Despite getting some offense in, Zack would lose.
"ARE YOU SERIOUS BRO?" Yeah, I know. Sigh~ lol
Then it was time for our main event! John Cena vs Big Show vs CM Punk in an extreme rules match for the WWE title. At this point the crowd went nuts and the girl in front of me stood on her chair the whole time they were entering the ring, sigh. Made it a lot of fun to get pictures or see or anything. =/
Here, the best thing happened. I'm short so I doubt he even saw me around the girl standing on her chair in front of me... but when Punk got up on that turnbuckle, my sign for him:
(because nothing says hardcore wrestling fan like GLITTER PENS!)
was held high over her head and he saw it and he pointed at it! I was gaping, like OMG DID HE JUST-- and then the girl on the chair was like WTF?! and turned around to see what he was pointing at and realized it was my sign and all I could think was OMG he DID! :D :D :D Hee~ (it was on the other side of the Cesaro sign. Lucky poster board, perhaps?!)
Match started; Show dominated for awhile, then Cena and Punk doubleteamed him. They began fighting each other until Show returned, Cena had him in position for an AA (the crowd still goes nuts for that spot. Why, IDK. How many times have we seen it? *shrug*) but he was wavering, here comes Punk and dropkicks him to finish the move, Cena rolls out of the ring and Punk gets the pin on Show to retain.
He gets a mic and starts lecturing the people heading for the exits, that they might want to hang around, see what else he has planned. Cena stumbles back into the ring and Punk tells him he's going to give him one more chance. "Shake my hand, John." Waits patiently, hand extended, while the crowd reacts mixed. Finally...
Cena turns to leave, Punk attacks him from behind, tries to hit GTS but Cena wiggles free and leaves him laying with an AA. Ugh! Bit of a lame ending, we bailed as Punk was rolling out of the ring.
Did hear Justin Roberts thanking us all from the stairs as we went, and earlier he had said they'd definitely be back soon so... Now to begin preparing for next year's :P
Btw, there are MANY more pictures here (including snapshots from the program) on Photobucket if anyone's curious.
Any requests for other pictures from the program? Say so in comments and I'll upload them if they're not already there.
And these shirts are lucky I like them since they made me miss half of Wade vs Hawkins:
But all in all, I had a great time! Perfect seats, and even that girl standing on her seat had her purposes... lol.