(no subject)
So Peoria went much, much much simpler than Bloomington did. Mom decided she wanted to go to a movie so, after dropping me off, she went to do that. The only true problem I had in pre-event stuff was the doors I normally go in were locked, and that section of the civic center was draped off for whatever reason. But I used a side door and, after getting turned around a bit, followed some people to the arena. I had arrived a good half an hour after the doors opened, so there were no lines. Walked in, got a soda, immediately made my way down to the floor. Bloomington being only two months ago, I had no need of merchandise as I had bought everything there.
My seats were ridiculous. I was right behind the VIP people.
That's my view of the ring, and here were the VIP chairs that people could keep:
I had close to half an hour to wait, and it was fine, but I observed an old guy at the end of my row sounded a lot like Zeb Colter, and he talked loudly the entire time leading up to the event. Which, fine, whatever. No big deal. Or so I thought, ha.
So Brandi Rhodes was our ring announcer, and she started the night off saying that Daniel Bryan wasn't there tonight, because his father had just died. A general sympathetic noise spread through the arena, then she said that refunds would be available for the next 20 minutes. I didn't really pay much attention because things began moving fast from there, but I didn't see anyone rush to get their money back, and I was glad for that. It felt tacky to ask for a refund, but I'm the weirdo who would never ask for a refund in pretty much any situation, so.
The standard playing of the Star Spangled Banner followed this, then the event began in earnest. Right off the bat, Randy Orton came out.
He said that he was sorry to hear Daniel's dad died, but that wasn't why Daniel wasn't at the event-- he was trying to avoid Orton because he was scared, and he demanded a challenge-- any challenge from the boys that were in Peoria. So... Sierra. Hotel. India. Echo. Lima. Delta. SHIELD. Ask and you shall receive?
Roman accepted the challenge but Orton quickly backtracked, however, and said that he'd only asked for one opponent, if they wanted a match, Dean and Seth would have to leave. So they did, and the match began. Just as it seemed Roman was going to Superman punch his way to victory, Rybaxel rushed out and started beating him down until Dean and Seth returned to pull the save. A challenge was issued for a six man match later on, and thus accepted.
Next match was Xavier Woods and Cameron vs Fandango and Layla in an intergender match.
At one point, Xavier had the upperhand and Fandango spazzed, ran over to Layla and buried his face in her side, hugging her through the ropes. He returned to the match for a second, then rushed back to hug Layla again and hide. So I'm laughing mockingly at all of this and all of a sudden he looks towards me and screams, SHUT UP! Sure, most in my section were giving him grief, but it sure looked like he was looking right at me, lol. Amused me. Xavier and Cameron won. It was around here that the old man at the end of my row started going nuts. Heckling both teams, constantly telling them "HIT HIM! KICK HIM! DO IT AGAIN". And he continued doing this the entire show that he was present for :|
Next up was Bo Dallas vs Justin Gabriel. Bo did his boliever spiel to a fair amount of heat.
Bo won. I believe it was this match that the old guy at the end of my row truly lost it, Justin was down so the ref's supposed to make Bo step back, give him a minute to regain his footing. He starts screaming "LET 'IM FIGHT, REF, I DIDN'T COME HERE TO SEE YOU, GET OUTTA THE WAY!" and he's just yelling for like two minutes, I was... pretty damn mortified, but the ref didn't crack, just continued doing his job. I guess they're used to it, but damn lol.
Rosa and Tamina vs Paige and Natalya next.
The old guy CONTINUED doing his crap, leading to both Tamina and Rosa yelling at him to shut up. He yelled at them that he doubted they'd have much luck with that referee, and Tamina yelled back at him, "OH WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!" so... first she had to death glare this brat kid near me who kept heckling her the last time I saw her in 2010, and now this. I don't know why I always end up sitting near obnoxious people who annoy her, lol. Natalya and Paige won.
Swagger and Colter came out next and Swagger went right up to the corner nearest me so I held my sign up for him:
So I watched him read it with this weird look on his face, then he gets off the turnbuckle and looks right at me and yells something. Unfortunately I couldn't hear what, and neither could the guy next to me... but I made him mad, and that was the point. Lol. So Colter starts talking and first he says something about being in Rockford, Swagger has to correct him. "Eh, Peoria you say? Not Rockford? You sure? ... Oh well, who cares, they're all the same anyway." This gets some boos and from there we were off, jeering and booing him during his usual Real American BS speech. Then he pulls a paper out and starts reading off a license plate and explaining that this car needs to be moved, then he looks at Brandi. "Did you say it's yours?" She nods and he stares at her. "Well, it's not that you parked wrong or whatever, it's just that it's a crappy car." Then he told us to stand up, put our hands over our hearts, and with a loud and blahblahblahblah... Most of us were already standing, so I sat back down and ignored him until he was done, haha. That felt gooooooooood.
Truth made his way to the ring then and Colter took offense to all of the "WHAT'S UP!" shenanigans, and started talking into the mic again, telling us we should cheer for Real Americans, and then started going back and forth over whether we liked him or Truth, and just the arena was going nuts with heckling and booing him, I'll give the old guy his dues, he plays the crowd pretty masterfully, haha.
And lo and behold, Truth actually walked out the winner! Haha. I was pleasantly surprised by that.
Intermission was here, and during that time Mom texted me to say her movie had glitched and theater workers were trying to fix it. I'm very kind so I texted back "lol" before my intermission ended.
Then my match came up. Heath Slater vs Adam Rose. I've never actually gotten to see Heath wrestle live, so even though he lost, it made my night. Heath is a fantastic comedic wrestler. I wish they'd use him better in the meanwhile, but eh what can ya do.
I had a sign for him, and he looked at it, then looked at me, then went into the ring before beginning to argue with another audience member, which ya know. Holding up a positive sign for a heel, I wasn't surprised he no-sold it lol.
Triple threat tag match for the tag titles was next, The Brotherhood vs Drew/Jinder vs the Usos. I had to laugh at Goldust. I'm not sure how widely known it is especially with casual fans, and they made no mention of Brandi and Cody being married at the event, of course. But Brandi being Goldust's sister in law, she was still in the ring waiting to announce the other teams and Goldust sidles up to her and starts hovering right up in her personal space, cracked me up because it looked like the creepiest thing, his leering at her with Cody just a few feet away, and Cody's not even looking at them. It just felt like the kind of in-joke that amuses me every time. Because I have a weird sense of humor. But I digress.
A lot of back and forth, good action from the teams. The Usos of course retained... and then... BOOM!
Arrive
Tombstone
Leave.
He also chokeslammed Goldust and the Usos, I think Drew and Jinder scampered to safety haha.
The televised dissension between the brothers wasn't made a thing at this house show.
Then it was time for the main event.
Dean was the in distress partner for most of the match, finally getting the hot tag to Seth who cleared house for awhile until tagging Roman in who cinched everything up with a spear to Orton
So yep! Had a great time, and Mom arrived just as I made it out to the front lobby of the arena-- her movie never did start working again, haha. Oops.
More pictures are here: http://s82.photobucket.com/user/ayumidah/library/Peoria2014?sort=2&page=1
My seats were ridiculous. I was right behind the VIP people.
That's my view of the ring, and here were the VIP chairs that people could keep:
I had close to half an hour to wait, and it was fine, but I observed an old guy at the end of my row sounded a lot like Zeb Colter, and he talked loudly the entire time leading up to the event. Which, fine, whatever. No big deal. Or so I thought, ha.
So Brandi Rhodes was our ring announcer, and she started the night off saying that Daniel Bryan wasn't there tonight, because his father had just died. A general sympathetic noise spread through the arena, then she said that refunds would be available for the next 20 minutes. I didn't really pay much attention because things began moving fast from there, but I didn't see anyone rush to get their money back, and I was glad for that. It felt tacky to ask for a refund, but I'm the weirdo who would never ask for a refund in pretty much any situation, so.
The standard playing of the Star Spangled Banner followed this, then the event began in earnest. Right off the bat, Randy Orton came out.
He said that he was sorry to hear Daniel's dad died, but that wasn't why Daniel wasn't at the event-- he was trying to avoid Orton because he was scared, and he demanded a challenge-- any challenge from the boys that were in Peoria. So... Sierra. Hotel. India. Echo. Lima. Delta. SHIELD. Ask and you shall receive?
Roman accepted the challenge but Orton quickly backtracked, however, and said that he'd only asked for one opponent, if they wanted a match, Dean and Seth would have to leave. So they did, and the match began. Just as it seemed Roman was going to Superman punch his way to victory, Rybaxel rushed out and started beating him down until Dean and Seth returned to pull the save. A challenge was issued for a six man match later on, and thus accepted.
Next match was Xavier Woods and Cameron vs Fandango and Layla in an intergender match.
At one point, Xavier had the upperhand and Fandango spazzed, ran over to Layla and buried his face in her side, hugging her through the ropes. He returned to the match for a second, then rushed back to hug Layla again and hide. So I'm laughing mockingly at all of this and all of a sudden he looks towards me and screams, SHUT UP! Sure, most in my section were giving him grief, but it sure looked like he was looking right at me, lol. Amused me. Xavier and Cameron won. It was around here that the old man at the end of my row started going nuts. Heckling both teams, constantly telling them "HIT HIM! KICK HIM! DO IT AGAIN". And he continued doing this the entire show that he was present for :|
Next up was Bo Dallas vs Justin Gabriel. Bo did his boliever spiel to a fair amount of heat.
Bo won. I believe it was this match that the old guy at the end of my row truly lost it, Justin was down so the ref's supposed to make Bo step back, give him a minute to regain his footing. He starts screaming "LET 'IM FIGHT, REF, I DIDN'T COME HERE TO SEE YOU, GET OUTTA THE WAY!" and he's just yelling for like two minutes, I was... pretty damn mortified, but the ref didn't crack, just continued doing his job. I guess they're used to it, but damn lol.
Rosa and Tamina vs Paige and Natalya next.
The old guy CONTINUED doing his crap, leading to both Tamina and Rosa yelling at him to shut up. He yelled at them that he doubted they'd have much luck with that referee, and Tamina yelled back at him, "OH WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!" so... first she had to death glare this brat kid near me who kept heckling her the last time I saw her in 2010, and now this. I don't know why I always end up sitting near obnoxious people who annoy her, lol. Natalya and Paige won.
Swagger and Colter came out next and Swagger went right up to the corner nearest me so I held my sign up for him:
So I watched him read it with this weird look on his face, then he gets off the turnbuckle and looks right at me and yells something. Unfortunately I couldn't hear what, and neither could the guy next to me... but I made him mad, and that was the point. Lol. So Colter starts talking and first he says something about being in Rockford, Swagger has to correct him. "Eh, Peoria you say? Not Rockford? You sure? ... Oh well, who cares, they're all the same anyway." This gets some boos and from there we were off, jeering and booing him during his usual Real American BS speech. Then he pulls a paper out and starts reading off a license plate and explaining that this car needs to be moved, then he looks at Brandi. "Did you say it's yours?" She nods and he stares at her. "Well, it's not that you parked wrong or whatever, it's just that it's a crappy car." Then he told us to stand up, put our hands over our hearts, and with a loud and blahblahblahblah... Most of us were already standing, so I sat back down and ignored him until he was done, haha. That felt gooooooooood.
Truth made his way to the ring then and Colter took offense to all of the "WHAT'S UP!" shenanigans, and started talking into the mic again, telling us we should cheer for Real Americans, and then started going back and forth over whether we liked him or Truth, and just the arena was going nuts with heckling and booing him, I'll give the old guy his dues, he plays the crowd pretty masterfully, haha.
And lo and behold, Truth actually walked out the winner! Haha. I was pleasantly surprised by that.
Intermission was here, and during that time Mom texted me to say her movie had glitched and theater workers were trying to fix it. I'm very kind so I texted back "lol" before my intermission ended.
Then my match came up. Heath Slater vs Adam Rose. I've never actually gotten to see Heath wrestle live, so even though he lost, it made my night. Heath is a fantastic comedic wrestler. I wish they'd use him better in the meanwhile, but eh what can ya do.
I had a sign for him, and he looked at it, then looked at me, then went into the ring before beginning to argue with another audience member, which ya know. Holding up a positive sign for a heel, I wasn't surprised he no-sold it lol.
Triple threat tag match for the tag titles was next, The Brotherhood vs Drew/Jinder vs the Usos. I had to laugh at Goldust. I'm not sure how widely known it is especially with casual fans, and they made no mention of Brandi and Cody being married at the event, of course. But Brandi being Goldust's sister in law, she was still in the ring waiting to announce the other teams and Goldust sidles up to her and starts hovering right up in her personal space, cracked me up because it looked like the creepiest thing, his leering at her with Cody just a few feet away, and Cody's not even looking at them. It just felt like the kind of in-joke that amuses me every time. Because I have a weird sense of humor. But I digress.
A lot of back and forth, good action from the teams. The Usos of course retained... and then... BOOM!
Arrive
Tombstone
Leave.
He also chokeslammed Goldust and the Usos, I think Drew and Jinder scampered to safety haha.
The televised dissension between the brothers wasn't made a thing at this house show.
Then it was time for the main event.
Dean was the in distress partner for most of the match, finally getting the hot tag to Seth who cleared house for awhile until tagging Roman in who cinched everything up with a spear to Orton
So yep! Had a great time, and Mom arrived just as I made it out to the front lobby of the arena-- her movie never did start working again, haha. Oops.
More pictures are here: http://s82.photobucket.com/user/ayumidah/library/Peoria2014?sort=2&page=1