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Jan. 24th, 2009 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eiffel_71I'm typing this in the Wembley Premier Travel Inn, having just come from TNA wrestling live at Wembley Arena.
I arrived at the hotel in time to catch the second half of Hartlepool v West Ham on telly, then it was out with my laptop and in with my dongle for Statto duty. Very stressful this afternoon thanks to repeated technical problems - when, for the umpteenth time, after inputting a goal I got a stark blank white screen instead of the confirmation message, meaning I'd have to do it all over again, I was eventually reduced to swearing at the screen in blind rage, more than once. This kept recurring when I put the full time scores in - driving the webmaster impatient at the delays - and eventually I lost the Net altogether, meaning I had to tell the webmaster the last two scores on Messenger and ask him to input them himself. To cap it all I got phoned by our contact from one of the clubs, complaining about an incorrect score which wasn't my fault and which the webmaster had already corrected - if this chap had only pressed Refresh... Fortunately the webmaster was pretty good about the whole thing and said I'd done a good job today.
Went down to the hotel restaurant for an excellent Chicken Caesar salad and a coke, served by a Manchester United-supporting waiter who was gripped by the Man U v Spurs match on the big screen. Back in the room, watched Your Country Needs You for long enough to get the vote number for Jade, then made the short walk to the Arena.
Wembley Way's changed since I last walked down it twelve and a half years ago. For a start, it's now called Olympic Way and the mural under the bridge now depicts various Olympic sports, in homage to the 2012 Games (the Olympic football's to be staged at Wembley Stadium). The stadium's all different now too, of course, an ultra-modern glass-fronted complex with the big arch having replaced the legendary twin towers. There were plenty of touts about. Along the Way I met two other TNA fans, one of whom had come down from Bolton, and who said "Sting won't be there. He never comes to England."
A steward outside the main entrance sent me round to a side door. Once inside, I made my first port of call a refreshment stall and bought a Magnum and a coke. As I'd only had £10 on me, expecting the programmes to be £5, I was shocked when the vendor told me they were £10. So I dipped out, although £10 on a prog would have been hard to justify on top of the extravagance of the hotel room and the ticket.
The place was close to full and the atmosphere was electric. The crowd constantly chanted "TNA" and rooted for their favoured wrestlers. As I sat down, the guys alongside me were arguing over the respective merits of TNA and WWE. Most of the regular wrestlers from TNA iMPACT! were there, although, as the Boltonian had predicted, Sting wasn't there - the only Main Event Mafia members who were were Kurt Angle and Scott Steiner. Those two got as many cheers as boos, showing that wrestling aficionados appreciate any good performance, whether your character is a face or a heel.
All the bouts were superbly executed and spectacular to watch. The ladies' match was a tag team bout between The Beautiful People and Taylor Wilde & ODB. I rooted for The Beautiful People, especially Velvet Sky (who's just as hot in the flesh as she is on TV), and plenty of people in the crowd were on their side. Although in the TV show their personas are often arrogant divas, I wish they hadn't done an in-character slated the audience at the end, accusing the crowd of disrespecting them and announcing, piqued, that they promised never to return to London, England. They'd had as many cheers as boos and should have played to their fans. The best fight was the tag match in which Team 3D, who got a tremendous reception, beat Beer Money Inc. (sadly without Miss Jackie - when their entrance music died down I shouted "Where's Miss Jackie?"). After the match Brother Ray and Brother Devon called a young lad called Harry, in an Arsenal shirt, up into the six sided ring and presented him with a piece of the table they'd put Robert Roode through.
JB, the night's master of ceremonies, announced at the end of the first half that after the break they'd be filming us all for a commercial to be shown worldwide, so we were to make plenty of noise for the cameras. We certainly did that. So, just maybe, my Havant & Waterlooville FC hat is going to grace television screens in far-off lands. Kushti.
The second half opened with a nice speech from TNA president Miss Dixie Carter (who got a few wolf whistles on her way to the ring), thanking many of the people behind the success of TNA both in the US and in the UK and giving a big thank you to the fans. When she announced "2008 saw TNA make the greatest acquisition in its history", everyone went bananas chanting "Foley, Foley!" She took that as her cue to bring out Mick Foley, who made a heartfelt and witty address to us all. He ended by asking who'd come to see AJ Styles and who'd come to see Samoa Joe (both got huge roars), leading neatly into those two's tag team match with Matt Morgan and Abyss. Of course, the fans' favourites won and, reflecting the TV storyline, Matt Morgan and Abyss turned on each other after.
That led into the main event. We'd known Kurt Angle would be in it; I expected his opponent to be Rhino, but it turned out to be an even more popular choice - Jeff Jarrett. As the bell rang and the combatants began dancing around, there was a chant of "Thank you, Jeff" (he founded TNA). They put on a magnificent show, while the rival partisans of Jarrett and Angle in my row exchanged some heated words. Some people seem to forget at times that pro wrestling is acting! When the ref was knocked out cold Scott Steiner tried to help Angle by bringing him in a steel chair, but Jarrett foiled Angle's attempted chair-smash with a well placed kick. Next instant Mick Foley arrived and administered Mr Socko to Angle! That allowed Jarrett to smash his guitar over Kurt's head, and just then the referee came round in perfect time for Jeff to score the pin.
The evening ended with Mick and Jeff calling all the original TNA wrestlers present - "the people who helped build this company up" - into the ring to receive the plaudits of the crowd.
I arrived at the hotel in time to catch the second half of Hartlepool v West Ham on telly, then it was out with my laptop and in with my dongle for Statto duty. Very stressful this afternoon thanks to repeated technical problems - when, for the umpteenth time, after inputting a goal I got a stark blank white screen instead of the confirmation message, meaning I'd have to do it all over again, I was eventually reduced to swearing at the screen in blind rage, more than once. This kept recurring when I put the full time scores in - driving the webmaster impatient at the delays - and eventually I lost the Net altogether, meaning I had to tell the webmaster the last two scores on Messenger and ask him to input them himself. To cap it all I got phoned by our contact from one of the clubs, complaining about an incorrect score which wasn't my fault and which the webmaster had already corrected - if this chap had only pressed Refresh... Fortunately the webmaster was pretty good about the whole thing and said I'd done a good job today.
Went down to the hotel restaurant for an excellent Chicken Caesar salad and a coke, served by a Manchester United-supporting waiter who was gripped by the Man U v Spurs match on the big screen. Back in the room, watched Your Country Needs You for long enough to get the vote number for Jade, then made the short walk to the Arena.
Wembley Way's changed since I last walked down it twelve and a half years ago. For a start, it's now called Olympic Way and the mural under the bridge now depicts various Olympic sports, in homage to the 2012 Games (the Olympic football's to be staged at Wembley Stadium). The stadium's all different now too, of course, an ultra-modern glass-fronted complex with the big arch having replaced the legendary twin towers. There were plenty of touts about. Along the Way I met two other TNA fans, one of whom had come down from Bolton, and who said "Sting won't be there. He never comes to England."
A steward outside the main entrance sent me round to a side door. Once inside, I made my first port of call a refreshment stall and bought a Magnum and a coke. As I'd only had £10 on me, expecting the programmes to be £5, I was shocked when the vendor told me they were £10. So I dipped out, although £10 on a prog would have been hard to justify on top of the extravagance of the hotel room and the ticket.
The place was close to full and the atmosphere was electric. The crowd constantly chanted "TNA" and rooted for their favoured wrestlers. As I sat down, the guys alongside me were arguing over the respective merits of TNA and WWE. Most of the regular wrestlers from TNA iMPACT! were there, although, as the Boltonian had predicted, Sting wasn't there - the only Main Event Mafia members who were were Kurt Angle and Scott Steiner. Those two got as many cheers as boos, showing that wrestling aficionados appreciate any good performance, whether your character is a face or a heel.
All the bouts were superbly executed and spectacular to watch. The ladies' match was a tag team bout between The Beautiful People and Taylor Wilde & ODB. I rooted for The Beautiful People, especially Velvet Sky (who's just as hot in the flesh as she is on TV), and plenty of people in the crowd were on their side. Although in the TV show their personas are often arrogant divas, I wish they hadn't done an in-character slated the audience at the end, accusing the crowd of disrespecting them and announcing, piqued, that they promised never to return to London, England. They'd had as many cheers as boos and should have played to their fans. The best fight was the tag match in which Team 3D, who got a tremendous reception, beat Beer Money Inc. (sadly without Miss Jackie - when their entrance music died down I shouted "Where's Miss Jackie?"). After the match Brother Ray and Brother Devon called a young lad called Harry, in an Arsenal shirt, up into the six sided ring and presented him with a piece of the table they'd put Robert Roode through.
JB, the night's master of ceremonies, announced at the end of the first half that after the break they'd be filming us all for a commercial to be shown worldwide, so we were to make plenty of noise for the cameras. We certainly did that. So, just maybe, my Havant & Waterlooville FC hat is going to grace television screens in far-off lands. Kushti.
The second half opened with a nice speech from TNA president Miss Dixie Carter (who got a few wolf whistles on her way to the ring), thanking many of the people behind the success of TNA both in the US and in the UK and giving a big thank you to the fans. When she announced "2008 saw TNA make the greatest acquisition in its history", everyone went bananas chanting "Foley, Foley!" She took that as her cue to bring out Mick Foley, who made a heartfelt and witty address to us all. He ended by asking who'd come to see AJ Styles and who'd come to see Samoa Joe (both got huge roars), leading neatly into those two's tag team match with Matt Morgan and Abyss. Of course, the fans' favourites won and, reflecting the TV storyline, Matt Morgan and Abyss turned on each other after.
That led into the main event. We'd known Kurt Angle would be in it; I expected his opponent to be Rhino, but it turned out to be an even more popular choice - Jeff Jarrett. As the bell rang and the combatants began dancing around, there was a chant of "Thank you, Jeff" (he founded TNA). They put on a magnificent show, while the rival partisans of Jarrett and Angle in my row exchanged some heated words. Some people seem to forget at times that pro wrestling is acting! When the ref was knocked out cold Scott Steiner tried to help Angle by bringing him in a steel chair, but Jarrett foiled Angle's attempted chair-smash with a well placed kick. Next instant Mick Foley arrived and administered Mr Socko to Angle! That allowed Jarrett to smash his guitar over Kurt's head, and just then the referee came round in perfect time for Jeff to score the pin.
The evening ended with Mick and Jeff calling all the original TNA wrestlers present - "the people who helped build this company up" - into the ring to receive the plaudits of the crowd.
