Atlanta, GA: Wrestlemania 27

04.11.2011

April 2-4, 2011. A weekend I had been looking forward to since Feb 1, 2010, when Matt and I were talking to WWE Jason after a Raw show in Nashville and found out it was actually possible for him to get us in to Wrestlemania. I hate taking advantage of Jason's good nature, but yet it seems I always do. Wrestlemania would not be an exception. I mean, it's Wrestlemania!

My Wrestlemania trip was the first time I've driven to/in Atlanta. I've flown through, I've been driven, but I've never taken the wheel. Well my Atlanta driving cherry is now popped and I lived to talk about it. Saturday was the Hall of Fame ceremony. Evil Mathias and his brother (who, for the purposes of this adventure will be called "Steve") were due in Atlanta around 4:00. Gina and I arrived the day before at her aunt's house in Newnan. I decided to let Gina have family time and left to acquaint myself with Atlanta before meeting and picking up Team Evil. It was during my drive to the Georgia Dome/Phillips Arena, where I was going to spend a good chunk of the next 3 days, that I drove around downtown Atlanta and the surrounding southern area. And during this drive I found that Atlanta is a shithole. There are nice parts, but the bad parts are bad. Not that anything bad happened to me on this trip, but I just had a weird, uneasy feeling a handful of times. But enough about Atlanta, this is about the festivities!

Day 1: Hall of Fame
I got the call from Matt that he and Steve had arrived, so I went to pick them up and we made our way to Phillips Arena and parking. We parked at the garage across the street from the arena ($20 for that convenience) and started to walk downtown in search of dinner. Half a mile away we found Jalapeno Charlies and I listened to the table next to us as British accents explained the intricacies of wrestling to some British accented women. Evidently you can wow women by explaining wrestling with a British accent. Not so much with a redneck accent. After eating we trekked the half mile back to the arena and got to our seats for the HOF. The night was being taped and would be edited for both the Wrestlemania DVD release and the last hour or so for airing on Monday night before Raw. There were a couple of interesting tidbits that didn't make the cut:

• Road Dogg (Brian James) had no notes when he and his brothers Scott and Brad were inducting their father, Bullet Bob Armstrong. He reached a point where he just drew a blank on what he was going to say. "I've got nothing. I had all sorts of stories backstage. This can all be cut in the editing room, right?"
• Triple H, when inducting Shawn Michaels, was talking about the comedy bits they did in DX and how Shawn would do the Google Eye, whereupon one of Hunter's eyes looked at his nose, the other looked up off in the distance somewhere. He did this 3 times and it was hilarious.
• Shawn Michaels was another one that came out sans notes. The cat calls were really throwing him off to where he said it would be great tv if he had a nervous breakdown. "You guys are killing me with the cat calls" he said, which of course brought on more cat calls.

My personal favorite moment of the night was when Dusty Rhodes was inducting the Road Warriors and telling an old story. "Road Warrior Hawk, I called him Hank, Hank and I were having a beverage...". Matt and I looked at each other. Hank? The man's name was Mike, he went by Hawk, but Dusty called him Hank. "Matt, from now on I'm going to call you Billy" a said with glee.

Day 2: Wrestlemania 27
Learning part of a lesson from the joy of traffic with 10,000 fans at the Hall of Fame, Team Evil, myself, and Gina opted to try MARTA for the journey to Wrestlemania and the 71,000 fans that would be in the Georgia Dome. Compared to sitting in traffic, taking the train in was nice. Round trip was also $4, which was a lot cheaper than the $20 for parking the day before. Even if you take all 4 of us, it was still $4 cheaper than parking.

Our tickets were on the first floor risers near the entrance ramp. We ended up sitting behind the kids from the latest version of Tough Enough. I spent a good while taking in the spectacle. Jason designs the lights and stage, and I enjoy seeing how good a job he does. Although everyone else doesn't know who's responsible, I hope they appreciate the work that goes into making everything look as good as it does. The drawback of the setup was that the sound & lighting guys had there own little island of a workstation, so there would be no hanging out with Jason like we do in Nashville.

Soon Wrestlemania started, and to be honest the details of the show are kind of a blur. I watched the scoreboard monitor for most of the action - between standing fans and distance from the ring it was the best way to see what was going on. The reviews of the show have been mostly negative, complaining that it was boring. The actual matches may have been a little boring, but I was so caught up in the spectacle I didn't notice (or maybe I didn't care). After the show Jason came over and caught up a little - mostly with Gina. He always liked her best.

Now I can say I've been to Wrestlemania.

Day 3: Superstars/Raw
Monday night saw myself and Team Evil return to the Phillips Arena for Raw and the Superstars taping. Beforehand we went to Ted's Montana Grill for dinner, home of the best (bison) nachos I've ever had. Before the show was a little nerve racking as there were no tickets at the Will-Call counter. This has happened a couple of times, and the tickets always show up, but it still makes me nervous.

We got our tickets and made it to our seats which were up behind the last hard camera position. Although farther away than most people want to sit, you get a good view of the action. The only bad part was that we were too far away for Cameraman Marty to hear us cheering for him. I'm generally fairly quiet at wrestling events, but for some reason I felt the urge to hoot and holler on this night. For the opening bout between Santino Marella and (one of my personal favorites) Ted DiBiase Jr, I was calling the action using my Dusty Rhodes voice while pulling for the heel, Ted. Matt and I do this frequently on Monday nights, so maybe I was just due? Superstars and Raw went on without incident and my weekend of wrestling was drawing to a close.

After Raw we went and talked to Jason while he was packing up. I had work a wrestling t shirt each night (Saturday was a "Property of WWE" shirt, Sunday was Rock's "I Bring It" shirt, and Monday was my official "Wrestlemania 27" shirt), which only merits mentioning because a slightly inebriated fan with a championship belt on his shoulder came up to Jason, me, Matt, and Steve, and proceeded to thank us for all the hard work we put into the production. Jason smiled and thanked him, and I even nodded, and then the guy kept going on and on. He eventually shook my hand, talked a little more, and then shook Jasons hand. I patted the guy on the should and told him I was glad he enjoyed the show and tried to steer him away - Jason's got things to do! The guy thanked us again and left. "There's one at every show" Jason told us. I looked at him and said "And evidently we all work to make this show great. So.... I'm your assistant now!"

I've had 3 days of wrestling events. Since 1985 I've wanted to go to Wrestlemania. Thanks to Jason, my 26 year old dream finally happened. There was a moment during the opening of Wrestlemania when I got chills and actually felt "Oh my god I'm actually here." and for some odd reason I thought of Mom. I don't like to travel, I don't like crowds (especially of rednecks), yet here I was in Atlanta in an arena with 71,000 people. Mom would always listen to my wrestling adventures even though she didn't know who the players were. I think she would have liked this adventure.

I've been to Wrestlemania. I can mark that off my bucket list. I'm not sure if I would do it again. I wonder if I'll get an urge to visit Miami next April?

Permalink wrestling

Rocklanta on the Horizon

03.30.2011

Tomorrow after work I leave for Atlanta for Wrestlmania 27! I know it's just Thursday and the show's not until Sunday, but Gina's got relatives and visiting to do, and work won't miss me :)

I dig up and slightly updated an old Russellmania logo with a scheme reminiscent of Wrestlemania 19. I used to have an option to switch themes on the website - maybe it's time to revisit that and dig up some other old logos?

I think the actual high point of the weekend will be the Hall of Fame ceremony. Bullet Bob Armstong, who was the biggest face in the Alabama/Tennessee area when I was watching wrestling out of Birmingham back in the trailer park days, is being inducted. The man is 71 years old and still wrestles 4 days a week. Bob's an ex-marine who always came across as able to kick anyone's ass (and probably still does).Along with Bob (and others) the original Road Warriors/Legion of Doom will be inducted. The first time I saw them on tv out of Georgia that just ran in and then over everyone. Pure devastation. Although Hawk (Mike Hegstrand) passed away a few years ago, I'm hoping Animal, Ellering, and good old Bullet Bob will have some good stories to share from the old days - I love hearing those stories.

Once the actual wrestling starts on Sunday, which will roll into Raw on Monday, the Cameraman Marty Miller Fan Club will be set to make their debut. It sounds like we might have t-shirts. For those that don't know, Marty is the cameraman at ringside closest to the announce table. Marty likes to zoom; That's how we know it's Marty. On the far side on the floor, next to the entrance ramp, is Rico with the other camera. Rico is more mundane in his camerawork and doesn't zoom. As such, Rico's camera angle is much easier to watch, but it gives us no reason to cry out and participate in the match. Marty zooms in per punch and elicits cries of "MARTY!" from Matt and myself.

MARTY!

Permalink wrestling

Flavored Coffee Drink

03.29.2011

Today I find myself having a large (13.7 oz) Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino Light. I found out I liked these last year on my last trip to Gulf Shores, and now I have one every once in a while. It's one of the few caffeinated drinks that I actually feel a little kick out of.

I think I'm going to need that kick today. I have to do some non-web programming, and I haven't done that since 1996. My brain doesn't work that way anymore, and it never worked that way very well to begin with. So I have to focus. Focus!

Only 5 more days until Wrestlemania.

Dammit, focus! Need to take another slurp of my flavored coffee drink...

Permalink random

7 more days

03.27.2011

A week from today I should be sitting with 65,000 people in the Georgia Dome watching Wrestlemania 27. I've been looking forward to this since February 2010. Honestly I've been looking forward to it since the first Wrestlemania in 1985. Being a wrestling fan I've always wanted to go, and it wasn't until 2000 that I was able to start ordering PPVs to actually see it.

But I'm excited. More excited than I've been about anything in a long, long time. Because I'm F'n going to Wrestlemania!

Permalink wrestling

Old Movies

03.20.2011

I've been on an old movie kick lately, and being me I put an odd spin on it. The "old movies" aren't ancient, black and white films, but just DVDs that have been sitting on the shelf for a while. My odd spin is tri-fold. While ripping DVDs to iTunes, I've been grabbing movies by letter to see what I want to rip ("Ah, here's a stack of 'A's - here we go Armageddon!"). While grabbing stacks I've come across some that I'd actually like to watch again.

The next part of my odd spin is that for some reason I only think I should be watching these on the weekend. I've no idea where that popped up - I'm the king of doing things during the week! School nights be damned! This may be in part to the last part of my odd spin: I've been grouping movies into double features like I used to do when I worked at the video store.

2 weeks ago, I had a double feature of The Core followed by Con Air. A good combo, although Con Air has not aged well with Nicolas Cage in his "I've got an accent" era. This weekend I was following the disaster theme set up by The Core and watched Volcano and Dante's Peak. The bad thing with disaster movies is that after a limited time they become comedies. Volcano is now one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. That may be in part to the Tommy Lee Jones Action Star Era.

Thanks to surfing IMDB I opted to watch something additional/different today. Zack Snyder (of 300 and Watchmen fame) is set to reboot the Superman series. I wondered what else Zack has made, and saw that early on he directed The Dawn of the Dead (zombie survivors hide out in a mall). It's been a while since I zombie-flicked, so I watched it with my Sunday lunch.

I've been wanting to watch the Final Destination movies again. With 4 of them I could make a weekend double-double feature, or I could watch one per night. After Monday - can't pass up wrestling!

Permalink movies/tv/dvd