Smackdown Houseshow
Well as I stated in my last post, I went to a Smackdown houseshow at the Westchester County Center on the Monday right after Christmas. I went with Ariana, my nine year old cousin- Mitchell, Joe V, and James. Now the place is small enough as it is, but it was even better since I scored FIFTH row seats for us. It was the closest I've probably ever been for any wrestling show in my life (except maybe the time I saw WWF many years ago at the gym of Mount St. Michael HS). So I got some great photos.
As for the show itself, before I go any further I must mention that everyone at the show witnessed something major. In the match of Booker T vs Matt Hardy- Booker T got legitly hurt and it's serious enough that he might be out for about 4-6 weeks.
Here's what happened: In the end Booker T basically jobbed to a hiptoss. He had Hardy in an abdominal stretch, Hardy reversed it into a hiptoss and went for the pin. The ref counted to just about 3 but called a kickout even though Booker barely moved. So then Hardy got up and the ref started a count to 10 and Booker laid there not moving for the 10 count and lost.
So then after the match, Sharmell (Booker T's manager and real-life wife) got into the ring and the ref and her were looking at him and he wasn't moving at all. So the ref made the "x" sign (the "this shit wasn't planned sign") and called people from the back. And the whole time, Booker just isn't moving. They start checking his legs and stuff so people were thinking he busted his leg but I was like "Nah, I doubt it b/c if it was his leg, he would have moved and grabbed the leg in pain, he must've landed wrong, like on his neck or something and got a stinger." Thankfully he got up on his own (with some help) and left on his own 2 feet (athough he was leaning on the refs and stuff).
But yeah, the injury was serious, as they announced it on the WWE website the next day (turned out to be a groin injury in the end) and they had to change up the Booker T- Chris Benoit match for that week's Smackdown. So even though it really sucks for Booker and Smackdown as a whole, it was interesting to actually see something that would affect the TV show, rather than just tuning in on Friday night and being all like "Why the Hell is Booker T in crutches?" like the rest of America was.
Well when I got home that night I was talking with Chaz online and after I told him what happened at the show, he was all like "Dude, have you e-mailed to tell the wrestling newsites about this?" It hadn't actually even occurred to me to do that, but it was a great idea, so I sent it into the 3 main wrestling sites that I go to.
Two of the sites must've gotten their info from someone before me, but the next day as I was reading my favorite of the sites- Onlineonslaught.com, the main writer from the site actually credited me with the info! I was pretty psyched to see my name in print (in what is probably the most respectable of all the sites I had sent the info to). You can view what the guy put right here.
Or if you are lazy, this is what he printed:
But as for the show itself, it was fun. Nothing spectacular but cool nonetheless (I'm gonna list through the card now, mostly for my own recollection, but if you're a wrestling fan, you may also enjoy).
First match we got was a Triple Threat Match for the Cruiserweight title between Jamie Noble, Juventud and the champion- Kid Kash. Was a pretty cool match, but just a bit short (as most WWE cruiserweight matches tend to be). Kid Kash won with his brainbuster finisher on Juvy.
Next was the debut of some guy called Idol Stevens and he faced Orlando Jordan. James started to laugh and make fun of Orlando Jordan all like “HA! You gotta lose to this scrub Orlando?!? You suck!” And Orlando turned to James and was like “Shut up!” It was freakin hysterical. The joke did turn out to be on James though as Orlando Jordan shocked probably everyone in the building by actually winning the match. Weird to job out a new guy, but oh well.
Third match was Bobby Lashley in a handicap match against William Regal and Paul Birchall. The match was a lot better than the same one they had on the PPV the other week, so that was cool. The crowd got pretty into it as well but in a funny way, b/c a lot of people started chanting for Regal, so then other people started countering their chants with ones for Lashley, so that was amusing. Lashley won this match with the Dominator on Burchill. [Oh, in a slight tangent- I’ve mentioned this to people in person but I’m gonna state it to the public now. I totally believe Paul Birchall will be a huge star within the next few years. He’s got “the look” b/c he’s big enough to realistically go toe-to-toe with the rest of the big WWE guys, but is athletic enough to mix it up with cruiserweights as well. He’s also got some cool moves, including his sick ass finisher, which WWE had not allowed him to use until JUST this past week on Velocity, which is freakin sweet. So yeah, I can totally see this guy as like the next generation Benoit. Just remember I’m saying it here first].
Fourth match was the aforementioned Booker T vs Matt Hardy No-DQ match. Since I already talked about it before I won’t go into it much here. The one thing I do need to mention though is that when Matt Hardy came out to the ring, James started screaming insults at him including stuff like “You suck! You cost me points in fantasy league!” And at that point Hardy turned right toward James and smiled and laughed at him. And the best part about it was I got a picture of that exact moment. So that was funny as it was the second time that night where a wrestler acknowledged him.
After this there was about a 10 minute intermission but then we came back for our fifth match, which was MNM vs the Mexicools. The crowd was REALLY into this match (I’m guessing because a large percentage of the audience was Hispanic). But it was also the best match of the night up to this point. They gave the audience the “crowd-pleaser” ending by having the Mexicools actually win the match, which sent James into fit (once again due to Fantasy stuff from the week before, heh).
Sixth match was the Boogeyman vs Sylvan Grenier. This match was pretty lame, wrestling-wise, but the crowd was into it b/c of the Boogeyman’s antics. The Boogeyman won with his finisher in a fairly short match. The only thing of note for this match was that I got a great photo of Boogeyman kicking Sylvan right in the nuts.
The seventh match was actually the main event, which featured JBL & Randy Orton vs Batista & Chris Benoit. The crowd was going NUTS for this match (including myself, as I had a really fun time yelling insults and taunting Randy Orton the entire match. It was great, I really let all the vile and venom I have toward the man out during that match. I think one of my favorite things I said was calling him "Captain Chinlock," which actually got him to look at me kinda surprised. hehe), and it actually did turn out to be match of the night. Batista & Benoit won the match when Batista pinned JBL after a spinebuster. I got tons of great shots from this match, including an awesome one of Batista at the end when Ariana was standing on her chair doing the Eddie Guerrero dance and Batista saw her and did it right back to her. That’s the pic I posted below.
And after the show we were able to go right up to the ring and take a few photos of us standing next to it. That was a cool capper to the night. So yeah all in all a great time was had by all.
As for the show itself, before I go any further I must mention that everyone at the show witnessed something major. In the match of Booker T vs Matt Hardy- Booker T got legitly hurt and it's serious enough that he might be out for about 4-6 weeks.
Here's what happened: In the end Booker T basically jobbed to a hiptoss. He had Hardy in an abdominal stretch, Hardy reversed it into a hiptoss and went for the pin. The ref counted to just about 3 but called a kickout even though Booker barely moved. So then Hardy got up and the ref started a count to 10 and Booker laid there not moving for the 10 count and lost.
So then after the match, Sharmell (Booker T's manager and real-life wife) got into the ring and the ref and her were looking at him and he wasn't moving at all. So the ref made the "x" sign (the "this shit wasn't planned sign") and called people from the back. And the whole time, Booker just isn't moving. They start checking his legs and stuff so people were thinking he busted his leg but I was like "Nah, I doubt it b/c if it was his leg, he would have moved and grabbed the leg in pain, he must've landed wrong, like on his neck or something and got a stinger." Thankfully he got up on his own (with some help) and left on his own 2 feet (athough he was leaning on the refs and stuff).
But yeah, the injury was serious, as they announced it on the WWE website the next day (turned out to be a groin injury in the end) and they had to change up the Booker T- Chris Benoit match for that week's Smackdown. So even though it really sucks for Booker and Smackdown as a whole, it was interesting to actually see something that would affect the TV show, rather than just tuning in on Friday night and being all like "Why the Hell is Booker T in crutches?" like the rest of America was.Well when I got home that night I was talking with Chaz online and after I told him what happened at the show, he was all like "Dude, have you e-mailed to tell the wrestling newsites about this?" It hadn't actually even occurred to me to do that, but it was a great idea, so I sent it into the 3 main wrestling sites that I go to.
Two of the sites must've gotten their info from someone before me, but the next day as I was reading my favorite of the sites- Onlineonslaught.com, the main writer from the site actually credited me with the info! I was pretty psyched to see my name in print (in what is probably the most respectable of all the sites I had sent the info to). You can view what the guy put right here.
Or if you are lazy, this is what he printed:
- Back to some real news...
Booker T has been injured. Badly enough that the scheduled Match 5 against Chris Benoit was pulled from this week's SmackDown!. I try to avoid spoilers as much as I can while still getting important news from TV tapings, but I believe I can say (without it being a huge breach of our Spoiler Trust) that what WWE did was allow Booker to select a replacement, and the result of the match will count towards the Best of Seven Series.
And that works for one night. But the official word from WWE is that Booker has a severely strained groin, and the trainer says Booker should rest and rehab it for 4-6 weeks... the situation only becomes murkier when you consider that Chris Benoit's contract status is still unknown at this time, and WWE might still be counting on Booker to pull this series out if Benoit decides to depart.
For whatever it's worth, the injury took place during a match against Matt Hardy on a Monday night house show. The spot preceding the injury looked like an innocuous hip toss according to OO Reader John-Eric A., who was sitting at ringside and didn't notice anything immediately amiss until Hardy and the ref started acting flustered. The eventual decision was to just count Booker down with a 10-count and give the match to Hardy, and then immediately trainers and officials hit the ring.
Booker was assisted out of the ring, and I know he was on crutches last night at the TV tapings. Here's wishing Booker a full and speedy recovery.... SD! can't afford to lose another one of its few bankable performers.
But as for the show itself, it was fun. Nothing spectacular but cool nonetheless (I'm gonna list through the card now, mostly for my own recollection, but if you're a wrestling fan, you may also enjoy).
First match we got was a Triple Threat Match for the Cruiserweight title between Jamie Noble, Juventud and the champion- Kid Kash. Was a pretty cool match, but just a bit short (as most WWE cruiserweight matches tend to be). Kid Kash won with his brainbuster finisher on Juvy.
Next was the debut of some guy called Idol Stevens and he faced Orlando Jordan. James started to laugh and make fun of Orlando Jordan all like “HA! You gotta lose to this scrub Orlando?!? You suck!” And Orlando turned to James and was like “Shut up!” It was freakin hysterical. The joke did turn out to be on James though as Orlando Jordan shocked probably everyone in the building by actually winning the match. Weird to job out a new guy, but oh well.
Third match was Bobby Lashley in a handicap match against William Regal and Paul Birchall. The match was a lot better than the same one they had on the PPV the other week, so that was cool. The crowd got pretty into it as well but in a funny way, b/c a lot of people started chanting for Regal, so then other people started countering their chants with ones for Lashley, so that was amusing. Lashley won this match with the Dominator on Burchill. [Oh, in a slight tangent- I’ve mentioned this to people in person but I’m gonna state it to the public now. I totally believe Paul Birchall will be a huge star within the next few years. He’s got “the look” b/c he’s big enough to realistically go toe-to-toe with the rest of the big WWE guys, but is athletic enough to mix it up with cruiserweights as well. He’s also got some cool moves, including his sick ass finisher, which WWE had not allowed him to use until JUST this past week on Velocity, which is freakin sweet. So yeah, I can totally see this guy as like the next generation Benoit. Just remember I’m saying it here first].
Fourth match was the aforementioned Booker T vs Matt Hardy No-DQ match. Since I already talked about it before I won’t go into it much here. The one thing I do need to mention though is that when Matt Hardy came out to the ring, James started screaming insults at him including stuff like “You suck! You cost me points in fantasy league!” And at that point Hardy turned right toward James and smiled and laughed at him. And the best part about it was I got a picture of that exact moment. So that was funny as it was the second time that night where a wrestler acknowledged him.
After this there was about a 10 minute intermission but then we came back for our fifth match, which was MNM vs the Mexicools. The crowd was REALLY into this match (I’m guessing because a large percentage of the audience was Hispanic). But it was also the best match of the night up to this point. They gave the audience the “crowd-pleaser” ending by having the Mexicools actually win the match, which sent James into fit (once again due to Fantasy stuff from the week before, heh).
Sixth match was the Boogeyman vs Sylvan Grenier. This match was pretty lame, wrestling-wise, but the crowd was into it b/c of the Boogeyman’s antics. The Boogeyman won with his finisher in a fairly short match. The only thing of note for this match was that I got a great photo of Boogeyman kicking Sylvan right in the nuts.
The seventh match was actually the main event, which featured JBL & Randy Orton vs Batista & Chris Benoit. The crowd was going NUTS for this match (including myself, as I had a really fun time yelling insults and taunting Randy Orton the entire match. It was great, I really let all the vile and venom I have toward the man out during that match. I think one of my favorite things I said was calling him "Captain Chinlock," which actually got him to look at me kinda surprised. hehe), and it actually did turn out to be match of the night. Batista & Benoit won the match when Batista pinned JBL after a spinebuster. I got tons of great shots from this match, including an awesome one of Batista at the end when Ariana was standing on her chair doing the Eddie Guerrero dance and Batista saw her and did it right back to her. That’s the pic I posted below.
And after the show we were able to go right up to the ring and take a few photos of us standing next to it. That was a cool capper to the night. So yeah all in all a great time was had by all.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home