Final Thoughts
On Our Happenings on the Road
Plus a Couple Other Comments on Stuff...
Well...thought I'd give up those final thoughts on our road trip. Been back for a few days and if I don't get to it now I probably won't get to it at all. I don't know that I have that much to say about it. Accept, as always, it was wonderful.
Taker was at the first two house shows (San Jose and Anaheim). But he skipped Bakersfield. Not too much of a surprise. The WWF doesn't go all out for Bakersfield. The show was short. About 2 and a half hours I am guessing. I think it had 1 or 2 matches less than the two nights before. Shane was in Anaheim. But no other night did a McMahon grace our presence. I've said this before and here I go again, I really think the wwf likes Anaheim. San José was fun but you couldn't get that crowd to carry a chant for anything, where as Bakersfield got the chants and crowd participation angle down quite well. Once maybe twice San José got a half-hearted "Austin" or "Asshole" chant goin' that didn't last but a few rounds.
I got to sit next to this little boy (about 8 or 9) in Bakersfield. He loved all the bad guys (Taker fan)! First time I've sat next to someone who liked Taker. Quite a treat! His brother and my daughter rooted for all the good guys, but we liked "evil". The dad had a blast but was new to it all. Nice seats. First row off the floor smack dab in the center. Sometimes life is sweet. :-)
Okay, so on the first two nights when Taker graced our presence he wrestled The Big Show. It was a great schick. Especially the first night, but that was only because our angle (line of sight) was better. The two big men were going at it. Taker head-butted The Big Show once, twice, three times. With each head-butt Taker was a little more woozy. Finally after the third head-butt - and no affect on the Big Show - The Big Show roars and grabs Taker by the hair and head-butts his ass as if Taker were, well...a little scrawny thing like myself. It was the funniest skit. Just busted a gut laughing, on both nights. I suppose there is some irony in it since I am not now, nor have I ever been a Big Show fan, and Big Show did get the pin. But it was a great skit and that was why I enjoyed it so much. It couldn't have been so funny if Taker hadn't played it up so well. But he did and as a fan I loved it!!
That kind of leads us to tonight's Raw doesn't it? Well, I hate the Big Show, but I think it's kinda cool that the two very large men are teaming up. Quite the force to reckon with. Taker extended his hand I suppose due to a common desire to gain control. Hell bent on a mission to mess with folks that tend to get in their way. Sounds good to me. And just think, in the end we'll see Taker and the Giant get it on. Hopefully this will be a nice switch from the Taker, McMahon, Stone Cold soap opera that has played on long enough.
So I was speaking with this guy, Joe, who's got the only wrestling radio show in Vegas, The Wrestling Zone (I think). He was mentioning how he didn't think the WWF had done well by The Big Show since he left the 2nd rate yawn show from down south. I hemmed and hawwed. Not sure how I feel about it. Yes, he was right that the Big Show lost a lot of big matches to big names upon his arrival to the WWF - and perhaps some names that weren't even some of the biggest - but, like I said, "Give it time". So, Joe, what do you think of this new angle? I think it's all good for The Big Show. Now I do think they should have done better with Public Enemy. But...can't have everything.
Let's stay on the subject of Joe for another minute or two. I'm a closet watcher of wrestling, have been since 1986. Love it, but never knew ANYONE at all who watched it, even a little bit. But then I had my daughter and by the time she was two and a half she was hooked big time. We've never really agreed on wrestlers, but hey, at least she's into it, right?! Back then she liked HBK, Big Daddy Cool Diesel, Sunny, the 1-2-3 Kid. You know, all that glitters... So now, nothings changed, we go to shows and she'll be screamin' "Rocky" and I'll be screamin' "Sucks!" She's not allowed to say that yet. The only time it's okay is when DX comes out and says "Suck it". But that's new, since the Seattle Show. And it's only once a night or so, and ONLY at live events.
Okay, enough of that wandering. Let's see if I can get back on track. Joe.... So Joe has this cool thing he puts on every Monday night. At the "All Star Café", snuggled into the facade of the MGM, on the third floor (we did it on the first floor since something else was going on upstairs), he has a wrestling party. So my daughter and I went. I was a tad bit hesitant. Didn't want to miss a minute of wwf and knew that wcw would be on for at least the first hour. I had reservations that I wouldn't be able to hear what was going on, etc. But it was cool. We were surrounded by oh...I don't know, 20 or so big screen TVs alternating between wwf and wcw with the sound on wwf. This was the first time I ever watched WWF outside my own home (excluding live events). We NEVER invite people over to watch anymore. Don't you just want to drop them on their pissy little heads when they say "You know it's fake"...as though you give a sh^$, or should!!!
Well, Joe talked with us most of the time. He was interesting. He has interviewed some wrestlers - Godfather, and I don't remember who else at this moment. He will be interviewing Road Dogg next time the WWF comes to town. He has transcribed previous interviews. I've asked him to pass them my way so I can share them with you the next time he interviews a wwf wrestler. We'll see. He did say that he'd like to interview my daughter the next time we were in town for a show. That will be September 14, Smackdown! They'll have fun!
Joe asked where we lived. I said, "Oregon. But it's a mistake. One I'll fix soon." Told him we were moving to Texas. Explained it was because there was more wrestling in Texas!! He said we should move to Las Vegas. Apparently there are two small federations in Vegas. Buffalo Wrestling Federation and Sin City Wrestling. (I many be off a little on those names.) I was intrigued. Had no idea there was so much wrestling in Vegas. Have no intention of moving to Vegas! Love it, but no.
Then, Buffalo Wrestling Federation had a commercial during the WWF show. Godfather ("Bear") was on the commercial saying something about how the crowd should go down and see him and his buddies Stone Cold and someone else (don't think it was Taker) wrestle. The implication was that big name wrestlers would be at these local shows. Joe grumbled. I was interested in this phenomenon. You see, it was only a week or two before that I had learned that this is a typical trick of local wrestling federations...well, that's a different story so I won't go into it now, but suffice it to say, I became witness to the hype, false advertising, strategic marketing scheme, or whatever you want to call it. Joe commented that young kids are going to buy into it and think that Stone Cold would actually be there. True. And so might some unsuspecting adults.
So this approach leads to a few things. First, the innocent fall prey to false advertising, and two, this increases sales for the local vendor. Or three, in the long run does it actually decrease sales for the local vendor? If the local federation actually forks out the money to hire a couple wwf wrestlers (I've heard they must come in sets of two because they are only allowed to wrestle other wwf wrestlers, per contractual obligations) would anyone believe that these stars would actually show up. Or would the ticket buyer say, once burned, twice shy? Well, in any case, I thought it was very cool to see the Godfather promoting locally. It's a matter of pride to me, of knowing who you are, where you come from, etc. Perhaps that's not why he did it, but that's what I got out of it and I liked it! Some boxer did a commercial for Buffalo Wrestling Fed too, but I don't do boxing so I don't know about him. And I'm sure not going to a wresting show because some boxer promotes it. Hmmm. Maybe that's just me. Guys (or women) into boxing probably have a different take on it.
Back to Joe. Joe had some very interesting comments when it came to the WWF v. WCW in terms of the business side of things. Apparently the WWF is all business and tight in that area. Joe asks for an interview. The WWF says, "Okay, so and so will be there at such and such a time on such and such a date." Business. Professional. (BTW, I paraphrased.) While the WCW hems and haws and says they'll have to ask Sting (or whomever) if he wants to do it. No one is in control over at WCW, while WWF operates like a well-oiled machine.
Next. The Taker signing was great. He was wonderful. I was a little bummed when I got the pictures back. He looks so intense...I was a little surprised. But now they are growing on me and I am liking them. He, of course, looked fabulous. I love men who are in control. He is, no doubt. He seems to do a lot of sittin' back and waiting for the next fan in line to get their sh^$ together - unfortunately me included. My camera worked fine. That is until it was my time to take a pic of him and Jozie Jr. Then it didn't want to work! Yes, he broke my camera. Finally it worked. Yes, he sat back and waited. But he was patient and got his yummy mug back in the pic when I got it together, so I could have a nice pic of him and my daughter. I thanked him. He didn't need to be so patient or make sure I got a good pic of the two of them so I was (and am) quite grateful for that.
HBK was very sweet. Tara, you were right. I had no interest in meeting him, really, but, as I said before, my daughter has loved him best of all forever (well, for 5 1/2 years) so it was a huge deal to her. As you might have noticed since we drove all the way to Vegas just for his autograph. (Of course we hung around for a couple extra days!!) In any case, he was a doll. Both he and Taker were very sweet to my daughter. Taker signed a sign my daughter had made for me for the Vegas show back in March that read "Go UT" and had symbols on it. We both got our pics taken with HBK. Both were great pics. He leaned in and smiled. He was very warm, very sweet, very friendly. Unfortunately, Jr's pic was the first pic on the roll so it didn't come out. But mine came out fine. Well...I'm white as a ghost, but, bitch, bitch bitch....
Okay, now for the irony. So I ended up having a pic of me with my daughter's fav wrestler while she ends up with a pic of her with my fav wrestler, while neither of us end up with a pic with our own fav wrestler. Hmmm, did you follow that? Apparently I got lost somewhere along the line when planning pics. lol Maybe next time we will work out the pic with the fav wrestler thing.
One more thing I wanted to comment on. When we got back home I started reading some of the posts around the net and a lot of the stuff was by women who've experienced a side of the wrestlers that we've not experienced, nor will we. Granted these beautiful women are looking for something I'm not looking for (nor would I with child in tow - stating the obvious), but it got me thinking about how kind the wrestlers have been to us. All of them. Debra has pulled my daughter into the pic so I could get a good shot; Stone Cold stopped right in front of Jr. at the arena entrance so she could get a good shot of him and Debra entering in the car (granted it would have helped if she had kept the sun out of the pic); Bad Ass gave Jr. his water bottle at ring side; Road Dogg, X-Pac, & JJ let her sit down and take a pic with them; both Taker and HBK asked her name and spent a moment with her. All the wrestlers, literally without exception, have been so kind, so respectful, so appropriate with us. I'm very grateful to them all. And don't let me forget Foley - the one that made me remember I was there, and not just a non-entity carting my child around. Warm thoughts and hugs to all of them.
Well those are my thoughts....Except, I have one more. I loved Ivory tonight (unfortunately she wasn't with us at the house shows). My daughter says she's turning into a heel. Jr. is probably right since I love Ivory's angle. But thank you WWF for doing right by her and not turning her into some pansy ass. She's a woman and you are letting her go at it, her way. It's very nice, very refreshing! Very appropriate!!
Till later. Thanks for reading.
Jozie
The Unwrapped Undertaker
