It's late and I'm going to bed soon, but I thought I'd start this thread now. I'll relate more of my experiences over the next few days after I get home but I thought I'd share a few quick things from indy shows (two ROH and one Dragon Gate USA) so far.

* I met Sexy Chucky T, the Kentucky Gentleman, tonight at the DGUSA show tonight and had a couple of nice conversations with him. He's a great guy. As you might guess, really funny.

He did a promo before his match (which I'll tell you about the match later) relating that in the two previous DGUSA shows on Thursday and Friday the Gentlemen's Club -- his two best friends -- have turned on him and now he has no friends and was in deep depression.

So at the intermission (I had already talked to him before the show when I bought my T-shirt) I told him that I hope he gets his smile back ... and he immediately went into character and gave me a super sad face and said he's going to have to go back home and find it. Then he hung his head like he was crying, and after a second looked up at me with this big grin on his face.

The rest of the time that I saw him after the show at his merch table he was playing it totally in character. I met Ricochet, woh might just be the best indy wrestler in the world right now, who was at the table next to him. I asked Rico where he's from and he said Kentucky and I said where and he said about 45 minutes from Chucky (who lives in Murray) and I said, "Ricochet, Chucky needs a friend right now. He lost his friends. You're a good guy, you need to be his friend. He needs you." And I don't know if Ricochet had any idea about Chuck's promo or what but he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. Chuck was watching and listening and trying not to break out laughing because I'm doing this in total deadpan seriousness and he just shakes his head and hangs it and said, "I'm just going to go get a pizza and drink a lot of beer, alone."

One of many highlights to the trip so far.

* If you have heard that Chris Hero has been working out and hitting the gym since he was released from WWE ... you heard wrong. If you heard that he's been eating a lot of donuts and spending his time sitting on his couch, you've probably got a very good source. He looks soft and flabby. He can still bring it, but it's kind of sad because he really has a lot of potential.

* I haven't run into any WWE people but got to have a few short conversations with a lot of indy guys I like at those shows -- mostly I just tell them I want to thank them for entertaining me and that I have a lot of respect for what they do. Met Kevin Steen, Matt Hardy, Michael Elgin, Maria Kanelis, Veda Scott, Johnny Gargano, Adam Cole, Jimmy Jacobs, Nigel McGuinness, Jimmy Jacobs ... a few more but that's all I can think of so far.

I asked Cole if he's really from Panama City and he gave me a funny grin and hesitated and said yes. I told him I vacation there every summer and have for years and asked what high school he went to and he laughed and said, 'Well, I lived there for a couple of years when I was 2 or 3 years old' and that he grew up in Philly. I told him that's good enough for me, I'm a Panama City Guy and so I'll root for him.

Steen was really, really super nice and engaging. Matt Hardy was great with everybody, all the fans, and he really looks you in the eye and pays attention when you talk. He may or may not be a turd in real life, but he certainly appreciates fans.

Oh, also had a nice short conversation with Lo Ki that I will relate later. His match with Gargano was terrific. And Steen vs. Elgin is a true Match of the Year Candidate, and the later match between Jay Briscoe and Cole was absolutely brutal and kind of like watching a car wreck that you can't take your eyes off of -- not that it was a wreck of a match, but so many chair shots to the head and ladder spots that made you cringe in pain just watching.

Met some really cool people and I owe our friend Moosenugget big-time for passing along his tickets to the ROH show, which moved us up from the fourth row to the front row (and I gave away our fourth-row tix to people and made them happy). He is the best and I really hate he couldn't be here.

Tomorrow night I'll be chanting 'Yes!!! Yes!!! Yes!!!" ... or HHH will have become the most hated man in the history of wrestling by not putting Bryan over. Either way, I'm OK with it and anxious to see how it plays out.

Ricochet and Chucky T have been friends since they both started. Chucky was the first to train Ricochet. Probs why Chucky was so close to laughing.

DGUSA show sounds like fun. May have to check it out.

I was aware of that, just playing along with the kayfabe. He was wanting to see how Ricochet would react because Ricochet didn't know if I was serious, which Chucky knew that I wasn't and was just playing along with the storyline.

DGUSA has a ton of talent and their six-man tag stuff (and some of the other) is fantastic ... but they have a long way to go in learning how to pace a show and keep it going. Over-long intermission kind of killed it halfway through -- would make sense if there were concessions (there weren't, it was at a theater-style auditorium (with the ring and a few rows of seats on the stage) and very little merch (aside from DVDs) during the show -- most of the merch that there was came from the individual wrestlers themselves, and except for Chucky (who had an early night) they were all still backstage at the intermission. Some people just walked out during that intermission (had to be 30-40 minutes) and kept going ... not a lot, but maybe a dozen or more.

Nothing to keep the show going between matches, no music, no promos, no anything. Just didn't flow well.

Then before the main event there was like a 10-minute pause for no reason ... literally the camera guys (for iPPV) and the ref just kind of sat in a corner, no word from the ring announcer, no nothing. People started some very dissatisfied chants.

The main event (brought in because they didn't have their usual Japanese DG guys) was Bad Influence, brought in from TNA. After they won, Kazarian did the usual jump up on the ringpost to celebrate/pose thing and he looked at us and the two guys in front of us (we were in the ringside seats, second row, up on the stage, and only a few feet away because it was in a very tight space) and said, "Thanks for staying. This fucking show took forever."

Great time because there was, indeed, some very good talent and a few exceptionally good matches, but I wouldn't call it a good "show."

Wow you met a load of people Pat, I can't wait to hear how the rest of your trip goes

iPPVs usually dont have promos inbetween matches, nor do they have music playing. They only have it playing before and after the show. But i heard Mercury Rising wasnt the best of shows this weekend, which is sad.

I've seen ROH iPPVs before that had production. They had intro music, etc. I was at a DGUSA PPV a few years ago (night before MW27) and it was much better run, kept things moving, did promos and backstage interviews that we could see on a few well-placed big-screen HD TVs.

Oh, and tonight. Some of the official WM30 T-shirts had the words "I was there" on the back in big letters.

Has a whole lot more meaning now. I was there when the streak ended.

You could have heard a pin drop ... I think every single person, including me, thought at the same time, "Did he just count three? Did he really?" And then the 21-1 flashed on the big screen and everyone's jaw, including mine, was hanging on the floor.

Amazing moment. Speechless.

"I was there" That should have been obvious. I would of thought something big would happen. I would watch that just to see everyone's reactions.

Glad you had fun.

Wow. Shows how much faith they have in D-Bry. Legitimately ended an era two matches in front of him and asked him to get the crowd back... And he fucking did.

OK, I'll do this in four parts ... not sure how long it will take but I'll do what I can when I can.

I'll do Day 1, ROH Supercard of Honor first.

Then Day 2, part 1, ROH TV tapings.

Then Day 2, part 2, DGUSA (and a bit of Shimmer) and Bourbon Street.

Finally, Day 3, Wrestlemania.

So Day 1:

I picked up my buddy Tom about 10 a.m. and we headed out from Alabama, stopped for a quick bite in Mississippi, made a few wrong turns in NOLA so we ended up driving by the jail (where a few rowdy WM partiers surely ended up over the weekend) and figured it out and got to our hotel.

We stayed in Westwego, a NOLA suburb, because it saved $100-200 a night, and that was where the ROH shows were.

Another shout-out and my eternal debt and respect to Moosenugget. The original plan was to meet him and hang out but he got called back to work and couldn't go. His WM ticket was insured so he got his money back, but he gave me his front-row ROH tix through Ticketmaster transfer.

Now there were two of us and he had four front-row seats -- of which we took two (for each show), leaving two on the front row and two on the fourth. I gave away the other front-row seats to people on another forum, and one of them was going to take a fourth-row seat on Friday as well for a person who ended up not going. So I had given that guy my phone number and we met up at the show and I gave him the two on the front row next to us.

The other two, I gave to a guy with his son who were next to us in line -- they had general admission tix.

The venue was a pretty nice small basketball arena that until recently was the practice facility for the New Orleans Pelicans of the NBA. With floor seats for the ROH show it probably held about 3,000 and I'd say there were way more than 2k there, give or take. Not completely sold out but pretty full.

Our seats were in the corner area in a neutral corner where a lot of the out-of-ring action took place because it was roomier and they had space to slam each other into the guard rails. They also went into the stands, going over near us and behind us, in a Mike Bennet-Mark Briscoe no-DQ match. Perfect seats and we got a lot of camera time I'm sure because of that and because the two guys next us at the end of the row (the guys I gave the tix to sat on our other side) showed up in tuxedos, haha.

Lot of fun, lot of chants, lot of interaction with the wrestlers (most unacknowledged but I know we made a couple of guys smile or try to hide smiles) and Tom brought streamers.

Kevin Steen-Michael Elgin is a MOTY candidate. I threw a black streamer over Elgin's shoulder when he was up in our corner during intros, so I think that helped him win.

We also gave Todd Sinclair, the ref, all kinds of hell (that's an ROH thing to get on Sinclair -- he's pretty heavy and gets a lot of Twinkie chants and stuff but we didn't get personal, just stuff like yelling "Do your job, Sinclair" before a match even started, or we'd yell "Ask him" during a submission hold and eventually he'd ask the guy and we'd yell "What did he say, Sinclair? How are we supposed to know if you don't tell us?" That kind of stuff.)

We mostly booed the heels and cheered the faces, but I'm a total Jimmy Jacobs mark so I cheered him and his partners in the Decade stable (Roderick Strong, B.J. Whitmer, Adam Page) throughout both ROH shows.

The reDRagon (Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly) vs. Hanson and Rowe vs. Forever Hooligans three-way tag match was fantastic. Funny thing (to me) was Alex Koslov of the Hooligans -- actually born in Moscow, I believe, and plays a Russian character, but obviously speaks perfect English, was complaining to the ref about the finish and we (and others) were yelling, "Speak English. No one can understand you." Indy wrestling rules.

Every match was good. Steen-Elgin was great, as was the ladder match with Adam Cole and Jay Briscoe for the title. I had never seen a ladder match live. Too many chair shots to the head and lots of brutal ladder spots. It was enthralling but at times hard to watch ... but I couldn't look away. Show went close to 4 hours, ending near midnight.

I watched the SHIMMER show saturday, was pretty decent

I'll get to it, but was there for the Cheerleader Melissa-Lufisto title match. Very good match.

I forgot the mention I a couple of other things from Supercard of Honor experience that kind of play into the second day:

R.D. Evans, a comedy wrestler, has been doing a "streak" angle. He ran his record to 83-0 on the card.

And Jay Lethal did a heel turn to win the TV title, joining Truth Martini and the House of Truth.

Now moving along to Day 2, Part 1: ROH TV tapings

From the spoilers I read, it actually breaks down into three TV tapings even though we did, I think, five intro starts.

One of them was before two dark matches that apparently won't air (one involving Cheeseburger), but I guess they did the intro so they'd have one in the can just in case ... a long taping like this (probably 3 hours) you might lose some crowd or crowd enthusiasm so I can understand that.

Another one was retaped because, from what I saw (the announce table was near the corner we were in), an Aussie got behind the announcers in the camera shot and was flipping the bird. They didn't say anything about why, but I saw him doing it and I'm sure they saw it in production and did a do-over.

This is where I met a lot of the wrestlers -- they were doing another meet-and-greet but the crowd was more like 1,000 or so, about half of what it was the day before, and not as early-arriving: it was a TV taping, not a supercard, plus a lot was going on with Wrestlecon and Axxess, etc.

I had the two tix on the front row that Moose was so kind as to give me, which my buddy Tom and I used, plus two more, which I gave to a couple of young guys from Georgia (20-ish) from another forum. They were great and very grateful, bought me a Dr. Pepper, haha, very excited to get to go for free. That left me with two on the fourth row (a guy from Scotland from that other forum was going to get it, but he emailed me that he got an Undertaker ticket for Axxess and decided to do that). Again, I gave them to a father-and-son duo who were in line near us and they were pretty jazzed, it was the kid's first live wrestling show.

I met Steen (very outgoing and gregarious), Elgin (pretty shy and quiet, but I asked him how much he bench pressed and he told me his max was 505 pounds), Matt Hardy (as I noted before, very nice, very humble, very focused -- he really looks you in the eye and listens to what you're saying and is very engaging, very easy to hold a conversation with), Maria Kanelis, Nigel McGuinness, Jimmy Jacobs (the Zombie Princess, who I really, really like), B.J. Whitmer and Truth Martini (best manager in professional wrestling not named Paul Heyman).

Now the meet-and-greet was like $100 to get pics and/or autographs from everybody, or $10 per guy. I bought four tickets just to be able to have a more extended conversation with a few of them -- they were all pretty confused when I didn't want an autograph or pic (what the fuck am I going to do with that, show them to friends who don't know who they are?). Mostly I just told them how much I appreciate what they do and thanked them for entertaining me, talked a bit about the matches the night before, that kind of thing. Matt, in particular, was like "That is very kind of you. I really appreciate you taking the time to say that. Are you sure you don't to take a picture or anything? It's really nice to have great fans like we have here. I'm really glad you enjoyed the show last night and came back," etc.

A couple of interesting (to me) side notes from that:

Truth Martini is mostly deaf. He was wearing his dark glasses so you couldn't see his eyes. I got to put my hand on the Book of Truth, which was awesome and something I've always wanted to do (yeah, I'm kind of a nut). I asked him to open the book, that I wanted to see inside, and he said, "You want to take a picture?" And I said, no, I just want to see the book. And he said, "So you want an autograph?" Then Jay Lethal, who was next to him, leaned over and got about an inch from his ear and raised his voice pretty loud and said, "He wants to see the book, open the book." And he smiled and opened it -- inside the cover was a cut-out area with a cigarette lighter, which he had used the night before to light flash paper to blind and injure Matt Taven, so it was neat to see how that was done, and I saw inside it (if you don't know, he has a dust cover with his picture and the title 'Book of Truth') and I couldn't figure out exactly what because he only left it open for a few seconds but it was some kind of technical manual. So I got that going for me, as I have actually taken in, if only for an instant, the wisdom of the Book of Truth.

The other interesting encounter was with Jacobs and Whitmer. They head the Decade faction along with Roderick Strong, which I'll get to in a minute, but I wanted to chat with Jacobs. Shaking his hands, he has the hands of a baby. I mean so soft for a wrestler. And he's very effiminate in every way -- I understand he dates or used to date a female wrestler and his sexual ambiguity is part of his gimmick, and I'm not suggesting that he's gay or bi (not that there's anything wrong with that and I don't care either way, he entertains me), more an observation as everyone else had kind of rough, meaty hands and the masculinity you'd expect, so he's taking who he is and working it well with his gimmick.

Getting back to Decade, part of their storyline/gimmick lately is that they took young Adam Page, who debuted as a kind of cocky, flashy, flippy/spot monkey guy with colorful gear, under their wing because he wanted them to train him. So they basically abuse him and treat him like the big Japanese stars treat their trainees, yell at him about everything, make him carry the bucket and take off their robes or whatever. So at Supercard of Honor, Roddy got his finger busted open for real -- I mean like a handful of dripping blood, and Jacobs and Whitmer sent him to the back to get some tape. He comes out with a strip of tape about 6 inches long and they call Roddy over and tape up the finger so he isn't bleeding all over the place or ripping it open more.

Well when I talk to Jimmy, I tell him they need to make Adam bring a roll of tape, not just a strip, and he nudges Whitmer (who is sitting next to him at the meet-and-greet table) and says, 'Listen to this,' and looks at me and says, 'Tell him.' So I tell B.J. and he and Jacobs just laugh and laugh. 'That's great. We've got to do that.' And they go on and on about how the hand getting busted was real and they really sent him to get tape and he comes back with just this little strip. And Jacobs says, 'You're right, I should have been yelling at him about that.' So I think they appreciated that I got the gimmick and was so into it that I noticed that, and maybe I contributed a little something to it, because at the TV tapings when they came out, Adam actually had a roll of tape in his hand (although they never mentioned it that I could tell).

The matches at the taping were fun, but obviously there was a lot of stop-start with new intros and stuff.

R.D. Evans, through the magic of television and time teleportation (since it is airing like 3-4 weeks after the previous night's Supercard of Honor) ran his streak to 100-0. They had a big celebration with champagne and tinsel stuff and we all threw streamers and hammed it up. Quite fun.

Elgin's match with Rocky Romero was pretty bad because Elgin was obviously beat up and a step slow from the night before and Rocky is really quick and another in the flippy-little-boy mode, but Koslov, the other half of Forever Hooligans, was great. He had a spot that he saved -- opponent was thrown out of the ring and he jumped up on the top rope, and lost his balance ... for several seconds, it seemed, he gyrated his arms and was sooooo close to falling and getting a "You fucked up" chant, and then he steadies himself enough to do a splash. It turned into a "That was awesome" chant, as I recall.

Another highlight was that Adam Cole presented Matt Hardy with the belt Jay Briscoe had been carrying as "the real champ," and crowned Matt as the "Icon Champion." Matt came back out with it later (different segment) with a picture of his face taped over the front of the belt.

We really had a great time. During intermission a young guy was walking around yelling out "Anyone going to Dragongate?" And a few people were but none of them had cars -- he was looking for a ride because it was over by Tulane on the other side of town and about a $30 cab ride, apparently, for two (he was from New York and had a buddy from Kentucky with him). So I told them to meet us outside after the tapings and we'd ride them over.

We hung out with them the rest of the evening (including a tour of the French Quarter, which I showed them around because they'd never been to NOLA), but I will get to that in the Day 2, Part 3 installment when I get to it.

Day 2, Part 2: DragonGate USA and more:

Thanks to some help from New York and Kentucky (the two guys we met at the ROH show who needed a ride and had GPS -- we couldn't remember their names so we stuck with their home states as identifiers) we finally found Tulane (our directions sucked, plus the arena -- which was like the theater where they put on plays and operas or whatever -- was in the middle of campus and you have to park on the edge and walk and follow maps).

It was raining a bit, but nothing heavy -- a good thing since the forecast said it would be raining and thunderstorming all weekend. We finally found the place. There was a crawfish festival going on across from the 'arena' but it has shut down already and we were real hungry as we didn't have time to stop for food.

I walk in and who do I see sitting at a table to my right but Sexy Chucky T himself? OMG!!!!!! I kept my cool and chatted him up -- he's from Murray, Ky., and graduated from Murray State in 2011, I think he said. I bought a shirt and told him how much I enjoyed his work and how I was looking forward to seeing him work that night. I changed into the shirt (under my blue Hawaiian unbuttoned one) so I could support the Kentucky Gentleman.

The lobby is getting a little crowded because the Shimmer women's show is still going on. We are kind of peeking through the door into the auditorium and the girl taking tickets tells us we can go on in, the main event just started. So we got to see Cheerleader Melissa vs. Lufisto in a two-falls-out-of-three match. They were very good, really good storytelling/psychology, and I can see why many consider CM to be the best or one of the best female wrestlers in the world.

After the match, Tom and I found the student union not far away and there was a cafe for students open on the basement floor. The guy who brought the inflatable kangaroo doll named Skippy to the ROH shows -- Steen snatched it and did an elbow drop at one point -- was also there so we ate with him. I told him I had never seen a kanga no-sell like that before and we got along well. I ordered the "Big City Pancake" which the menu said came in a pizza box ... and it was like bigger than a large pizza but very good (everything is good when you're starving). I could only finish about half.

We go back and I asked how much to upgrade our seats (we were in the front area in the auditorium on the 'floor' rather than on the stage where the ring was) and it was $40 per ticket on the second row so I paid to get me and Tom the better seats. Well worth it, lot of fun up there.

Before going in, Low Ki is setting up his merch (T-shirts and photos for autographs) near the door and he says hello to me, asks where I'm from (no doubt being a salesman, but at that moment there was really no one in the lobby near there but me because people were already moving toward the door -- which was after going thru another concourse away from the lobby). So I tell him and he thanks me for coming and was really causual and seems like a nice guy. I tell him I had heard he was retired and he said he was (they brought him in because DGUSA, which has a relationship with DGJapan and does a talent trade to bring over Japanese wrestlers, somehow was unable to get them over for this show so they needed some star power as their normal draw is largely having the Japanese puro guys) but that he's thinking about maybe coming back because he's having a good time this weekend.

So I tell him I'm really happy that he's on the show and he talked about how he had gotten burned out and I said it was kind of like with CM Punk: if this is what he wants to do, I want to be there and see him because he is one of the best in the world, but if he doesn't then I'd rather he do what makes him happy -- that no fan wants to see a guy who's heart isn't in it, and that no wrestler should do it unless his heart is in it. He looked at me for a second and cocked his head sideways and said, "I'm really glad to hear you say that. I don't think any fan has ever talked to me that way. I needed to hear that." Or something like that. He got a big grin and told me to enjoy the show. So that made me feel good, I helped Low Ki get his smile back, haha.

The presentation of the show was a bit of a mess, but oh goodness what talent. The first match had Roddy Strong and a blubbery Chris Hero and OMG Masato Tanaka -- the former (pre-WWE) ECW champ!!!!! He's like 40 and hasn't wrestled in three or four years and the guy is a friggin' rock, and SO stiff. He's the only Japanese guy wrestling in this ostensibly Japanese-based promotion's show, and someone I instantly recognized and I really marked out for him.

They did about a 30-minute match with Ricochet and AR Fox and Swann -- three of the best high flyers in the world -- in the six-man tag tournament, a DGUSA tradition, and the Rico (I nicknamed him Mr. Chet -- pronounced it "shay" and that kind of caught on, like "Way to go, Mr. Shay!!!) team won. Great match.

I won't go match by match, some of it is a blur, but the presentation and pacing really got in the way of it being a great show, which it could have been. But Ricochet and AR Fox and the Johnny Gargano-Low Ki match blew me away. There was also a nice moment in the six-man tag final where I had thrown a green streamer in the ring for Mr. Shay's team and he picked it up and tore it into three pieces and went over to Fox and I could hear him say "Let's do it. Let's see how they react." And they took the streamers and tied them around their foreheads like headbands and all turned around when their opponents, the Primier Athlete Brand, got in the ring, and wore them until they all got knocked off.

The ring being on a stage, it was a lot closer to the floor than usual (it didn't need to be even higher since it was already elevated) and being next to the stage with little room to either side, it was hard for them to do much out-of-the-ring stuff, which was, sadly, limiting.

Also got to see The Colony -- Fire Ant and Green Ant and some little lucha guy who was really good. Green Ant took a spill out of the ring and rolled off the stage (landing on his feet and then falling, not really hurt) because he needed to be out of the way and unable to make the save for the finish when they lost, and he climbed up and was kind of right in front of us a few feet away. I wasn't yelling but talking loud enough for him to hear and saying, "Green Ant, get up, Your friends need you. Don't just lay there, man. You can rest after the match," stuff like that, and I finally nicknamed him "Rest Ant" and I could see him laughing through his mask.

And my hero Sexy Chucky T was awesome. He came out and cut a promo saying he was really depressed, it had been a bad weekend for him, he had lost every match and his two Gentlemen's Club friends -- Orange Cassidy and Drew Gulak, had turned on him and now he had no friends and he didn't want to wrestle. Maximillian Chicago, a comedy wrestler known as the Lounge Lizard who is also a standup comedian, came out and tried to cheer him up by telling really bad jokes that were actually cut-downs of Chucky.

Chucky just hung his head and moped, and Max Chicago challenged him to a match and they rang the ball and Chuck did a depressed wrestler match. I cannot describe it and do it justice but it was absolute genius: Chicago grabbed his arm and tried to Irish whip him into the ropes and Chuck just walked with his head down, moping, to the ropes, bounced off them in slow motion, Chicago did the jump-down-and-lay-flat thing, Chuck stopped and looked at him and stepped over, then moped to the other ropes as if we still had Irish whip momentum. He bounces back and Max is there ... and Chuck hugs him and starts crying. Max says, "We have to wrestle. I haven't won a match since 2009."

So they go thru this act and the high point is that Chicago puts him in the corner and calls for a Frankensteiner and tries to position Chucky, who is just standing there depressed, and not really participating. Chicago can't figure out how to do it and puts him on the second ropes, then tells him to get down, then tries to position for the Frankensteiner and is hopelessly lost in how to do it ... and Chuck Taylor FRANKENSTEINERS HIMSELF, very likely the first self-Frankensteiner in wrestling history, then he sells it and throws himself out of the ring. There were a few "Match of the Year" chants. Awesome.

But Chuck is supposed to be in a three-man tag match in the tournament, and his opponents come out and he is just too depressed. So he leaves the ring and starts moping to the back and they insult him and he comes back in and goes 1-on-3. Then Biff Busick comes out to join Chuck, then Teddy Hart -- with his manager and two women and a cat. Then it got really confusing. Long story short, Hart turned on Chuck and they lost.

Just not his weekend.

Best crowd interaction of the weekend, some fans to our right were chanting "You suck" at Trent Barretta. His tag partner, Caleb Konley, comes over and says, "Is that the best you've got?" Mistake. The guy says, "I wasn't talking to you, Justin Gabriel." Sick burn, as Conley has the same build and size and similar haircut to Gabriel. Got a nice laugh.

Because of the lack of Japanese stars, they signed Bad Influence (Christopher Daniels and Kazarian of TNA) for the show (not on the DVD or, I think, iPPV) for the main event. They took on the Bravado Brothers, who had just won one of the open the whatever gate tag titles the night before in a non-title match. Of course the TNA boys went over in a pretty good match, and I really liked the Bravado Brothers, who worked well as heels.

I met Gargano after the match and told him how much I enjoyed his work and the Bravados, who were pretty funny. I told them, 'Great match, I really liked you guys." And Harlem Bravado goes kayfabe with a "I just hate we lost to those guys. We should have beaten them." They had the title belts on the table and I tapped them and said, "Yeah but you guys still have these, you're still the champs." And he says, "That's right, we get the championship cut of the money!"

We took New York and Kentucky out on the French Quarter and showed them around -- Cafe DuMonde for beignets (French donuts covered in powedered sugar), voodoo shop, Bourbon Street. We made it a "hunt for Hulk Hogan" and told people we were looking for Hogan and asking random people if they had seen him, having fun. They saw Chris Hero (I missed him) but the best was a beggar who had a sign that said "Randy Orton stole my belt. Need money for a new one for Wrestlemania."

It was getting around 2 a.m. so we left them to party on the Quarter and headed back to the car.

Final installment still to come: Wrestlemania 30

You got to see into The Book of Truth!?!?!?!?

MooseNugget wrote:

You got to see into The Book of Truth!?!?!?!?

I have seen the Truth.

If you follow long-ago Marvel comics, it's like I put on the Infinity Gauntlet and the universal wisdom surging through me exploded my brain and rendered me completely insane and in a near-vegitative state.

Day 3: Wrestle-fucking-mania!!!!!

You already know what happened, result-wise.

The moment of The Streak ending was epic: 80,000 people completely silent, all thinking "Did he really count three? Did I just see that? Did that really happen? When are they going to restart the match and tell us he actually kicked out? WTF???????"

Then the 21-1 hit the screen and our jaws dropped completely to the floor.

I've heard a lot of reports of people leaving, but I didn't see that. Actually, a ton of us went to concession stand or bathroom or smoke breaks -- which all the areas outside all the exits were smoking areas with barriers and then a couple of cops at an opening in the barriers where if you went past that there was no return (which they told people when they went toward that way).

Anyone could do the match: divas and the main event left, so diva match was the final smoke break opportunity.

Now the smoking areas were packed but I didn't see a single person leave from the smoking barriered area where I went. I think some people in their seats assumed people were leaving in protest but more likely 99 percent of them were taking a piss, getting a drink or popcorn, or taking a smoke break. I didn't see any areas where there were noticable empty seats when the main event started.

We got there way early, couple of hours before the gates were opening, so we hit a couple of the merch vendors outside so we could put our stuff in the car and not have to worry about carrying it. I got a WM30 jersey, a hookie and a WM30 voodoo shirt.

The only wrestler I saw all weekend not at a show was Rowe from ROH on the outside concourse before they opened the doors -- he and his wife or girlfriend walked by us. I called out to him and he turned around and I gave him a fist pump. He gave us a big smile, obviously happy someone recognized him. And I believe he has signed with ROH since (he was rostered but I guess not "full-time" before), so good for him.

I'll answer any questions anyone might have about the show (or the weekend), but since you all know how it came out I'll give my impressions of merch levels -- who was best represented at WM as far as how many people were wearing their stuff, by what I saw:

1) Cena -- lots of kids, but adults too. I know he gets booed but to pretend the guy is not massively over is to ignore reality.

2) Hogan -- TONS of Hogan merch, guys dressed like Hogan, chicks wearing yellow shirts and boas, etc.

3) CM Punk -- quitter has lots of fans

4) Bryan -- respect the beard

5) Wyatts -- buzzards have lots of followers

6) Rock and Stone Cold -- lots for both, probably a tie

7) Ultimate Warrior -- may he RIP

8) Brock

Saw two or three groups dressed up as the Shield with their own merc gear, one of which was really well done.

I don't think I saw a single Orton shirt, only two Batistas, ZERO Undertaker (unless you could the Beast vs. Streak shirts, only saw a few and no way to tell who people were supporting), an Edge or two, three or four Miz shirts, and, of course, tons of WM jerseys and shirts that weren't in support of anyone in particular.

If you ever get a chance, go. If you love wrestling, it's mecca, a weeklong (more or less) convention.

We had to choose between getting tickets to the Raw after WM or the one this Monday, which is an hour away in B'ham. Another night in NOLA would have cost a couple hundred more dollars or so in food and hotel, etc., and I needed to get back to work (I took off Friday through Monday). So we'll be going to Raw next week for another wrestling fix.

UPDATE:

I definitely made ROH TV. They're showing R.D. Evans' (spoiler) 83rd straight win and you can see me on the rail when RD comes out of the ring with a dive on Silas Young.

One camera stayed in our corner (which is on the same side of the ring as the stationary camera) for a good bit of the night ... but was filming facing the other way on everything that happened up to that point, so I was beginning to wonder.