October 21(?) 2001: St. Louis, MO.
Rebeaker: Eviljonhunt81
That's a lie. Unless there was a match before the Kanyon/Hugh Morris one, I made it in time. But why not start at the beginning?
After walking for what seemed like an hour, and waiting for the Metrolink for another half hour, my entourage and I finally boarded the train and made our way to the glorious Saviis Center. I think I misspelled that (and that), but since I wasn't informed of its name change to the Saviis Center for about 2 years, I don't care. Total amount of time elapsed: 10 minutes.
Squeezed onto the train, I was standing near some hoosier that looked like Scott Steiner, and had a Big Show shirt on. His dates, or someone, were wearing ICP shirts. The real fun began when Jerry Bruckheimer took control of the ride and our wacky black man got on board. I guess God felt sorry for me not getting to see the Burger King commercials during HEAT.
Outside of the Arena:
Total number of Ultimo Dragon masks: 1 (mine)
Total number of masks: 1 (*sigh*)
I make it to the nosebleeds, set my oh-so witty sign down in front of me, don the mask, and prepare to be rocked. Since I didn't have a notebook with me, I am not about to recap matches. Seriously, I can't do it. I'm reading another recap as I write this. What makes mine so special? I was there. Or something.
WHO BETTA THAN KANYON? and I start screaming like a little girl. Hugh Morris is with him, so I make sure to get plenty of pictures on my friend's camera while he's getting food. When Bradshaw and Kanyon were in the ring together, this match looked pretty nice. Oh well. I got a few dirty looks for cheering on Kanyon, but such is life for us HEELs. Somebody won and then there was a lot of nothing until
WHO BETTA THAN KIDMAN? More dirty looks for yelling that, but they will soon understand where I'm coming from. Another decent match, I guess. Kidman won but Scotty 2 Hotty hit the WORM after the match. How can the crowd cheer such brutality?
And then 20 more minutes of recaps and junk. Oh yeah, I guess Paul Heyman and JR came down awhile ago. They didn't do much impressive. Finally, we have NO MERCY from the not near sold out Saviis Center right here in St. Louis!!! OMG!!! I WAS JUST STANDING OUT THERE!!!! Of course, the lack of attendance probably means the WWF wont come back for 3 years or something.
MATCH 1: Hardyz come out to big enough pop. On the way home I saw two kids dressed as the Hardyz. I guess I have no room to criticize as I was wearing an Ultimo Dragon match and a home made Survival Tobita shirt. Anyway, I mark hard for Lance Storm, and yell for him to take the mic, but he refuses. HEEL! Hurricane's video so kicks ass now. Match was good, but I don't remember much of it. Jeff Hardy layed in the ring forever after the match. Who can tell when he's hurt and when he's not? An observant person. Ah well.
MATCH 2:Test comes out. Maybe Kane came out first. I don't remember a damn thing about the beginning of this match. It picked up towards the end, but that doesn't mean much. Test won the battle, but Kane won the WAR!!! Kane then kept chokeslamming Nick Patrick. I dunno if they showed that or not. He finished with the Last Ride. Once again, the crowd cheers blatant HEEL acts. For shame.
As I wonder if that stuff had been hanging around the lights all night we have Match 3: Stacy Kiebler (Keibler? That seems right.) takes about an hour to get to the ring. Torri(e) comes out and they roll around and stuff. MOTY!!! I'm sure some moron somewhere made that joke hours before me. I am a sham. Torri(e) hits the Tajiri spring board elbow thing for the win.
Wait. I'm sure there were some backstage segments before. Hmm. Oh yeah, Austin talking through the door. That was decent. I am sad. I just realized that RVD didn't get a promo tonight. I need a tape of his promos. Also before that last match: Stacy Keibler flashed Matt Hardy. And then put on her lingerie I guess. Maybe Matt doesn't have Cinemax.
Match 4: is the much hyped Ladder Match. It took them forever to get that stuff off of the lights before this match. They should have left it. Christian comes out to the greatest entrance ever. Edge's is much better in person than on tv, but still can't hold a candle to Christians. Once again, a solid match. Edge aimed to please the DVDVR message board guys by using psychology on Christian's crotch. That final spot was pretty cool, and Edge almost dropped the ladder. Edge wins. Good match.
I left for food mission #2, and missed the beginning of Spike's promo. It was odd since we could hear him, but not JR or Paul (I am on a first name basis with both Spike and Paul). I think I was able to figure it out, though.
Match 5: is your WCW Tag Title match. Big Show got a big pop. I secretly hope it was for Tajiri. Another good match. My constant pleas for my heroes to "kick [their opponent('s)] in the FACE!!!" are finally answered by Tajiri. Well, Lance and Hurricane did it too. Anyway, Tajiri MISTs the ref, wackiness ensues, and I think I'm skipping about five minutes of match time as I proclaim the Dudleyz the winner AND STILL WCW TAG CHAMPEENS!
Oh shit. I did forget a lot. Rhyno came out and GORED Big Show, thus making my thirst for a Rhyno match all the more unbearable. Backstage he supposedly something about wanting to bring respect back to the Alliance, but I missed this completely. I wonder where I was?
CANUDIGGITSUCKA? brings us to match 6. My friend is gone on food mission #3, and misses the huge pop Undertaker gets. Match starts, and I generally don't pay attention. What I noticed was good. Undertaker won after awhile.
I swear there were showing something on the screen at this point, but the recap I am reading does not mention it. I remember that Undertaker took his fine time riding his bike off, and rode it out on one side of the ramp, but then walked back across the ramp and went out on the other side. He doesn't ride his bike around backstage? All of my dreams have been crushed.
Match 7: WCW Championship on the line. Either Jericho gets a big pop or I can't hear anything over my girlish squeals of delight. Rock gets an even bigger pop. Showoff. This was a damn fine match. Crowd was way into it, with a lot of near falls. Stephanie comes done, and doesn't do a whole lot, but does enough to taint Jericho's win. At least in the smarks' eyes. Some people are already saying Jericho only won so HHH could come back and destroy him for the title. Jeez. Of course, they may very well be right.
Finally, we have Match 8: our main event. When I got home I noticed that lots of sites had mentioned the No DQ clause added to this match. I can't remember when they did that, but it was early in the night. These same sites also mentioned Mighty Molly vs. Lita, which didn't happen. Don't believe anything but us. Anyway, this match was really good. Crowd was just about evenly split between Angle and RVD. Oh yeah, my sign made it's brief appearance at this match. "RVD IS THE WHOLE *DOLPHIN NOISING* SHOW" You don't get free comedy of this caliber too often, folks. Vince McMahon finally came down and cast a bit of suspicion over the match, as Austin finally pinned RVD.
I'm pretty sure it was after the show went off the air as Austin left, then Vince held Angle's hand up, and Angle left, and then he wsa about to hold RVD's hand up, but, being the wiseaker that he is, he flicked Vince off and left on his own. Vince then left, and we herded out.
FINAL THOUGHTS: A damn fine show. 5-7 good matches, depending on how smarky you are. Having a coupon for $.99 chili cheese fries from Del Taco made the evening complete. I don't feel ripped off having spent more money than I have goign to this event.
Total number of masks seen throughout the evening: 2
Number of seen masks belonging to me: 1 (*sigh* again)
I'm sure I had about a million more jokes to make, but have forgotten them all. And that's probably for the best.