Corneroffandom Chronicles: WWE in Peoria 5/28/16
So WWE came early this year. Honestly, Peoria's been pretty hot for events so far this year, Chris Cornell is coming in July, and now Korn/Breaking Benjamin in September. Pretty sweet. But I personally haven't been to the Peoria Civic Center since last November for the Shinedown concert. So I was unaware that somewhere between then and now, they've changed their security protocles. Before, I would enter the civic center on this side entrance, I would walk around till I reached the arena doors, buy my merchandice, and then wait with a crowd of fellow wrestling fans until the doors open. Not this time. The side entrance was roped off so I couldn't get to the arena. I asked a Civic Center worker who just happened to walk by at the time if I could go through the roped off area and he said he wasn't sure what they were doing for security that night, but it was fine by him. So I walked under the ropes and through to the area I usually went to.
Except that the lobby where we usually all congregate was empty except for about a dozen security guards. I hovered, confused, before I spotted the crowd ... by the main entrance... behind some metal detectors. Oops. So I gingerly approached the security guards. "Excuse me, should I be over there?" One of them turned to me. "Yes, you should be! How did you get over here?" So I stumbled out something about walking through the roped off area, while thinking grumbly thoughts towards the worker who'd authorized this, but the security guard was ok, he walked me over past the metal detectors and got me where I needed to be. So ten minutes later, they opened the doors and we were allowed to start through the metal detectors. I had to drop my camera, my necklace wallet, my phone, iPod, and whatever else... but ended up setting it off anyway because of my bracelets. They let me through once confirming it was my bracelets (coulda also been some change in my pockets, or the batteries for the camera, or... shhhh) then I had to struggle to re-collect everything, put everything back where it belonged while a growing line of people struggled to do the same.
That done, I ventured over to the merch table and took a good look. I usually like to know what I'm going to buy before I go, and I was planning on either Seth's new shirt or Enzo and Cass' "How you doin'" shirt. Which is good, because they didn't have Seth's new shirt (Hell, they didn't have Enzo and Cass' new "Can't Teach That" shirt either) but they did have the How You Doin' shirt, so I got it. Also bought the program. I've since realized it's dated too, but not awfully. It had the important people in it anyway, haha.
Now I usually like to get a new souvenir cup at every event too, but again. Dated merchandice. They had an advertisement out showing a cup with Cena, Roman and Sasha Banks on it, but the woman showed me what they had and it was the same cup I bought last year. So I tried saying I wanted a different cup, but got everything all jumbled around and I think I annoyed the woman, but oh well. Ended up with a regular sized paper cup that lasted me until I got home. Then I made my way to my seats. Required picture of the ring:
So since it was early, the arena was still pretty empty, but it steadily filled up as we approached the 7:30 start time. Ended up sitting next to a guy in a Brock Lesnar shirt who was alright. We were both amused by the kids around us. They did a few trivia things, and even gave my friend CJ a shout out for a tweet he'd made the day before. One of my tweets was also shown on the titantron, which was amusing. I'd mentioned Seth's birthday earlier in the day, but they didn't show the picture I uploaded with it. They aired the Memorial Day package, because it was that weekend, and then went into the national anthem. Show started off with Enzo and Cass vs The Dudleys, which was easily my favorite match of the night. Enzo and Cass are just on fire with the crowd, and it was Enzo's second official match back since his concussion, so. It was a fun match, Bubba is quite vocal and good with getting heat from the crowd, haha. They won with the rocket launcher off the top, Cass then told them they were S-A-W-F-T, and that was it. The crowd stayed with them the entire time they were out there. It was awesome.
Next match was Titus O'Neil vs Viktor. Not much to say here, Titus won. The kids in the aisle across yelled at Viktor to go back to Star Wars.
Then Tyler Breeze wrestled Goldust. After some back and forth, Goldust had the advantage for awhile and then Fandango ran out and distracted him, distracted the ref, yelled advice to Breeze, until R-Truth ran out and pulled him off of the apron, which allowed Goldust to get the win. Truth then came in, they hugged, and proceeded to rap a bit. The crowd really does like Truth and his raps, haha.
The next match was Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson vs the Hype Bros. Mojo was running around outside of the ring until Zack leaned out and yelled at him to come on already. Such a mother hen, Zack is :P Zack and Mojo actually both got decent amounts of offense in, and even had a bit of a "He's not hype" chant going, but the thing I noticed was their "Woo Woo Woo" chants we were doing for Zack were timed a lot differently than what I was expecting, it was throwing me off. Heh. The match ended pretty quickly after they were trying to go for the Hype Ryder and Gallows pulled Mojo out. Then Mojo helped Zack backstage and that was the end of that. Zack didn't see the sign I made him, but I'll keep it for the next event. Or see if I get the courage up to tweet it to him at some point.
Then it was time for Kevin Owens vs Sami Zayn. Around here, the kids started standing on their chairs during entrances and made it hard for me to get a good picture a lot of the time. This would only get worse after intermission. It was a solid enough match, but Sami won so Owens didn't get all of his usual spots in. Still, he worked the crowd, they showed little promos from both men on the titantron earlier and I had a little trouble hearing him (Civic Center's sound is always awful) but it was clear he was insulting Peoria, haha. Sami eventually won with the Helluva kick.
Then, as I figured, it was intermission time, which is standardly about fifteen minutes so I never leave. Learned my lesson after missing the start of Wade Barrett vs Curt Hawkins in a street fight a few years ago, haha. They did some more trivia, which included going to a little boy and asking him "What happened next" and the clip they played was the segment leading up to Vince's limo exploding, which surprised me, because, well, it's not very PG... and not to mention, considering that storyline was all but forgotten about since the Benoit tragedy happened the next week, I didn't expect to actually see it. The kid guessed right and won some merch.
So, even though they'd been advertising a triple threat match between Sheamus, Roman and AJ Styles for a good month by this point, they'd changed it. I figured as much when I read that Apollo Crews was going to be on the card. So Sheamus shot a promo... and at first he sounded like he was being complimentary, but then he went on to insult everyone and got some heel heat before Apollo came out. Their match was kinda average, what you'd expect out of a Sheamus match... until the finish, anyway. Sheamus got Apollo down for a two count, then sat there in shock and argued with the referee that it was a three count... just for Apollo to grab him and roll him up into a pin count while Sheamus had his back to him. Weird finish. Didn't really do much for Apollo and makes me wonder if maybe we'll get a double turn out of this feud or something. Once Apollo left, Sheamus just sat there in confusion for a minute or two, then left as well.
Next match was Charlotte vs Natalya. The night before they'd done a gimmick with a sign for Natalya's birthday, and tonight Sign Guy had struck again, and they did the same thing again, with Natalya bringing it into the ring, and her and Charlotte arguing about it until Charlotte grabbed it and tore it up. The match was decent, some submission holds, Natalya managed some smooth reversals, just for Charlotte to win by putting her feet on the ropes while pinning Natalya. So two fluke wins in a row, but at least Charlotte's a heel so it makes sense. Natalya continues being the opposite of how she seems on Total Divas, going around ringside and taking pictures with fans and stuff.
The main event, of course, was Roman Reigns vs AJ Styles. I stayed on my feet for AJ but when Roman came out, I sat down. Confused the guy in the Brock Lesnar shirt (I did the same to my brother when Rey Mysterio won the world title at Wrestlemania in Chicago too. Ten years later, not much has changed. I wonder who I'll be sitting down over in 2026...) I didn't take a lot of pictures for this match. I was more interested in the kids around me booing AJ Styles. It wasn't an awful match, just kind of standard. And I was hoping that Seth would appear at some point. But Roman won, and Seth didn't show up, so it was a little bit of a let down.
Even so, it was fun seeing Enzo and Cass, the Hype Bros, Owens and Sami. Maybe next year I'll feel more inclined to get seats closer. We'll see. Either way, these seats were ok until the kids stood on their seats and blocked my view through entrances and sometimes during matches. The security guards used to be better about making them get down. Oh well.
Then I had to leave and thankfully the roped off area I entered through was cleared, so I could get through to the car, with no problems. I just need to remember all of this security stuff for the concerts upcoming.