Corneroffandom Chronicles- WWE in Bloomington 2017!
Apologies for this being about ten days late, it's been one of those weeks where it's been hard to get anything worthwhile done, ha.
So I started watching WWE dates around late October of last year because WWE was doing a few events around my birthday in neighboring states. Indiana, Wisconsin, etc. March 5th and March 7th were announced, but not any on my birthday. Raw was going to be in Chicago, which left a Smackdown date. Which they announced in mid-November, finally. Bloomington, March 6th... so I ordered my ticket in mid-December and decided since it was my birthday, I should have fancy~ seats so I ordered seats on the ramp, which I haven't had since around 2011. Of course, Zack injured his knee the same week I bought the tickets, which was a downer, but good things happened too-- Bray won the world title, and a lot of storylines regarding Smackdown heated up while Raw became more and more annoying... so I was thankful that it was Smackdown for my birthday.
My initial plan for Bloomington was to spend some time in the parking lot, see if I could meet any wrestlers, maybe get autographs... but the weather took a turn leading up to my birthday and it was painfully windy. Just walking to the car was a bit of a fight, heh. So I opted not to risk getting myself or my signs blown all over the place, and instead just went to the arena at 6 PM as doors were opening. Last year, when I went to Peoria's event, they hadn't updated merch stock for whatever reason so I didn't get a new souvenir cup but they had a new cup in stock this go around, so yay. The merch time line was awful, but I was able to get there and get my program and head down to my seat by around 6:15.
Here's the view from my seat, without zoom or anything. Pretty good, huh? :D
Discovered the arena had wifi after all and then spent the next 45 minutes watching people trickle in (Some guy ended up next to me, and he was with people in the row ahead of me... they were trying to tell him seat 22 was his seat, and I told them "No, it's my birthday, don't try taking my seat!" his seat was 21 so they left me alone then, haha.) WWE did the usual top ten moments of Smackdown, and other countdowns, and some giveaways to people in the crowds, showing off kid's signs, the like, until the show began at 7 exact. Just before this, crew came out and put up Kalisto's trampoline, which was kinda funny to watch from this angle. I wasn't sure what it was at first, I thought they were trying to put something under the ring till they got it set up right and I realized...
Daniel Bryan did a small promo on the titantron, during which the crowd chanted YES! YES! YES!, of course, and then the night began... and uh, yeah, so the first guys coming out ended up being Heath and Rhyno and I got so spastic, I forgot to take a good picture of their entrance. Oops.
So they teamed with Kalisto and Mojo Rawley against Breezango and the Ascension
There aren't a lot of pictures of the actual matches because A: from my angle, any pics I took of the ring ended up really, really dark, and B: I decided to only take pictures of entrances so I could focus on watching the matches themselves. Yeap. The heels ended up wrecking the faces for awhile, Kalisto was trapped in the ring against the Ascension, they knocked both Heath and Mojo off of the apron and while the rest of the audience watched Kalisto try to get free enough for a tag, I watched Rhyno rush off the steps and check both Heath and Mojo, kneeling with them and patting their heads until Kalisto scrambled free and then Rhyno rushed back up, tagged in, and wrapped the match up, goring Breeze. Haha. While the heels left in defeat, Rhyno rolled out of the ring and stood at the bottom of the ramp, guarding the ring in case the heels decided to come back. It was kinda awesome, haha. I've always loved Rhyno. By the way, huge ECW and "He's Got Kids" chants in this match. Which made me happy. Smacked hands with Kalisto here.
Next match was Ziggler vs Apollo.
Ziggler got some chants, Apollo's reaction was kinda flat. At some point, Ziggler rolled out of the ring, jumped over the barricade wall, and took this guy's seat, trying to get him to swap into the match, until everyone in that section yelled at him and he shrugged and returned to the ring. He beat Apollo and... so, since it was my birthday, I decided to have this sign that said something about my birthday wish coming true, haha, and I think Ziggler said something to me about it but his music was playing really loudly so I couldn't tell. Let's just say he told me happy birthday, eh? :P
But not quite done, as Ziggler headed up the ramp, Curt Hawkins' music started in and he came out, and he and Ziggler stood for a moment, staring at each other, before both struck a pose on the ramp
and then Hawkins went to the ring and challenged Apollo, who was still down... just for Apollo to recover and defeat him in one move. Lol. Nice try, Curt.
Next match was a tag with Becky Lynch and Tamina against Mickie James and Natalya
I can't even remember the last time I saw Mickie wrestle live, it's been at least eight years, but yeah, I marked out a bit when her music played, haha. Anyway the match started off with Mickie trying to avoid both Becky and Tamina, hiding behind Natalya, begging with the ref, stuff like that. Finally Tamina forced the start, and it was a pretty good match, which was nice because it was the only woman's match on the card, which surprised me a little because no Alexa Bliss, but alright. Guess that's why they made Mickie face the very next night, because the Smackdown division is sorely lacking in that right now. So Becky made Mickie tap out to the Disarmer, and after the others left, Mickie was stumbling up the ramp, yelling at the ref to help her... but he grabbed the arm that'd been in the submission so she starts screaming and flailing around and pushes him away, making it the rest of the way on her own. Haha. Slapped hands with Becky on her way out, she puts some oomph in those slaps, I gotta say, haha.
The next match ends up being Randy Orton vs AJ Styles.
Mixed crowd, some for AJ, some for Orton. Match seemed to start a little slow, but picked up, and had some interesting spots in it. Orton did a draping DDT from the top, and then he scouted AJ's attempt at a phenomenal forearm, and hit the RKO to a victory. They had alright spots in the Smackdown match itself, but I wish they'd done a couple of the top rope spots too, because they were fun.
Intermission time, which means watching 75% of the arena trickle away to merch tables and bathrooms, just for the 15 minutes to pass and watch them all rushing back in in a panic because the show's back and they've been missing stuff. Haha. I've been there x_x
First match back was American Alpha and Usos for the tag belts. Listened to the dude behind me claim to be a huge Alpha fan, then struggle to remember Chad's name, then say that Jason was the former Olympian, which had me really tempted to correct them, but I bit my tongue. I slapped hands with Chad as he made his way to the ring, and the dude was just drenched, haha.
Alpha won.
Next up was Dean Ambrose vs Baron Corbin for the Intercontinental title.
Match ended in DQ after Baron brought in a chair; the ref managed to get it away from him once, but he brought it back and slammed Dean with it, then left... just to double back around and grab Dean's Intercontinental title, posing with it. He then moved to hit Dean with it but Dean recovered and hit Dirty Deeds, leaving Baron staggering out of the ring, where the ref tried to support him just for Baron to send them both tumbling to the ground, haha.
I was trying to grab a better picture of Dean while he was on the opposite side of the ramp, just for the dude to double back around to my side and run past slapping hands with people before I realized what he'd done x_x Gah. If I remember correctly though, I slapped hands with him in 2015 when I had row two seats though, so that's ok.
Then it was main event time. So, I have an old phone that doesn't have a flashlight feature, so I couldn't be one of Bray's fireflies... which I always feel bad about (It also makes concerts annoying sometimes, haha) so I made this sign for him instead
Now I've seen Bray live a few times, he ordinarily just walks out to the ring, doesn't deviate from the path too far... here though, he gets up to where I'm standing, and he does this spin and ends up right next to where I'm standing against the barricade wall. Which had me speechless, like, who, what was that, Bray? So maybe he saw my sign and that was his response to it... haha. Either way, it was a cool moment.
I took this mid-spin when he was right in front of me, my camera was so zoomed in for an average enterance that this happened, haha.
So yeah, his opponent was Luke Harper, and it was for the World championship.
Best parts of the match was when Harper tried to hit a Sister Abigail and the entire crowd went "Oooooooh"... then at one point, Bray got out of the ring, grabbed the steel steps and carried them to the bottom of the ramp, dropping them with a solid thud right there before turning to yell something at the crowd nearest him as they watched on in amazement at his strength, haha. Harper grabbed him before he could do anything with them, however, and when Bray recovered and tried to send him face first into the steps, Harper reversed and it was Bray eating steel instead!
Bray eventually recovered once the match returned to inside the ring, hit Sister Abigail to the victory, but... while he celebrated... a certain slippery snake made his presence felt again.
Orton hit an RKO on Bray and stood over him with the world title
Then he headed out of the ring, ran up the steel steps that were still down in the middle of the ramp and did his pose from there right in front of me, haha.
We were thanked for coming, told they'd be back soon and that was it. Fun night, good way to spend my birthday, and all. There are more pictures here, things like the program, and my souvenir cup and other pictures of the event itself: http://s82.photobucket.com/user/ayumidah/library/Bloomington%202017
Now... what say you we do it all over again in a month?
