WWE Smackdown in Sheffield

So last weeks Smackdown event was my 3rd WWE event (all in Sheffield), 1st Smackdown event and my 5th wrestling event ever, I'll have a quick descripition of the day below before I get to the actual show...

I arrived at the train station for 9.40am, I was the last one there with my nephew Dominic, Welkey, Len and his son George where all ready, everybody else had got there for 9 in the excitement even though we'd all arranged to meet for 9.30 (yeah I was late, sue me)

The train to Sheffield took just over an hour and we quickly headed to the HMV in Meadowhall as two superstars where doing a signing there at what we found out was 4 o'clock (WWE.com said 3) - Kelly Kelly and Michelle McCool - it's fair to say Sheffield got the Raw end of the deal on this tour, other towns had the likes of Kane, Randy Orton, Chris Jericho and C.M. Punk - whilst waiting in the cue we found out McCool had cancelled and was to be replaced by Kofi Kingston, it felt a really, really long wait in the queue and in the end I got a Royal Rumble 2008 steelbook and my ticket from last time signed by the pair. I can't complain

After tea we headed to the venue (Hallam FM Arena) via tram and went to the concession stand as it opens earlier before the event for people who didn't get tickets and the like. £15 for a programme is too much for me and the shirts had gone up £5 from last time to £20, so shockingly for the third time I didn't buy anything from a WWE event. We then went outside to queue, we where near the front of our entrance and we queued for over an hour, when the doors opened we where first in, well technically Welkey, Len and George where the first in the actual arena, but I was 4th. We got to our seats and took a few photos posed near the ring, we waited an hour for the show to start... Oh yeah before I talk about the show, it was nearly £10 for 3 beers for the 3 of us, we each did a round (that was nearly £30 for nine bottles of beer. what a rip off!) I forget to mention we where Section B Row 7 GREAT SEATS!!!

Hollah Hollah. Teddy Long opened the event, running down matches in the card, earning his pay cheque. Vickie Guerrero was nowhere to be seen.

Kofi Kingston beat Jamie Noble and Kenny Dykstra in a triple threat match, when he pinned Noble. Pretty good match, quick paced, crowd don't know if Noble is a face or heel though. Me, Len and Welke cheered for Noble, I'm sure he heard is chanting his name.

WWE Tag-Team Champions Morrison and Miz beat Jimmy Wang Yang and Shannon Moore in a decent match, M&M did a good bit on the microphone before the match

Kelly Kelly beat Victoria in a better match then it should have been, Kelly Kelly's pants constantly falling down helped. I cheered (and cheered alone I feel) for Victoria during the match

Mark Henry beat legend Tommy Dreamer, you kind of guessed Dreamer was losing once Henry's music hit. Not a great match by any standards but enjoyable.

Batista and Finlay (w/Horney) beat Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins in an awesomely entertaining match. At one point the match involved waterpistols (!) and after the match finished the three faces did an irish jig to Horney's music which included Batista putting Horney's hat on (picture above). Wonderful.

Eve Torres came out to throw t-shirts into the crowd. She ain't a bad arm for a dame, which lead us on to intermission.

C.M. Punk beat Shelton Benjamin in a slow match, I did expect better from these two but it was great to see them wrestle in person.

MVP beat Matt Hardy after a bit of cheating. MVP did a "Andy Kaufman" bit on the mic before the match started. Good match.

Undertaker, Kane and Big Show beat Edge, Chavo and Khali in a great main event. I'VE GOT TO SEE UNDERTAKER WRESTLE IN PERSON!!!, Khali is not a wrestler at all but he applied his self well enough and obviously others helped carry the match. Brilliant.

The show ended with Taker doing his pose in the middle of the ring

Then home, the kiddies fell alseep soon because it was a long day. The show was much better then the last show we attended and was seriously a lot of FUN. Great to see a lot of the wrestlers specially Undertaker. Brilliant day.

On a last note, I haven't seen a wrestler wrestle more then twice for the record, these are the 2 times club: Triple H, Randy Orton, William Regal, Edge, Batista, Shelton Benjamin, Kane, The Miz, Tommy Dreamer, Abyss, Christian, Rhino, AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. Any guesses on who will be the first wrestler I see three times!

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

This past Sunday I went to a friends house to stay up past 12 to watch Wrestlemania XXIV on Sky Box Office PPV. I really wanted to see this event as it happened, not for the Big Show/Floyd Maywether "match", not for the triple threat match featuring John Cena, Triple H and Randy Orton, certainly not the Bunnymania match, not Edge/Undertaker and not even the Money in the Bank ladder match, it was really for one match only - THE NATURE BOY RIC FLAIR vs SHAWN MICHAELS in a career threatening match (for Flair).

Whilst the match wasn't neccesarilly a ***** classic, the match had it all drama, near finishes, signature moves, one sick bump involving Shawn Michaels moonsaulting onto an announce table. In the end, Michaels finished off Flair with the Sweet Chin music - but not before mouthing the words "I'm Sorry... I love you" to Flair, then like that Ric Flair's 35 career was over... he stayed in the ring as the crowd cheered for him and he hugged his family...

I also stayed up late the next night to watch Monday Night Raw live, which the finish saw Ric Flair standing in the ring thanking everybody including the fans, before an whole bunch of wrestlers - past and presents, face or heel, came out and hugged and clapped for Flair - there was not a dry eye in the house.

Well it's certainly true to never say never in the world of professional wrestling. Ric Flair's retirement after an incredible 35 years is a day I knew would come but always kind of worried it would. Ric Flair, for the longest time as been one of my favourite wrestlers (and actually my lone favourite wrestler for some time).

He was there wrestling at my first ever live WWE event. He stole the show, the crowd loved him including parents who where not neccesarilly wrestling fans dragged by there kids enjoyed is in ring antics. The 1992 Royal Rumble which he entered number 3 and won (along with the WWF Championship) is still my favourite, favourite Royal Rumble of all time, and I still watch it regularlly (thanks to it's inclusion on the great Ultimate Ric Flair Collection).

Thank you for all the hours of entertainment, Ric.

Jericho returns to the WWE

2007 as felt a bad year to be a wrestling fan, with the Chris Benoit incident and a number of other deaths aswell as the constant negative media scrutiny...but on last night's Raw there was something to smile about, the return to the WWE ring of one of my favourite wrestlers...CHRIS JERICHO, over two years since he last appeared in a WWE ring (or any ring for that matter), sporting a new do and a glittery top, Jericho verbally bitchslapped WWE Champion Randy Orton and is return was not one bit disappointing, I hope he sticks around for a long time because he is truly among the most charismatic and talented wrestlers to step foot in the ring. Y2J is here to Save_Us.

Did You Crack the Code? (cryptic clues had been running for a few months with many wrestling fans hoping it would be the return of Jericho- with rather obvious clues last week and the new WWE magazine been sent out last week, the reveal of Jericho wasn't so much of a surprise)

Where the hell am I supposed to find silver bullets? K-Mart?

I seriously have a goldfish memory. I'll just get to what I've watched the last few days and do an life update when I get back in.

Recently purchased two great WWE DVDs- The Ultimate Hulk Hogan Anthology and Rowdy Roddy Piper: Born to Controversy. Both are excellent, Piper's probably in the top five greatest performers on the microphone and the three disc set as an excellent documentary on the first disc covering his career (including an interview with They Live director John Carpenter), a couple of matches also appear on the first disc, the second disc is Piper matches including his awful boxing match from Wrestlemania II against Mr. T, who Piper hated in reality and the third disc is chock full of awesome Piper's Pit segments. Highly recommended. Hogan's 4 disc DVD doesn't have a documentary per say, he and others comment in between matches. One of my favourites of the set is actually the first match, from 1980 with Hogan playing the heel against Andre the Giant, 7 years before their famous encounter, interesting because in 87 they built up would Hogan be able to slam Andre, and he does it here. I should also mention the Wrestlemania VI encounter against The Ultimate Warrior, the match is excellent and that is suprising considering the participants, Warrior couldn't wrestle a lick and Hogan was never a master of technical wrestling, 4 discs of goodies including AWA and WCW matches, comes highly recommended.

With all the talk of a Goonies sequel (animated it sounds) that a lot of people are cramming for and are likely going to hate it when it comes out. But to me (and others) in a lot of way's their is still a spirtiual sequel, almost as wonderful - The Monster Squad - (1987)

Now obviously the Monster Squad is not a sequel to Goonies at all, but it's got that wonderful charm about it that the Goonies also has. Both have likeable young leads, token fat kids, here in Monster Squad actually nicknamed Fat Kid, and the Monster Squad as it's very own Sloth in Frankenstein's Monster (The criminally underrated Tom Noonan), what's wonderful about this movie is things like the dialogue -seriously, the dialogue seems so natural, like real kids would talk- This was also Shane Black's first writing gig- he went out to write Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (which he also directed), so this man is completely cool in my book! On a note, this hasn't come out in the U.K as of yet (or been announced) and I was lucky enough to pick it up the 20th Anniversary set at a used DVD shop very cheap. Good find. D.O.A.: Dead or Alive (2006) is a great movie, seriously. I'm judging the term great movie but how much fun I had watching it. Based on a computer game I've never played it's like the Charlie's Angels movies dumber cousin with a quartet of lovely ladies: Jaime Pressly, Neighbour's Holly Valance, Sarah Carter and Devon Aoki invited to a fighting tournament called the D.O.A.: Dead or Alive by the hammy Eric Roberts where there is a $10m prize well not Sarah Carter as she plays the daughter of the deceased creator of the tournament. The film seems to spend a lot of time on the girls wearing almost nothing. Wrestler Kevin Nash is great as Pressly's wrestling dad. Recommended.

I can't quite bring myself to call Black Snake Moan (2006), a romantic comedy, them words appear on the same line in the IMDB genre line, It's a bit hard to categorise, Christina Ricci is the town bicycle, who gets herself drugged up when her boy Justin Timberlake (who's a good actor) joins the service, getting drugged up she ends up beaten up, scantily clad on the side of the road, in the morning she's found by Samuel L. Jackson -here acting for a change- finds her on the side of the road, takes care of her, hears of her reputation, then ties her to a radiator with a big chain, A BIG CHAIN. If it is a romantic comedy it's certainly an unconventional one, both the leads are excellent, Christina Ricci spends the film mostly in little clothes and sometimes no clothes. Don't want to give too much away, but it's good film.

Back later...

Benoit

I've been a wrestling fan for 18+ years (for some reason I'm using Wrestlemania V as a reference point), I was a kid obviously as I'm 24 now and most people specially here in Hull, England they expect you to grow out of it by now...

I have many happy memories of watching wrestling, in the early 90s enjoying Bret Hart and The Hart Foundation, The Rockers, Ric Flair, Ted Diebse (booed like hell for him) and others.

I was a teenager during the Monday Night Wars period or the WWF Attitude period. It was a great time to be a wrestling fan we had WWF, WCW and ECW (Bravo would show ECW over here in the U.K.) which introduced me to a variety of different wrestlers, many I'd never heard of before and just completely blown away by, among them.

• Chris Jericho
• Eddie Guerrero
• Dean Malenko
• Chris Benoit

Loved um all and others (like Rey, Booker T and RVD), If anything they strengthed my love for wrestling those years (and it actually became cool again during this time period) and where all in WCW (minus RVD) when I was the beginning of my peak of being a wrestling fanatic- 1998. Jericho jumped ship to the WWF in the Summer of 99 with one of the greatest debuts in wrestling history and Guerrero, Malenko and Benoit (along with Perry Saturn) jumped ship in 2000, making me an incredibly happy bunny.

I was going to talk about my memories of some of these guys in the WWF (later WWE): Jericho becoming the first ever Undisputed World Champion, Benoit winning the Royal Rumble, Eddie winning the WWE Championship from Brock Lesnar and Benoit and Eddie at celebrating at Wrestlemania XX after Benoit had just won the Heavyweight Title.

The moment of Benoit and Eddie celebrating became more touching when Eddie Guerrero died in November 2005, I will not go into details here, but the death as a wrestling fan touched me and the image I'd keep in my mind forever...

Or so I thought. Last Monday. After Benoit cancelled his appearence at the Weekends House Shows and Vengeance PPV because of a family emergency, Benoit was found dead along with wife Nancy and his 7 year old son Daniel...Benoit had killed them both then killed himself, I don't want to go into the gory details, there's enough places on the internet that will tell you what probably happened step by step and I don't want to talk about if it was roid rage or too many concussions.

I wanted to talk about Chris Benoit: a wrestler I looked upto, he was arguably the most gifted technical wrestler wrestling today, a wrestler who I cheered for endlessly when I saw live, a wrestler I tuned into see regularly during the Monday Night Wars and beyond, a wrestler I shed a tear when he and Bret Hart fought in memory of Owen, a wrestler I so much wanted to be World Champion because he deserved it, a wrestler I choked up most when he spoke of his friendship with Eddie, that Wrestlemania XX ending, hell his matches against Jericho or Booker T which I loved so much.

But those memories are not gone, there tainted...tainted forever, Chris Benoit, a performer I looked up is a child killer, a murderer, plain and simple. It's knocked me for six honestly, it's hammered home the world is a bad place- stuff like this happens, stuff like this happens from people you'd never think. Benoit used to stand for what is right in wrestling now he stands for what's wrong in the world.

I'm not trying to write anything here that hasn't been said before I just wanted to get written down the events and how they effected me like many wrestling fans, and it's probably the most major wrestling incident ever...

Bret Hart: The Best There Is, The Best There Was, The Best There Ever Will Be It's not hype...this is by far the best DVD the WWE have ever released, better then the brilliant Ultimate Ric Flair Collection, better then the Rise and Fall of ECW, better then Mick Foley's Greatest Hits and Misses, this is the greatest wrestling DVD/release of all time... Hell froze over and Bret "The Hitman" Hart and the WWE reached an agreement and got Bret's full involement (the original title was going to be called Screwed: The Bret Hart Story, as you can see it focused somewhat on the Monteral Screwjob), anyway this three disc set is absolutely perfect- disc one houses the excellent Bret Hart documentary, which like I said thanks to Hart's involvement- you here multiple sides to the story, and the documentary gets very emotional at times, when talking about his father and his brother, Owen (there is also a short extra where Hart talks about wrestlers who passed away), and deals with Stampede Wrestling (we get to see some Stampede footage), The Hart Foundation, Intercontinetel Championship, WWF Championship, the Anti-American Hart, the Screw Job, WCW, Owen's death and the end of the career, nothing is sugar coated over, everything is said how it seemed to go down. the documentary is one word is perfect. The 2nd and 3rd discs house an whole bunch of awesome matches (disc one also has a couple of matches), the stand-out matches are of course Bret vs Owen from Wrestlemania X, Bret v Austin in a submission match from Wrestlemania XIII, Perfect and Hart from Summerslam 91, and the sole WCW match, the Owen Hart Tribute Match vs Chris Benoit, you can't ignore the other matches, because Bret Hart, as his catchphrase and the title of this DVD goes, he was the Best there was. If your a wrestling fan, there is no excuse (NO EXCUSE!!!) why you shouldn't be buying this, even if in his day you was never a huge Bret Hart mark this DVD is still a must own. *****