WWE Live – Dallas (July/2014)
WWE Live – July 27th – American Airlines Center – Dallas, TX
You know what a huge wrestling nerd I am, which seems to have peaked this year as this was like our umpteenth live wrestling event it seems this year, & we have enjoyed every second of it. Nothing huge or anything of urgency here to discuss, just a fun, non-televised (what they call in wrestling lingo a house show) matinee event.
I was DJ’n some bullshit swank thing at the W Hotel across the street afterwards so it was perfect to catch this beforehand.
The show started with announcer Justin Roberts (whom has since been fired) informing the crowd that John Cena wouldn’t be appearing and people had x amount of time to get a refund.
The cynic in me wonders if they would be so unethical to have never actually planned on him coming. Just announce it, kids get excited, you already have their money, most bought merch before they sat down and prior to this announcement. How many are actually gonna get up and leave and deal with a child’s dissapointment? Surely none –
An added surprise was that the show started with Ric Flair coming out announcing that he would be the guest referee in the main event later.
First couple of matches were –
* Dean Ambrose b. Seth Rollins via disqualification
* Bo Dallas b. Zack Ryder
Was happy to see Bo Dallas wrestle live and even funnier when he did his post win lap around the ring that he denied high-fiving this dude we keep seeing that we have come to understand is a bit of an infamous wrestling groupie named Rick who’s known as the Sign Guy.
* Sin Cara b. Damien Sandow
A great skit with these two before Sin Cara gets the victory.
The comedy continues as Damien Sandow complains that he “wasn’t ready” and he could take on anybody else in the locker room and he was somewhat predictably fed to the Great Khali for a second loss.
* WWE Divas Champion AJ Lee vs. Paige
Now prior to coming we had no idea who was appearing – we just got some great seats for a cheap price (of the 22K capacity I would say, their were less than 5k here) and anybody that was here was simply academic. However one can hope and my wish was to see my fave performer (& what has the be the most attractive person currently breathing) the irresistible AJ Lee –
Was further happy to see that she was facing Paige, who is a total badass instead of one of the wanna be actresses from
Total Divas. Paige is second generation as both of her parents are wrestlers, sexy as hell & the perfect opponent for Miss Lee –
* Adam Rose vs. Justin Gabriel
Was happy to see Adam Rose finally – I love his gimmick and he’s great on the mic. He comes to the ring with an entourage called the Exotic Express that are dressed like early NYC Club Kids as food, bunnies and lots of super hot girls.
A few more matches before the main event began:
* Dolph Ziggler b. Alberto Del Rio
* Rusev b. Jack Swagger
* Stardust & Goldust b. Curtis Axel & Ryback
Main Event
* Roman Reigns vs Randy Orton in a Street Fight with Ric Flair as referee
No matter how old (and boy does he look fucking OLD) he looks, I’ll never tire of seeing Ric Flair and see him doing his thing. From what I’ve learned of him as an adult is far from favorable, but I grew up in the 80’s and he was the man, so it was great to see him still involved in some capacity tonight as he came out as the guest referee.
I’m sure you’ve seen in on TV a million times of Roman Reigns entrance, he always comes down one of the aisles in the crowd. And we just happen to be on the aisle that he came down – (probably because the other aisles were empty)
Reigns ultimately won the match to end and great afternoon of a fun intimate wrestling show. I loved the scaled back production and the smaller crowd, it made it more relaxing, easier to see and felt special in an unexpected underproduced sorta way. One of the biggest things I face in being a wrestling fan is the people at the shows can be a real beating and this time, we had zero hassles.
