#AJlee

OK, so you (and I) both survived Part I – and now on to Part II – this day was odd for anyone in any city let alone everything else that transpired along with it.
If you thought Part I had some random oddities going down, this one surpasses that in random weirdness/bizarre scenarios/charachters.

Not to sound like a broken record but one major point I feel the need to keep illustrating is my interactions with the wrestling fans and how maddening they can be. However this day started off crazy just because its what happends in NYC, espcially if you find yourself at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
The quickest/cheapest and most direct way to get to the Meadowlands across the river in East Rutherford, NJ where Metlife Stadium is, the site of Wrestlemania 29 and next door at the Izod Center were the fan convention is being held as well as tomorrow night’s RAW broadcast is to go by bus from Port Authority.
It’s only $5 each way and goes directly there and picks you up after the event. Everytime I have previously gone to the Meadowlands this is the mode I chose.
Its been a few years since I’ve been over there so I was having a little trouble navigating PA, which is also one of the most sleazy and congested places in the world and like I’m some kind of tourist I fall for one of the easiest scams in the world: I see a guy looking a bit official standing near the information desk and speaking knowledgely about the area and giving directions to people so naturally I asked him.
Their is nary a space in NYC that isn’t advertising Wrestlemania, except at the bus depot that is supposed to take you there. I approach, tell him what I’m looking for, he says no problem until he gives me directions that I know are bogus and then he drops the “Can you help me out with some change speil?” and got a dollar off of me.

The next encounter is completely insane – I go up the stairs still looking for the right bus, when I see two elderly gentlemen straight up brawling – That’s right I said brawling just so you know there is no mistake – Fighter A who is the agressor is easily in his 70s and is with a woman that is probably in her late 50s that appears to be his wife – he is short, stocky and not entirely unlike Ed Asner – looking.
Fighter B is around the same age but tall and large and not unlike an older version of the guy with the deep voice from Everybody Loves Raymond.
It appears that Asner feels that Brad Garrett has wronged him (legally) and is shouting “Policia! Policia!” when he is not throwing punches.
Garrett seems stunned by this but also fearful that arrest could soon be iminent while trying to fight off Asner.
Asner only pauses to ask what appears to be some kind of worker to get the police involved. I immediately turn around and go back down the stairs as I see a full batallion headed up.
This proves to be the right move as I find the correct ticket booth, buy a round trip bus ticket and then head to my gate.
However this causes me to cross paths with the fighting Italians once again, who now recognize me and want me to give a statement to the police as a testifying witness to what took place –
I decline and and shake my head at the insanity of all of this and get to my gate only to miss the bus by seconds flat:

So now I am first in line for the next bus and its only a few minutes before other would-be passengers arrive and the wait-for-the-bus conversations begin:
Where are you from? – What match are you most anticipating? Who are you rooting for? What are your predictions?
This is also tied between an unspoken competitive atomosphere of who has travelled the furthest and whose predictions are more likely to become true.
I wanted to seperate myself from this and take an anthropoligical stance:

Perhaps who travelled the furthest (at least of those in my proximity who were waiting for this specific bus) were a young couple in the early to mid 20s who had come all the way from Great Britain – where I learn in further discussion is something that they have done for the past 6 years. Holy shit –
I pretended to know a lot less than I do so that I can remove myself from competition and also to get as honest of answers I can get –
I tell them of my absolute adoration for newcomer Fandango (keep in mind this is BEFORE Fandangoing became a thing just 24 hrs later) and they both look at me like they were trying to swallow sour milk.
They establish themselves as yet more members for the C.M.Punk cause – I ask them why people boo John Cena like a grandfather would ask a teenager about Slayer – I get an ok answer. The Brits and I are now joined by another loner who you can tell in his everyday life he can’t talk about wrestling but here today? The floodgates have opened – he kinda reminded me of Theo Huxtable in a way.

Finally our bus arrives and we start to board – I take the first seat on the bus – the Brits take the two behind me and Theo is feels he has more to gain from the Brits sits opposite of them, leaving the first seat next to me open – which is soon occupied by obviously another loner – Vladamir – who is in his 50s and though resembling an older looking Soda Popinski and named Vladamir, he is actually Haitian.
Remember when I was talking about those male wrestling groupies yesterday? – Well Vladamir is apparently the KING OF THE GROUPIES as literally every single person who passes by recognizes him from every event they have ever attended – Among the other groupies, Vladamir is ROYALTY – apparently he was even involved in a Piper’s Pit segment sometime in the 1980s.
Ever hear of that Super Bowl club of those old guys that have attended every single Super Bowl? Ok so Vladamir is apparently the Wrestlemania equivalent of that as he’s never missed one and also apparently famous for it as strangers already know this about him and are asking him questions in total awe which he is soaking up like a sponge. Again I’m back to “What the fuck am I doing here?”.

We arrive at the Meadowlands complex – Theo and the Brits are exploding with enthusiasm and I don’t want to blow it for them but I do want to leave their precense ASAP. Keep in mind (because I had forgotten while also kinda being swept up at the excitement of the seeing the stadium) that I DIDNT have a ticket yet.So I head to the ticket booth where I am promptly told that all tickets were sold out and that their were not going to be anymore made for sale.
Wait this place holds 80,000 people – are you telling me that all 80k have been sold?? – Except for a few that I’m told that ” I wouldn’t be interested in” by the clerk – I inquire why and she said its because they were in a suite and would cost $400 – What she was really saying is “You can’t afford THESE sugar”.
And she was right –
Ok, like last night I had my work cut out for me – There were only a few scalpers hanging around the ticket booth and what they were asking was absurd – also like last night, I forgot to get cash before I got on the bus so the first thing I need is an ATM which now leads me on yet another adventure.
Unexpectedly however as I just assumed that their would be plenty of ATMS around the stadium which I learn is true except that they are all inside the stadium,

The first employee I speak with is convinced that naturally their is one over at the race track that is also apart of the Meadowlands – I walk all the way over there to discover that they are closed today. I ask cops who answer with a question of their own of “Why not use the ATMS inside?” – that would illuminate that I’m practicing something illegal by buying from scalpers. I see junior announcer Josh Matthews doing load in and a sea of fans are rubbernecking for a glimpse – even the fucking announcer is getting the treatment.
Every employee I meet has a different answer and they are all super adament that they are right – I start to collect them like fireflies in a jar – every single one of them were wrong and led me on a wild goose chase rather than just tell the truth and say that they didn’t know.
One suggested through the tunnel all the way over to the Izod center and use the ATMS in their lobby – ok now that was a decent suggestion.

I get to the tunnel that is means that have almost fully circled this stadium and I still have a quarter mile tunnel to walk through and back.
I finally get over there and a guy who is exciting gives me his ticket to the WWE AXXESS fan convention – pretty cool of him and I will detail that experience in the next (and final) chapter.
However as I make my way to the lobby their is only one ATM and its outta cash – Good grief.
So now I have to walk all the way back still with no cash – I ask one more employee at the end of the tunnel and she is downright adament that yes their is an exterior ATM and even tells me which gate its at that would complete my travelling the entire circumfrence of this stadium. When I get to said gate, turns out she was full of shit just like the rest of them. Gawd dammit!

I get back to the ticket booth – right were I started from – still with no cash – still with no ticket and it sounds like the show is starting inside.
The scalpers that were there before my freaking expedition are no longer there and what was a chilly day is now becoming a down right cold night.
Look at the situation – I would now need a total stranger to reach a decent money agreement and then let me get into the show on the promise that I will pay him using the inside ATM once we get in. The odds of that happening were zilch and I knew it + plus like a dim bulb I also hadn’t eaten anything. This was looking grim – but not as grim as a few things I was witnessing around me:
Right next to me I see a guy frustratingly throw a half a dozen tickets on the ground – naturally this intrigues me and so I eavesdrop and as it turns out – this guy had spent close to 2k on the tickets and they were fakes –
I couldn’t believe it – not finding an ATM had been my blessing because I asked to look at one of the fakes so I could know what to spot and let met tell you something – these tickets were flawless and I would have totally bought one. Could you imagine if you had come all this way just to be ripped off like that?

I was seriously about to give up and say fuck it – when I see a guy leaving the ticket booth, smiling having just bought a ticket – so I RAN over there and sure enough since the show had already started they were selling single tickets in the upper sections – I immediately bought one and FINALLY headed inside – I had left my apartment to be here four hours ago.

Wrestlemania 29 – April 7th – Metlife Stadium – East Rutherford, NJ

Finally inside, I get to my seat which wasn’t the best in the house but hey I was in the house. I had already missed a couple of matches and some of the pageantry of honoring the branches of military and recognizing athletes from the Special Olympics.
Here are the matches that I missed:

As part of the “Pre-Show” The Miz defeated Wade Barrett for the Intercontinental Championship (yawn)
The Shield defeated Sheamus, Big Show, and Randy Orton in a six-man tag team match (double yawn)
Mark Henry defeated Ryback (triple yawn)

…but when I walked through the threshold to get to my seat, I was overwhelmed and (if only for a second) forgot how cold I was by being swept up by the impressive majesty of the spectacle.

Team Hell No vs. Big E Langston & Dolph Ziggler for the Tag Team Titles

One half of Team Hell No being my favorite wrestler Kane but more importantly was who was going to be accompanying Dolph and Big E to the ring: A.J. Lee –

Forgive me but I think that A.J. is not only the most interesting and talented female performer they have ever had in the 30 years I’ve been watching but also the sexiest and most drop-dead/to die for human being in the history of our freaking species – I literally have to fan my face when I watch her matches.
She has a great real-life back story as well as being a real fan and coming from intense poverty and is now living the dream – she’s even from New Jersey and not far from here so what a homecoming (and I figured that her parents are probably here so this was as good as place as any to propose to her haha).

The Match –

Ziggler mocked Daniel Bryan by kissing AJ, like Bryan did before his loss at WrestleMania last year. Bryan flew out of the ring onto Ziggler, while Kane and Langston fought inside. Later, as Langston distracted Kane, Ziggler hit him with the Zig-Zag, but couldn’t get the pinfall. While AJ distracted the referee, Langston threw Ziggler his Money In The Bank briefcase. Big E Langston had to be nervous having his WWE debut outside of NXT here, but he stepped up. The call back to the kiss of death at WrestleMania 28 was a nice touch in the beginning of the match, and it set the tone for the rest of the bout.

Kane and Bryan worked together to win this one, but it was Kane who kicked out of a Zig Zag to keep the match going. In the end it was a Chokeslam from Kane and a flying headbutt from Bryan that ended the match and allowed the champions to retain their titles. All I really cared about was AJ who is somehow even more impossibly attractive in person. I was dissapointed that her match against Kaitlyn was scratched for some reason.

Fandango vs. Chris Jericho

Fandango was given an even grander entrance than usual for this match, with several dancers on stage as he made his way to the ring. After weeks and weeks of him doing his tease thing, we were finally going to see him wrestle. I love his gimmick so much that he’s already one of my faves and he hasn’t even had a match yet haha.
What a place to debut eh?

Chris Jericho started off very aggressively after being on the receiving end of a few attacks in recent weeks. He pulled out some high-risk moves that really made the match into something better than it should have been. When Jericho went for the Walls of Jericho, Fandango quickly rolled him up for the pin.

The Fandango character is somewhat of an enigma when it comes to whether or not WWE is going to make him into a legitimate threat, but he looked good in this match and I love the whole package (and his dancing parnter is smoking hot).

Puff Daddy’s Performance

It also has to be mentioned that another complete match was left off the card.  Tons of Funk & The Funkadactyls vs. Rhodes Scholars and The Bella Twins did not happen, so that Pudd Daddy or P. Diddy or whatever the hell he’s calling himself this week could come out and “perform” for 5 mins.
The match will almost certainly take place on tomorrow at Raw, but eight people who thought they were going to be seen on the grandest stage of them all had to sit it out, so this incredibly underwhelming “artist” could come out and phone-in a forgetable “song” made possible by pro-tools & auto-tune.

I’ll take last year’s funky army of dancing mommas as led by Brodus Clay over Diddy any day of the week. Plus part of the price of my ticket was so that I could see the Bella Twins – do not deny me.

Jack Swagger vs. Alberto Del Rio for the World Title

At this point, fans had been in their seats for over two-and-a-half hours, and you could tell some fans were feeling the downside of stadium seating and chilly weather. Instead of “Let’s Go Cena!” signs I was starting to see people holding up signs that simply said “I’m cold” – and if I had something to write with I might have done the same thing – It was absolutely freezing.

Next was the World Heavyweight Championship match between Alberto Del Rio and challenger Jack Swagger. Del Rio Irish whipped Swagger into the barricade. Swagger later nailed the Swagger Bomb, but Del Rio kicked out. Swagger then executed his gutwrench power bomb but Del Rio kicked out again.

Swagger worked Del Rio’s leg, then tried the Patriot Lock a few times, but Del Rio wouldn’t submit. Finally, Del Rio locked in the Cross Armbreaker and Swagger tapped out.

Intermission

One of my favorite portions of the Wrestlemania bill is when they announce the total attendance and the crowd goes crazy, and when your there you are a part of that and its awesome. When Howard Finkel in his unmistable voice gave the tally at 80,676 I was very excited to hear that and be a part of that. And then they also follow that with announcing where next year’s location will be – next year it will be in New Orleans.
This is followed by my other favorite segment when the inductee’s from last night’s Hall of Fame are introduced and take a bow one last time.

The Undertaker vs. CM Punk

Ok, now it was time – I’ve already documented in Part I, C.M. Punk‘s insanely large and dedicated fan base and what could I add to the Undertaker’s already unflappable career? For me, and clearly a large percentage of people in attendance and watching around the world – this was the main event and the most eagerly anticipated. The Undertaker defending his 20-0 WrestleMania winning streak.

Now CM Punk’s ring entrance music is from one of my fave bands Living Colour and this time when we he came out (as if I wasn’t excited enough) Living Colour was there live to play him to the ring!

They rarely perform live and I havent’ seen play in over 10 years and did’nt know they were gonna perform so that was a really cool surprise and it gave it that Wrestlemania feel.
And not to be outdone, the man with the greatest ring entrance ever, the Undertaker had a message to Paul Bearer (who recently really passed away) on his left leg that said “RIP P.B.” inside an urn design and came out in grand fashion as well.

Nobody really thought it would be Punk who would break the streak, but at times it seemed like he had the crowd convinced.
The elbow drop from Punk to Taker on the announce table was especially brutal because the table did not budge one inch. Punk took every bit of that impact, but he finished the match without missing a step.

CM Punk kicking out of the first Tombstone was great to see, especially since the crowd went absolutely nuts when he kicked out.
Punk and Undertaker proceeded to trade near-finishers, with the Undertaker’s Tombstone finally winning out, securing his victory and improving his streak to 21 wins. He reclaimed the urn and walked backstage, pausing on the ramp to raise his fist.

The Undertaker won in the end, just like we all knew he would. But it did not make the actual sight any less spectacular. CM Punk and Undertaker stole the show at WrestleMania.

Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar

It has to be pointed out that something happened with Triple H‘s entrance  when the stage accidentally sprayed dry ice on him. He washed it off with his bottle of water but suffered legitimate second degree burns to his torso and arms.

This was a No Holds Barred match with the added stipulation that, if Triple H lost, he would have to retire.

After a big brawl, both in and outside of the ring, which included Shawn Michaels getting an F5 from Lesnar and Paul Heyman receiving Sweet Chin Music, Triple H stole Brock Lesnar‘s submission move, the Kimura lock, and locked it on Lesnar for a extended amount of time. In the end, Triple H performed a Pedigree on Lesnar onto the steel steps and got him down for the three count.

The Rock vs. John Cena for the WWE Championship

The final match was the main event between John Cena and defending WWE Champion The Rock. A rematch from last year – remember that Never Before/Never Again thing? – I guess the WWE are hoping that you don’t.
The first thing that really surprised me was that WWE did not show the promo video for this match right before it took place.

When this match started, most fans had been in their seats for well over four hours, and this match was one that a lot of people simply did not have the energy for. The weather was so cold and everyone had probably already lost their voice. This match did not have the level of performance from either man that anyone expected, which made it an awkward end to the show.
Maybe five hours is too long for a PPV with this kind of star power, but the final match of the night did not have the crowd’s full attention until the final five minutes.
Once The Rock and Cena began countering everything the other threw at them, and hitting each other’s finishers as well as their own, the fans began to get behind it.

John Cena had a few nice moments in the match. The sequence where Cena suckered Rock in by pretending to do the same thing he did last year was kind of cool, but The Rock still ended up hitting him with a Rock Bottom two seconds later.
John Cena won the match with a final AA, and he won the WWE title. He and Rock shared a handshake and a hug on the ramp, and then the show ended.

The event set a new record for the highest grossing live event in WWE history, grossing $67 million. It drew 80,676 fans, which became the second highest attended event in the history of WWE after WrestleMania III.

Naturally I was exhausted (and still freezing) after the event and had the long walk to meet the bus back to Manhattan. I did something after that I would normally never do and that’s venture into Times Square like a tourist. I don’t know why, I was still so wired from the event and the bus dropped me off just a few blocks away and I was craving crawfish, so I ended up going to fucking Bubba Gump Shrimp and paying $25 for a Po Boy & a beer, weird way to end a weird day.

Stay tuned to the third and final chapter where I go over the fan convention, WWE AXXESS, lots more fan interactions, and tomorrow nights Monday Night Raw!

Photos –

Roy Turner
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