my wrestlemania 23 experience

krudler

right then this is a sort of work in progress as i still have a ****load of pics and vids to get uploaded online but here my blog for seeing wrestlemania live

saturday april 31st- get into detroit after a 4 hour drive from Toronto, pass 8 mile road on the way in which is kinda cool,but the city itself is awful looking,abandoned houses and run down areas every few blocks,things look up once we get to the area the hotel is in,get checked in and head over to have a look at ford field as its only 2 blocks away,the arena is immense,no ticket windows open to have to come back first thing tomorrow to pick up my tickets,am dreading that i wont be able to get them or some problem will screw things up. head into ford field for the last part of the axxess event,hillbilly jim is throwing t-shirts at the crowd and theres a great atmosphere inside,more random shouts of "wooo!"

head over to the fox theatre to see if we can score hall of fame tickets but theres none left,theres a sports bar nearby with big lcd tvs playing old wrestlemanias so stay there for the night drinking and chatting to other fans,random shouts of "wooooo!" can be heard all night and a few "cena sucks!" chants start as well,theres a great atmosphere and everyones getting on well

april 1st 10.00 am-get up and head to ford field,my worries about the tickets are soon eleviated as it takes about 30 seconds to get my tickets,theres a merchandise stand open nearby and theres already a queue for t-shirts,pick up a program and a baseball jersey,figure therell be more stuff inside the arena,head back to the same sports bar for breakfast (which winds up being a burger and a pitcher of beer),theres an atmosphere of excitement and the bar is getting busier,dozens of people are walking the street decked out in wwe gear

3pm- get ready and head to ford field,the crowd is incredible and its still about half of what will turn up,catch a crowd watching Maria and Josh Matthews doing interviews,maria is even more gorgeous in real life,the crowd is building now and people are starting chants everywhere (mostly cena sucks), a bunch of guys dressed as hogan,warrior,flair and savage are all attracting a crowd,hogan rips his shirt off and starts posing for the crowd,warrior runs around and then they have a test of strenght,gets a huge cheer from the crowd and hundreds of people are taking pics,these guys have balls of steel for doing this

4.30pm- after hanging around the crowd for ages we wander into a queue for the doors to open,a ford field employee is annoucning something with a megaphone,after every sentence about 50 people shout "what?!", the doors opening gets the first pop of the night,after being frisked and getting our area wristbands we're in,the crowd is hot already,i get to the merchandise stands and get a replica heavyweight title belt,i hope to god undertaker wins tonight as its either this or the spinner and im not buying that crappy thing. as we walk to the seats we realise we're on the wrong side,its takes about 5 mins to walk around ford field,this place is enormous

the walk to the seats is great,the arena is barely full and the scale of it is insane,the stage and ring setup look great,shouts of "wooo!" are echoing around everywhere,this crowd is going to be loud all night


5pm- head out for overpriced beer and food,a few people are gathered around someone,its the sign guy! i go up and ask for a pic,hes very accomodating to all the people asking for pics and has a folder with about 25 signs in it under his arm,head back to arena its nearly full now and looks incredible

6.15 pm a few video packages play to warm up the crowd,boos for cena and batista,huge cheers for austin and taker,a few ads of celebrities talking aout wrestling play,the sign guy has his own commerical which gets quite a lot of boos from the audience suprisingly,huge cheer when the rock appears on screen

6.30 the announcers make their way to the ring,massive heat for JBL,pop for styles and tazz,standing ovation for Jr and Lawler,they announce we are being treated to a special tag team lumberjack match between flair and carlito against chavo and helms, the lumberjacks are mader of up what seems to be the entire roster,im not joking about 30 guys come to ring,many of whom should have been on the main card like nitro,hass and benjamin and londond and kendrick, match is ok,and flair gets one of the biggest cheers of the night,"wooooo!" can be heard every few rows

6.50 more video packages play to get the crowd warmed up again,Lillian announces we are about to go live in 5 mins to a huge pop,nothing happens for those 5 mins until she announces every min we are closer to going live,finally the lights dim and the american PPV copyright warning appears on the big screens,the opening wwe logo plays,big cheer

7.00pm after a brief video of past wrestlemanias Aretha franklin sings America the Beautiful,she still has a powerful voice for someone her age,the whole stage is decked out in US colours,big round of applause at the end of the song and then the Mania promo begins

7.05pm the opening pyros go off and its absolutely deafening,the amount of fireworks that they used must be staggering,once the lights come on fully and the spots are shining the stage set looks incredible,the sound of the crowd is making my ears ring and everyone is on their feet screaming,the cameras pan over our section but i dont know if i got on tv,must check the dvd when i get it

7.08 Lillian announces its time for the MITB match to a big cheer,i cant remember which one of the hardys comes in first,might be jeff,huge heat for orton and edge,2 guys in front of me are wearing orton and edge tshirts and one does ortons signature pose when orton does on the ramp,this crowd is well into it,i cheer for edge,punk and kennedy,huge "kennedy!" chant starts in our section when kennedy does his thing on the mic

7.15pm the match starts and the crowd starts to sit down,doesnt last long as the ladder is brought into play fairly quickly,big "ooooh!"s for the spots,jeff climbs the super tall ladder and its only when i look at the screen i realise where edge is for the spot,massive "holy ****!" chant goes up after jeffs legdrop to edge,the refs make the X sign and medics come running down,judging from the replay its hard to say if edge is really injured but it looks serious enough. Hornswaggle appears with the stepladder to a big laugh and another huge holy **** chants starts after kennedy flattens him off the top of the ladder,big cheer for kennedy when he wins

7.45 Khali comes to the ring,i figure if there was ever a time for a toilet break this was it,wait for kanes entrance first,the heat off his pyros is crazy and we're a good hundred feet away,get to the top of the arena steps and people are chanting "boring",i dont think im missing much,make it back in time for khalis win,nobody cares

8.05 MVPs entrance is being set up while a video plays,cant stand this guy so dont bother taking and pics ,decent cheer for benoit,match is pretty good but nothing you dont see on smackdown every other week,benoit suprisingly retains

8.30 a promo for batista and taker plays,surely it cant be on this early?

8.35, teddy long announces it is time for the world title match,its clear now taker might lose as its this far down the card,batista makes his entrance to a mixed reaction,more boos than cheers.

8.40 the lights dim and the druids make their way to the entrance,there must be at least 20 of them,a "taker" chant starts in our section,then the undertakers music plays,the pop is huge and the entrance is the most spectacular one hes ever done,the heat off the flames is crazy and a big "woah!" comes from everyone around when the shoot out of the stage,you can feel the electricity in the air as taker makes his way to the ring for a good 10 minutes,that ramp goes on forever, the match is suprisingly good,big pops for the taker classics,walking the rope and the dive over them has flashbulbs going off everywhere,duelling chants of "batista rules and "batisita sucks" can be heard but its mostly kids rooting for him,huge pop when taker kicks out of the batista bomb and i admittedly mark out for the tombstone and pin,counting along with the ref,i hold the title belt up as taker does and older fans are high fiving each other and chanting "you're the man" a few rows in front

9.15 the ECW music plays and the originals are making their way to the ring through the crowd,everyone is looking around to see where but theyre on the other side of the arena,the new breed gets booed,the match is rubbish but rvd gets a big pop for the 5 star

9.35 promo for vince/trump plays,huge boos for vinces entrance and a few for trump too,money drops from the ceiling again as trump makes his way to the ring,decent pop for both umaga and lashley but austin gets probably the biggest pop of the night, the match is quite good,here comes shane o mac,hes wearing runners so a coast to coast is inevitable,which he does to a huge cheer,the whole head shaving segment gets laughs from the crowd, as does austin stunnering trump

10.25 the divas make their way to the ring,mickie and maria look great,ashley gets a half decent pop and so does melina,the match lasts less than either womans entrance,why was this on the card when there wasnt a tag team title defence?

10.50 video for cena and hbk,LOUD boos for cena, time to see if the can outdo last years entrances, a massive X on the stage lights up when DX music plays,huge cheer for Michaels,we see a ford mustang tearing around the streets of detroit which is supposedly cena arriving,the mustang shatters a pane of glass not far from where we are and cenas music hits to loud boos,he does that stupid marine salute and guys around us are throwing abuse at him like theres no tomorrow,all the kids and girls in the chain gang are trying to drown out the boos but its not working,theres some commotion as a fan jumps the guardrail and tries to get into the ring but hes pounced on by about 12 security guards who manhandle him up through the crowd,people are cheering as he is carted away,the match begins and is pretty slow to get going,why are the doing a work the leg style match at a wrestlemania main event,things get picked up nicely when michaels hits a vicious looking piledriver on the ring steps,the back of cenas head is busted,big pop for michaels' moonsault off the ropes to the outside,cread crowd heat for the finale of the match with big pops and boos for both men kicking out of 2 counts and reversing moves,michaels taps to the stfu and the crowd shower abuse at cena,the kids are going nuts

11.40 head as close to ring as i can get,a ref whose name i cant remember walks past and we get a pic,we grab a handful of the confetti falling from the ceiling and lillian thanks everyone for attending,the ring crew go right to work tearing everyything down for raw the next night


so there you go,ill be sticking a few pics and more detail on this when i see the event on dvd as theres plenty that happened that i cant remember the exact details of

Firewalkwithme

bebo says "You are not authorized to view this Photo Album."

HorseRadish

Nice one krudler brings back great memories of Chicago last year for me! The belt musta set you back a bit? :eek:

krudler

HorseRadish wrote:

Nice one krudler brings back great memories of Chicago last year for me! The belt musta set you back a bit? :eek:

it was $235,still way cheaper than it would be to get one shipped back here,loads of people had them in the arena some guys had 2 or 3 with them,the kid sat next to me had a full size cena spinner belt not the kids one,its was as big as he was! im gonna bring the belt to rawe in the point this june,it weighs a bloody ton though

Minto

Where can we view your photos Krudler?

fatal

sounds like it was a great experience....hopefully more than once in a lifetime anyway...
did you manage to get any money from trumps entrance?did you meet any of the wrestlers at the hotel that they were staying at or anything?
Also,I dont have a bebo so if there is anywhere else that I could view the pics that would be awesome

Dean820

How much did all this cost you?

Mossy Monk

Photos?

krudler

took this during kane/khali,if there was ever a match that screamed "piss break" that was it















theres a few for starters,the opening pyro vid below was great nearly went deaf from it

http://bebo.com/watch/3854264462

HorseRadish

Class stuff krudler:D

krudler

thanks,it was a hell of an experience,the opening pyro alone was worth the price of admission,it was absolutely deafening when undertaker won,the atmosphere was great and the 2 matches i wanted to be good were (mitb and taker/batista) tickets cost $250 to whoever asked earlier,the whole trip cost the bones of a grand between flights and tickets,i flew to toronto see cos a friend lives there,he put me up and we drove to detroit,what a ****hole of a city,bums and burnt out houses everywhere (im from limerick so felt right at home hehe)

Minto

Krudler, you lucky f*cker!! Those pics are cool, any more? Also, the one with Rick the sign guy is legendary, lol.

krudler

have a cool pic of maria and josh matthews doing interviews,maria is way hotter in real life

JeanClaude

Fair play Krudler love the pics and video seems like you had a blast, your one lucky SOB . Hopefully i will get to go to Mania sometime and after seeing your pics and video i'm even more determined, nothing like being there in person, WM24 next year in Florida looks good...

nacho libre

Excellent photos. Thanks for posting them up.

BlackMamba

U are a lucky s.o.b krudler!!! Amazing photos by the way!! Thanks for posting them!:D

krudler

its definitely worth going,gonna try go again to florida,least its a nicer location than detroit,make a proper holiday out of it

fatal

excellent pics krudler.......
Im definitley going to WM in the near future...it wont be the one in florida but fingers crossed WM 25......