Post by J12 on Aug 28, 2007 19:50:12 GMT -5
Well, as many of you knew, I left Saturday afternoon for what was scheduled to be my final WWE related trip. I left with a friend at about 4:30 and we arrived at our hotel in East Rutherford New Jersey at about 2:30 in the morning.
After getting some sleep, we spent the day in New York City before heading over to the Continental Airlines Arena at about quarter of seven for Summerslam.
When we first arrived, we got into a line on the side of the arena with one open door, it was moving about two people into the building a minute, so we abandoned that line in favor of the main entrance.
It turned out to be a good choice, as we got into the arena in about 3 minutes or less. It didn't take long to find our seats, which were decent at best. I'm not complaining, as my old seats were in Section 242 and would have been absolutely terrible. These were in 106 Row 25, and I paid under face value for them, so it's all good.
As soon as the show started, I quickly realized that this would indeed be my final WWE trip. The shows just aren't the same to me anymore. I didn't even find myself enjoying the show live, and I can almost always do that.
I don't know how Summerslam came off on TV, but it came off awful live. I think the only match I actually enjoyed was London/Kendrick vs. Cade/Murdoch, the dark match we were treated to prior to going live.
A few live notes, the crowd was terrible. I've been to 20+ shows in several different arenas and this was the worst crowd I've ever been a part of. I didn't hear a peep out of anyone until the main event. Maybe that can be blamed on the terrible quality of the show, or maybe Jersey just has boring crowds. They did start a wave during Batista/Khali, though.
Stone Cold's appearance was the highlight of the night. I think we all sort of expected it when Hardy went on for a couple minutes, it would have been far more shocking had the glass just shattered out of nowhere.
Rey Mysterio's return was uneventful and rather short-lived in terms of the crowd caring. He got a solid pop when he came out, but I think people were a little confused as to why he would paint his entire body silver. The match itself was nothing special, nothing we haven't seen, and you can tell Mysterio is quite rusty.
Cena/Orton was the only thing the crowd cared about, though rightfully so. Everyone got fairly loud, but it didn't carry anywhere NEAR the amount of energy as Cena/Edge did at last year's Summerslam in Boston.
Finish was incredibly predictable, so much so that I called it, right down to every last motion and move. The kid directly in front of me was about my age, he heard me say it, and after the match, he turned around and was like, "how the hell did you know that?". It didn't take much.
I didn't even stick around to see the after math, we were both tired and ready to get back to the hotel, we headed out soon after the bell rang. From what I hear, Cena brought a "If Cena Wins, We Riot" sign into the ring and challenged the crowd to riot. Obviously no one did. I'll give Cena credit, he remained collected despite 99% of the arena hating his guts.
At that point, I made up my mind that Boston has a far better crowd than Jersey, and with that, we pumped ourselves up for Monday night's festivities in Boston.
We left for the north at about 10:30 the next morning after a great breakfast at the hotel. (If you ever stay in Jersey, The Holiday Inn Express is great). We got into Boston and went and visited my cousin who lives in the city, after that, it was down to TD Banknorth Garden.
As far as I could tell, there were only one or two other people that I could confirm pulled a double header like my friend and I had, there were probably some more though, as East Rutherford and Boston are only just over three hours apart.
I feel more at home in Boston, I've been to a ton of shows there and the atmosphere at TD Banknorth is always incredible, I guess thats why I enjoyed Raw so much more. For one thing, our seats were ten times better. We were in the first row of Loge 6, basically an inch off of the floor, as you will see in the pictures. It made for some great shots of the ring and especially of the entrance.
Heat was boring, as to be expected.
Security was the worst I've ever seen it. They were more concerned with my camera and whether or not I was taking videos (which I wasn't) than they were with people on the floor standing up all night long, blocking the rest of us from seeing.
Nothing you didn't see on TV for the most part. Usual stuff with the kiss cam, other than that, nothing extra.
When you saw JTG and Shad exit through the crowd, I was walking by that entrance after going on the search for a Triple H shirt. Security grabbed me, as I didn't see them coming, but JTG ran into me. They ended up grabbing the girl next to me and running off with her, pretty funny stuff.
WWE failed to promote any sort of dark match. After they carried out Cena's father, everyone thought the show was over. We were walking toward the exit when Orton came back to the ring and got on the mic. At that point, literally everyone started rushing back in to see the dark match. It was a free for all in terms of who sat where, and security certainly didn't care.
Dark match was Triple H vs. Randy Orton. Very quick, Orton gets some brief offense, Triple H comes back, hits a spinebuster and a pedigree, and thats the end of that.
Some other things that may be noteworthy, Triple H's shirt sold out at every single stand. They had three or four Cena shirts and none of them came close to selling out at any of the stands I passed. No Smackdown merchandise at all. Cena, Triple H, DX, Umaga, Hardy's, and Randy Orton were pretty much all they had.
Overall, as I said, Raw was a far more enjoyable show than Summerslam, both wrestling wise and crowd wise. Boston crowds have something about them, I guess.
Here's a couple of the better shots, you can find the full albums below..
Summerslam Pictures
Raw Pictures
I can safely say that this definitely will be my final big trip for WWE. These shows just didn't strike me the same way they used to. Guess I'm losing interest.
In any case, enjoy
After getting some sleep, we spent the day in New York City before heading over to the Continental Airlines Arena at about quarter of seven for Summerslam.
When we first arrived, we got into a line on the side of the arena with one open door, it was moving about two people into the building a minute, so we abandoned that line in favor of the main entrance.
It turned out to be a good choice, as we got into the arena in about 3 minutes or less. It didn't take long to find our seats, which were decent at best. I'm not complaining, as my old seats were in Section 242 and would have been absolutely terrible. These were in 106 Row 25, and I paid under face value for them, so it's all good.
As soon as the show started, I quickly realized that this would indeed be my final WWE trip. The shows just aren't the same to me anymore. I didn't even find myself enjoying the show live, and I can almost always do that.
I don't know how Summerslam came off on TV, but it came off awful live. I think the only match I actually enjoyed was London/Kendrick vs. Cade/Murdoch, the dark match we were treated to prior to going live.
A few live notes, the crowd was terrible. I've been to 20+ shows in several different arenas and this was the worst crowd I've ever been a part of. I didn't hear a peep out of anyone until the main event. Maybe that can be blamed on the terrible quality of the show, or maybe Jersey just has boring crowds. They did start a wave during Batista/Khali, though.
Stone Cold's appearance was the highlight of the night. I think we all sort of expected it when Hardy went on for a couple minutes, it would have been far more shocking had the glass just shattered out of nowhere.
Rey Mysterio's return was uneventful and rather short-lived in terms of the crowd caring. He got a solid pop when he came out, but I think people were a little confused as to why he would paint his entire body silver. The match itself was nothing special, nothing we haven't seen, and you can tell Mysterio is quite rusty.
Cena/Orton was the only thing the crowd cared about, though rightfully so. Everyone got fairly loud, but it didn't carry anywhere NEAR the amount of energy as Cena/Edge did at last year's Summerslam in Boston.
Finish was incredibly predictable, so much so that I called it, right down to every last motion and move. The kid directly in front of me was about my age, he heard me say it, and after the match, he turned around and was like, "how the hell did you know that?". It didn't take much.
I didn't even stick around to see the after math, we were both tired and ready to get back to the hotel, we headed out soon after the bell rang. From what I hear, Cena brought a "If Cena Wins, We Riot" sign into the ring and challenged the crowd to riot. Obviously no one did. I'll give Cena credit, he remained collected despite 99% of the arena hating his guts.
At that point, I made up my mind that Boston has a far better crowd than Jersey, and with that, we pumped ourselves up for Monday night's festivities in Boston.
We left for the north at about 10:30 the next morning after a great breakfast at the hotel. (If you ever stay in Jersey, The Holiday Inn Express is great). We got into Boston and went and visited my cousin who lives in the city, after that, it was down to TD Banknorth Garden.
As far as I could tell, there were only one or two other people that I could confirm pulled a double header like my friend and I had, there were probably some more though, as East Rutherford and Boston are only just over three hours apart.
I feel more at home in Boston, I've been to a ton of shows there and the atmosphere at TD Banknorth is always incredible, I guess thats why I enjoyed Raw so much more. For one thing, our seats were ten times better. We were in the first row of Loge 6, basically an inch off of the floor, as you will see in the pictures. It made for some great shots of the ring and especially of the entrance.
Heat was boring, as to be expected.
Security was the worst I've ever seen it. They were more concerned with my camera and whether or not I was taking videos (which I wasn't) than they were with people on the floor standing up all night long, blocking the rest of us from seeing.
Nothing you didn't see on TV for the most part. Usual stuff with the kiss cam, other than that, nothing extra.
When you saw JTG and Shad exit through the crowd, I was walking by that entrance after going on the search for a Triple H shirt. Security grabbed me, as I didn't see them coming, but JTG ran into me. They ended up grabbing the girl next to me and running off with her, pretty funny stuff.
WWE failed to promote any sort of dark match. After they carried out Cena's father, everyone thought the show was over. We were walking toward the exit when Orton came back to the ring and got on the mic. At that point, literally everyone started rushing back in to see the dark match. It was a free for all in terms of who sat where, and security certainly didn't care.
Dark match was Triple H vs. Randy Orton. Very quick, Orton gets some brief offense, Triple H comes back, hits a spinebuster and a pedigree, and thats the end of that.
Some other things that may be noteworthy, Triple H's shirt sold out at every single stand. They had three or four Cena shirts and none of them came close to selling out at any of the stands I passed. No Smackdown merchandise at all. Cena, Triple H, DX, Umaga, Hardy's, and Randy Orton were pretty much all they had.
Overall, as I said, Raw was a far more enjoyable show than Summerslam, both wrestling wise and crowd wise. Boston crowds have something about them, I guess.
Here's a couple of the better shots, you can find the full albums below..
Summerslam Pictures
Raw Pictures
I can safely say that this definitely will be my final big trip for WWE. These shows just didn't strike me the same way they used to. Guess I'm losing interest.
In any case, enjoy
. The crowd around me sucked, I tried to get some "Cena Sucks" and "Lets go Orton" chants going, but only a few people chanted. I was suprised, there weren't nearly as many Cena haters than as Summerslam 06 in Boston.I had good seats, Row 2, seat 2, section H(I was sitting right next to JR/Lawler). Overall good, HHH and Orton/Cenas dad were main spots. I likes SS 06 better though, more intense crowd. The one at RAW was 45% kids, terrible.
