Pay-Per-Views
Second Live Report From WrestleMania 23: Dark Match, Rules To Keep Your Ringside Seat, CopaMelina, and More
By James Fernandez
Apr 3, 2007, 13:08

Hey folks. I was at Wrestlemania 23, as well as Mike Rickard, and am giving you a report from our section in the show. Regardless the feelings of a smark when looking at the card or the show, the ‘magic’ definitely hit me full blast and I loved almost every minute of it.

I was located in the floor section at the corner of the ring/ramp on what would be the right side of the ramp if you were heading toward the entrance.

The entranceway was simply amazing from my perspective, and there was a pretty massive heatwave that hit us every time a fire cloud went off. I was surrounded my some fun smarks, so I knew it was going to be a great night. Interesting note for the collectors chairs where I sat: There was a letter from WWE telling us you HAD to stay in your seat after the show until Ford Field security checked your ticket and cut the zip-tie on your seat. Every row of collector’s seats were connected with zip ties. If you weren’t in your seat when they came to check, you forfeited your chair back to WWE.

We then got the obligatory “Thanks for coming, just remember: Everything you say, do and show is property of WWE. We own you for 4 hours. You’re welcome.” And the announcers came out, the biggest pops in our area were for the Hall of Famers and Tazz.

It was pretty quiet in our section during this match, the loudest it got involved security members telling people not to stand on their seats during the show. We also realized someone was coming or going right by us because a guy in a wheelchair was told the place he chose to watch was not allowable due to a wrestler moving through there.

We all suspected Khali/Kane would spill through.

Before Aretha sang, we got what amounted to WWE Propaganda with a video detailing every relatively current celebrity that’s appeared on WWE TV, all the shows they’ve appeared on, all the charities they help out, all the news stories they were responsible for, etc. After that, Lillian told us how we were the stars of WM 23, hold up your signs, blah blah blah.

Our section had its biggest pops for Edge and Kennedy.

We went crazy after Kennedy’s entrance-intro and in unison followed with Kennedy’s call. He’s going to be big money for a long time if he can stay healthy.

Crowd was hot for Rated RKO’s finisher chain, but our section seemed to pop bigger for Booker’s SpinebusterRooni segment.

We couldn’t see Jeff crash into Edge, so we were all looking to the monitor on the opposite side of the arena to see what was going on in replay. We would do that for other big spots tonight. Most of us knew it was the out for Edge’s jaw injury, but played it cool for the kids sitting near us who didn’t care/know about co-called “Kayfabe”. I told one little kid who asked that Edge got hit in the jaw so hard he passed out.

We noticed something rather peculiar from our section when Booker T was at the case all by himself: He was looking around, like he was expecting interference, and when he didn’t get any, the briefcase moved away from him. Not like swinging on the rope, but the rope and the metal ‘arm’ holding it moved away from Booker until the interference finally came in. We booed at that realization in our section.

We were all freaking out when Hornswaggle got up that ladder, (we would only laugh harder at the Kane/Khali match, unfortunately) and dropped dead laughing when Kennedy Roll Senton’d (or Bank Roll as I started calling it) the little bastard to the mat.

Kennedy’s win was huge in our area, and we all started doing the Kennedy call once he was getting it free.

First came Forrest Gum…er Khali. He is a huge man up-close, but something about him in person seemed to lose the intimidation factor. He was huge, and had a scowl, but the intimidation wasn’t there for any of us as we chatted about it. When Paul Wight was roaming to the ring, you felt your spine tense up a bit, but something just doesn’t translate for Khali.

Kane’s entrance pentagram malfunction had us joking that even the Devil wouldn’t pay attention to this match, and we openly wondered why this wasn’t the curtain jerker regardless Edge’s jaw injury. We continue to wonder until the more perplexing question that was to come up 2 matches later.

For us, this was painful to watch. Without the camera angles to assist Khali in looking brutal, he was just a 1950’s sci-fi movie robot. He couldn’t sell anything if it was free, he kept the same emotion and expression on his face the entire time, and Kane was doing so much work to make it look passable that we got exhausted for him.

The big body slam aka “Shades of Hogan/Andre” wasn’t lost on us even without commentary to say so, and we actually shuddered to think how terrible this would’ve been had Hogan’s ego actually been kept at bay and the match signed. If Khali can’t sell a punch, I don’t even want to think of how he would sell the Body Slam or Leg Drop. *shudder*

Then, the chokeslam counter into The Great Gump-drop of doom and the pinfall only added to the frustration of having to watch that thing. We booed without enthusiasm, out of respect to Khali’s emotional capability.

We dug MVP’s entrance with the cheerleaders to give it the sports superstar feel. I would like to see MVP do something like that in every PPV appearance. Cheerleaders, an entourage, stuff like that. This was a cool match in that we were cheering for both guys during the match. Benoit entering with his classic straight forward approach really sold the style versus substance angle of these guys going at it.

Seeing the counter parade was quite a sight in person. I know MVP has the ability, and it was awesome to see him be able to display it. We were wondering it MVP would steal the Triple-Germans over Benoit, and we popped hard when Benoit won out of nowhere with the Headbutt. It was nice to see that kind of surprise finish, even though, like on TV from what I’ve read, we could see the ref pressing the guys on time limits. It should’ve been able to go longer, but a great job considering.

I will admit I was shocked Benoit didn’t job to MVP. I was getting so used to Chris doing the job that I cheered quite loudly on the 3-count from the headbutt.

So, we stopped chatting about Kane/Khali once we started watching the video package of the history of Batista/Taker. First they showed the AT&T poll results at that point, and then an All Grown Up vignette, then the history package. As we watched it, we thought it was just build up for later in the night…

Until Teddy Long announced for the match and we started wondering what the hell was going on and why it was now.

Batista’s entrance, in my section, was booed to Hell. Once Taker’s chant-prelude started up, we never stopped cheering. His pyro was extremely hot, and a lot of us had a little sweat in our hat-bands from it. His walk from the “afterlight” was amazing in person and Taker exuded a presence that made up for Khali’s blank-stare times a billion. We had quite a few Taker-costumed guys in our section, it was a crazy sight.

During match, I continually yelled at Dave to follow his terms of employment and do his ‘job’. This was a solid match, and at our distance it was a clear case:

Taker was on his A++++ game, and while Dave started out slow and stale, he realized he had to step it up or risk looking like a bum and learned to bring his game up. We liked the counter spot where Batista out-muscled Taker’s chokeslam slowly, popped huge when Taker hit the Powerbomb from the corner, and were in suspense when Big Dave hit the Batista Bomb out of nowhere, which I like better than the Warrior-dance bit.

The Tombstone was huge reaction from us. A bunch of us yelled “boom” when it hit, and we went nuts when the 3-count hit the mat. Pyro was cool in Taker’s win, but we would realize that this matched was clearly moved from the Main Event to mid-card. Remember, pyro has only gone off for the main event victory the past couple years, and we had the kids around us asking why Taker’s match was now when he won the Rumble. Us smarks were able to be honest: We didn’t really know why either, and didn’t like that:

I had a theory that, with Kennedy saying “Dead last” in his promo, that Kennedy might use it tonight after Cena/HBK to go after Taker and make it the Main Event, thus having Taker’s match now to give him time to rest. Sadly my Smark powers failed me. Stupid Smark Powers.

In the end, I got to see Taker win the world title at Wrestlemania in Detroit only 7 rows away, so I seriously felt like I was 12 year old for a few minutes taking it in. Very awesome moment for me personally.

Turns out the worker coming through our area was Tommy Dreamer during the Originals entrance. About 3 rows in front of me was someone dressed-up as Paul Heyman who was cutting promos on New Breed during their entrance. It was funny, and we joined along during the match. I kept shouting “Originals, do it for Paul E!”. At one point when I yelled, Sandman turn toward us and smiled a bit, waving us to get louder.

Overall the match was okay. With no weapons, Sandman looked lost in there, Cor Von looked really awkward, and Sabu and RVD did what they could. As always, Dreamer was the old school guy bringing back the warm fuzzies of Hammerstein, and we had a pretty big pop in our section when they got the win. We thought for sure they would get fully buried. The last-bow thing was a little depressing, as it was probably a truly last-bow for these guys being the flag-bearers of ECW. Now Elijah Burke and The Pounce are going to be standard bearers.

Did I mention this happened after Taker won the World Heavyweight Title? The really big medallion one? I did? Well…you understand, right? It still shocks me.

This match was just fun, start to finish. My favorite part of it all, honestly, was the absolutely amazing programming for the Entrance Ramp of Umaga. It’s one of my favorite pictures of all I took, and it looked really bad ass up-close with the tattoo pattern rolling on the side-bars. I geek out on that stuff come PPV time, and seeing it in person.

Lashley’s was also cool with the muscle bound silhouette of his pose behind him.

Trump made his entrance with the money falling again, and fans were blowing so that money falling was at the rear of the ramp and to the folks in non-premium seating, which made perfect sense to me. A little bonus for those who couldn’t get that close to the show. Of course we hoped for it to trickle our way (since I saved for my ticket for almost all of last YEAR. But I did get to take my LE Chair home, so I stopped whining.)

Unfortunately for both of those guys, Austin got the biggest pop of the night, as expected.

The match itself was a lot of fun the whole way through. The interplay of everyone was timed damn well, really. It was almost like clockwork with putting the focus in the right place, but the others not in the light at the moment keeping busy so we couldn’t stop paying attention for a moment.

Shane’s interference got a huge pop, and the Mac-Terminator got us from our seats. I got a badass picture of Umaga coming off the top rope for a splash as well and was positively captivated seeing a man the size of Umaga moving around the ring so effortlessly the whole match. Just awesome work from the Bulldozer. Lashley did well, but was clearly still a little green in terms of big matches.

The ending was fun, and was good because it wasn’t Lashley who defeated Umaga per se, it was a case of Umaga losing control of himself and paying for it at the hands of a no-doubt legend in Steve Austin. These are two guys who needed to both be put over by something that was, because of media coverage, suddenly turned into the “Main Event” in the eyes of the general public and the Wrestlemania cover art, as it were. I think it helped both men, especially after how lame it looked up-front.

You know “Why is a world champion going against a second tier champion of another show? I don’t get it!”

Of course, as stated earlier, the question now on our minds was “The women’s match is after this and Undertaker winning a WORLD TITLE. So, what goes on after Cena/Michaels? Cole versus Matthews in an Iron Man Punjabi Prison Match?”

The McMahon shaving from our angle could only be watched on the screen against the wall opposite the entrance ramp, so we just watched the screen and sang “Goodbye” with everyone else on the floor areas. We also bet that Tara Conner will become a WWE Diva, since she has as much qualification as any of the others at this rate, and it was weird to see her accompany Trump out to the ring.

Literally, not in the figurative sense it was crap, which it was. This match happens after Taker gets gold, Kennedy gets the Case and McMahon loses his hair. Now THAT’S Insanity given bookerman form. I took a shot of their Entrance Lighting, which was cool, then went to the urinal. I sang a version of Copacabana while I went up the looooong walk to the bathrooms from the floor section. If James wants to keep it in, it went like this:

Her name is Ashley,

She was in Playboy,

Her match popped up second to last,

The guy who booked this was an ass,

Then there’s Melina,

She’s got a gold belt,

Had red carpet take her there,

Too bad that no one really cared,

It didn’t last long, seemed,

A minute twen-ty three,

This came on after Vince lost hair,

Taker and Ken-ne-dy …(Kennedaaaaaaayyyyy)

At the Dope-a…

Oh crap, coming from the bathroom I hear the tail end of the Cena’s All Grown Up video, and rush while hearing the Cena/Michaels video package. I’m taking my long jaunt down the stairs to get back to the floor level, taking pictures of Shawn’s entrance as I do and it’s time for:

Note: We were mighty suspicious on how this would end when we realized HBK came out to DX, not Sexy Boy. Wasn’t good news to our section. A LOT of those glow sticks for DX went up.

I hear there were a lot of Cena fans in the building, and I will say this. They were NOT in our section, even the little kids booed the guy during his Mustang stunt all the way through the match.

The match from our POV was awesome, a quality effort by both guys, but we wanted to see Cena either turn heel or job out, and BAD. If you were watching PPV and noticed a point where, with HBK and Cena exchanging punches, a distinct “YayBoo” started up, we started it in our section.

HBK punches “Yaaay!”,

Cena punches back “Boooo!”.

The other times they traded strikes we did it again and again. It was great joy for us.

We went nuts during the ref kick and people were waiting for HHH to come in and help out or screw HBK. We blew our tops when HBK hit the classic step-driver, and were going ballistic when HBK was in the STFU the first time. I was screaming myself out at that point, thinking Cena would win it there. When HBK got the rope, we exploded something fierce.

Loved the rapid fire exchanges all the way through at the end, and went nuts when HBK hit the Chin Music out of nowhere. Once we saw what looked like a conference between Cena and HBK, we knew we were going to get a chance to boo more. On the final STFU, I was screaming for Shawn to roll over and JBL, it, but no such luck. He finally tapped, and we turned up our booing to full power. We could actually hear the speakers pumping out the sweetened sound cheers for Cena, and hear it being turned up quite a bit.

Then the confetti came down from the ceiling and I noticed the most peculiar things about the confetti:

It was Blue, White and Silver. Smackdown colors. To go with the pyro of an SD superstar who would win a title at this time. Verrrrrry interesting.

All in all, from my vantage, it was a phenomenal show and memories for a lifetime. The card was hurt by a lot of the crazy stuff that happened to the roster in the last several months with injuries and such, but the magic of Mania took me over and as far as I’m concerned, it was the greatest Wrestlemania I’ve ever seen in my life.

Thanks for reading along, and thanks to James Guttman and World Wrestling Insanity for the opportunity to share my experience!