Wrestlemania Weekend – Axxess

I'm the man in the box...

 

The next stop on our much belated trip to Wrestlemania weekend finds us taking in Axxess.

Despite numerous attempts to procure press credentials for the WWF/E Hall of Fame failed, we opted to hit Axxess instead.  We knew a vast majority of the fans AND the workers would be downtown and hopefully our wait times wouldn’t be too bad.

Let me start by saying, I would LOVE to be the lightbulb salesman to the WWE.  Flashing lights of every color and brigthness greeted us as we walked through the door to see what the “E” had lined up for fans whose chose not to go to the Hall of Fame ceremony.

That’s right, we slummed it.

With Kid Rock screamed about being a warrior (I’m pretty sure “destructicity” was in the lyrics), and Kane mumbling his way through a series of fan questions, things got off to a slow start.

Then we discovered the interactive portion of the event.

We took a photo at a mockup of the announcer’s booth.  It being us, we did so in our lucha masks.

Who are those masked men?

I tried my hand (and the rest of me), at a ring entrance.  Its harder than it looks with out the pyro cues.  I got upstaged by a couple of pre-teens.  It was painful.

We toured the memorabilia exhibit which answered the burning question “What happened to Vince’s old yellow Century 21 blazer?”

We climbed into the Hell in a Cell and looked for Hornswoggle, not necessarily at the same time.

Very limited two pack

They had a fun photo op in the back of the arena.  They had a giant action figure box.  We took several pictures in there, solo and as a tag team, much to the amusement  of the lady taking the pictures.

I got my picture made with Norman Smiley, who thankfully didn’t hit the Big Wiggle.

They had a ring in the middle of the arena and held a couple of matches while we were there.  One included Jesse (aka Terry Gordy, Jr.) and Festus.  I like Festus’ impaired gimmick, but I really think Gordy, Jr. would be better served as a member of Legacy.  Just me.

And then, the big one, we got the chance to call a match.

Well, part of one anyway.

You were given the choice of 3 matches, 2 by the time we got there.  Seems the Ric Flair v. Shawn Michaels track had been used so many times it broke.  We opted to give Josh Matthews a break and do the match ourselves.  The Wrestlemania III logo appared and we got to call about 3 minutes of the legendary match between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant.  I’m reasonably certain that the match has never been called quite like that.  We had plenty of time standing in line to work up an outline of what we wanted to do.  Then we just improvised.  The end result was more than a little amusing.

If I can ever figure out how to upload it to YouTube, I will.

On our way out we played the new “Legends of Wrestlemania” videogame.  Neither of us had any idea how to work the controls so we winged it.  The roster was great.  The game play was smooth.  The only disappointment?  The guy from THQ told us they have no plans to release it for the Wii.  Stephe and I both have Wiis.

We left after touring the Undertaker’s graveyard of dismantled opponents.  Home for some rest and then on to Wrestlemania 25.

If only it were that easy!