With a nearly sold out show. There weren't too many empty seats other than the ones that were blocked off around cameras. :)

RAW tonight was a FANTASTIC show. I've seen better matches than a couple of the ones we had tonight, but even so, it was a great show.

I had a floor seat in the corner right next to the ramp, but on the non-televised side. I definitely recommend that area, and the non-televised side over the televised side. You get to see everyone so close and they face you so much more often.

Our dark match was Dolph Ziggler (!) vs. Rowdy Charlie Haas! I really enjoyed that match. It was short, but lots of fun. I still am really enjoying Charlie Haas's antics.

Jericho coming out was greeted with about 50-50 cheers and boos. Batista got nearly all cheers from everybody everywhere. (I admit it, I love saying Ba-TIST-a! It sounds funny and it makes me laugh.)

HBK's maunderings on the titantron was just weird. He sounded ... he sounded drunk, honestly. But oh well. He's not my favorite, or even in my top 10, so I pretty much ignored him. :)

Kofi is adorable. I really liked seeing him and then the Priceless stable come down. Then Punk came out and the entire crowd went BALLISTIC. In my opinion, Ted DiBiase has a LOT of potential and is a decent wrestler (or will be), but his timing still needs some work. Some of his moves were just slightly off in their timing. But he was good and the match was really good.

I chatted with the guy sitting next to me during the commercial breaks, and that was fun.

Listening to the amount of cheering when Orton came out or was on the tron was very interesting. The Dolph Ziggler bit when he tries to introduce himself to Mark Henry and Kane was very funny.

Rey Mysterio is definitely popular in Seattle. The cheering was nearly deafening when he came out. Matt Hardy got about the same amount of pop and he's not generally as popular as Rey is.

The crowd was nearly silent when Mark Henry came out. I think most people were afraid that he might sweat on them. :D

Kane is also apparently hugely popular in Seattle. There were several Pro-Kane signs and only 1 anti-Kane sign that I saw.

The tag match with Hardy and Mysterio vs Kane and Mark Henry was a very popular match. Hardy got huge pops all through the match. Matt and Rey worked really well together, but not nearly as well as Evan Bourne and Mysterio do.

I know that I'm supposed to cheer for the faces, and I really really like Matt and Rey, but Kane is my favorite wrestler of all time. I even like him better than his brother, The Undertaker. So even through I like Rey and Matt, I cheer for Kane no matter what.

When Rey hit the floor by the ramp that was a horrible sounding thump. He went Ka-THUNK-thunk. I was very glad that I don't have to take that fall. :) The size difference between Rey and Kane was suprising. It doesn't matter how often I have seen it on the TV, seeing it in person was still startling.

I hope that I got some good pictures out of my over 700 pictures from the show. :) I'm sure I got at least some passable ones, but I haven't seen them yet. They are still downloading from the memory card. And I have 2 36 exposure roles of film to develop.

HBK got HUGE cheers from the crowd when he came out. Lance Cade got almost nothing. :)

The sound of the table breaking when HBK landed on it reverberated through the entire arena. Horrible sound, just to share. :)

Okay, when Miz and Morrison came out, I nearly wet myself laughing at Morrison's glitter. And seeing it on the broadcast, I can see that it is actually the body rhinestones, and I laughed even harder. The crowd went WILD when Cryme Tyme came out. In fact the so called Diva's match between Jillian and Kelly Kelly got almost NO reaction from the crowd. I was far more entertained with what I could see of the boys posturing against each other.

I wish that we could get something to allow us to hear the commentators during the show. Gyms sell or give out little FM radio things and WWE could do something liek that. They can be tuned to a specific station and let us hear what the commentators are saying. That would have been a heck of a lot more interesting than the boring and terrible Diva match. Jillian doesn't sell her blows well, and Kelly Kelly barely sells the impact. And Kelly Kelly needs to work on her jumping ability so she can actually get up in the air.

Jericho got more booing when he came back out the second time. Probably because he had spent some time haranguing the crowd earlier. >:P

JBL got a lot of booing as well. I don't care for him (as I am supposed to)... But I'll give him this... For all that he is no longer a good wrestler, and I spend more time making fun of his baby powdered legs, than anything else... The man is GOOD on the mic. He really is very good at riling up the local crowd (but honestly, santino did it better with his Oklahoma Thunder promo. At least for Seattle.)

I think of the whole night, HBK was the number 1 favorite in town followed closely by Batista.

There was a lot of heat on Jericho for the last match between JBL and Batista. It was great.

We even got a second dark match at the end, with Rey Mysterio and Batista vs Kane and Jericho. I was absolutely THRILLED.

I did get some nice pictures and some okay pictures and some terrible ones where I got jostled or something and they were just awfully blurry.

But at least I was better off than a some people who were sent back to their cars to put their cameras away. I was allowed in with both of mine. So I was pretty happy. :)

And now, it is just after 1am, and while I am not yet sleepy, I know I will be in just a little while. And when I finally crash, I am going to crash HARD.

Well, on the bright side... since I got laid off, I don't have to get up for work in the morning. LOL 

If I could afford it in any way, I would be heading out to Spokane tomorrow (today) for the ECW/Smackdown show.  But I can't.  As it is, I am going to be hardpressed to find a way to afford a ticket to the No Way Out PPV...

But rest assured....  I will be going.

I normally watch all 3 WWE shows at a friend's house on Monday nights. So we see ECW and Smackdown after the fact, and RAW on the night of broadcast.

Of course I, being the hardcore fan that I am, I wach them on the nights they are broadcast as well, so I sometimes see the same episode 2 or 3 times. :)

Not that this is a problem for me. :)

I haven't updated here recently because my life is up in a heaval, as I was just laid off. It's hard to post anything cheerful about wrestling when dealing with that.

Anyway, I am very entertained by watching Jericho's shenanigans with HBK. I was thrilled to see DX together again, even if it was only for a short while and they didn't get to say anything on the mic. (sigh, that was a sadness)

I was thrilled to see Kane win his last few matches. (Funny note here, on another blog site someone was complaining about fangirls and how they always squeal and gush about the looks of their favorite wrestlers. How the fangirls always discuss how handsome or hot or whatever their favorite is. I laughed since the guys do the same thing with the Divas, so show me how it's different. But still, I can kind of understand it. I watch a couple of posting groups for wrestlers. One is for the Brothers of Destruction, and watching some of the conversations about Kane's physique makes me embarrassed to even be a member of the group, let alone to be female. I mean come on... admire, yes, but don't get creepy girlies. geez. So I am almost willing to side with the hypocritical jerk. LOL)

My bird is learning to cheer for my favorite wrestlers, since he often watches with me. Unfortunately, he can't figure out how to say Orton, he generally calls him "Okay"... Which makes me laugh even harder. Nothing like hearing a bird go "Wooo Okay"... ;)

I was watching this past Thursday night's TNA (yeah, I know, traitorous, but they have some good wrestlers, just piss-poor characters and storylines... for the most part.) Anyway, I thought it was hysterically funny to hear the TNA crowd chanting "UnderTaker! UnderTaker!" I thought it was even better that Taker and Edge both get good pops even from the TNA crowd. (Mick Foley was talking about them, that's why the names came up to be cheered.)

I got the RAW 15th anniversary disks from Netflix, unfortunately disk 2 is out of order, so I watched 1 and 3 so far. I had forgotten about Cena's little rhyming name calling of Christian on the Highlight Reel. I laughed SO hard, and actually rewound it to replay it again. And DX's impersonation of Vince and Shane STILL makes me laugh until I cry. But now I want to see disk 2. That's the main one I wanted to see anyway, since that was the period when my "attendance" was a bit more spotty and I missed parts of the storylines.

I was THRILLED to hear that WWE is finally going to slow down storylines again. I mean, yes, Americans have damn short attention spans, but come ON. A major story line should be longer than 2 or 3 weeks.

I was glad to see Shane O'Mac back on RAW 2 weeks ago. And I am SOOO looking forward to day after tomorrow. RAW is here in Seattle, and I am going to go! I am so thrilled and looking forward to it like you wouldn't believe. I have to pick up film and possibly a new battery for my camera. Recharge my digital camera battery.

I also wanted to say that I adore the sweatshirts from WWEshop. They are soft and warm and cozy and perfect for a rainy day. And my karate teacher thinks I am just bizarre for owning at least one and wearing it to class. It's also going to the zoo with me tomorrow so that when I am done with my shift there, I have something warm to change into. :)

I had some wrestling related reasons for titling this as tough changes, but unfortunately, I forgot them.

I think I'm going to quit my rambling now. Have a good night!

Had our weekly Wrestling Social over at my friend's house on Monday.  We get together and watch all 3 shows in one night.  It makes it a bit easier for us to keep up with our busy lives and still watch wrestling and socialize at the same time.

The only match I really remember was the Kane vs Evan Bourne match, and I mostly remember it because Shawn asked "So who do we root for?" and I told him "You know, I really like Evan Bourne...  But I will support Kane in anything he wants to do!"  Shawn started laughing.

Oh, and I remember applauding when Orton came out, just because it interrupted Jericho.  Not that I wanted Jericho to get mad, or that I don't like Jericho, but just because I wanted to see something else happen.  Shawn looked at me in disbelief and said "Wait, did someone just APPLAUD Orton?"  I pointed out that I had applauded last week as well, but mostly it was because I wanted to pluck out his eyeballs with a grapefruit spoon 'cause they're pretty.  (Not really, I promise, I wouldn't ACTUALLY take a grapefruit spoon to someone's eyes...)

It was fun, and I am still EXTREMELY excited for the 6th, when RAW is in town and I get to go and see all of these people that I am such a fan of.  :)

I was happy to see Shane back on RAW, I think that Adamle is doing a passable job, not great, but passable...  But Shane is always fun.

I know there was something else I was going to write, but yeah, totally escapes me at the moment.  Oh well.

Oh, I remember now!  :)  I was watching TNA a little while ago (yeah, I know, traitor...  but if WWE would actually get female wrestlers and let them wrestle as opposed to pillowfight...)  Anyway, Sting over on TNA is going off to everyone about how the younger wrestlers have no respect for the older wrestlers.  And my thought was "Wow... have you been talking to Triple H?!"  Yeah, I laughed.

I think I ADORE Charlie Haas.  His caricature of JBL was FANTASTIC!!!  I loved the bit in the ring when JBL comes over and Charlie holds up the bottle and grins.  Then the chants of CHL CHL CHL!! starts, it was GREAT.  When JBL asked "DO YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?!" The whole group of us all yelled "YES!!!"

I thought it was great.  (I think JBL has lost some weight.  Which is good.  He looked better than "normal" last night.  And that's saying something, since I don't care for him.)

Evan Bourne and Rey Mysterio were absolutely AMAZING as a tag team.  They should TOTALLY be kept together for as long as possible!  I would love to see more of them together.  Their styles are so perfectly complimentary and they worked so amazingly well together.  It was pure joy to see.  That match alone would have made RAW worth watching to me.  (Not that I needed anything in particular to be made up for, since I thought this episode of RAW as a really good, strong episode.)  I thought Rey's mask change was very interesting.  Especially the open back (which is identical to Kane's mask...)  I think Rey did a really good job of selling fear when Kane was on the Titantron.  (And fear is hard to sell when you can't see the face, trust me, I know!)  And I love his new tats, they are gorgeous.

Kofi Kingston teamed very well with Cryme Tyme.  I think Cena pairs with them better, but it will be interesting when Cena gets back, so see what happens. 

I love stables, I always have.  I think they are (potentially) a fantastic vehicle for storylines.  And you can get so much more storyline into the show with them, and more screen time for all your wrestlers, that I was really sad to see them go away for so long.  I am very hopeful that Randy Orton, the Priceless Pair, and Manu will officially become a stable.  I would really like to see Cena, Cryme Tyme, and someone, maybe Kofi stable up against the Priceless People.  :)

As an aside, Orton always strikes me as kind of funny looking.  But interesting looking at the same time.  I think he plays a Royal, Pompous, **** character really well.  But everytime I see his eyes, I really do have a nearly overwhelming urge to use a grapefruit spoon to pull out the eyes and put them in a jar.  Not because I dislike him, but because he has really lovely eyes.  I think the Undertaker has phenomenal (ha! pun intended!) eyes as well.  And I generally have the same reaction.  Not that I ever would, mind you.  NEVER!  But the urge to collect the pretty things is still there.  That's why I have a large fishbowl half full of marbles, gemstones, and pretty rocks.

I thought the Beth Phoenix/Mickie James match was okay, but EXTREMELY predictable.  We had already figured out the outcome before they even got to the ring.  So we talked all the way through it.  The same goes for the Santino/Snitsky match.  But at least Santino was very entertaining on the mic.  :)

Noble vs Regal was rather a yawner.  They are both okay wrestler (or better than okay, I really enjoy Regal, actually.)  But Regal outclasses Noble.  Noble doesn't have the interest garnering that other smaller wrestlers have.  He's got a lot of swagger and no oomph to back it up.  Watching Layla leave with Regal just made me go "hmmm, shades of Kelly Kelly/Balls Mahoney much?"

All in all, I think the episode was quite strong, and I am VERY much looking forward to next week (because let's be honest, I will watch Kane do anything!  Literally, ANYTHING.)  But I want to see what they are going to do with their new feuds.  And I am very much looking forward to October when Raw comes to Seattle!

Watched Iron Chef America (which I always do, not just when wrestlers are on it)...

Batista was rather amusing as a judge.  And even more amusing was watching the frightened looks that one of the other judges kept giving him.

Having one of the chefs say "And that really big guy on the end, he gets slightly larger portions."  That was a highlight.

That's all for now.  I'm heading to a friend's house so we can catch up on the past week of wrestling, and watch tonight's Episode of RAW.