Wrestling Experiences: Share Them!

[BrandonDaCollector]

Hah, the Undertaker Good for her Good for you too about the gift. Amazing about this stuff. OK, post it whenever PB

[packerbacker180]

Haven't done one of these in a while mostly because I haven't been able to locate any pictures from past events I've been to but today OneDrive emailed me memories from this date, and four years ago tonight we went to an NXT house show. Unfortunately, even though we had good seats, my camera on my phone back then wasn't the best and we were across from the entrance so the lighting caused a lot of the pictures to not be clear, but I found some that are decent so I'll post them.



The show itself was pretty good for a house show but it being the Black and Gold NXT that wouldn't be surprising. I was most looking forward to seeing Johnny Wrestling, Ciampa, Adam Cole Bay-bay, Velveteen Dream (yikes) and Aleister Black, but this show was just a couple weeks after Takeover and Dream and Black with both out with injuries. I don't have great pics of every match, but I run the card down as best I can.

First here's a pic with my one son who was only 5 at the time. My other son isn't a fan of taking pictures, so that one didn't turn out great. WWE Shop had a sale in August so since I knew we were going to this show I got myself an Adam Cole tee and my boys a NXT logo t which turned out to be a good thing because we got there last minute, and the place was super-crowded because it's a bar that had an open area for the ring, but still had patrons at the bar, and I couldn't figure out where the souvenir stand was even located, and because it was so crowded, didn't bother looking.



This is what the venue normally looks like, it's called Buffalo River Works and it's open daily as a restaurant and bar. But you can see the second image they clear out the table and host events like Empire State Wrestling, ROH, and NXT there, but it gets crowded, especially since they still served others who weren't there for the show but got a free show I assume while us suckers paid, lol.





The first match Heavy Machinery beat the Forgotten Sons but none of the pics are great. Next Nikki Cross and Dakota Kai beat Aaliyah and Vanessa Borne. I was a fan of the old crazy version of Nikki Cross but WWE kind of ruined her with the whole dumb sidekick and then ASH characters on Raw.

Next was one of two cool surprises for the night. Marcel Barthel (Kaiser from Imperium) came out first, and then Tyler Breeeze's music came on and the crowd popped. Fandango was out with injury again, so it was cool to see Tyler back down in NXT even for one night. Next up was poor Dan Mantha. He cut a promo badmouthing Buffalo and then T-Bag, I mean Domonik Dijakovic came out and destroyed him. But Mantha wasn't done. He got up and said he wasn't ready and wanted Dominik to come back out for a rematch. Instead, Lars Sullivan's music played and he came out and brutalized poor Dan, lol. I liked Lars. I thought he had a unique look (like the gorilla in the old Looney Tunes cartoons). It's unfortunate he crashed and burned, but some of it was self-inflicted like Velveteen Dream.

Next up was the War Raiders vs the Undisputed Era (Strong and O'Reilly). Holy cow were both these teams over back then. I'd seen War Machine live a few years earlier in ROH and those guys were impressive. It's a shame Vince felt the need to eff up their name and gimmick and now they're just another WWE tag team nobody cares about. This was a title match as UE had the belts at the time. The War Raiders won, but only because UE was DQ'd when Roddy hit the ref to save O'Reilly from being pinned.



Next up was the biggest surprise of the night and something I'll always remember. Ricochet came out as the North American Champ.



And then...



Luke Harper's music hit! Now, Jon Huber is from Rochester NY which is only about an hour away and is kind of like Buffalo's little brother, so he got a mega pop. They say that different styles make for great matchups and this was. Boy, could Luke Harper move. It was a terrific match with a couple near falls but Ricochet pulled it out in the end. But I'll always remember this for getting to see Jon Huber one last time. It was so sad when he passed, especially since he was set to debut in AEW in Rochester but it was the first show that was cancelled due to Covid and instead aired from Jacksonville with know crowd.

Before the bell....



After the match Luke says, "I was this close!"



And then a sign of respect...



It always pissed me off Luke Harper never got a great singles push. They teased him in an IC fatal 4-way, but besides that Vince always stuck him in a tag team. I think he could've been a top of the card guy, and was heading that way in AEW. Gone way too soon.

Next up Shayna Bazler beat Candice LaRae. I thought this was a nice picture...





The main event saw Ciampa retain over Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole. All three got huge pops. After the match the rest of UE came out and beatdown Johnny until the War Raiders came out and chased them off. After that Johnny cut a promo about how great NXT is and thanking the fans for coming out.







Overall, it was a great night of wrestling that I hope my kids will remember. Just like when we go to AEW Dynamite tomorrow. Hopefully, with a much better phone and camera, the pictures will be better. I'll try to post those in the next few days.

Later!

[packerbacker180]

Ok, so as I've said, I went to AEW in Buffalo last night and have a ton of pictures to share. To make it easier, I'm going to break them up into a couple posts Dark Elevation, Dynamite, and Rampage. I posted pics of an NXT event a few days ago so make sure you check those out, too.

So doors opened at 6 PM. We got through the line, the souvenir stand, and to our seats by around 6:30. Was a little disappointed in the shirt selection. Thought they'd have more options. My son wound up getting an AEW New York shirt while I got a Danhausen, CM Punk, and an AEW collage shirt of a bunch of wrestlers. In hindsight, I kind of regret not getting the Blackpool Combat Club shirt as well, but they were all $35 each. I did go back between Dynamite and Rampage but they didn't have my size anymore (nor the Sting gloves my son wanted). Besides those shirts, they had an FTR. I was hoping for maybe a Sting shirt, or the Acclaimed, Hangman Page, etc. I did also get a Sting car decal I can put on my truck alongside the Ric Flair one I have.

So we were in the 3rd row of the 100s which counting the floor was 9 rows from the ring and when we got there, who do we see on the floor right in front of us dancing to all the music? Why, Superbad Kip Sabian. He was graciously taking pics with people so I got one with my older son. It was really cool of him to just be out there chilling, especially since he didn't wrestle himself and only came out later on Dynamite for Penelope Ford's match. I love his eyes in the pic. He has a box on his head so he could've just fawned interest in posing for a kid but he took the time to emote and have crazy eyes and they make me laugh. Just really cool. I liked Kip before, but now I really like the guy and hope he gets some TV time somewhere.




Justin Roberts came out and talked to the crowd a bit and explained how the night would go. He'd do the same during commercial breaks in between matches, and riled up the crowd with cheers, introduced the refs and joked around with them. It was fun. Then they introduced the Elevation announcers and the show started. Not much to most of the matches as you'd probably assume if you've watched Elevation before it's usually quick matches. So Julia Hart beat somebody first, not much wrestling she just got the girl down on her back and began ramming her head into the mat. Didn't remember her name, but Julia is getting into her gimmick more and she looks terrific. Not the best picture, sorry.



Next up Dante Martin and Matt Sydal beat Serpentico and Zack Clayton in a quick match that had some fun comedy and a few highspots by Martin.



Next Athena beat Emi Sakura in a match that went a little longer, but not that long.




Next up the House of Black (sans Malakai who may be gone) squashed a couple guys, one was named Cuse and had Syracuse Orange colors that the crowd chanted they wanted tagged in but he played being hesitant until he finally got tagged in then got destroyed. Brody King moves well for a fast guy and their moves sounded brutal. I had to take my younger son to the bathroom for the first time that night (not the last time) so I missed their lights out entrance.





Next up Shida beat someone whose name I don't recall.





Next Johnny Hungee beat Ryan Nemeth. John Silver is really entertaing, but he's also little and fast and many of my pics came out too blurry, lol.



Last up with the main event of Elevation. QT Marshall came out with the Factory and taked about he had been fighting for years to keep AEW from having to go to a terrible place like Buffalo. Typical but fun heeling. And then the Buther and the Blades music hit and the place erupted. And then they came out with Buffalo Sabres jersey and really got the home crowd going. If you don't know, both men are from Buffalo, and worked many indie shows here over the years so they made for great faces for the home crowd. The Butcher seemed especially fired up. The Butcher has a great old school look to him, and the Blade has always been in great shape, but I give props to Andy Williams because he looks like he's really put in the work to get himself into better shape the last year or so. I wish they'd got some TV time. After they won, they hugged each other in the ring. It was probably an emotional moment to get to be in front of hometown crowd like that. I thought it was awesome. And then the Butcher got up on the corner turnbuckles and led a "Let's go Buffalo" chant. #GoBills











I rarely watched Dark or Elevation. I can't say there was a ton worth checking on tonight besides the main event. I will definitely give that a watch. So that was the first hour of over four hours of wrestling.

[BrandonDaCollector]

I'm still not ready for your AEW so OK, this is for your NXT. It looked fun. all familiar faces and yet Breeze & Harper were surprises. This IMO was the best era for NXT. Yeah, its always like that, people that isn't even interested gets it for free just to get drunk and mess things up, I would have gone over there to save the moolah. The guy get's the girl that he doesn't love, the person wins the lottery that's doesn't need it etc...its like that with everything and I'm sick of it. I hope your son remembers this cause you hear it all the time from wrestlers how young they were and how they always wanted to become wrestlers. Your other son is shy, dang when I was a youngster I always wanted the attention to be filmed. I know older people who don't like it either, I never got it but that's just Me. If I was there I would have appreciated every second, not look around at the crowd and keep My attention on the ring at all times regardless how many times I saw that rematch on TV because I'd be there in person. It looked fun PB, really good showcase here

[BrandonDaCollector]

OK, I watched this Dark plus the clips from the following Dynamite & Rampage so whenever you can/want to post your experiences for them cause I won't be spoiled

OK. Dang $35 each Gosh things are so dang expensive now I can't believe Sabian was out there doing that. I still don't get the box gimmick but it is cool. I hope your son knew exactly who he was and how awesome that opportunity was. What was his thoughts here Did he know who he was right away or did you tell him or what The program I saw on YT I saw had Marina & Nyla there in the first match. You get pics of them Julia Hart's opponent was Tiara James. I would have have been euphoric to see Shida in person. I know about TB&TB being from NY. You say about worth, IMO if your lucky enough to go to an event then any match you see in person is worth it Good pics PB, it looked really fun

P.S. I know you don't watch Dark much but that's where the women are

[packerbacker180]

Yeah, I took a pic or two but they weren't really that great. I don't really care for Nyla and it wasn't much of a match so I just skipped it. My kid didn't know who Kip Sabian was. I had to show him a picture. But then when he was ringside for Penelope Ford's match, I pointed him out. I just thought it was pretty cool he was just out there chilling before everything started. I'll be a fan of his just for that. If his career never takes off he'll always be the guy that won the first AEW singles match when he beat Sammy Guevara in the Buy In of the first AEW PPV.

[BrandonDaCollector]

I see. Yeah, I'm not big on Nyla either. Now I like Ford, I find her very underrated in many ways. Well that's good you did that for your boy. Yeah, that's a pretty good reason why to be a fan of his. That was really rad he did that. I do hope he gets somewhere in AEW, now I think he has a really good gimmick and stuff. Again, this was quite cool PB

[secondwhiteline]

I've been meaning to post some of these for the longest time, but I went to the first SPARK Joshi show, Ignite East in Newark, NJ last month! I'm, uh, planning to invest in a legit camera sometime instead of my 4-year-old phone.

[packerbacker180]

Those pictures look just fine, though. You must've been front row. Sadly, I have no idea who any of the women are as I've never followed much Joshi wrestling.

[secondwhiteline]

You might know Maki Itoh, the one in the red, from her occasional AEW appearances. The one in pink is Miyu Yamash1ta, who's been doing an excursion year in the U.S. -- she wrestles a lot in the Northeast right now. The one in black is Rina Yamash1ta (no relation), a Japanese freelancer who wrestles for GCW a lot now and I think is still holding their hardcore/deathmatch title (she's not just deathmatch -- one of her previous title reigns was Pro Wrestling Wave's top belt, which Shida's holding now when she's in Japan). The one in all the colors is SAKI, who freelances around Japan a lot, including Stardom sometimes (she was part of their trios tournament this year, for instance). That was her U.S. debut!

A lot of the U.S. talent on the show were people you might recognize from occasional AEW enhancement talent appearances or from Impact, if you watch that. Masha Slamovich was there, KiLynn King, Ashley D'Amboise, Billie Starkz, Rachel Ellering.

(EDIT: Apparently our content filters are pretty strong here.)