I'm one man and I'm a renegade and here is my blog that hosts my podcast. Enjoy.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Who Will Survive ...... New York City?
Well hello there ladies and gents, it's me back again with some fun stuff for you dig your teeth into. This post probably should have been done a week ago, but whatever, screw you, I was busy, here is it now, you got a problem with that, take it up with my fist. If that sounded harsh, remember, I'm over 30 and get to be angry, hence the name of the blog, so let's quit talking crap and get right down to it.
Ok, last time out, I told you about my night at Monday Night Raw at the TD Garden, and had a couple previews for you, one of which was the Foo Fighters, which is where I was 2 nights after Raw, some place, just a couple sections over. It was a really good show, Foo Fighters are a great band, Dave Grohl knows how to put on a show. It's really interesting to think about what would have happened had Kurt Cobain not have killed himself, would Foo Fighters ever had happened, I tend to think that somewhere down the line Dave Grohl would have branched out and done his own stuff, would it have been Foo Fighters, who knows, but I'm guessing that had Nirvana continued, Grohl would have started to have a bit more input or else he might have left the band of maybe Cobain would have kicked him out, but who knows, what happened happened and the Foo Fighters exist and entertained me that night. Here are some pictures:
Here is the Foo Fighters kicking things off with Bridge Burning when they took the stage right around 9pm
Here is a picture of Dave Grohl playing on a little stage they had setup among the fans, he played one song out there during the regular set, then did a few solo songs at the beginning of the encore. Plus you can also see the weird hair that the dude in front of us had, which was a nice distraction from the ugly girl giving her boyfriend a lapdance for some reason on the other side of the row. Anyways, here was what the set list looked like.:
So, yeah, pretty awesome setlist, they played until about 11:45, so pretty long set as well. Great show!
So, after taking a little break to visit the 'rents and help them with some computer issues, and then being treated to dinner at the brand new Midtown Smokehouse & Grill in Needham. It was pretty good and has a pretty good beer selection. If you are familiar with Needham, it is located where the Village Fish used to be, right on Great Plain Ave next to Stonehearth Pizza, which is good too, right next to CVS, I recommend it if you are in the area and looking for some BBQ.
Then it was time to head to NYC. Friday was bit of a whirlwind as it usually is when you are going anywhere on a Friday it seems like, got stuck in some traffic, not too bad, but it happened. We decided to make a stop to get some foot at... Hooters, hey, we were hungry and it was right there, don't judge. Now, I haven't been to a Hooters since there was one down by the Fleetcenter as it was known at the time, and maybe it was because the only time I went there it was before or after some sort of event, as opposed to a Hooters in the middle of CT, but there certainly an element there that is a bit sketchy. Also, they changed the shirts from white to black, I'll leave that as it is. But, whatever the food was pretty good the beer was cold, that's all we were really looking for. So then after sitting in some more traffic we arrived. We then hung out and pregamed for a while, then head out to a bar, what bar, I have no idea, I know very little about NYC and what's where and what the bars names are or anything, could have been called anything and been anywhere, looks all the same. But we did find the Anus Chair:
Saturday was when things really got it all started. First of all, it started off with a tradition, as my buddy that were staying with has a Nintendo Entertainment System, and has the game Tecmo Super Bowl, which features in my mind the best video game sports character of all time Bo Jackson. So I as always play a game with the Raiders and see how many yards I can get. My record is somewhere around 850 yds, don't really remember exactly. This time around I was not as fortunate, as I only was able to get 629 yds and 7 TDs. Oh well, I'll do better next time. The rest of Saturday was spent pregaming for the Bruins game. Some of that time was spent out on my Buddy's apartment building's roofdeck, which apparently was not supposed to be open, but it was, so we took advantage. There is a pretty nice view from there, if you look around the building, like I did for this picture:
Yup, that is the Empire State Building. So, after some more pregamming we headed out to Long Island to go see the Bruins take on the Islanders at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, NY. Well, what can I say about that arena, it's pretty much the Worcester Centrum, not really sure how else to explain it. Well, the crowd had a ton of Bruins fans in it, so the ovation for the Bruins was a good one when they took the ice:
Now, this was my first Bruins road game, and since they changed the rules around about the home teams wearing their dark colors and the road team wearing white, this was to be my first chance to see the Bruins wear White in a long time, so of course what happened, Bruins wear black and Islanders wear white. Oh well, Bruins went on to win 6-0, Tim Thomas had a shutout, they extended their win streak to 8 games. They would then win 2 more to make it an even 10, before losing to Detroit in a shootout the day after Thanksgiving. After the game, there is nothing else really around the arena other then a Hotel, which has a bar in it, that was offering $1 for anyone with a ticket from the game, so we headed over there for a drink, and since, like I said, there is really nothing else around there, this is where the Bruins were staying so we say some of the Bruins players coming in before we headed back to the city. Once we got back in to the city, we hit up another bar, which again, no idea what the name was or where it was, but we had some drinks, met some people from Wisconsin, and that was about it. Headed back, stopped at a Diner to get some food and called it a night.
Sunday, after a lot of hanging around and recovery, it was time for the Main Event of the weekend, WWE Survivor Series at Madison Square Garden, featuring The Rock returning to the ring for the first time in 7 1/2 years. I had never been to Madison Square Garden, and unfortunately I didn't really get to see it in it's full capacity, because they are in the middle of a huge renovation, and while they had finished the first stage, they still have a ways to go, so, I didn't really get to see what it used to look like, and I didn't really get to see what it's gonna look like, so it was a little strange. But with that said, I was there, it's the Mecca, certainly for Wrestling, so it was fun to be there, but as per usual, the New York crowd is always a bit unpredictable on how they will react, but 3 things were certain, even from just waiting in line to get it. Cena was gonna gett booed out of the building, The Rock was gonna get a huge ovation, and people really wanted to see Zack Ryder. Now, the Cena thing was a bit obvious, the guy even gets booed in his hometown mostly because of the carry over of the Attitude era where older fans do not like the goodie two shoes face, whereas the younger crowd, which there is more of today then there was in the Attitude era, and also the females, like that and specifically Cena, but also keep in mind it;s a Boston guy in NY, and him and The Rock are feuding, so more or less it could have been anyone as the antagonist for The Rock and they are gonna get somewhat booed, only guy that might not is Stone Cold. Or, perhaps Zack Ryder, now while Zack Ryder has certainly gotten noticed in the last couple months and has started getting quite the fan base, mostly due to his weekly internet show called Z! True Long Island Story the thing you need to notice there is the Long Island part, and with this being New York, he was over huge. Ok, so lets get to the show, first of all, here's a picture of the setup:
Here's the ring, now eventually I'll have a picture of the Entrance setup, which typically when they have a PPV at MSG, they don't usually have a big setup, just a small little entrance which is usually opposite camera, why they chose not to do that this time around, I'm not sure, maybe because of the construction, things got switched up that wouldn't allow them to do that, but seems kinda dumb to have it setup this way, certainly could have sold a lot more tickets, place was packed, sold out in no time. Oh well, not my problem. So, things got stared with a dark match between Santino Marella (who was way over with the crowd) vs Jinder Mahal, Santino of course hit the Cobra to get the win and get the crowd going. Now, as for the actually Survivor Series PPV, it started off with Dolph Ziggler, who actually got a pretty good reception, defending to US title against John Morrison, who had the unfortunate role of not being Zack Ryder, which pretty much got him booed out of the building. It would also end up being John Morrison's last PPV match, as his contract was not renewed and he was stretched out this past Monday by The Miz, but getting a little ahead of ourselves here. Dolph Ziggler was able to get the victory:
But then it was time for what everyone wanted, as Zack Ryder hit the right to beat up Dolph, and of course do some fist pumping:
Woo Woo Woo, You Know It!
Next up Beth Phoenix beat Eve Torres in a Lumberjill match, yeah, whatever.
Following this, The Rock made his first appearance of the night cutting a backstage promo:
After this we had a traditional Survivor Series match between Team Barrett: Wade Barrett, Cody Rhodes, Dolph Ziggler (doing double duty), Jack Swagger and Hunico:
vs Team Orton: Randy Orton, Sheamus, Kofi Kingston, Ryan Mason and Sin Cara:
Match didn't get off to a great start, as not very long into the match after a dual dive to the outside by Kofi Kingston and Sin Cara, Sin Cara legitimately hurt his knee and had to be helped to the back. It's always a bit of a weird thing in wrestling regarding injuries, cause most of the time they are faked, like even if the guy is legit injured, they play out an injury angle, cause generally speaking those are a lot more interesting and spectacular than the real injury is, like in this instance, he just landed wrong and hurt his knee, nothing really happened and it didn't make sense within the match. Anyway, after people were eliminate from each side it eventually came down to Randy Orton vs Jack Swagger, Hunico, Wade Barrett and Cody Rhodes, and while Randy Orton was able to eliminate Swagger and Hunico, Rhodes and Barrett proved to be too much for Orton and Barrett hit wasteland and got the win for Team Barrett with Rhodes and Barrett as the Survivors:
Interesting to note, Cody Rhodes was very over, maybe it was because he was no longer wearing his mask, or cause he had new music, or was actually wearing kneepads, anyway you look at it, NY crowds are nuts. Speaking of which, next up we had the World Heavyweight Title Match between the challenger The Big Show:
vs the champion, the World's Strongest Man Mark Henry:
Now, surprisingly to me, Mark Henry got a huge ovation in my section, I was a little surprised by this, until I turned around and saw who was sitting behind me in my section, huge contingent of Mark Henry fans, without getting into to much detail, this group had a common bond with him, let's just leave it at that. Anyway, following what happened in their last match at the last PPV:
Which was very reminiscent of a match between Big Show and Brock Lesnar:
Well, I was expecting something crazy to happen again, now obviously the ring collapsing wasn't gonna happen again, because they already did it, and they still had 2 matches to go, so that would have been an issue although didn't stop them last month which resulted in the next match having to take place in a broken ring, but anyways. The big spot of the match saw the Big Show doing a top rope elbow drop, which resulted in a huge Randy Savage chant, which was fine, impressive, but also strange, cause the same thing happened in the next match, when CM Punk did a top rope elbow drop. Anyway, the end of the match was very disappointing as Mark Henry got intentionally DQed by kicking Big Show in the balls. Big Show would then get some revenge and squashed Mark Henry's foot in a chair, so doesn't appear that this feud is anywhere near over.
Next up was the WWE Championship match between the Champion along with his personal ring announcer Ricardo Rodriguez:
ALBERTOOOOOO DEL RIIIIIIIIIIIIIO!
vs The challenger, with his personal ring annoucer, Howard Finkel:
CM Punk:
It was clobbering time:
Match of the night, lots of back and forth, crowd was very pro CM Punk. Tons of false finishes. Ricardo got involved many times, until Punk took care of him and eventually after failed attempts at the Go To Sleep, Punk gets Del Rio in the Anaconda Vice, and Del Rio eventually tapped out to the winner and new WWE Champion CM Punk, who decided to celebrate by diving into the crowd:
And Finally, it was time for the Main Event. The Awesome Truth: The Miz and R-Truth:
vs John Cena:
and The Rock:
Got to give The Rock some credit, it had been over 7 1/2 years, but he stepped back in the right like it was 1999 all over again and did all the same things he always did. Typical tag match, with the heels taking control beating down on the the faces, in this case John Cena, until he gets the hot tag to The Rock, who then but Boots to Asses and took control of the match and ultimately hit R-Truth with a Rock Bottom and finally hit The Miz with the people's elbow:
for the 1,2,3 and the victory:
But things weren't quite over yet, as the Rock was celebrating:
John Cena started walking towards the back, giving a somewhat sarcastic cheer for The Rock, which caused the Rock to call Cena back to the ring:
and The Rock eventually gave Cena the Rock Bottom as the show ended. But for those in attendance, things weren't quite over, as The Rock then gave a promo thanking the fans for coming out and even giving props to Zack Ryder, and then gave us a If You Smell What The Rock Is Cookin' and that was it.
After making my way out of MSG, stepped out onto the streets of NY, which are already getting ready from Christmas:
Finally, as I was making my way to my Bus back to Boston on Monday, I had to take the 7 to Times Square, and then I could take the 1,2 or 3 to Penn Station, the walk over to the Bus, which just so happened to be picking me up right in front of the Manhattan Center:
Which as you may or may not know, was the site of the first Monday Night Raw, and many more way back in 1993, and saw one of the biggest upsets of all time, when a relatively unknown Kid would beat Razor Ramon:
Of course he would go on to be known as the 1-2-3 Kid. It all connects. Have a great night, I'll be back with more later.
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