Raw Live Experience 3/12/12

“Hello, Cleveland!”

We were running late. I was tense in the car throughout the last part of the ride thinking, “If I miss Scott Stanford I’m going to cry.” While Mike, Chris’s dad (if you don’t know who Chris is you haven’t been paying attention) told me to prepare to cry.

Due to Chris’s circumstances (he’s using a walker currently) we were dropped off at the curb while Mike went to park the van. We rushed in only to be told we were at the wrong entrance, we had to go back outside and down since we were picking up our tickets at Will Call. Poor Chris was hobbling along at quite the fast speed as we ran over to pick up our tickets and were told we were in Section 9. We kind of stared at the tickets like, “Where is that?”

Luckily Mike was moving faster than we were and was in the building before we had time to wonder how far he had to park. Time was ticking away and I was growing increasingly panicked I was going to miss Scott Stanford. We walked up to the help desk and asked, “Where are we?” and showed them our tickets. The guy looked at me like I was crazy and said, “You’re on the floor. The elevators are over that way, you can take them down.”

The floor, huh? How did that happen?

We rushed down the halls, to the elevator, down the elevator, and emerged on the floor just as Michael McGillicutty was being announced for the dark match. His opponent: Seth Rollins.

We went around asking every person where our seats were before finally finding them, something that felt longer than it was because we did get to sit and watch the majority of this match. This also meant I did not miss Scott!

We had to give up our signs, though, because of where we were on the floor. We would obstruct the cameras. Um, I think being as close as we were (fifth row from the ring) was absolutely worth not having our signs. Yes, there are shots of us during Raw, but I’m usually sitting while everyone is standing and the most you see is the back of my head. Deal with it.

The dark match end and Seth Rollins won it! I happen to love Seth Rollins so this is a completely great moment for me. What surprised me most was, this was the dark match. This was Seth Rollins who is mostly known by the internet community. He was getting loud cheers that were nearly deafening as he won the match. This was an excellent crowd for when it came to loud cheers.

Next up was the taping of Superstars, where my favorite man of the evening stepped out to walk to the commentating table… and didn’t notice me!! How dare this man ignore his President? (I make this sound a lot worse than it is! It’s hard to hear the screaming girl yelling, “Scott!!” Seriously, Josh and Scott were getting louder cheers than I had heard before at an event for these two).

The first Superstars match was Tyler Reks and Curt Hawkins against R-Truth and Kofi Kingston. I did not dislike any man in this match but Tyler Reks and Curt Hawkins are my preferred tag team. We screamed our little hearts out, but for the most part the Raw crowd would drown us out. There is a huge difference between Raw crowds and Smackdown crowds and it is harder for us to shout our love for the less popular during Raw shows.

Next was Beth Phoenix against Kelly Kelly. I don’t know why, but Beth looks fabulous in person while I usually think she’s pretty, but not fantastic, in pictures or in video. Honestly, watching her was fabulous as she told the crowd she was going to have the Divas title, “Forever.” Okay, so her idea of telling time might be like Briley Pierce’s when he said he and Maddox would have the tag team titles for one-hundred-years. Still, you could almost believe her during the performance which saved this diva match.

No pictures of Scott to be had during Superstars. It was too awkward of a position and he rushed out before we had the chance to get pictures. Boo!

Then came Raw, which all of you have likely seen by this point. I’ll only give highlights, because you already know how good it was. The matches were long, the promos were good, there were only a few parts I was disappointed in. Brodus Clay’s entrance is explosive, but his matches are boring. I do not like watching a man just steamroll his opponent and win it in a shorter amount of time than it takes for him to get out to the ring.

Seeing James Roday was a highlight for me as I have been a fan of Psych since the first season. While what seemed like confusion to the majority of the Raw crowd was a big highlight for us, so I screamed like an idiot for him. This was one guest on Raw that deserved to be a guest as he actually is a huge WWE fan, hence why John Cena, Stacy Kiebler, and The Miz have all been guests on Psych. (Yeah, bet you are at least a little intrigued now)

We were sitting over by The Miz’s dad, who stopped and took pictures with a couple of people. To the right of us was The Miz’s mom and Frank the Clown. There were even a few people near us we would see again at Smackdown, though at Smackdown we would not be sitting near them as we were much higher up at the next show. The crowd around us for the most part was entertaining, or at least not offensive, except for the two teenage girls in front of us. They appeared to be around fourteen and the one girl kept lifting her shirt while the other one kept dropping the four sweaters she had sitting on the empty seat next to us. When we yelled, “Cena sucks!” after the show they couldn’t believe it, looked appalled, and I smiled because by that point I was glad to annoy the teenagers. Yes, I’m not always a people person.

After Raw went off the air Rock went around and acknowledged many of the signs that were being held up for him, two in particular. First he acknowledged the woman holding the sign that read, “Sing to me Rock, it’s my birthday!” Before he sang to her though he turned to the woman holding the, “Marry me Rock!” sign. He sadly turned that woman down because he had a date with Cena’s mom after the show. He turned back to the woman with the happy birthday sign and asked her what her name was and where she was from. Her name was Beth and she was from Akron. She was nearly booed out of the building, but she said her heart was in Cleveland, which gave her a little leeway. He also had to tell her to stop jumping up and down at one point so he could sing to her, but he did it with that charismatic, nonchalant, I’m just teasing you way that The Rock has perfected. He proceeded to sing happy birthday to her, the crowd nearly refusing to sing along because Rock sang this beautifully.

The Rock left the arena and John Cena came out to fight Kane, which Cena obviously won. We barely paid attention to the match, or at least I did. I was running around and gathering the things we had relinquished, which included Chris’s walker (they had volunteered to hold onto it for us so it would not be in our way or theirs). This is where I take a moment to say the Cleveland Quicken Loans Arena staff are the best staff I’ve ever had the pleasure to deal with at any arena. In the last year and a half I’ve been in several arenas thanks to WWE and concerts and both times we have gone to the Q we have had the pleasure of the most pleasant staffing. Everyone did everything they could to make Chris more comfortable, from stopping other staff so he could go through, to holding doors, offering him a wheel chair, and more.

After the John Cena and Kane match was the time of the rush. We were one of the last to leave. As I was about to stand I felt someone bump into my chair. I was just about to complain when Chris says, “It’s Michael Cole!” I look, and sure enough, Michael Cole was the one racing so quickly past that when he bumped into my chair he didn’t even notice/apologize. We were going to embellish this more but I decided to be nice and tell the simple truth. He only bumped my chair, but I still noticed and wondered who the jerk was. (Sorry, Cole, I’ve heard you aren’t actually that big of a jerk)

As we walked out I was this close to Justin Roberts, but he was talking to two women and I wasn’t going to be one of those fans (though I guess later in the evening I would be). We left the arena and headed to a hotel where I might have thought a certain commentator would be staying. Oh, look at that, he was!

So, for the second time in Cleveland, I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with Scott Stanford. WOO! Highlight of my night. No matter how many James Rodays and The Rocks I get, Scott Stanford is my reason for going to Raw. Chris got to Scott first (since we dropped him off and then went to park) and while Scott was talking to Chris two other people came up to Scott. They had no clue who Scott was, they were just sure he was someone. I had no problem stepping in-between this when I showed up and breaking it up. We went into the lobby of the hotel, where it was a bit warmer. During our conversation Vickie Guerrero showed up and Scott said hi to her and she started to say hi quickly then realized who it was saying hello to her and said, “Oh hi, Scott!” and brightened up and said a quick hi to us before she went on her way. She’s amazingly beautiful in person and her voice is almost sweet, unlike the one we usually hear on Raw. She speaks more like the coquettish Vickie we hear when she’s flirting with someone. I whined loudly that Scott was now flirting with Vickie even with me standing right there. We also came this close to The Rock’s guitar. How nifty! Met a little girl who said she was Randy Orton’s future wife and had quite the crush on Scott though she wasn’t sure who he was.

No, I won’t tell you everything I said with Scott, but I will give you this fabulous picture of Scott and Chris together.

Shortly after this it was time to leave and say goodbye to Raw, and time to prepare for Smackdown!

Love,

Solace Winter