The Spotlight On The Sights and Sounds Of Wrestlemania Week

Tom Lynch Reviews, Travel, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Sights and Sounds of Wrestlemania! 

Nothing like seeing a Wrestlemania Banner at Baggage Claim!

This is the first time over the past three years in which I’ve been flying to Wrestlemania that I was able to get down to Wrestlemania on a Thursday and I can honestly say that this is the day to come down if you’re going to do it.  For one, most fans arrive on Thursday and so you really feel like you’re all heading to Wrestling Haven together.  Everywhere you look fans are wearing wrestling t shirts and carrying memorabilia for the show.  My girlfriend made me a really cool Chad Gable towel that I carried around with me at the airport and was a big hit with the other fans attending the show.  Unfortunately, the security checkpoint was horrendous at Laguardia Airport.  Seriously people need to learn how to take off their shoes, belts and have their laptops ready for stowing prior to getting up to the checkpoint.  I realise that when you travel as much as I do you become Geroge Clooney (In Up in the air) esque in being able to fly through the airport but really some people really slowed us down.  We were so delayed that we almost ended up missing our flight altogether and had to jet to our gate once we finally got through. When I finally got there I let out a big sigh of relief and I heard a familiar voice greet me by saying “That’s ok let it out, you made the flight and now it’s officially Wrestlemania, nothing else matters!”.  It was WWE hall of famer Howard Finkel who happened to be on our flight (You can go back and read my post about meeting Howard at a Dean Ambrose signing to get an idea how big a fan of his I am).

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Nothing Says Wrestlemania more than the sight of the Wrestlemania City Banners! 

Once you arrive in the city, it’s all about Wrestlemania! In the past the airports have been decked out in WWE decoration.  It literally feels lke if you’ve ever flown into Orlando and taken the Magical Express back to Disneyworld except instead of the world of magic, this is the world of wrestling.   I’ll never forget when we landed in New Orleans a couple of years ago and were greeted by a brass band playing John Cena’s theme song.  Or last year when we were greeted at the airport by Dean Malenko.  This year, we ended up flying into a smaller airport in Dallas so there wasn’t as many Wrestlemania signs at our airport but enough to let you know that you arrived and it was Wrestlemania.

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My girlfriend Eri, excited to see the boss get her own Wrestlemania city banner

What we do each year is start our week off at the  with a trip to the Wrestlemania store.  We did this on Friday morning and it was a lot of fun.  If you have time to set aside for the store, I suggest doing it as a separate time then axxess.  If you’re like me, you’re pretty tired after Axxess and the store is so big that there is more than enough to do there to spend an hour of time there on it’s own.  As we walked up into the Wrestlemania store, every nearby street post had a different superstar banner hanging proudly.  Everyone from the Rock to The New Day to Charlotte were represented proudly.  By the entrance of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Center, there were a number of larger banners with every superstar you can think of taking up their spot on the walls of the building.  These are always great for some photo ops and to go and see all of the different decorations.  The KBH center was the home for all things WWE this weekend and there were just loads of fans everywhere.

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Fans from all over the world take to the WWE Superstore

As we made our way upstairs into the actual store, there was a large WWE painting booth featuring the great work of WWE artist Rob Schamburger.  Rob is always on hand at Axxess working hard creating his next masterpiece.  Even though he’s hard at work, Rob is always very gracious and down to earth.  He’ll always stop to talk to you and is glad to sign any painting that you purchase of his.  Rob started out as a fan and has been embraced by WWE for his talent but is still a fan at heart and just an all around great person.

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WWE Artist Rob Schamberger paints for the fans outside of the WWE Superstore

The store itself is a sight in an of itself and a reminder to us long time fans of what the old WWF New York Store used to be like back in the day.  There are different types of shirts everywhere you look, whether it be related to the members of this year’s hall of fame, the NXT Roster, the premier matches on the wrestlemania card or Wrestlemania event specific shirts they have everything you can think of.  The people working the store are also generally pretty cool about letting you pose for photos in the different masks (who woudn’t want to take a photo as Asuka or a couple photo as Gold and Stardust?)  or hats.  Decked on the walls of the store are different images of the WWE superstars and divas wearing all of the different memorabilia for sale, which always reminds me of the old superstar catalogs in the old WWF magazines.  The store also has some rare pieces of merch that you won’t find anywhere else like the new Sting Defining Moments figure that won’t be released for months or the new John Cena coffee table book(my favorite are always the replica Slammy and replica Undertaker’s Urn).  Lastly in the center of the store is your high end pieces of merch that can go from anywhere from $90 to $3500.  These range from signed figures to plaques featuring event used mats or even a replica winged eagle scale belt.  While it’s not realistic to expect everyone to have the dispsobable income to afford such pieces, they are great to look at.

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Eri channeling her inner boss

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Checking out the NXT section of memorabilia, surprised they didn’t have one of these Chad Gable towels on sale, which my girlfriend was nice enough to surprise me with before going.

When in Texas…

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Two great couples, eh?  The Authority & Tom/Eri…by the way you all know what a huge fan of Shane McMahon I am but could he look more awkward on the wall of the superstore here?

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Eri is a proud resident of Suplex City! By the way, I can’t believe Brock agreed to pose in his T shirt for the store.  Pretty cool!

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The Black and White Wyatt masks are two of the more popular items available for sale at the Superstore!

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It doesn’t get much cooler than these high end plaques which will run you $1500!  That said, such a badass replica belt and Wrestlemania 12 Tribute! 

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If you noticed that we look a little different, good job this was taken last year but nothing beats a Dust couple photo and the Rhodes masks join the Wyatts and Kalisto as the most popular this year.

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At some point I will justify dropping the $40 for one of these urns and yes this photo is here because my girlfriend can do picture perfect Undertaker Eyes and I think that’s pretty cool!  

One frustrating piece was that the wristbands for the free superstar signings were given out randomly 2-3 hours prior to the signing but there was no way of knowing that ahead of time.  Thus we showed up at 11:30 hoping for a chance to see Sheamus or Kane (one of my girlfriend’s favorites) and were told we needed a wristband to wait on their line and the bands were all given out before 10AM.  That said, it was still cool to see both Sheamus and Kane on hand in the store, who were in years past VIP only signings at Axxess.

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“The Celtic Warrior” Sheamus awaits the fans at the Wrestlemania Superstore 

That’s going to do it for me for right now but I want to take a minute to thank WWE and the folks running the superstore for letting us run around the store like kids and try on a number of the pieces for sale.  Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at WWE NXT Takeover, one of the best events of the entire weekend.

 

The Spotlight On The WWE “Attitude Era: Volume 3” Unrelased Matches DVD Set

Tom Lynch Wrestling , , , , , , ,

Over the last week our friends over at WrestlingDVDNetwork.com have released the full content listing for the brand new WWE “Attitude Era Volume 3” DVD Set that is scheduled to be released this upcoming August. For those that haven’t heard WWE is planning on making this particular release a set filled with previously unreleased matches. Below is the complete match list (no word on whether or not this includes blu ray exclusives) and I think it’s really interesting. Check it out…

— WWE Championship Match

Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels

Kuwait City, Kuwait • May 12, 1996

— Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker
Madison Square Garden • August 9, 1996

— Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Goldust

[Non-Televised] In Your House: It’s Time • December 15, 1996

— Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Triple H
Anaheim, CA • March 13, 1998

— The Nation of Domination vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Cactus Jack & Chainsaw Charlie

[Non-Televised] RAW • December 29, 1997

— WWE Intercontinental Championship Match
The Rock vs. Ken Shamrock

Anaheim, CA • March 13, 1998

— Stone Cold Steve Austin & Cactus Jack vs. The Rock & D’Lo Brown

Madison Square Garden • January 10, 1998

— Stone Cold Steve Austin, Cactus Jack & Chainsaw Charlie vs. The Rock & The New Age Outlaws

Meadowlands, NJ • February 22, 1998

— The Ultimate Warrior vs. Owen Hart

Madison Square Garden • May 19, 1996

— Yokozuna vs. The Sultan

Sun City, South Africa • September 14, 1996

— Triple Threat Match for the WWE Championship

Shawn Michaels vs. Bret “Hit Man” Hart vs. Sycho Sid

[Non-Televised] RAW • February 3, 1997

— Long Island Street Fight

Dude Love vs. The British Bulldog

Uniondale, NY • October 24, 1997

— The Hardy Boyz vs. Lo Down

Wall St, New York City, NY • October 25, 2000

— The Undertaker vs. Mankind

[Non-Televised] In Your House: Good Friends, Better Enemies • April 28, 1996

— The Undertaker & Bret “Hit Man”” Hart vs. Owen Hart & The British Bulldog

Kuwait City, Kuwait • May 12, 1996

— The Undertaker, Goldust & Ahmed Johnson vs. The Nation of Domination

[Non-Televised] RAW • March 17, 1997

— Triple Threat Match for the WWE Championship

The Undertaker vs. Bret “The Hit Man” Hart vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin

Anaheim, CA • June 28, 1997

— Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker

Madison Square Garden • June 26, 1999

— WWE Championship Match

Shawn Michaels vs. Goldust

[Non-Televised] In Your House: Buried Alive • October 20, 1996

— Shawn Michaels & Triple H vs. The Legion of Doom

Uniondale, NY • October 24, 1997

— Triple H vs. The Big Show

Madison Square Garden • June 26, 1999

— Dog Collar Match

Road Dogg vs. Mr. Ass Billy Gunn

Meadowlands, NJ • July 31, 1999


Closing Thoughts: 

This set is a must buy for me personally. I love that they’ve included a set of matches that you can’t just pull up on the Network & view everything right there. This is a set where you’ll have to go out of your way to purchase the blu Ray to see a rare collection of matches. I love the rare matches that were either dark matches (Shawn Michaels vs Goldust from the Buried Alive pay per view especially) or matches from overseas or completely unique like the Hardy Boys match from Wall Street. Also, as a New Yorker I am loving the matches from New York as I went to so many live events as a kid and remember witnessing some of these live. 

Overall, this is going to just going to be cool to watch these matches for the very first time. Some of the triple threats, for example, took place before WWE did triple threat matches regularly and will be cool to see. I’m also glad that they weren’t so strict with the attitude era timeline & included some matches from 1996, especially a rare Ultimate Warrior-Owen Hart match as they’ve only had one tv match, to the best of my knowledge, and it was a short throwaway match with a non finish. I am curious,however, if there will commentary on these matches as watching matches without commentary is always a little odd for my personal taste. 

In the end, this set proves that even with the Network, with WWE’s huge video library, there is a still a market for blu Ray releases. We’ll have more on this set when it is released this summer! 

Site Relaunch, Back From Wrestlemania & More- The Daily Spotlight for 4/10/2016

Tom Lynch The Daily Spotlight, Travel, Wrestling , , , , , , , ,

Coming to you live here from a virgin airlines flight, I am officially on my way back from a very fun weekend in the state of Texas.  My plan for the rest of this week is to breakdown all of the wrestling happenings from this weekend and then once I’m caught up on all of the programming I missed while I was away, I am going to break down everything as this is the official relaunch of the daily spotlight.

Let’s start with a little housecleaning as to what I plan to give you from this site.  My plan is for some WWE news each and every day. I’m going to breakdown each week’s Raw, NXT and smackdown as well as some of the bigger stories as they unfold throughout the week.  Then every Sunday morning I’m going to present you with the Spotlight Small Package which will be your one stop source for all of the week’s news and wrestling breakdowns on the site.  That said, I don’t want this to solely be a wrestling website.  Thus I’m going to also be breaking down a variety of sports, travel and reviews.  The reviews themselves will come out every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and focus on my experiences with a particular product, restaurant and/or travel destination (This week’s will focus on Wrestlemania week in Dallas!).  As for the spotlight videos, those are going to be reserved for Tuesdays, Thursdays and the weekend and my plan is to really try to be a bit more consistent with those.  The problem with some of the videos is the quality but my hope is that as we go through the videos, the quality will only continue to improve.  As far as the new schedule, I’d look for that to really begin tomorrow morning, April 11th!  I appreciate all of you being so patient with me over the last couple of months.  It’s been a hard time personally with the death of my father as well as trying to really hit the ground running with a new job that I literally started the day my father passed away.  It’s been crazy but I’m at a point now where I think I can really get things back up and running on a more consistent basis.  We hit one year on the daily spotlight this part week and I couldn’t have been happier to hit that resubscribe button on the site when it came time to do that just last week.  The first year of the daily spotlight has been a lot of fun, I’ve gotten to interact with a ton of people and do a lot of things that I normally wouldn’t have been able to do without the site and for that I couldn’t be more grateful.  I plan of taking the daily spotlight to much greater heights as we take on year two of the blog!  Now let’s get onto this weekend.

I do things for Wrestlemania week a lot different then most fans that come in front out of town for the big show. This is mostly because my girlfriend comes with me for the show and she does so for her birthday.  My job is generous with time off but not generous enough to where I can take a vacation without her, nor would I want to.  My girlfriend has become a pretty big fan of WWE ( so much so that if she hears you say that she only watches because of me, it’ll be sure to tick her off) and I couldn’t imagine going to Wrestlemania without her.  Watching her marvel at the spectacle of Wrestlemania and jump up out of her seat for every big return or nearfall is half of the fun of it for me.  That said, I pick and choose my spots when it comes to going to shows with her.  We always attend Wrestlemania, Axxess and usually one other wrestling show of the weekend (which has become NXT, it was Raw two years ago and NXT has taken over that slot the last two years).  One thing I learned three years ago was that the hall of fame isn’t for her.  We went in 2013, and got dressed up for that matter, and after thoroughly enjoying Mick Foley, Trish Stratus and Booker T, my girlfriend looked at me and said, “ this is cool and all but when are the matches going to start.”  She couldn’t believe a show was dedicated simply to speeches and really struggled through those last few hours of, what was a great hall of fame class.  Thus, we skip the hall and it is a shame for a historian like myself who loves seeing the legends honored.  We also don’t go to any shows that are non WWE related which includes wrestlecon.  At some point I’m going to have to attend some of these shows as some of the lineups that Ring of Honor and Evolve, to name a few, put out seem to be really good and I’ve also been dying to check out one of JR’s shows .  With that said the WWE events we attend tend to get a little pricey so we agree to skip the other shows.  What we also do though is really engulf ourselves into the city that plays host to Wrestlemania and were finally able to do so with plenty of time this time around as we arrived Thursday and stayed until last Wednesday after Wrestlemania.  Thus over the next several posts I’m going to break down each one of the different wrestling events that we attended this past weekend and I encourage you to also do so in our comment section below or interact with us over on twitter @daily_spotlight or on my personal twitter @TommyOnTheSpot!  As always we can also be reached by Email at thedailysptolight2@gmail.com! Don’t worry I have spent the last few days really catchng up on the rest of the WWE content that rolled out during Wrestlemania weekend on the Network and I will get to all of those as the week rolls on!

The Spotlight On A Physical WWE Hall Of Fame

Tom Lynch Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello everyone and good morning to you. I meant to talk about this on the site yesterday but figured I would more focus on the stuff related strictly to the announcement of Wrestlemania 33 coming to Orlando. That said, the Wrestlemania announcement wasn’t the only big WWE news related to Orlando that made the rounds yesterday. Attractionsmanagement.com released a story yesterday that WWE will be opening a “museum-cum-restaurant” within the Universal Studios Orlando theme park.  According the article, which you can read in full here http://www.attractionsmanagement.com/detail.cfm?pagetype=detail&subject=news&codeID=322371, the restaurant portion of the place would be similar to the old WWF New York (later The World) in that there will be a retail section of the store where you can purchase merchandise from all of your favorite superstars and divas and then a restaurant with big screens playing WWE programming throughout the day. If this news wasn’t big enough, it’s the museum portion of the story that has everyone talking.  Many took this to believe that this means that there will finally be a physical hall of fame for the prestigious WWE Hall of Fame. 

The idea is for this new WWE attraction to open where the old NBA City location was as a part of Universal City located Adjacent to the theme park. Probably the best part of all of this is that the attraction is planning to open in March of next year. This means that the attraction will be ready for people to visit just in time for Wrestlemania in Orlando, the next month.  

I for one could not be more excited as growing up WWF New York was one of my favorite locations. Nothing beat being able to head times square after a half day in middle school or high school, go wait outside of TRL hoping that Jesse Camp would give me a pound and then ending the day with lunch at WWF New York. I had celebrated almost everyone of my birthdays with the family from about 1999 to 2003 and even celebrated my junior high school graduation there with my family and a bunch of my friends. This really was the premier spot for any WWE fan as it was the only store you can walk in and buy merchandise and the restaurant was so much fun. There were always superstars stopping by and a packed house for any live airing of Raw or a pay per view. WWF New York even aired smackdown live which I thought was so cool at the time.  

All of that said, I think that it would be really cool for WWE to bring back a restaurant and the idea of a physical hall of fame would be a long time coming. I remember at WWF New York there was a little section of the restaurant dedicated to past WWE artifacts, that would rotate in and out (similar to the set up at Axxess) but never a full museum, the likes of which you would see in Cooperstown for the baseball hall of fame. While, I’ve never been to NBA City, I got to chat with friend of the site and contributing writer, Metsgoon who went to the place just a few years ago and mentioned that it was very spacious. Being a theme park enthusiast, nothing sounds better then spending the day at Harry Potter World and then heading across the street to check out the Royal Rumble live at the WWE restaurant.  

In closing, I’d say that before we all get so excited we should proceed a bit cautiously. WWE held a press conference live yesterday for Wrestlemania in Orlando and nothing has been officially announced by them. That said, if this is being reported by Universal Studios themselves, there’s a good chance that where there is smoke there is some sort of fire. One thing is for sure, as Stephanie McMahon said yesterday, Orlando has become the second home for World Wrestling Entertainment.   

The Spotlight On Wrestlemania 33 Coming To Orlando!

Tom Lynch Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Well it’s official, WWE will be returning to the sunshine state next year for Wrestlemania 33 on April 2nd, 2017! WWE held a press conference earlier today officially announcing that Wrestlemania will return to the, newly renovated, Citrus Bowl for the first time since Wrestlemania 24 in 2008.  This is huge news for vacation goers as Orlando is one of, at least to me, biggest vacation spots in all of the United States. Last year my girlfriend and I had an amazing time at Wrestlemania in California and created our own Wrestling & theme park week! Thus, I’m excited to be being able to recreate some of the grandeur of last year, next year in Orlando! Let me get into all you need to know about Wrestlemania from the press conference today.

-First off, we’ll start with some important dates and locations. WWE Axxess will take place at the Orange County Convention Center throughout the weekend. While I haven’t been there myself, I spoke to a friend who lives in Orlando & he told me that the building is really nice & spacious. The Amway Center, home of the Orlando Magic, will play host to both The 2017 Hall Of Fame, April 1st and Monday Night Raw the night after Wrestlemania, April 3rd. There was no date announced for NXT but with the performance center & NXT headquarters, they film most television out of Full Sail University, being right in Orlando, I’d bet NXT will have quite a prescence Wrestlemania weekend. 

– As far as the press conference today, kudos to WESH news in Orlando for broadcasting the press conference live. I was able to follow along while at work & it was really cool to see. That said, it’s a shame for those folks that couldn’t follow along live, 11AM on a Tuesday few can, that can’t watch the press conference if they wanted to. WWE has its own network & really should make this stuff available for subscribers who want to watch it. Especially if they aired this kind of stuff live, I feel it would draw more people to the livestream on the WWE Network. 
– From the looks of it Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, John Cena, Ric Flair, Charlotte, Roman Reigns and the New Day were all on hand for the press conference and joined different politicians in the local area in sharing their excitement over Wrestlemania returning to Orlando. There were also a number of NXT talents on hand, said to be greeting folks as they entered the conference, including Bayley, Apollo Crews, Baron Corbin and others. John Cena acknowledged the NXT talents, who were sitting front row, and joked that they were given time off to come watch them talk.

-The biggest piece of news, aside from the announcement, was that John Cena officially announced that he will not be taking part in this year’s Wrestlemania. Cena mentioned that for the first time in a decade and a half, he’ll be enjoying Wrestlemania as a fan. I know Cena was doing all he could to return, and it’s tough he won’t be able too, but it’s for the best that he takes his time to recover.  The last thing anyone wants is for Cena to return too soon and injure himself more. 

Overall this was a nice day for WWE and a big win for the city of Orlando, which Stephanie noted has become the WWE’s second home. Wrestlemania raises hundreds of millions of dollars for any city that plays host for it and it really looked like next year was going to be Minnesota. Thus, Orlando mayor Buddy Dyer had every right to dance with the New Day! As a fan, no offense to Minnesotans but nothing beats that combination of Disney and Wrestling…I can’t wait! 

That’s going to do it for now but tomorrow morning I’ll be back as it seems that WWE may not only bringing Wrestlemania to Orlando. Tomorrow we’ll look at whether or not the rumors are true…is WWE creating a physical hall of fame?!