WWF

The Rumble of The Royal Rumble- 1991

Tom Lynch Spotlight On The WWE Network, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ah Yes the Royal Rumble 1991, a show that I’ll always hold near and dear to my heart and it just may very well be a show that I’ve seen more than any other pay per view in WWE history.  Before we get to the show itself, I’d like to provide a bit of backstory as to where I was at the time in terms of being a fan.  Most people can’t tell you exactly how they became a fan but I can.  Well, I was only 4 years old so we’re talking these are my absolute earliest memories of wrestling and in life for that matter.  Towards the middle of 1990, my father was also a huge wrestling fan.  Every Saturday and Sunday my mother would work and this lasted for about five years from when I was about 6 months old until I was about 5 years old.  Thus, every weekend my father would hang out with me and we’d sit right in front of the television set watching wrestling.  We would watch 3 hours on Saturday afternoon and 3 hours on Sunday afternoon from the time that I was still in a carriage.  I really believe that from these moments wrestling became ingrained in me and I never turned back.

In 1990, my dad found a friend at work that was able to order the pay per view events.  He and my father split the cost of the shows and my dad’s friend would watch and record the shows and then hand them off to my father so he and I could watch the following week.  At the time, all you had to do at the time was avoid a little results section in the newspaper so it wasn’t like today in the world of Twitter, Facbook and insane amounts of WWE programming where you can’t avoid results for more than an hour.  In any event, once 1991 came around, this was really when cable television started to become big and so I remember on the day of the Royal Rumble there were men in our house all day.  They were blowing holes through the wall and making a ton of noise for what felt like all day.  I kept asking my parents what was going on but they just kept telling me it was a surprise.  When the men were done, my father had revealed that we had gotten cable television.  This meant that, for the first time ever, we were going to be able to order the Royal Rumble live on pay per view.

It was just an incredible idea, the likes of which I thought that I would never see.  It was just unheard of for me at the time to fathom that what I was watching on television was what was going on live at that moment.  I must have asked my parents, “so this is happening right now?!?” all night long. None of my other friends were getting pay per views and wouldn’t for quite a few years so I became the wrestling insider amongst my friends at the age of just 4 years old.  It is because of this that I will always hold this event in a special place in my heart.

Royal Rumble 1991

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Results

The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty) defeated The Orient Express (Tanaka and Kato) (with Mr. Fuji)

Big Boss Man defeated The Barbarian (with Bobby Heenan)

Sgt. Slaughter (with General Adnan) defeated The Ultimate Warrior for the WWF Championship

The Mountie (with Jimmy Hart) defeated Koko B. Ware

Ted DiBiase and Virgil defeated Dusty Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes

Hulk Hogan won by last eliminating Earthquake in the Royal Rumble match

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First things first this is the debut of the Royal Rumble theme song.  If you go  out and order the new “True Story of The Royal Rumble” blu ray set (which I suggest you do, it’s a fun watch) that’s the song you hear and it’s the song that’s the most synonymous with the Royal Rumble show.  This was also the show if which they started the really fun ad campaign with the poster you see above promoting all of the major superstars in the match.  I thought these were really cool and way ahead of their time.

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After a couple of years of the Royal Rumble being the complete focus on the show, it was as if this was the year where they made the Rumble event mean more overall.  This was the first Royal Rumble event which featured a World Title Match as well as the Rumble match.  In many ways, the title match was a bigger story than the Rumble match itself because it marked the end, in many ways, of the Ultimate Warrior experiment.  The Ultimate Warrior had won the world title from Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania 6 and had seemingly taken over as the face of the company.  However, business was down with the Ultimate Warrior as the face of the WWF and he just din’t click the same way that Hulk Hogan did when he was on top.  Thus, the decision was made to take the title off of the Ultimate Warrior at this show as Sergeant Slaughter defeated him for the belt.  Sergeant Slaughter had recently returned to wrestling and was now doing his Iraqi sympathizer character.  The decision to put the belt on Slaughter was a controversial one being that the US had legitimately gone to war in the with Iraq during the Gulf War.  Dave Meltzer described it in the Wrestling Observor Newsletter “Many within the WWF front office feared a media backlash against such an obvious attempt to heavily exploit the war” and “But in this case, the hypocrisy is just too much for me. The company can claim all day long not to condone the character, but it was the president of the company that was the creator of the character and the man who decided to make him champion at the height of the hostilities.”

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This year during the Royal Rumble, Hulk Hogan would go on to win the Royal Rumble which made sense.  Even thought the Rumble match was not yet for the shot at the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, it was clear that WWE was going back to Hogan to defend the US against Slaughter.  Thus, he was the logical choice for the Rumble win especially when he went on to dedicate the Rumble to the troops overseas.  Afew weird things in this Rumble started with the fact that Nasty Boy Brian Knobbs was in this match but Jerry Sags was not.  There was also an entrant who did not enter as the announcers were left wondering who it was supposed to be, it was Randy Savage but I don’t believe any explanation was given.  The incredibly racist Saba Simba also made an appearance in this Rumble as did a very young Shane Douglas.  The iron man in the match was Rick The Model Martel, who last over 52 minutes.

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Looking back at this show, the match of the night was actually the opener, a really fun match between the Rockers and the Orient Express.  The match is actually featured on the latest “True Story of The Royal Rumble” DVD set and is a lot fun.  This was towards the end of the Rockers run but they were always the best team to put on first and get the crowd going with fast paced matches, this night was no exception.

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Lastly, on this packed show, it’s also important to mention that this was the night in which  Virgil finally turned on the Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase.  This was one of my favorite stories ever told as it was laid out over 3 years from the Million Dollar man’s debut in November of 1987 all the way up until January of 1991.  Virgil was the man servant of Ted Dibiase and was treated like crap.  Finally at the end of their tag match against Dusty Rhodes and a very young Dustin Rhodes, Virgil finally had enough and stood up for himself, laying out Dibiase in the process.

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Looking back, while this may not be the best Rumble match itself of all time, it’s one of my favorite Rumble shows of all time.  What do you think about this show?  Did you think WWE was too much in utlizing the real life issues going on at the time between the United States and Iraq for this angle or do you feel that all is fair in love and wrestling?  Let me know in the comment section below or over on twitter @tommyonthespot.

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The Rumble of The Royal Rumble 1990

Tom Lynch Spotlight On The WWE Network, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s amazing that as we continue this trip down memory lane looking back at all of the past Royal Rumble events to see how the Royal Rumble transformed and continued to evolve throughout the years.  Let’s get right into the results of the show and what I remember most when looking back at the event.

Royal Rumble 1990- Orlando Arena in Orlando, Florida- January 21, 1990

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Results

The Bushwhackers (Butch and Luke) defeated The Fabulous Rougeaus (Jacques and Raymond)

Brutus Beefcake fought The Genius to a double disqualification

Ronnie Garvin defeated Greg Valentine

Jim Duggan defeated Big Boss Man (with Slick) by disqualification

Hulk Hogan won by last eliminating Mr. Perfect in the Royal Rumble match

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It’s important to remember with these early Royal Rumble events that there was nothing on the line for the winner of the Royal Rumble.  What this meant basically was that the main selling point of the Rumble show was the Royal Rumble match and so everything went into the promotion of the Rumble match and building that match up with as much star power as possible.  Thus, when you go back and watch this Rumble match, it just flies right by because it’s a really loaded Rumble.  In this match alone you had Hogan, Warrior, Savage, Perfect, Rude, Dusty, Andre, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Piper, Jake Roberts and Jimmy Snuka.  That’s a dozen all time great WWE hall of famers off the top of my head.  It begins really quick too as 8 of the first 11 participants are all hall of famers and so this Rumble really holds your interest from start to finish.

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The hype for the Rumble throughout the show was also at a premium as I counted pre Royal Rumble promos from 18 of the participants.  Of course, there were also interviews with the Rumble participants before they got to the match.  The two highlights for me were Ted Dibiase and Mr. Perfect.  There was a good amount of intrigue around Dibiase leading into the event due to him buying number 30 the year prior but this year he revealed that Virgil had drawn number 1 for him.  Mr. Perfect, on the other hand, was really coming into his own as a top level heel.  He was still technically undefeated in WWE and revealed before the match that he had drawn the “Perfect number” basically letting everyone know that he was number 30.  It took a little bit of the mystique away from the Rumble that we knew numbers 1 and 30 since those two spots were always given a good amount of hype since it was built that number 30 held the greatest advantage and number 1 the greatest disadvantage (even though honestly number 2 starts off at the exact same moment that number 1 does but that’s neither here nor there).

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One of the things I really liked about the show overall was that there were a number of Wrestlemania matches that were teased throughout the night and eventually came to fruition.  Mr. Perfect would eventually go on to face Brutus Beefcake at Wrestlemania 6 after his post-match beatdown of Beefcake after his match with the Genious.  Dusty Rhodes and Randy Savage as well as Bad News Brown and Roddy Piper would also set up their respective Wrestlemania matches during the Royal Rumble match.  Of course though, the biggest showdown would come when both The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan cleared house of everyone else in the ring until it came down to the two of them alone in the ring.  This was one of the first faceoffs between the two and the crowd just went bananas (quoting the late great Gorilla Monsoon).  It was the top babyface in the company and world champion, in Hulk Hogan, going face to face with the fastest rising arguably hottest babyface in the Ultimate Warrior.  Their faceoff was the moment of the match for me.  Eventually Warrior would get double teamed by the two next guys who entered the match, Rick Rude and The Barbarian, are double teaming the Ultimate Warrior when Hogan runs back in and hits everyone with a clothesline inadvertedly eliminated the Warrior. Just like that you had your Wrestlemania 6 main event.  Thus, while the rumble winner didn’t get a title shot at Wrestlemania just yet, a good amount of the top matches at Wrestlemania were foreshadowed during this show.

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The one thing that, looking back, I would have changed about this Rumble match was that I really wouldn’t have had Hulk Hogan win the match.  It made no sense to have Hogan, the champion, who’s popularity at this point was waning, win the Royal Rumble.  For one this match was all about Ted Dibiase who lasted over 45 minutes from number 1 and I thought he would have been an interesting winner in that he couldn’t win the Rumble at number 30 in 1989 but came back to win the 1990 Rumble all the way from number 1.  Regardless, his long run in the Rumble match would kickoff a three year stretch in where a heel would last the longest in the Rumble match culminating in 1992, which we’ll get to on Thursday.  Mr. Perfect also would have made all the sense in the world to win the Royal Rumble this year.  He was still undefeated and debuted as this arrogant SOB who continued to prove that he was better than everyone at everything.  A Rumble win here really would have gotten him over as that next top heel and had him come across as completely legitimate. (The Rumor I’ve heard for years was that Perfect was actually supposed to win the Rumble but the plan was changed to Hogan, seems to be strictly rumor though at this point)  Of course, at the end of the day, the no brainer choice for the Rumble win this year was the Ultimate Warrior.  He had all the momentum in the world going into this match and him getting the Rumble win over Hogan, to me, would have added even more intrigue to the mega match between the two at Wrestlemania 6.

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Aside from the Rumble, the one thing I always remember enjoying as a kid was the Rugged Ronny Garvin Vs. Greg Valentine match.  This was more hokeyness but it’s the only thing I remember from Garvin’s entire WWF run.  The story here was actually pretty unique in that Greg Valentine had defeated Garvin in a retirement match forcing Garvin to retire.  When Garvin did retire, he ended up getting all of these odd jobs in WWE like referee and announcer trying to screw with Valentine.until eventually Valentine begged for Garvin to get his job back so that Valentine could get his hands on him.  This led to a match between the two on this show in which Garvin won but what I remember most about this match was the Hammer Jammer.  The Hammer Jammer was a guard that Garvin wore that allowed him to block the figure four leg lock.  This lead to a spot in the match where Valentine locked on the figure four leg lock only for Garvin to make a bunch of funny faces as the move didn’t effect him because of the hammer jammer.  Funny faces aside, this was a pretty underrated match between two veterans.

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That’s going to do it for today but what were some of your favorite memories of the Royal Rumble 1990?  Let us know in the comment section below or over on twitter @Daily_Spotlight

The Rumble of The Royal Rumble- 1989

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

It’s probably important before we move on that I point out that the first Royal Rumble event I ever saw live was the Royal Rumble 1991.  That said, the Royal Rumble 1989 and Royal Rumble 1990 were two shows that I saw about a million times growing up.  Since these shows were some of the few available at my local Blockbuster and some of the few events I didn’t own, I went out of my way to rent these tapes every time I had the chance to do so.  My parents were smart and knew that if we didn’t record the pay per views when we ordered them, I would want to buy the tapes as soon as they came out.  Thus, I owned pretty much every WWF pay per view on VHS cassette from 1991-2005 or until Digital TVs came out and made it tough to record on video cassette.  Thus, every other show that was available at Blockbuster made it’s way to my house every Friday when my father would go down to get us a movie.  It seemed like the videos at Blockbuster only went back to 1989 so in many ways this 1989 Royal Rumble was the beginning of my wrestling fandom, at least wrestling that I could remember.  With that out of the way let’s get into my thoughts of the Royal Rumble 1989.

Royal Rumble 1989- The Summit in Houston, Texas- January 15th, 1989

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Match Results

The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) and Jim Duggan defeated The Fabulous Rougeaus (Jacques and Raymond) and Dino Bravo (with Frenchy Martin and Jimmy Hart) in a Two out of three falls match

Rockin’ Robin (c) defeated Judy Martin for the WWF Women’s Championship

King Haku (with Bobby Heenan) defeated Harley Race

Big John Studd won by last eliminating Ted DiBiase in the Royal Rumble match

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This was the first Royal Rumble to be presented on pay per view and also the first Royal Rumble to feature the, now famous, 30 participants.  Unlike the first Rumble event that we went over last night, the Royal Rumble is the complete focus of this show from start to finish.  There are only three other matches and other than a really fun six man tag opener, the other two matches were largely forgettable.  If you’re in the mood for Royal Rumble nostalgia then this is the show for you.  Right off the bat we’re greeted with the video montage of all of the Royal Rumble participants as Vince McMahon runs down all of the participants before proudly proclaiming “ITS THE ROYYYYYAAAALLLLL RRRUMMMBBBBLLLLLEEEEEE!!!!!”  in classic Vince McMahon announcer voice.  They only continued this for the first few Rumble pay per views but damn I loved these videos.  They got you so excited for the rest of the show and made everyone mean something by having their video features pop up on the screen.  Also, if you weren’t following along at the time, it introduced you to all of the participants.

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From here throughout the night there was a variety of vignettes that ran with a number of the participants choosing there spot in the rumble at random.  These were a lot of fun and got you ready for the match later on that night as they would set up good teasers as to the numbers each guy got based on their reactions to the numbers picked.  The big one I remember here was that The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase went ahead and purchased a more favorable number from Slick, who at the time was managing the Twin Towers.  Then from there this was the debut of the classic Royal Rumble promos that would run throughout then night and feature some of the bigger names standing in front of their logos via green screen.  These always did a lot for me because they set up a number of potential winners for the Rumble.  It was obvious to me that with all of these different pieces that WWE wanted to build up the Rumble as just as important as the other big three pay per views, which had already debuted as annual pay per view traditions.

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As for the Rumble match itself, believe it or not, this one ranks up there as one of the most unpredictable Rumbles of all time to this day.  Remember, at the time, the Royal Rumble was not for the main event spot at Wrestlemania.  Therefore, with no clear reward for the winner, WWE was allowed to take a chance with the winner.  If you look at some of the Royal Rumble participants, it reads like a late 1980s who’s who of talent.  Huge stars like Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Curt Hennig, Andre The Giant, Jake Roberts, and The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase, to name a few, were all in the Rumble this year and you know what? None of them went on to win this match.  Instead, the winner of the match was Big John Studd who had just returned from a 2 year retirement a few months prior, turning face in the process.  The Studd win came out of nowhere as he didn’t even have a match at Wrestlemania 5 and would be gone from the WWF just six months after this.  While it was really cool to see someone win out of nowhere, looking back it would have been nice to see Ted Dibiase get the win.  He was such a hot heel and always seemed to be right there to get that tip top spot (Wrestlemania 4, 1988 Main Event, the Royal Rumble 1989) but never quite seemed to get over the top for a variety of reasons.

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There were also a couple of Rumble themes that debuted with this show. The first theme of course was that there were no friends and only enemies in the Royal Rumble.  This was no truer than Ax of Demolition drawing number 1 and Smash of Demolition drawing number 2 and then actually wrestling each other until teaming back up when Andre The Giant entered at Number 3.  Speaking of Andre he introduced us to our next theme of everyone in the ring coming together to try and eliminate the big guy in the match.  This always made for a nice visual and never quite worked with Andre who eliminated himself due his fear of snakes after Jake Roberts threw his snake back into the ring.  As stated earlier, there wasn’t anything on the line in the Rumble but that didn’t mean that this Rumble didn’t have major implications on Wrestlemania later that year.  The aforementioned Andre The Giant and Jake The Snake Roberts would go on to have at match at Wrestlemania but we would also see a bit of hype for that year’s Wrestlemania main event.  This was still during the year long build for the Hulk Hogan/ Randy Savage match at Wrestlemania 5 when the two were still teaming as the Mega Powers.  The tension between the two would continue to build throughout the year and nearly reached a climax here as Hogan would accidentally eliminate Savage.  Looking back, why was Savage the heel in this feud?  Hogan was always being the one to screw Savage over!

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Aside from the Rumble, the one thing that I remember most from this show was actually the posedown between Rick Rude and The Ultimate Warrior.  This was one of the silliest segments I can remember, even more hokey than the Dino Bravo bench press from the year prior, but as a kid I watched this segment almost everytime I rented this tape.  This was during the time period where the WWF was at its peak with the larger than life bodybuilder types on the top of the card.  This was still over a year before Vince McMahon would launch the World Bodybuilding Federation but you could tell how passionate he was about Bodybuilding with segments like these.  Jesse Ventura was classic again in this segment really putting over each pose.  Unlike the year before, the Ultimate Warrior was now on the rise in WWE and was likely held out of the Rumble match so that he could be protected and given his own segment.  While it may have been hokey, it was cool to see WWE doing something different and the result of this posedown would be the start of the Ultimate Warrior/ Rick Rude feud that would last over a year and give the Ultimate Warrior some of the best matches of his career.

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Well that’s going to do it for the Royal Rumble 1989, tomorrow we will look back at the Royal Rumble 1990 as Hulkamania runs wild, the Rumble theme song debuts, A familiar voice calls the action  and the Hammer Jammer? Until then, what were some of your favorite memories of the Royal Rumble 1989?!

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!