My WrestleFanFest Experiance Friday 10/19
Now that WrestleFanFest is over, I can happily blog about....well about my experiance anyways, but I'm doing to do it in parts, starting with day 1, Friday the 19th, which will be done in two parts. :0)
Friday was going to be a long tire-some day for me and I knew it. I was excited about it, but I just knew it was going to be a long tiresome day. Mainly because of my day job. For my day job, I have to be at work at 6 in the morning and I DON'T go to bed early, I really can't unless I take a pill and I don't do that unless I don't feel good or have a bad toothache. For my job, I drive a truck, so not only do I have to get up early in the morning and not get a lot of sleep because I don't go to bed early, but I drive for the better part of my day. The truck I drive isn't a big rig or anything, it's just a flatbed truck, that's like 10 feet long or something, by the way, the only reason why I'm telling you all this stuff, it isn't important to my story but it helps me tell my story about how I know it's going to be a long tiresome day that I was excited for.
So after a 7 hour shift of driving around Oakland all day, and taking two cat naps in my truck, as I had to wait for a few companys to take care of a few things before I could move on to the next place, I left work at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and hurried home to take a shower and get cleaned up and make my way out to the Cow Palace. I left my house around 3 all nice and packed up. Luckily on the way there, traffic wasn't all that bad, there was a bit on the 101 after the Bay Bridge but I lucked out as it died out pretty quickly, so I was able to get to the Cow Palace a few minutes after 4 pm.
I pulled into the parking lot expecting that I wasn't going to pay because I was working the show, but did the parking people have a list of names of people suppose to be at the convention.....nope they didn't, so I was suppose to pay the 8 dollar parking fee, which I really wasn't to happy about, I was even more dissapointed when I found out I only had 7 dollars on me. I asked the parking guy if I could back up and go find a atm to get more money as I only had 7 dollars on me, he told me to go ahead and park but next time I need a parking pass. I quickly explained that I hadn't been given any information except on who to ask for when I got to the door and he didn't want to hear it, so I drove away and parked. I walked up to the front door and was asked to open my bag, I told them I was a Referee for the show tonight and needed to know where to go, I got told gate 11.
I went over to gate 11, and was asked on where my pass was, I told them I didn't have a pass as I hadn't recieved it yet but I was suppose to ask for someone when I showed up. Another worker named Jardi Frantz was next to me as well and was explaining the same thing, it was the first time I had met Jardi but I had heard of him before. After we both explained our sitution and had the same story pretty much, we were let in to try and go find where we get our damn passes. We walked towards the back of this room where the vendors, booths, and wrestlers doing autographs were being held and asked around, but we both got no information. After a few minutes, I told Jardi was going to walk around and just see if I can find anyone I knew and walked away. Shortly I found Sir Samurai and one of his students.
Sir Samurai and his student shook my hand and gave me a brotherly love hug and pulled me in the right direction to go, which was to the back. In the 5 minutes that I was in the convention hall, I had already seen Virgil (Millon Dollar Man body guard), Mean Gean Okerland, and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. On the way to the back, before we had rounded a corner, Samurai warned me not to mark out to hard because the entire backstage area was filled with legends and other wrestlers...and he wasn't kidding. Devon was there, Slick, Ernest Miller, One Man Gang, and others well. Also I found a lot of the Nor-Cal wrestlers who had already been there for awhile. Helfyre, Alexis Darevko, Jason Vega, Maynard Skynard, Mr. Frost, Tim Thatcher and others as well. Also two guys from LA who I knew from before were there as well, which was great as I hadn't seen them in awhile.
As time went by, more and more wrestlers/legends started coming around and I got to meet a lot of them. Dr. Death Steve Willams, Bubba from Team 3D, Lance Hoyt, Mean Gean Okerland, Larry Zybysko (who told me his neighbor had a dog named Toby and I responded, "I always hear that when I meet someone new.), Eric Bischoff (who I didn't meet, but said Hi to.), Kamala, Rock Riddle, April Hunter, Ultimo Dragon, Francine, Steve Corino, The Sandman, Black Pearl, Chavo Gurrero sr., Orlando Jordan, and so many more. A lot of indy guys from around the United States as well.
As it became closer to show time, I went up to the locker room to get changed. When I found a room, there was Gangrel talking with Traci Brooks. I introduced myself to her and found a spot against the wall and started getting changed. I would say I introduced myself to Gangrel, but I've worked with him so much as of lates, he feels like one of the boys to me. After getting changed, I decided to stay by the stairs in the hallway because A. it was getting crowded and B. it was getting hot and there was a nice ass draft coming from downstairs to upstairs. So I stood next to the stairs.
When I got to the stairs, I heard a loud banging sound as someone was coming up them, I peaked my down and there's Big Poppa Pump Scott Steiner walking up the stairs, the banging sound was coming from his bag hitting the stairs. When he got up the stairs, I introduced myself, Rick Steiner was already upstairs, along with the Powers of Pain the Barbarian and Warlord, and let me tell you they both are still in great shape, espically Warlord. I didn't introduce myself to Warlord as I was intimated, I did however did introduce myself to Barbarian before the show started, he ended up dressing in the same room as I did, so I had to. I was nervous as all hell but Barbarian was completely and totally a great guy. Very easy to talk to.
After Scott Steiner came up the stairs, I saw that someone else started making their way up the stairs as well, The Great Muta. I shook his hand and mentally marked out hard! Physcially I looked very comfortable around him, but mentally...yeah I was marking out. More and More wrestlers started coming up to the locker room and I introduced myself them all one at a time, all very nice people. I decided to go downstairs and find the other Refs to see what matches I had schduled for the night.
To be honest, I was a bit worried about what matches I was going to get. The other 3 Refrees were from So-Cal and were friends, and normally Nor-Cal and So-Cal workers don't get along to well. Luckily I really haven't that problem when it came to Rated2G and Chino, but I was worried about the other Ref's because A) It seemed they were all friends and B) This wasn't no indy show. When I got downstairs, the other Refs pulled me aside and showed me the card. They told me I had match 3; Al Snow & Blue Meanie vs Luke Hawk and Alkatrazz, Match 7; The Battle Royal (All of the Referees were out for that match, and Match 11; The Main Event The Sandman vs Steve Corino vs The Great Muta. Yup I had the main event, I was mentally Marking out even harder now, it was like a orgasmic marking out....physically I was all fucking smiles..not quite marking out, but you could easily tell I was happy and excited as all fuck. I heavily thanked the other 3 Referees and went off and told a lot of the workers who I was close with.
Everyone close to me worker wise, shook my hand, gave me a brotherly love hug, and told me congrats. I introduced myself to Al Snow, The Blue Meanie, Luke Hawk, Alkatrazz, Steve Corino, Francine, The Sandman, Babydoll, The Great Muta, and another woman whose name escapes me right now as I just can't remember it. She told me it when I met her, but there was a lot of noise so I really didn't catch it. All of the workers involved in these matches treated me very nicely and I was very honored to have their matches. Never in my life did I ever think I'd be sitting in the same room as these guys, it was a dream come fucking true. It was so great.
(I'm going to skip the backstage stuff, i'd most likely get in trouble for telling those stories, so I'm not, I'm sorry.)
So 7:30 starts nearing by and the wrestlers and workers are getting themselves ready for the show and their matches and now...it's show time.
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