Jay Bower: House Show Report for a subpar show

[Guest EI Cubano]

For those who care about this sort of thing, I found this on my old PC.

 

WWF house show report

April 12, 2001

Fort Myers, Fla. at the TECO Arena

Report by Jay B.

 

Tonight's show at the TECO Arena began with the ring announcer making his way to the ring and announcing the evening's card. Huge heat for the announcement that Steve Austin, Triple H, and the Taker were not in the building tonight. The redneck in front of me seemed a little dumbfounded as to what to do with his "Take me Taker" sign, so he simply raised it for every ring introduction for the rest of the evening and started chanting "Take me Taker," but he had a mullet so it was expected. The National Anthem was sang as we all realized there was not one American Flag in the arena. The ring announcer thanked the fans again and informed us that Chris Jericho planned on winning with the "Ft. Myers Claw."

 

(1) Test defeated Haku with the big boot. Huge unexpected pop for test, the man is simply giant in person. Lukewarm response for "The pride of Tonga." They began by engaging in a plethora of collar and elbow tieups, with Test showing great agility and speed. Haku didn't get much offense in with the exception of a low blow, and Test quickly finished Haku off with an elbow drop and the big boot.

 

(2) Lexus defeated Didi Venturi with a not-so-big splash. Man, second match of the night and we are already seeing developmental talent, god bless the WWF for these split-crew shows. Lexus had music that sounded like the theme for the old Nintendo Ghost N' Goblins game. A few dropkicks and an awkward looking split on the top ropes. Biggest crowd reaction of the match was the noticeably audible sigh of relief for its conclusion, following a less than climactic second rope splash.

 

(3) K-Kwik defeated Funaki with a spinebuster. K-Kwik burst out of the entrance with a rap that would make P.N. News cringe. The house mic was too low and the music was too high so all I could really here was a generic rap beat and "Getting Rowdy.....blah blah....Rowdy....blah." Funaki received a nice little pop. Decent match with a few nice aerial attacks by Funaki and some good ring work by K-Kwik. Kwik defeated Funaki with a high impact spinebuster to a nice pop.

 

(4) Raven defeated Perry Saturn with the Evenflow. The crowd is just completely dead at this point and I am checking my ticket stub to make sure I didn't accidentally buy a ticket to WCW Saturday Night. A bit of mindless brawling. Saturn went for a sunset flip and Raven returned the favor by pulling down Saturn's tights, making for the first (and unfortunately not the last) obligatory ass flashing of the evening. Raven pulled an Evenflow out of nowhere for the win.

 

(5) Crash pinned Jerry Lynn and Dean Malenko to retain the Cruiserweight Title. Good pop for crash, Small pop for Malenko and no response for Jerry Lynn. Match began with all three wrestlers circling the ring. Quick series of moves/countermoves between Lynn and Malenko who gel amazingly well in the ring together. Crash stands in the corner and applauds their mat wrestling. Match ended with Jerry Lynn going for the sunset flip on Crash, who was then clotheslined by Malenko. Crash then rolled through and rolled up Jerry Lynn for the pin and a big pop from the crowd.

Intermission

 

(6) Buh Buh Ray & D-Von & Spike Dudley defeated Edge & Christian & Rhyno with the 3-D. Dudleys come out to by far the biggest pop of the night up to this point and milk the crowd for a bit. Team ECR comes out to a mix of cheers and boos. At this point, I have to ask the fan in front of me to put down his "Take me Taker" sign because I can't see the match, to which he responds "rest in peace." Crowd is chanting for tables already and it does not let up throughout the match. Edge and Christian work over Buh buh Ray who Hulks up and tags in D-von for a whasssssssssup headbutt to enormous roar from the crowd. Spike Dudley gets tagged in and hits an Acid Drop on Rhyno. Spike spends the next 5 minutes completely being decimated by Team ECR. Rhyno destroys Spike with a Gore in the corner. Hot tag to D-von, who clears the ring. "D-von, get the tables!" I didn't get too excited at this point because from what I hear tables never *actually* get used to house-shows, especially not in an unimportant split-crew house show. Why even bring the tables out if they are not going to be used? The crowd was feeling somewhat disappointed already because of the WWF Metal/Jacked talent filling up basically the entire card up to this point. Anyway, flapjack followed by the 3-D on Christian for the win in the best match of the night so far. The Dudleyz played the crowd for another few minutes to huge pops.

 

(7) Big Show defeated Billy Gunn with his new finisher. Tepid crowd response for "The One" and mammoth pop for the Big Show. Terribly slow paced and boring match. You can tell the WWF has all but given up on these two. Gunn spends the duration of the match teasing to show his ass. Big Show with a bionic elbow followed by a big elbow drop, but Gunn rolls out of the way. Gunn hits a Famouser much to my relief because the match must be over now, but the Big Show kicks out at one, completely killing the credibility of Gunn's finisher, for me at least. Big Show with a body slam followed by the reverse spinning neckbreaker he is now using for his finisher. The Big Show is your winner. Crowd called for a chokeslam the whole time, but of course none was given, kind of anti-climactic when Big Show throws his hand in the air to signal his finishing move, and then it just an awkward looking neckbreaker. After the match Billy Gunn stayed in the ring for literally 5 minutes teasing to show his ass, with so many children in attendance and the borderline pornographic way he did it I found it to be rather distasteful. When he faced our section of the arena to gauge crowd reaction to him pulling down his tights our entire section was yelling "oh for the love of god, NOOO!!!!," with the exception of the fan in front of me with the "Take me taker" sign. He was standing on his seat yelling "Mr. Ass, lets see your ass, moon us!!! YEAAAAAAHH!!!!!!," to which our entire section got dead silent, turned around and just stared at him with puzzled looks on our faces.

 

At this point a small scale riot almost breaks out in my section. A fan a few rows up from me was taking pictures of the show with a small, handheld digital still-frame camera. A pretty intimidating member of the WWF staff grabbed a member of the TECO Arena security staff and told him that he had to seize the fans camera and destroy the disk that held his pictures. The Teco security official refused and the WWF official got up in his face and started yelling at him. The WWF employee preceded to walk down the aisle and grab the fans camera, pull out the disk, and stomp on it. The fan was no one who was going to sell the pictures or post them anywhere, he was just a father there with his wife and kids trying to have a good time. The WWF staff member continued to yell at the guy, in front of his kids, until the fan stood and then the Teco Security staffer began coming closer to the arguing men too. The fans in the section though that the WWF man was out of line too, so they started standing and yelling. tensions were getting really high as there now were 4 people in WWF staff shirts, two Teco security members, and about 40 or 50 pissed off fans all jawing at eachother and raising fists asking "do you have a problem with me, step up then." Things eventually cooled down but things were looking like they could have erupted at any moment. With the coming of the new digital age where more and more people are using digital cameras as a more convenient and clearer way to take pictures, the WWF really needs to come up with a more mature way to deal with this then grabbing people's cameras and stomping on their disk. That just gives the WWF a bad name and makes them look like bullies.

 

(8) Chris Jericho defeated Kurt Angle with the Lionsault. Angle comes out first to a loud mixed reaction from the fans. He immediately kicks in full heel mode by getting on the mic and saying "So this is Ft. Myers huh?" in a condescending way which brought on huge chants of "ASSHOLE." He then stated Ft. Myers was a run down trailer park of a town, filled with rednecks and hee-haws. Sadly, Mr. Angle was not far off in his analysis. Angle says he is going to break Jericho's ankle. Giant pop for Y2J who promptly asks Angle to "SHUT THE HELL UP!." Great technical match with both men obviously giving it their all. Quick ankle lock by Angle, but Jericho makes it to the ropes for the break. Jericho gets the Walls of Jericho, Angle gets the rope-break. Ref bump followed by an olympic slam that gets a two count. Angle assaults the ref. Lionsault by Jericho for a fast three count. Jericho climbs the ropes and pulls a rubber glove out of his tights and applies the ft. Myers Claw to Kurt Angle,kind of like the old Von Erich/baron Von Rasche claw. Jericho then claws the ref as his music hits. Angle walks away from the ring and is obviously enjoying Jericho's antics with the claw. The claw thing made absolutely no sense to me at all but Jericho and Angle sure seemed to be amusing themselves with it and it was hard not to laugh along with them.

 

Final Words: The main event seemed like the only thing that could have possibly stopped this show from completely killing the town. My guess is that attendance will be much lower next time. The WWF killed Ft. Myers so bad 9 years ago with one of their 4 hour TV Tapings full of prelim matches that they didn't come back again until 1999. The only matches on the card that really seemed like WWF caliber matches was the Dudleyz match and the main event. I know the WWF is the only major promotion left in the country, but split-crew shows just make for a disappointing way to show a town gratitude for all of the support that they have shown the WWF. It seems as though the WWF is taking for granted the success they have been having for the last few years, and think that people will keep on coming to these shows no matter what happens. But I think the WWF will be in for a surprise in a year when they come back to these B-cities and aren't met with overwhelming enthusiasm. Pensacola also hosted a WWF show last night, with Austin, Triple H, Undertaker, Kane, Benoit, Guerrero, X- Factor, Hardy Boys, Lita, Regal, Trish, and basically everyone who makes up the majority of the uppercard in the WWF. While Pensacola admittedly is a bigger market than Ft. Myers, having the Undertaker, Benoit or some other major star on the show would have sent the fans home a little happier. This attitude of "Ft. Myers should be happy that the WWF even came through your town" makes me extremely agitated as a fan, and its not hard to see why the business is waning. When looking at the WWF events schedule it can be seen that the WWF is running two shows in the next EIGHT days! Raw and Smackdown are the only events scheduled for the next eight days. Why the WWF would half-ass a show when they could have done it right in not only Ft. Myers but Pensacola as well, and still had 5 days off, eludes me. Well, my final analysis of the show was that, as always, the action was pretty entertaining in a few matches and the rest was just kind of "there." But overall, most of the fans seemed pretty disappointed. And to put the icing on the cake, the event tonight was sponsored by Corn Nuts, and as I approached my car I found that I and several others were blocked in by the Corn Nut Van. What a night.