Guest Report post Posted June 19, 2002 Commentary Hawaii 5O June 19,2002 Okay I have no idea what the 5O stands for but I was in Hawaii this past Saturday, and it made a decent name for a TV series so why not a commentary. I wasn’t in Hawaii on vacation, we had a house show there. Wow a paid vacation in Hawaii. Well not exactly, I was there less than 9 hours. 4 of those hours were spent at the airport, 3 at the building, and the remaining 2 were spent driving to and from the aforementioned or at TGI Fridays. It certainly was a long way to go for lunch and a match, but you play the cards that are dealt you. Lunch was really nice at least. We sat out on the patio at TGI Fridays and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Service was slow as hell, but it’s not like we were in a huge rush. The show itself was fantastic. WWE hadn’t been to Hawaii since 1994 so the show sold out in about an hour and the crowd was rowdy and full of energy. It wasn’t your typical wrestling crowd. I think there were more casual fans in attendance than usual. With WWE being such a rare occurrence there were likely a number of people who had never been to a live wrestling show before. With a less educated crowd (non-hardcore, loyal TV watching) they didn’t react much to holds and actual wrestling but popped for every bump. This made for a fast paced show, as there was no need for us to try to slow a match down and tell as story. At times like these it’s best to just give the crowd what they want, a fast paced TV like match. We delivered and they responded. I wrestled Billy Kidman on the show and had one of our better matches. Kidman is always a pleasure to work with, and with his tan, of late, he could almost pass for a local. In addition to a great show there were two people of note in attendance. Genichiro Tenryu, my old boss from WAR in Japan, was there and it was great to see him again. Tenryu is likely the best boss I ever worked for. He gave me steady work for over 2-years, when I really needed it, and always made sure I was taken care of. I think he was actually the first person to congratulate me on the birth of my first daughter. I was in Japan when she was born and every morning when I boarded the team bus Tenryu would ask me, “Baby come yet?” The morning she was born and I said yes, he was the first to shake my hand and congratulate me. Every tour after that he would always ask how she was. Tenryu is definitely one of the “good guys”. He seemed genuinely pleased that both Jericho and I (we both worked for him in WAR) have done so well. I think on some level he will always think of us as “his boys”. The other person of note was Bruce Willis. Seriously! I guess he knows Rock and came by to see him and catch the show. Bruce seemed like a real down to earth guy. He made a point to come back stage several times during the show and talk to the guys and put over their matches. I don’t think he had ever been to a show before, but he looked like he was having a really good time. He sat front row, ring side and even did a small spot with Rock and Jericho during their match. It was great meeting him, but I was amazed at how small he was. Being around “the boys” all the time you sometimes forget how big we all are. I consider myself a below average size guy by “wrestling” standards and forget that by regular people standards I’m pretty big. I guess I need to get out more and actually spend some time with regular people to get some of my perspective back. All in all it was a great time. The travel was brutal, but that’s nothing new. Hopefully the next time I go to Hawaii I’ll be able to spend a bit of time there. Till next week, Aloha! Lance Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
