Storytellers: Jheri Evans
Posted under: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to attend a live WWE event? Well kiddies, today’s your lucky day, because Jheri Evans of Decoder, Crash Symbols, and Pariah Carey just did, and he’s here to give us a detailed play-by-play of his entire experience. With that said, read through as Evans discusses friendly fanboy showdowns, expensive merchandise, pre-show weed smoking, and the Hulk Hogan of our generation.
Storytellers will never be the same…
Before I really describe the details of my first WWE pay-per-view (PPV) event on May 20, I want to give a short explanation of my long-time love of professional wrestling and the WWE. When I was a kid my uncle was an established wrestling fan. WCW and WWF (which later became WWE) were the two biggest names in professional wrestling, with a smaller company called ECW thriving almost entirely on PPV events. This was a time when people were just figuring out that wrestling was fake, or “scripted”—as a lot of fans will correct you. Regardless, I was a nine-year-old privileged with the early knowledge that wrestling was fake, and as a little prick, I liked to goad my uncle about how it was fake and he was dumb for watching it. Then on May 17, 1998, I saw my first wrestling event. It was WCW’s Slamboree PPV. I actually only saw the main event, but it just happened to be the right match. Then WCW Tag Team Champions Kevin Nash and Scott Hall were facing Sting and The Giant (who is now Big Show in WWE) for the championship titles. Nash and Hall were part of the newly formed nWo Wolfpac, a sort of anti-hero offshoot of nWo Hollywood, who were total bad guys. I don’t even remember what got me to sit down and watch the match, but Sting’s make-up was cool, so maybe that was it. If Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy” was still Sting’s theme music at the time it very well could’ve been that. Beyond that, all I remember is Scott Hall betraying Kevin Nash mid-match, knocking him out and letting The Giant get the pin to win the Tag Team Championships for he and Sting. I looked over at my uncle incredulously, in total shock by what had happened. I couldn’t wrap my brain around why this guy had the title that the other guys wanted and just turned on his partner and gave it up. Hall then revealed he’d rejoined nWo Hollywood and thought Nash was a fool. On top of this, The Giant joined nWo Hollywood the week before, while his partner Sting was still unsure. Two weeks later, Sting joined nWo Wolfpac and lost his half of the Tag Team Championships. I was hooked. It turns out I’m a sucker for outrageous stories as much as I am just good ones.
This past Sunday, May 20, I had the awesome pleasure of going to my first ever WWE event. I’d been to a couple of WCW weekly events back when I first became a fan, but that was over ten years ago. Also, this wasn’t just one of the weekly shows, it was a pay-per-view! I had seen at the beginning of the year that Over The Limit would be at the PNC Arena in Raleigh, NC. Though that’s only two hours away from me. Although I’m an avid WWE fan, my financial situation still had me on the fence about going to the event. Then, a couple of weeks before the pay-per-view, one of my dream matches was booked for it. CM Punk would face Daniel Bryan for the WWE Championship at Over The Limit in Raleigh. My favorite quality in any wrestler is the ability to talk on the microphone in a way that keeps the fans engaged, be it as a face (good guy) or a heel (bad guy.) CM Punk and Daniel Bryan are arguably the two best performers in the WWE in this regard, and to top it off they’re both actually incredibly skilled in-ring performers. I was certain the two would put on an incredible match. At this point, there was no real choice aside from going, along with one of my best friends, Joe, who watches Monday Night RAW and Friday Night SmackDown every week with me.
Joe and I arrived at the PNC Arena shortly before 4pm on the day of the match to find out that the doors wouldn’t open until 6.45, so we had about 3 hours to kill. The plan was to go ahead and park, hang out by the car, maybe smoke a bowl or two and eat our Subway leftovers while we waited. Unfortunately, we ended up parked just a few spaces from a uniformed officer in an unmarked car. I remarked about some big-rig trucks I had seen with various WWE superstars depicted on the side as we drove in, so I packed a bowl and stuck it in my jacket pocket before we walked to the other side of the arena to get a closer look at the trucks. Luckily there was no one in the area and the bowl dilemna solved itself. After snapping a picture we got back to the parking lot to grab our sandwiches, tickets, and the signs we’d made for the event, before heading to wait by the entrance. During all that, only about an hour had managed to pass. We spent another thirty minutes or so outside before going heading into the lobby to queue up in lines by the metal detectors. Fortunately, I’d left all my weapons at home. A few fans chatted with us while we waited with excitement, but only a few folks having made it to the line before us. A boy in his early teen years with an obvious back disorder came up to us and talked to us about our signs. Joe had made one for Randy Orton with a viper drawn on it, as Orton is often referred to as “The Viper.” The kid remarked how he really liked Joe’s sign a lot. Then he noticed my sign and looked at me as if I had had just murdered someone. I had made a sign with one simple word repeated an obnoxious amount of times all over it. “Yes!” It’s the calling card of Daniel Bryan, a slogan he uses to celebrate winning in very underhanded ways, as if he’d truly accomplished something without aid. The boy explained to me how his older brother was a huge Bryan fan and pointed him out to me. Sure enough, the guys hair and facial hair looked like Bryan’s, and he was wearing a shirt that also had “Yes! Yes! Yes!” splayed across it. The boy told me how it was impossible to argue with his brother about Bryan, and began to break down his dislike for the wrestler. I then explained to him why I’m a fan, and he became excited at our ability to pick out facets of character design and explain why we liked them without getting angry at differing opinions. We chatted for another ten minutes or so before he went back over to wait with his family in line. Hands down, that one of the best conversations about wrestling I’ve ever had.
After a wait that felt like forever, we were finally led inside. Joe and I scoped out the merch tables before heading to our seats. As is the norm with these sorts of events, everything was grossly overpriced. I was, however, a little excited by how the booth setup looked like an arcade ticket counter where you would trade your hard earned game tickets for cheap crap. There’s an interesting parallel there. Joe remarked about wanting to get a program for the event before a few moments exclaiming “$10!? Fuck that shit.” We settled on a $4 twenty-ounce soda to share that we would manage to nurse for a good two hours. We then made our way to our seats, where the excitement really kicked in. We were seated in 126F, and as we made our way down the aisle or row 126 searching for F we continued to get more giddy the closer we got to where the ring was. We sat down in our seats and were immediately in awe of how close the ring was too us, how well we could see everything. We were directly across from the entrance ramp, allowing a perfect view of the jumbo-tron where the video being shown live on television could also be seen to better view the matches. It was ideal for us, and we were amped.
The night began with a pre-show match between Kane and Zach Ryder. Ryder has this lame Long Island bro gimmick that has somehow managed to win over the majority of the WWE audience, but it certainly hasn’t won me over. The dude is a pretty good in-ring performer though and he typically puts on good matches. Kane has been doing this since I was a kid, and since he recently put his mask back on I’ve become a fan again. He’s a creepy looking fella—the mask helps. The match lasted a little over ten minutes and was pretty well worked, with Kane getting the win via pinfall after chokeslamming Zach Ryder. I had just seen Kane chokeslam someone in real life. I looked over at Joe with a huge grin on my face and got an equal smirk, knowing we were both on cloud nine.
Over The Limit officially began with a battle royal match that was announced first via a text message from WWE’s text alert thing, which I’d received while we were waiting in line. Joe and I had spent a good 20-minutes tossing out names of who might win, especially since the winner would get to challenge his choice of either the Intercontinental Champion or the U.S. Champion. There were about twenty people in this match and most of them I don’t care to even mention. I was a little baffled by the amount of low-level talent they used, but The Miz and a returning-from-injury Christian were both entrants that excited me, as well as the UK-legend William Regal and rising superstar Tyson Kidd, who’s been growing on me quite a bit this past year. I’ll save you the boring, sloppy details and tell you Christian won the match. This was mostly filler to build a reason for Christian to make his return and get a title shot in the same night. He would go on to choose to face Intercontinental Champion Cody Rhodes, a match we’ll get to later.
After the ring was cleared a huge fireworks display went off, officially welcoming us to WWE Over The Limit. The fireworks were loud, something every middle-aged man I talked to in the lobby had warned me about. At this point, a huge swiveling crane-camera swung by, so Joe and I grabbed our signs and hoisted them into the air hoping to be caught on camera. We noticed immediately on the jumbo-tron that we could be seen and once more were filled with excitement. I later would watch the televised version and we could indeed be seen as blurry specks holding up our signs. It was good enough for us.
Next up was one of the best tag team matches I’ve ever seen; Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger challenged Kofi Kingston and R-Truth for their World Tag Team Championships. These four superstars are some of the most under-appreciated wrestlers in WWE, though lately with more focus on the tag team division it seems WWE might finally be allowing them to truly shine. Dolph Ziggler is one of the best in the business in my opinion, with a good look, great mic skills, and an in-ring ability matched by few others. Kofi Kingston is a star quickly rising to an equal caliber, with his skill constantly improving and his ability to perfectly land high-risk maneuvers setting him in a league of his own. Ziggler and Swagger worked fantastically as a tag team, with Ziggler keeping the match fast and intense while Swagger used his dominating size to keep R-Truth on their side of the ring, unable to tag Kofi Kingston in while they wore him down. Unfortunately for Ziggler and Swagger, Truth would eventually get the tag to Kofi after the two had used up most of their energy on him, allowing Kingston to clean house and get the win to retain the Tag Team Championships for he and R-Truth. I would have loved to have seen Ziggler and Swagger win the titles, but regardless, it was a fantastic match to watch.
Before the next match, a segment was shown on the jumbo-tron with RAW & Smackdown GM John Laurinaitis‘ assistant, Eve, telling superstars Tyler Reks and Curt Hawkins to go into the WWE crowd and take “offensive” signs from anyone insulting Laurinaitis, or showing support for John Cena in his match later in the night with Laurinaitis. She then turned to Laurinaitis’ “legal counsel”, WWE superstar David Otunga (who is also Jennifer Hudson‘s husband) and asked him if this violated any laws, to which he said no. Reks and Hawkins said they’d be glad to help out and rushed off.
Beth Phoenix would challenge Layla for the WWE Divas Championship next. Initially I was pretty uninterested in this match, as WWE is prone to setting up two minute diva matches as filler for pay-per-view events, without really building any good story. A few weeks ago Layla returned from an injury and won the Divas Championship unexpectedly from Nikki Bella, who was “fired” the same night, leaving a lot of people questioning Layla’s validity as a champion. At Over The Limit Layla showed us why she deserves to hold the title, defeating Beth Phoenix fair and square after reversing Phoenix’s signature move to get the pinfall. The match only lasted about five minutes, but that five minutes was filled with one of the best diva matches I’ve watched in recent WWE history.
The next match was a Fatal 4 Way match between Alberto Del Rio, Chris Jericho, Randy Orton and Sheamus, with Sheamus defending his World Heavyweight Championship. As I mentioned before, Joe had made a sign supporting Randy Orton, and during Orton’s entrance the camera panned around crowd once more. Joe excitedly threw his sign into the air, and upon going back and watching the recorded PPV, you can in fact see Joe jumping and excited, plain as day. Personally, this match had very little for me after the first few minutes of Chris Jericho and Alberto Del Rio teaming up to take down Sheamus and Orton. Sheamus is one of my least favorite superstars in the WWE and I don’t like seeing him with the Heavyweight Championship, especially knowing he beat Daniel Bryan to win it. I was really hoping he’d lose the championship to any of the other three superstars involved, but he did not. I will admit that the match was well worked in a short amount of time, with the energy being kept up the entire time, all four superstars keeping us on the edge of our seats as to who would win. I just wanted someone else to win. Anyone else. The WWE introduced Alberto Del Rio a little over a year ago as if he were the next great thing and since then they’ve done very little to advance his character. He is an incredibly capable wrestler and I feel like they’re wasting his potential. When Chris Jericho returned at the beginning of this year, after a two year absence, he claimed it was the end of the world as we knew it. He’s lost every PPV match he’s been booked in since. It’s more accurately the end of every Jericho fan’s world as they know it, and that sucks. Randy Orton is almost certainly the most popular active roster superstar in the WWE aside from John Cena. He is Smackdown’s flagship superstar. I’d rather see any of the three of them get a title run.
The Miz came out next and trash talked the fans for not cheering him enough on his second appearance of the night. He then started saying how the “Funkasaurus” Brodus Clay was a joke and that it was stupid for people to like him just because he dances. Miz claimed he could dance just as well and started with a cocked knee and hand to the fedora in a Michael Jackson homage before doing some of Clay’s famous dinosaur-like dance moves. He was then interrupted by Brodus Clay’s music, which starts out with Clay exclaiming “Somebody call my momma!” Clay came out with his female ring escorts Cameron and Naomi, aka the Funkadactyls, and danced his way to the ring. After taking a few big hits from The Miz, Clay would toss Miz around while the match played out like most of Clay’s matches do. Though there were a few more technical moves than we’ve recently seen in his arsenal, it was mostly his size that battered the Miz, winning via pinfall after the landing a Funk It Splash, which involves Clay belly flopping onto his opponent. Miz rolled out of the ring while Brodus Clay and the Funkadactyls danced in the ring to celebrate with some kids that I think were from the Make-A-Wish foundation. A few minutes later Hawkins and Reks finally made their way into the crowd, taking people’s pro-Cena and anti-Laurinaitis signs and tearing them up. I remember hearing someone remark behind me that they’d think the sign owners would get pissed, but I suspect being on TV was enough of a payoff to placate that potential discomfort. The duo never made it to our section, though our signs certainly would not have made it onto TV anyway, and I didn’t notice any of the other signs in our area.
The next match would be Christian challenging Cody Rhodes for the Intercontinental Championship, as he’d earned the right to do by winning the battle royal earlier in the night. Cody came out first, insulting the fans and the state of North Carolina, which obviously got him a lot of heat from the crowd. I will note that he referred to North Carolinians as short-sighted, something that as a whole I think we recently proved to be pretty true. Rhodes would dominate most of the match, at one point delivering one of the most impressive dropkicks I’ve ever seen, but in the end Christian managed to get the win with much fanfare from the crowd. I’m a huge Cody Rhodes fan and have never been too big on Christian, but I’m really hoping this is a chance for Rhodes to move on to the big leagues and compete for the World Heavyweight Championship. My only real issue with the match is that it puts Christian over as a face, and the only time I’ve even come close to really liking Christian was as a heel.
CM Punk appeared next on the jumbo-tron, being interviewed about Daniel Bryan’s actions two nights prior on Smackdown. Bryan had hit Kane with a chair, tricking him into thinking it was Punk, causing Kane to beat the hell out of Punk with the chair. Punk said that he has a lot of respect for Daniel Bryan as a wrestler, but that lately Bryan had gotten on his bad side. Then Bryan’s ex-girlfriend, AJ, whom he’d dumped in particular jerky fashion, came up and wished Punk good luck, while Punk walked off shaking his head. Daniel Bryan’s music started and his entrance video began playing. I realized the match I was there for was about to start. From start to finish this match was everything I hoped it would be. WWE has written some sleazy finishes for Bryan’s matches lately, so I was a bit worried I wouldn’t actually get to see these two wrestle. Fortunately, it didn’t go that way. For a good thirty-minutes Punk and Bryan went back and forth, showing off exactly why they are hailed as two of the best in-ring performers of today. Both Punk and Bryan each used more moves and reversals in one match than we see a lot of wrestlers use in their entire career. The match ended on a vague note of controversy that seems so perfect in retrospect. Daniel Bryan finally got CM Punk into his signature submission move, the Yes Lock, when Punk managed to flip him over to win via pin count. At this point the ref called for the bell while Bryan was still holding the lock on Punk, so Punk tappped out (the signal for having had enough and saying you quit) to get Bryan to let go. For a brief moment Bryan was confused and thought that he’d won, not realizing his shoulders were on the mat for him to be pinned, adding to the storyline and immediately causing me to realize that this was only the beginning of their feud. Every single aspect of this match made me as giddy as my first inklings of becoming a wrestling fan. It was not only great story, but also great athleticism.
After the match, Eve and David Otunga were shown on the jumbo-tron talking more about making sure John Laurinaitis wasn’t stressed for his match later in the night with John Cena. Teddy Long, who essentially had his job stolen by John Laurinaitis and was being demeaned weekly on WWE’s programs by Laurinaitis, had a huge smirk on his face. Eve and Otunga demanded to know why he was so smug. Long replied that if Laurinaitis lost to Cena, he would also lose his job, which could mean Otunga and Eve would then be in charge, it might also mean that the two of them were fired. Long walked away, leaving the two stewing in shock.
Next up was what you might call a squash match, where one of the two wrestlers involved just tosses the other guy around for a couple of minutes before getting a quick win. WWE has been pushing a new guy named Ryback pretty hard the past couple of months, and he admittedly has my support. They’re developing his character in a similar fashion to how WCW developed Goldberg in the late ’90s, a man who dominated the WCW roster undefeated for over a year. Fans have even picked up on this and when Ryback wrestles will often chant Goldberg’s name throughout the match. Ryback dominates in his own way, though, and it doesn’t come across as too blatant a rip-off for the idea to be unwelcome. At Over The Limit his opponent would be Camacho, a thuggish Mexican wrestler who acts as the bodyguard to Hunico, who plays the” mouthy Mexican from the barrio” character that seemingly always exists in wrestling. As I said before, I like Ryback. I just hope we’ll be through with the squash matches soon. I’m ready to see him really compete.
Finally, we came to the last match of the night. If there is one area that I believe the WWE is still royally fucking things up, it’s represented in this match. John Cena is WWE’s Superman. Any WWE fan can tell you that. He’s the Hulk Hogan of this generation, whether fans like that or not. Before Steve Austin and The Rock made wrestling cool in the late ’90s, through the ’80s and early ’90s, Hulk Hogan was WWF’s big guy. John Cena has filled that role in the WWE after medical problems forced Stone Cold out of the active side of the business and The Rock essentially left for movies. In this respect, I can’t dislike John Cena. That said, I’ve never been a fan of his character, and even for this event I was really hoping he would lose. My problem is I was equally certain he would lose. John Laurinaitis has been set up to be the big evil boss, with his era of “People Power” that really means him forcing his power as the GM of both RAW and Smackdown onto people. It’s so easy to hate him that the WWE could not possibly afford to lose him. So we’re faced with this dilemna: John Cena can’t lose in a fair way to John Laurinaitis, a man who hasn’t wrestled in years, without looking weak. WWE can’t have that. John Laurinaitis can’t lose to John Cena, though. He is too essential to the WWE’s storylines right now, and the stipulation states that if he loses he is fired. Obviously he is going to win in an unfair way. The Monday night prior, Laurinaitis fired Big Show on RAW and humiliated him on television by making him beg for his job back before firing him anyway. Later in the night, Cena reveals that if any “active roster superstar” interferes in his match with Laurinaitis, the board of directors have declared they will be fired. At that moment almost every WWE fan in the world said “Oh, Big Show will interfere and help Laurinaitis win in order to get his job back.” And we couldn’t have been more right. For a fifteen minutes or so John Cena tossed his boss around the ring, toying with a man who obviously couldn’t defend himself, but also arguably deserved the punishment. Then Laurinaitis runs off and a moment later you see Big Show dragging him back out to the ring by his neck. Then, while holding Laurinaitis by his neck, Show shoved Laurinaitis towards Cena. Cena hoisted Laurinaitis on to his shoulders, ready to perform his finishing move and end the match. Midway, Big Show hit Cena with his signature knock out punch, called the Weapon of Mass Destruction, then put Laurinaitis on top of Cena and walked out. This really awesome pay-per-view event ended with the most predictable angle WWE has run this year. It was pure laziness on the part of WWE’s writing team, and I feel like they could easily have done better.
Shortly after Cena limped to the back of the ring, an announcement was made that the evening’s events were over. Joe and I moved slowly to get up and leave, both hoping maybe someone would come out and we’d realize there was one last untelevised match, much like an encore at live music shows. It didn’t happen, but we had a fantastic night and were honestly ready to head home anyway. We talked excitedly of the event as we made our way to the car and packed a final bowl for the evening. I drifted off to sleep while Joe drove us back to Wilmington.