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What I learned at a live taping of WWE RAW (2/10/14)

I have never been to a live WWF/WWE event.  ever.  Which could be considered unusual because I have been a fan of the product since the mid-80s.

So tonight I went to a taping of RAW here at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.  I got the nose-bleed seats and sat down for a night of wrassling.

Here are some of the things I learned here:

1. I saw both Big Show and later Steve Austin outside prior to the show near the loading docks going into the back of the building.  Neither would stop texting or look up to the fans cheering their names.  I know they've been doing this for years, but would it hurt for 2 seconds to look up and wave?

2. Jerry Lawler was attached to that phone of his during the entire taping.  He was definitely preoccupied with texting/messaging and making sure it was charging at any spare moment.  Unlike Michael Cole, who has about 3 different devices and writing pads taking furious notes through the show.  JBL frantically scribbled with his pencil and fidgeted with it.

3.  That damn Pyro is damn loud.

4. Summer Rae is hot.  And Fandago's hand was on her butt just about the whole time.  I'm not talking around her waist, I'm talking ASS.  Don't know if it's a work or shoot, but I can't hate on him, she looked amazing.

5.  Michael Cole has theme music?  REALLY? 

6.  I watched the announcers often.  It seemed that much of their commentary was scripted.  Not just notes, but actual script pages with different colored pages indicating different versions (common practice in film production)  They each had them in front of each other and read from them.

7. I loved the crowd that Cheered Antonio Cesaro and booed Sheamus.  That made me feel good.  The Real Americans did a great job, I enjoyed their match.

8.  I didn't know that WWE changes the mat about 3 times that night. 

9. Batista slams Del Rio on the announcer's fold up table.  It goes squash and Batista walks off.  I'm sure Cole, Lawler and JBL knew about it before hand, but once it happened, Cole looked pissed that his note cards went flying.  He had this matric of index cards taped to the table and after the slam, when the cameras were off, he was yelling at some of the techies to go look around for his note cards that were in the debris.  Cole looked like a shoot to me.  Later in the show it took 6 techies to put the collapsible table back together.

10.  Wrestling is for kids.  I couldn't believe how many kids I saw, little boys under 9 who add belts and Cena gear.  It was really cool to see moms and dads bring their kids to this event.  I'd say no joke about 85% of all the kids had Cena shirts and hats.

11.  I need a Bella.  The twins looked lovely in person.  So did AJ for that matter.

12. Best moment went to Seth Rollins who during the Mark Henry match the crowd is chanting CM Punk and he grabbed a mic and said "CM Who?" and that acknowledgement of the crowd to me was awesome.  Wish they would do that more.

13. Even Heels are nice.  After the dark match, Batista went around the ring and gave hi fives to all the kids and took pictures with many of them.  Cena and Daniel did the same thing.

It was a very fun experience and I loved to seethe kids and families enjoy the product.  While my love for Daniel Bryan is fading, the crowd LOVED Bryan, he had a huge pop and I'd say for the adult attendees he had the most signs and many of the shirts.

Can't wait to go again!
YES! YES! YES!

Ambush Bug Costume

31 Horror Movies

Happy Halloween.  Each year I watch 1 movie for each day of October.  To make this happen I watched a couple of films in one day and even went to a movie marathon in Santa Monica for the experience of seeing it with a crowd.  Most of these are on Hulu or Netflix.  I must say that this is getting harder and harder each year, and it might come to a point where I can't do it, finding good stories.  Here is the list, not ranked:

1.      The Tenant

2.      Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf

3.      Salvage

4.      Evil Dead

5.      Evil Dead 2

6.      Aliens 3

7.      Aliens 4

8.      Horror Express

9.      Children of the Corn

10.  Pieces

11.  Naked Fear

12.  Atrocious

13.  Amityville Haunting

14.  Amityville II

15.  Night of the Living Dead

16.  Wrestlemaniac

17.  The Fly

18.  Kingdom of the Spiders

19.  Rites of Spring

20.  Cabin in the Woods

21.  I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

22.  I spit on Your Grave (2011)

23.  Human Centipede

24.  Exit Humanity

25.  The Afterlife Investigations

26.  The Haunting of Whaley House

27.  InnKeepers

28.  The Sentinel

29.  The Bay

30.  The Conjuring

31.  The Devil Inside

To be fair, a few of these I did not finish the film, it was either too bad, or I'd seen it many times previously.  

Not that impressive of a list, but if I were to recommend any of these here's what I would say you should see:

The Fly (1986)

This is possibly the best on the list, VERY good.  Creepy, great effects, and wonderful acting.

I will consider this a modern classic in the genre

Night of the Living Dead.

Don't you dare watch The Walking Dead or any other zombie movie without first watching this one.  Still holds up, great social commentary.  It was shot on black and white on purpose for goodness sakes!

Kingdom of Spiders

It's old-school, it's Shatner.  It's fun.  A whole lot of real spiders were used.  I saw this with a crowd so maybe that's why I had so much fun, but I say go see it.

For Runner's up:

Cabin in the Woods - Joo Weden at his best.

Children of the Corn - Stephen King

The Bay - Modern found footage film, I liked it.