My Third Live WWE show...and FOZZY!

August 23, 2004

Warning: This post contains me talking about Chris Benoit in a favorable manner. I still have mixed feelings about Benoit, but I know that I felt good about him in 2004 when I saw this show, so there's no way I would take it out. But, just letting you know in case you don't like him.

This also contains the only Fozzy show I've ever seen live.
Last time I went to Raw live I condensed it down to four words...."Batista saw my sign"....this time I can also condense it down to four words...

I touched Chris Jericho!!!

Of course...that was at the Fozzy gig...but still....I TOUCHED HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Won't bore you wit a super long rant (I don't think, but who knows once I get started)...we got there and scoped out the BEST parking spots (IE: right in front of an exit! LOL!). Got to our seats right as Heat was starting. The first match was cool because I love Rodney Mack! He has a new tattoo too....and on top of that, he and Jazz are soooo cute together.

After that.....CHUCK PALUMBO!!!!!!!!!!! Dude...it was so fucking cool to see him in person. He also won, he was up against a jobber.

Then...holy cow. If anyone had told me 4 years ago when I first started watching wrestling that I'd ever be gaga over Chris Benoit, I'd have thought they were lying. CHRIS BENOIT! Dear lord....he's THE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He had a match against Tyson Tomko (who is beginning to really improve. I kind of marked to see him and Trish too)...but Benoit TOOK HIM TO SCHOOL!!! It was fucking amazing. If you like Benoit, you have GOT to tape this match....Tomko took NINE suplexes...six of them in a row. It was a beautiful match. And what was even better was the people yelling for Benoit. Several chants went up, several people with signs that said he's still *our* champ...he got such an ovation I had goose bumps. Truly well deserved, and they let him stay in the ring a long time after soaking it up. He's just great. I'm converted.

Plus...I have another reason, but I'll get to that in a moment.

Once the show started, we had an annoying woman a few rows down from us with a HUGE set of signs who had no concept of anything. She kept the friggin' things up no matter what, even when there was no chance of being on camera, and DURING THE MATCHES! It really sucked, because for part of the time my friend couldn't see shit...including when Batista was in the ring and I was in danger of passin out over the railing. LOL!

Our seats were better than I thought they were going to be, but not really good enough to take pictures. I took the digital camera...but I doubt the pictures turned out. I'll see about uploading them later.

I knew The Rock would be there...and sadly...he's changed. He still got a huge pop, I still popped for him...I think people realized he'd be there. Three times in a row at the Pond and he's shown up. But...his bit with the Divas was...ugh. I didn't like it. I laughed, and hooted, but after when I realized just what he'd said I was kind of bleh about it. So..that was pretty much a waste.

Chris Jericho's match with Edge was off the charts. Seriously...it was a fantastic match. It was so fun to watch it live...I can't wait to see it on TV though because...dude. Jericho is the man. He's just so exciting to watch. The Rock may have been the reason I ever watched wrestling in the first place, Jeff Hardy may have been the reason I became hooked...but Jericho is the reason I've held my interest...and this match was an example of why. Really cool...and as my friend said, even though Edge sucked the heat out of the building (people really hated him) Jericho brought it all back.

Fortunately, at this point Method Man decided he needed a beer. LOL! He ran RIGHT UP OUR AISLE....not that it meant anything to me because I didn't even know who he was...but it cleared our aisle out. They all went to follow him to the concession stand.

Then..of course Evolution came out.  Dude...even as far away as we were, Batista is huge. I am not ashamed to say I stood there SCREAMING like a girl. Seriously. Screaming. He's...so massive. That was pretty cool...and it amused me that Orton ran right up by the section where I sat last time.

Ok...this is the other thing about Benoit....it would be so awesome if he and Batista feuded. Seriously....Batista said before that match where he was supposed to beat Benoit down to soften him up for HHH that Benoit told him, "If you don't kick my ass I'll be mad"....they work so well together. They're so brutal with each other...it would be so totally awesome. *crosses fingers*


Victoria was backstage. *squee*

Afterwards, when my friend said, "We got to see Flair and Regal..." I said "I didn't see that!" Of course, because, during that entire match I had my eyes glued to Batista. We didn't get the audio on the matches...and I thought that was going to be a tag match. I was disappointed that it wasn't. And then I was disappointed that it was Batista and Dinsmore on the outside. I so love to watch those OVW guys mix it up. But I will say this...Batista was amazing with the crowd. At one point, he kept turning around and talking to them, gesturing to them, SMILING at them....it was so cool. He's so beautiful.

The wedding [Lita and Kane] was....well, to quote the crowd. Boring. We were seated behind the "pastor"...my only comment aside from a random squee over Matt Hardy, is that before the stage exploded in flames you could clearly see the little flames popping up...so I expected the explosion. Anyway...the "what" chant to Bischoff reading the Bible was .... well was odd as The Rock accusing Lillian Garcia of drinking on the job.

So..the show ended, we got out to the car, found the House of Blues (which was an adventure in and of itself)...and you have to walk through Downtown Disneyland to get there. What's up with that? DisneyLAND for god's sake. With all its wackiness and shit...I was weirded out, and I've been to Disneyland before.

HOB is strict, I couldn't bring the camera, which sucked ass, so I opted to carry it back to the car instead of checking it. My friend's brother went into the bar...and dude. He ended up sitting with Victoria, Nidia, and Sylvian Grenier...got their autographs and everything. Funny part was, we walked right past them when we finally came it...and didn't see them. LOL!

We were able to get right up by the stage. At first there were only 2 people in front of us, but by the end there was only 1. The stage is set so that when he came out, we were eye-level with his ankles...but he was close enough to touch.

Fozzy was just amazing. I know I can't give the show justice by just telling you about it. Chris is a really outstanding performer, and a gigantic goofball. He said getting hit in the nuts made him sing high. LOL!

When he came out he sprayed water over all of us...that was cool. He kept getting right on the edge of the stage so he was right above us. I made eye contact with him a few times. He's beautiful up that close. He says Happenstance is good for "pooping on"....

The very best part of the show was (and Peter chided me because I can't remember which song the were doing, maybe "With the Fire"...I'm not sure, it was one of their originals though) when he came out into the crowd. He had people sing along with him, he put the mic right in a few people's faces...but it was the middle of this song, he runs over to the side, jumps down into the crowd, gets right up by the stage...maybe 5 feet away from me and starts head-banging.

That's when I touched him. I put my hand right on his back...up by the shoulder, and left it there for awhile. I even massaged it a little. Dude...I touched Chris Jericho's back. The part of his body that enthralls me the most...well...it's tied with his arms, but I was not close enough to touch both, so I settled for his back.

Later, I touched his shoe.

They played my favorite Fozzy song..."End of Days"...that rocked. They played "Feel the Burn"...I like that one too. Of course they played "Eat the Rich" and "To Kill a Stranger" and "With the Fire"....and some of the other cover songs. I had meant to research the lyrics for "TNT"...but I forgot to. Instead of having a girl from the crowd come up and sing with him though...he had Lillian Garcia.

Lillian Garcia is stunningly beautiful. She was close enough to touch too...and she kicked ass. They were cute together. He said we'd have to tell her the words, and she said "I know the words!" She did too...

He played from about 9:45 until like 11:10 or so. That's the nice part about the West Coast.

When we got ready to leave, my friend's brother bumped into Victoria again, and again we weren't with him. We sat out front for about 45 minutes, and he bumped into her AGAIN! LOL! We waved and said "goodnight"...but she wasn't sticking around to talk this time. Nidia and Grenier were with her too.

And that's it. I have had 4 hours of sleep because I got to bed about 12:30...was too keyed up to sleep until after 1:30...woke up at 5:30 because I had to get up at 6...and now I'm ready to keel over.

Chris Jericho.

Never Forget

On September 11, 2001 I woke up in a panic. It was street sweeping day, and around here you have to move your car from one side of the street to the other or face getting a ticket. I woke up at around 5:30 AM (PST) hearing the street sweeper off in the distance. Usually once you can hear it it's too late to do anything about it, but I woke up in a panic because I realized I had forgotton to move my car.

I leapt out of bed in my pjs, and realized I didn't have my glasses. In a series of unfortunate events I'd left them at school the day before. I found my keys and raced outside and into my car. Of course, it wouldn't start. Besides that I couldn't see anything without my glasses. I finally got it to start and took off before the sweeper got to me, but I ended up getting a ticket anyway, and had to drive all the way down the block, in the semi-dark, without my glasses.

I never listen to the news in the morning. I don't want the TV intruding on my waking up period, and I hate listening to the radio in my car. It wasn't until I got to work about 2 hours later that I knew anything had happened, but I was able to piece together that the first plane hit around the time I was gripped in panic over the street sweeper.

To this day the sound of the street sweeper wraps me in panic. In fact this past Tuesday I woke up to hear it and I repeated over and over in my head "It's not 9/11, it's not 9/11, it's not 9/11...." until well after the sweeper had passed us by.

I will never forget that day...