Thank you Roselyne! ;D I know everyone wants the details on The Shirt, but I do also want to talk about the show first.
One of the first matches at the show (I thought it was for Superstars but I guess it's a dark match) featured Ryback, and I was happy to see that he'd found his way back from Hawaii where Wade left him with that broken ankle about a year and a half ago.
Plus, the return of Ryback also means that Ned Clyde must have been in Little Rock all that time and I missed him. (I don't know much at all about Ned Clyde anyway, ask Wade or Skip...
)
Then on to the NXT tapings. I swear, the only time I watched this show was Season 1, and that was because we all knew Wade was gonna win. Ever since that glorious finale the viewing quality of NXT has gone down considerably. I didn't know Darren Young doesn't like Titus O'Neil and I didn't know Johnny Curtis and Maxine were a thing and how Aksana fits in there somewhere. Derrick Bateman is cool though, because he's the only good thing about the story (he fits in it somewhere) and he's a sweet kid in person.
However, I do like Curt Hawkins, I do like Trent Baretta, I do like Tyler Reks, and I do like Yoshi Tatsu - they had a fun little match where Reks's hand started out (and ended up) glued to a video game controller. Good times.
We roll around past Superstars and finally get to SmackDown, where the first match has Cody defeating Booker T. The crowd was just devastated - Booker is over HUGE in Little Rock. They had him come back out after the match; he apologized to the town for not beating Cody & got a good ovation. No Spinaroonie though.
Drew McIntyre & Tedd(eh) Long are just gold.
I'm glad he's back on SmackDown. Santino beating Drew was kind of expected (the way the story of face Teddy/Santino & heel Drew goes), but they gave us a good show.
Wade, Wade, Wade...we had previews all night of everything that happened in the Falls Count Anywhere match last week and were promised an Orton update with the sad music and all (I cheered)...but when Wade came out, boy, it was us against the world. Just how I like it.
Granted, I wasn't the only one cheering, but this town does have it's scholars and we weren't very well represented at the Verizon, I'll just say that.
But Wade showed 'em! He cut a good promo about last week's events and even when Sheamus came out to cut him off and then Jinder Mahal to attack, Wade still came out standing tall...and the crowd just hated it and I just loved it, loved it, loved it. A good time was had by all (except for Sheamus, who was the last one left lying in the ring).
The Daniel Bryan/Big Show thing is good, actually...Show is way over in Little Rock (this town is WCW country at heart, so all the alumni get love) and their match had a lot of heat going into it with lots of Big Show supporters. Night ended with Big Show & Mark Henry cutting promos on one another after the cameras & Show laying Henry out to end it all.
My cell phone battery died near the end of the taping and I nearly died when I'd gotten it charged a bit later and found that Wade had messaged me to meet him outside in the parking lot to face off with him in a knock-down, drag-out Falls Count Anywhere brawl.
No, just kidding, he wanted to give me his shirt.
He'd said he would, and he delivered on it because he's as constant as a Northern star.
Long story short, I got his shirt and will not wear it until Wrestlemania 28 in Miami. Until then, I will enjoy its divine scent.
I got a new picture with Wade and it's on my personal account, but I want to keep in the Fellabration tradition and post a picture with Sheamus like I did around this time last year. Or maybe more-than-once-a-year if I see him again at Axxess. Fella.