Thursday, May 29, 2008

#171. ECW/Smackdown Tapings Thoughts

For me, it's just great that the WWE tapings I attended on Tuesday have gotten a fair bit of press, at least at WrestleView, the site I get all my news and views from, and have for about three years now. The fan who jumped the barricade near the end of the show, from my perspective up in the stadium seating, looked when he first popped over to be dressed in black, like the security personnel themselves. I thought he was part of the act, because the Edgeheads, Chavo, and Bam Neely at first seemed to react to him like a wrestler, until security absolutely mauled him, manhandling him away. Even the incident with Vince where he came out so randomly near the end of the ECW taping I had been wondering about. But apparently even that was significant.

What was significant to me was discovering, after my first and only other to this point wrestling show back in October 2004 (you can look back in the archives to read about it), this was like a whole new perspective, even though it was a second experience, maybe because this time is was being taped. I started noticing more the wrestlers who looked like they were wrestling at least as much for the cameras as for the live audience, and believe me, that makes a difference. Matt Hardy was a surprise. I know the guy has a presence, but in person, his opponent, Elijah Burke, whom I've never really remarked on before (most notable for me was that he ended up being Chris Benoit's final opponent), came off so much better, moving around like moving around mattered, and not sort of posturing. Kofi Kingston had the same kind of vibe, even Mike Knox, who looks better now with his hair growing out than he has before. C.M. Punk looked better against Chavo Guerrero than he did with John Morrison, perhaps accounting for the length of the respective matches. Jamie Noble was great. MVP, not just because he was wrestling Jamie Noble, looked bigger than he does on TV. Batista translates beautifully. Big Show was probably, sorry Montel, the MVP of the night, coming out several times (the headbutts don't look so impressive live, though). The pyro is loud (LOUD!). Can't imagine how someone like Batista doesn't go deaf. He had to hear it twice! The flames Kane has and are set off periodically for other pyro are hot, too. Don't know why that didn't occur to me before. Don't know how the wrestlers deal with that, either.

Overall, fun, fun stuff. I'll be back with more later!

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