Fun in the Sun

Yeah, right.  Although it’s in the high 30’s, wind speeds outside are currently at 53 MPH making it feel much colder than it actually is.  I’m sitting at my desk, looking out my huge tinted window at the pine trees that are magically turning into Chinese acrobats before my very eyes.  The snow is blowing so fiercely past that it looks as if you’d become pock-marked if you walked out bare-faced.  No, I think I’ll just remain here in my cozy, warm office space.  Well, until 5pm, that is.

Actually, the weather was quite different and much nicer where I spent the weekend before last — Orlando, FL.  Let’s recap, shall we?

As some of you may remember, I told you about how I screamed like a little girl when, almost a year ago, I received an email confirmation from my brother that we’d successfully purchased two $1500 apiece "platinum package" tickets to WrestleMania XXIV.  Sure it sounds like a hefty price, but the package included tickets to the Midday Madness autograph signing, the WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony, two-day passes to Universal Studios, and ringside seats at the main event.  Oh, and not to mention it covered our hotel room for three nights, which would have cost us at least 300 bucks apiece.

I’m not quite sure how Rob and I managed to squeeze so many activities (not to mention, so much alcohol) into such a short few days.  Upon arriving in Orlando that Friday, we headed straight to the hotel to check into our room and also to register for the weekend’s events.  They doled out our tickets, souvenirs, and itinerary for the next few days.  At this point, we had no idea where our seats would actually be.  We assumed, considering we purchased the tickets within a minute of them going on pre-sale, that we’d have seats within the first five rows.  That’s what we hoped, at least.  You can only imagine our excitement when we opened up that white envelope to find that we were on the fifth row, dead center of the ring, directly in the hard camera shot — meaning that we would be on TV pretty much throughout the entire show.  Rob actually posted a small video clip on YouTube of the little dance I did in the hotel room upon seeing said tickets.  Out of sheer embarrassment, I will not be linking that video at this time.

For that evening, Rob had pre-ordered ringside tickets to an independent wrestling promotion that was taping pay-per-views in the area all weekend.  I’d never heard of Ring of Honor Wrestling, and even after watching some of their awesome clips online, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Luckily, several wrestlers from a Japanese promotion, DragonGate, were also present, and most of the matches were part of an RoH versus DragonGate tournament.  I won’t bore you with an explanation of the difference between Japanese and American wrestling, but I will say this…  It was the most awesome show I’ve ever seen live.  I was on the edge of my seat all night, wondering if that man lying on the mat would be able to recover from the blow that his body just took.  Fantastic delivery.

The Midday Madness autograph session started at 9am on Saturday morning.  Well, I should say you had to be in line by 9am.  It moved quickly, though.  We got in line just minutes before the deadline, and we were completely through and on our way to lunch by noon.  We got to meet Jonathan Coachman, Mark Henry (former World’s Strongest Man champion), the Big Show, Ashley (not only WWE Diva, but also a Playboy covergirl), Nunzio, Melina, and Santino Marella.  The Big Show totally hit on me in front of his wife, exclaiming when I walked up, "Damn!"  He then proceeded to compliment my hair and ask me if I wanted to participate in a Girls Gone Wild video.  And might
I just add that, even though Melina plays a bitch on Monday Night Raw, she’s a total doll in person.  I’ve never met a celebrity that seems to really enjoy interacting with the fans as much as she did.  Rob and I wrote a quick recap of the morning, and it was actually published on one of our favorite wrestling scoop websites, PWInsider.com.  Pretty cool.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Universal Studios.  Rob and I are both rollercoaster fanatics, but we’ve haven’t been to a theme park together since we were kids.  After lunching at Margaritaville, we waited in line for almost two hours to ride the Incredible Hulk.  It was totally worth it.  However, we only had time for one more ride afterwards, so we opted for the 3D Spiderman adventure.  We walked our tired, blistered feet back to the hotel, and showered up for the night’s show.

The WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony was held at Amway Arena on Saturday night.  We had ridiculously good seats, very similar to those of the Ozzy/Rob Zombie concert we attended in January.  We were requested to wear business attire, and Rob and I both felt a bit underdressed when we noticed that much of the crowd sitting near us was wearing business suits and dresses.  The show, albeit much too lengthy at nearly five hours, was touching, serious, comical, emotional.  Wrestlers, managers, promotors alike from the past many decades were present, and let’s face it.  How could I pass up getting to see Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in person?

Sunday morning, we first stopped by the local Walgreens to pick up sign making supplies.  I’m honestly surprised that the store wasn’t completely sold out of poster board and markers, but we were in luck.  My feet were still aching from the day before, so I also purchased a pair of flipflops, and we drove to Universal instead of making the 10 minute walk.  This time we purchased a "fast pass" that let us get to the front of the line once on every ride.  It was spendy, but worth it.  We saved the log flume ride for last, which was probably a good thing.  Had I known it would be so fun, I might not have wanted to ride anything else!  Rob and I both turned into kids again, laughing hysterically through the entire thing.  And of course, we got completely soaked on the last drop, capping off a perfect afternoon.

I can’t even begin to describe to you how exciting, how breathtaking it was to walk into the Citrus Bowl Sunday afternoon, walk out onto the normally grassy field, and take my seat under the massive tent housing the lights and monitors that hung above us.  I know that professional wrestling may seem like a silly, redneck hobby to most, but when it’s been a part of your life for as long as you can remember, it can really become emotional to finally fulfill the dream to attend an event like this.  Rob’s very first memory as a child is of watching Ric Flair in a match back in the 70’s.  Just the fact that we were present for his induction into the Hall of Fame and for the match (with none other than my favorite wrestler, Shawn Michaels) that officially ended his career is enough to make me burst into tears… again!

Needless to say, the show was amazing.  No one will ever top WWE when it comes to pulling all the stops to entertain their fans.  Not only were the matches awesome, we got to see Snoop Dogg, Kim Kardashian, and Floyd "Money" Mayweather from a mere fifteen feet away.  Except for a couple of glitches with the under-tent spotlamps, the sound, lighting, and pyro were spectacular.  After the show, Rob and I sat in the car talking about how it was only real for the few short hours that the show was live.  In the months, days, moments leading up to it, we couldn’t believe we would be attending.  Since the show has ended, we still can’t believe we were really there.

Rob and I decided awhile back to extend our trip by a day and visit Epcot Center before we left.  Monday morning, we moved to a Disney Resort hotel so we could walk to the park that afternoon, and walk our soon-to-be-drunk asses back to the hotel that night.  We did take a trip on Mission Space and Spaceship Earth, but in all honesty, we weren’t too concerned with amusement park rides.  Yes, we were focused on the World Showcase, where we would drink around the world, in every single country.  And that’s exactly what we did.

I’m surprised I really even remember what happened that night, because my brother sure doesn’t.  I only vaguely remember walking the boardwalk back to the hotel after the park closed, but we somehow made it.  I attempted to enter through the lower level revolving door, but I caught something in the rotation and jammed it up.  Interesting, considering I wasn’t carrying anything with me.  Once I finally got the door moving again, I exited… but those flipflops I’d purchased the day before didn’t.  I watched and laughed hysterically as the leading edge of the door pushed them around in a circle.  When I finally regained my composure enough to retrieve the sandals, the swift motion as I bent over caused me to lose my balance, and I gingerly tipped over backwards.  I lay in floor of the lobby laughing so hard that I quite possibly could have pissed myself.  Keep in mind that this is all occurring in the immediate presence of a beautiful, classy wedding reception.

After finally making it up to our room, we quickly changed into our pajamas.  We only sat for a minute before I excitedly exclaimed, "Want to go out for a smoke?"  Apparently, Rob thought it was a good idea as well, forgetting all about the fiasco we’d just caused downstairs.  Nonetheless, we trudged back through the reception, inappropriately dressed, and immediately outside and through the grass to light up a cigarette.  We must not have been on an actual sidewalk, because I distinctly remember the sprinklers coming on and getting soaked.  We headed back inside, now dripping wet, and up the escalator to the main lobby.  Well, I made it up the escalator.  Rob made it up about half way before falling backwards all the way down to the bottom.  I’m still not sure how he survived that incident unscathed.  Once we both finally reached the top, I asked him for the room key.

You’ve got to be kidding me.  Rob wasn’t lucid enough to even speak to anyone at the hotel reception desk, but I manage to sputter our problem in between giggles.  After fishing out his driver’s license and retrieving an extra key, we finally made it to our room and settled in for the night.  Sort of.  We first raided the mini bar.  We then decided that we would make better wrestlers and promotors than anyone currently in the WWE, and we "filmed" promos in the mirror for about an hour, only stopping every couple of minutes to tell each other how fucking cool we are.

At some point during said "filming," I interrupted Rob to cut in with my own opinion.  He told me to shut up, and pushed me.  It was all part of the promo, you see.  I looked him up and down, and pushed him so hard he fell back and slid across the floor.  That was all she wrote.  We commenced to beating the holy fucking shit out of each other just like we were in elementary school again.  When we woke up the next morning, we were covered in bruises and cuts.  Rob had two raised knots on each side of his forehead, my leg looked like it had been mangled in a car accident, and we were both discovering large purple blotches everywhere in between.

We headed home that afternoon, still trying to piece together the events of the night before right up until the time each of our flights departed.  It was a hectic, amazing, tiring, awesome five days, and to top it all off, my doctor asked me at my checkup two days later if he needed to recommend a counselor for me to speak to.  He thought I was a victim of domestic abuse.  Ah, it doesn’t get better than that folks!

Pictures to come.  Peace out, homies!

Felina