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Tonight, I’m giving my account of the WWE house show last Friday in my home city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was a great night had by myself and I will also tell you about the day prior to the show. So let’s go.

I’m sure you all don’t want to know what time I woke up, brushed my teeth and took a shower out therefore I’ll skip all that! My cousin and I had decided to meet up prior to the show to meet the WWE stars at the hotel, however he’s went AWOL and I haven’t heard from him in a few weeks, therefore I started the day right off the bat in an annoyed mood. I took the train to Belfast which took an hour and thankfully was able to meet up with Noeleen – someone I had only previously talked to via twitter but seeing as she was by herself and I was by myself we thought we’d team up and get our stalker on. We arrived at the Hilton hotel where they usually stay (if at all) and were met with a large gang of Chinese people and police men. Turns out that the Chinese democrat was visiting Belfast on the same day as the wrestlers, as well as the same day of the MTV Titanic Sounds show that was on later that night. To say Belfast was packed was an understatement. Noeleen and I bought hot chocolates to avoid being kicked out of the Hilton for being stalkers –which by the way, does actually happen! After weeks and weeks of trying to book a room into the completely booked out Hilton I was able to get an available room, thankfully I decided it was too dear before being told that the WWE stars weren’t staying in the Hilton! Noeleen and I were told where the stars were staying and made our way over, getting lost on the way but in the end, we arrived to a hotel packed with wrestling fans in the lobby! NERDS.

Several stars were walking to the reception desk, to the taxis outside or back to their rooms therefore there were brief chances to meet them, or at least proclaim your love for them which Natalya soon heard from me. Alberto Del Rio came down with 2-3 security men to help fend off all us nerds and I, unfortunately, noted that he was wearing a Real Madrid cap, the bastard. (Anyone who’s looking at the screen in confusion here’s why: I’m an Atletico Madrid supporter; who happen to be city rivals to Real Madrid, if you didn’t work that one out.)

Big Show was scheduled for a signing at Smyths starting at 3 therefore he made his way out from the elevators and was met by the crowd of fans. He was extremely nice and took pictures/signed autographs with everyone who asked him for one before making his way into a blacked out taxi. In the slideshow you will see that I panicked and snuck into someone else’s photos. OOPS, my bad.

Hunico –who is one of my favourites at the moment – was next to come into the lobby. He was coming from the gym and like Big Show was extremely nice, signing autographs and taking photos (several photos in the case of Noeleen!) so it was a pleasure to meet him. Extremely cool dude and definitely a star.

After Hunico came and went hotel staff were asking fans whether or not they had a room booked, to which I said no, resulting in us getting kicked out. THANKFULLY this worked in our favour as we got to meet some of the stars first and it also meant that we weren’t lined up behind a barrier. The next star we met was Cody Rhodes who was also returning from the gym. Cody is extremely cool and he took pictures with the fans outside. Noeleen told me to sing Smoke and Mirrors, therefore I tried my best at the high pitched version! WHOA YOU’RE ONLY SMOKE AND MIRRORS!

Next to emerge from a taxi outside the hotel was big Ezekiel Jackson. At first everyone was like, “Who’s he?” and I myself actually thought it was Big E Langston from FCW (don’t ask where I got that one from!) Eventually everyone realised that it was Big Zeke. He was cool too, taking pictures and signing autographs. I actually thought he was great because he pulled an angry/determined face in my picture. Someone shouted to him: “Yo Zeke time to get that IC belt back!” to which Zeke responded “Haha, yeah man”.

Next was A.J!! Jeez, she’s cooler than ice-cubes and is extremely cute! She had come from her room and was making her way to the buses which were parked outside, she took pictures with everyone and signed autographs and sounded nothing like she does on TV, but there you have it. Even though she wasn’t in her skinny jeans, converse and tank top she was still incredibly cute.

After A.J many fans from inside, including a whole host of kids realised that being outside was more beneficial to them and that they had more chance getting photos/autographs outside and because of them a security man made us all move to a position  behind the bus doors and luggage on the bus. All chaos was soon to start but the next person out was Riiiiiiiicardo Rodriguez who was the best out of all the stars I met. He was so damn funny, super kind and talked for a few second whilst taking pictures and autographs. Noeleen told him how she loves him more than Alberto Del Rio to which Ricardo said, “Well that’s not good! You’re meant to be hating me!”. If you hate Ricardo then you don’t have a sense of humour at all. The older fans, including myself and Noeleen started chanting “SI, SI, SI, SI, SI” to which got a laugh from Ricardo before he told us that he wanted to record us saying the introduction of ALBERTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DEL RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIO! He then got on the bus and seconds later posted the link on Twitter. The man is a legend.

Lilian Garcia came out after Ricardo and she was stunning. But was visibly freezing, at one point saying to me “Jeez, Belfast is freezing today!”. It was cold that day but you’re never going to get boiling hot California weather here so I don’t know what she was expecting haha! She took photos and photos, in mine I was laughing at something so please excuse the ridiculous face!

Tyson Kidd and Natalya followed and also took the time to sign autographs and take pictures with fans. Unfortunately for me Noeleen got the last picture with Tyson, but I did manage to plead with Natalya into getting a picture with her. Natalya, by the way, is beautiful and such a great character.

The last person to get a picture with was the king, nope, not Jerry Lawler or Elvis Presley but WILLIAM REGAL! This man is cool as ice and sweeps his hair back for every photo. At first Regal went straight onto the bus but he must have gotten bored waiting on the others and thought why the hell not spend time with the fans!

Notes about the other wrestlers:
– Randy Orton fools fans. At the hotel he wouldn’t sign autographs or take photos, despite having to wait 5-10 minutes for his taxi to the gym. He said that he would take photos and what not when he returned providing he had time. Well, he did have time when he returned but walked straight to his room and then straight from his room onto the bus.
-Khali, Hornswoggle, Mahal, Daniel Bryan, Camacho, Del Rio, Mark Henry, Yoshi Tatsu all went straight onto the bus.
-When Yoshi Tatsu was walking onto the bus none of the fans chanted for him, until I stepped up and in my best Yoshi Tatsu impression shouted “Yoshi Tatsu”, Yoshi turned around and stared me straight in the eyes before climbing on board the bus. Talk about awkward.

Onto the show now:

The first match was Jinder Mahal versus the Great Khali. The crowd, mainly made up of kids, was incredibly vocal towards Khali; chanting his name and cheering for him quite a lot! The match was pretty standard and had it been shown on Sky I would have skipped it without even caring. Maybe it was the atmosphere in the arena but I found myself cheering on Khali and I didn’t even think about how bad of a “wrestler” he is. Khali picked up the win here with a Khali bomb.

The second match was William Regal and Tyson Kidd versus Hunico and Camacho. When Regal and Kidd came to the ring Regal picked up the mic and spoke to the crowd saying, “This is actually the part where I’m supposed to make you hate me now, I’ve been coming here for what? 25 years I’ve been coming to Belfast and for most of that time I’ve come out here and screamed at you and pulled faces and said horrible, horrible things to you, but I’m an old man now and all the hates went out of me, ladies and gentleman it’s an absolute pleasure to be here tonight. I dunno how many more of these I have in me but if this is the last one then thank you for everything Belfast!” This gained huge pops from the Belfast crowd and was one of those weird moments where you feel like they’re dying but they’re not. The match was very solid with Hunico and Kidd getting in some of those great highflying moves that were seen on their SuperStars match. Camacho also got a good amount of ring time and I thought he was quite good, so expect WWE to start using him in matches soon! Tyson Kidd and William Regal won this match after a knee trembler. William and Tyson celebrated in the ring, with Regal pointing to Kidd several times as if to say, “This is the real deal”. Regal left the ring and left Tyson in the ring to soak up some of the cheers. Regal really done a great job of putting Kidd over here, or so I felt.

The third match was Alberto Del Rio w/Ricardo Rodriguez versus Ezekiel Jackson. Before the match started Rodriguez mocked Ezekiel by flexing his muscles (or lack of) in his suit. Ezekiel was in charge of this match but would lose to Alberto by tapping out to the Cross Armbreaker. I thought Ricardo made this match great through his comical poses and distractions.

Match number four was the Divas match between A.J and Natalya w/Special Guest referee Hornswoggle. Another very enjoyable match here. The best spot in the match was the chain of rollups that were done to perfection making poor Hornswoggle attempt counting with every rollup. Hornswoggle then decided he had enough, walked over to the turnbuckle and wiped the sweat off his forehead, took a few deep breathes before returning to action. By this time Natalya and A.J had broke up the rollups. Definitely a great comedy moment. A.J would win via rollup after Hornswoggle had taken a bite of Natalya’s ass. Important to note (and you may have seen this on the dirtsheets already) that Natalya and Lilian Garcia are set to start a program together after Natalya arrogantly threw her jacket to Lilian at the start of the match to which Lilian – with a load of that Latina sass – threw the jacket out of the ring. After the match Lilian threw the jacket at Natalya who covered her head with it in shame. The two have since started a war of words on Twitter.

The fifth match was the Intercontinental championship match between Cody Rhodes and Big Show. Cody cut a promo before the match making several American sports references and telling the crowd that we wouldn’t understand because nothing good had ever come out of Northern Ireland. At the start of the match Cody kept jumping out of the ring before Big Show started calling Cody a wannabe underwear model and chicken before starting a chicken dance and chicken noises. This was a better match than their Mania match, going back and forth before Show would get the win with a chokeslam.

Match number 6 was a squash match between Yoshi Tatsu and Mark Henry. Not much to note here – Yoshi got some kicks in before getting the World Strongest Slam, the end.

The seventh match of the evening was the No-DQ match between Kane and Randy Orton. Orton received a huuuge pop. This was probably the second best match because the two had the whole arena in the palm of their hand. Kane introduced kendo sticks and chairs into the match. Orton hit the hangman DDT on the chair, and got the win via RKO.

The last match of the evening was between Sheamus and Daniel Bryan for the WHC. Sheamus got the biggest pop of the night and Daniel Bryan had a flurry of YES chants going. This was the match that we ALL should have seen at Mania. It wasn’t a 5 star classic but it was a great match, and definitely my favourite of the night! The match went back and forth with Bryan locking in the YESlock (labelle lock for non-Smackdown watchers) but Sheamus would pick up the win with a Brogue Kick. Leaving the crowd to go home happy!

The crowd was electric for the whole evening, a good mixture of adults and kids, in my section particularly there were more kids than a primary school. They started to piss me off after a while. There was a mother and her two kids who had bought nosebleed seats but thought they’d trample round the floor section for the whole evening. Some kids kept running through my row of chairs, which was EXTREMELY annoying. Because I was at the barriers I found them bullying their way through every 5 minutes. At one point a kid had trampled on my camera bag which had one of my SLR lenses inside it.

Overall it was a very solid show. Some great wrestling moments and definitely a special speech by William Regal which I will forever remember. Show rating – 7.5/10

Hope you don’t mind the length of tonight’s article, so to help ease you back into life here’s a slideshow of some pictures and the ADR video!

ADR video

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

All photos are my own.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope you enjoyed it somewhat. If you wish to continue the discussion comment below or you can contact me on Twitter @Razor_WWE94!

See me back here, hopefully a wee bit earlier next Wednesday!

-Ryan