Starrcade 2017

Dear Wrestling,

First of all, you know how I'm a big trash heap monster person? Right, so...I left Starrcade at intermission.

You see, I really, really wanted to see Kevin and Sami, and give them the letters I've written--not on here. Paper ones. And I had an amazing day, and I just had this strong feeling like this was my best chance. Obviously if it had happened, I'd've led with that, but I don't really regret it. Right now I'm still awake at almost 5am from having too much caffeine for the drive home, so we'll see how I feel after I sleep.

It was a full day for me. I took my sister to work in the morning and left from there. I don't get to go to Greensboro very often, so I thought I'd check it out, maybe find a cool bookstore, and then hit the arena early to see if I could give them the letters--oh, why don't I just mail them? Because as much as I want to take merest microseconds of their time, I do want that instant of recognition. I lie to myself about that a lot, but not tonight! Anyway.

When I got to town I discovered that they have a zoo--and it has red pandas! We in the Steenerico Society joke that El Generico was secretly a transformed red panda--the way he moved, can you blame us much? So that was a crazy random happenstance. I headed there first. It's the Greensboro Science Museum, and the zoo portion is small but quite good. I had a long, whistled conversation with a cockatoo, got a scarlet macaw to say hello to me and to no one else, I petted SO many goats and an alpaca. I used to farmsit for a few places that had goats, and I miss them. I saw a giant anteater for the first time and he was crazy cool. The red pandas were obviously amazing and precious and perfect--they had long been one of my favorite animals, even before the Generico 'connection'. I went in to the aquarium part and discovered that penguins are almost as much fun to watch as otters.

After this perfect half a day--and it really was, I adore zoos--I got a piece of poster paper and a marker and made a simple sign that said "J'ai une lettre pour M. Steen et M. Sebei" and went to wait at the arena.

If you've never stagedoored, it can be a surprisingly nerve racking experience. It always takes forever, if you're really invested in the people you're waiting for you spend the whole time spinning up your nerves and then reminding yourself to calm down and be a good human to the other human, breathe, no not like Leslie Knope, come on buddy...We saw quite a few people come in. Natalya was funny and charming and very nice, although she didn't come over because "I'm a bad guy!" She promised to send our love to her cat and Tyson. Konnor was very funny, too.

Kofi Kingston came over to us because of course he did, he's amazing. I was relieved that nearly everyone who asked him for an autograph or picture was very polite, a couple were clearly shy and quiet, but it went very well. I was able to shake his hand and tell him that the New Day are why I started watching wrestling in the first place, which seemed to please him.

After that it was nearly 5pm. We all assumed that everyone had been told to be there by five, and with the sun going down it was getting very cold, so I headed inside. Even as we lined up and waited for the doors to open, people were 'woo!'ing like crazy, lots of "Adam Cole Bay Bay!" for some reason, all kind of things. I was pleased to see an LIJ shirt amongst all the Bullet Club and WWE ones.

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So I've been stuck here for hours now. I'm sick with something and yesterday definitely made that worse and I was up for 22 hours and I've been stuck. The postmatch letdown was really hard, too, much harder than is normal for me. Chris told me to just bang out my impressions and be done with it, rather than wait for or try to force the creativity. I hate it, but it's what I've got right now. I'm sorry guys, I'll try to do better in future.

The first match was Ziggler and Roode, with Arn Anderson as a special guest enforcer. I was surprised by how unified the crowd was behind Roode--I'm always curious if people have forgotten what an atrocious heel he was on NXT, if they didn't watch, don't care, or what. Regardless, unified they certainly were. This was by far the hottest crowd I've experienced. It reminded me, in fact, of the single best rock concert I've been to: Cowboy Mouth at the 9:30 Club in DC. If you've never seen them, they will goddamn save your soul.

I'm sure by now you've seen the clip of Anderson hitting the spinebuster on Ziggler: it was even more sudden and stunning in person, and Ziggler sold it beautifully.

Next was the 12 man tag match, which was insane and I literally couldn't keep up with everyone there--although I really like Luke Harper and I was very very glad to see him. I honestly don't know what it is, I just really enjoy him. One thing that stood out was that the crowd was really behind Tye Dillinger, and there was a fun moment of a guy in each corner doing the ten punches with him.

The Naomi/Tamina match was honestly a little disappointing. Naomi was wonderful and everyone loves her, but it felt very one-sided in terms of character, and the crowd was cool on it.

There was a tribute to Dusty before the Dustin/Dash match that honest to god made me--and several others--cry. I think it was one I've seen before, but man. I know almost nothing about that man, I don't think I've seen more than a couple promos, but his heart and his soul ache from him so that even my ignorant ass can see it. He really was special. The match was short, but good, and it was wonderful to hear Dustin speak afterward.

The match between Shinsuke and Baron Corbin was better than I expected--I don't enjoy Corbin at all, but Shin pulled a pretty good match out of him, and singing Rising Sun with thousands of people was wonderful. Afterwards Shinsuke spent a lot of time with the fans, pretending to take one's hat and taking selfies just of himself on another's phone. It was delightful and I like him more every time I see him live.

And then the event that I was really there for: the tag titles on the line, and Kevin and Sami's first attempt at them in WWE. It was a good match, but unfortunately I never felt like the titles were really in true peril of leaving the Usos. Based on who got the best offense and whatnot, it felt like maybe the New Day might get them, maybe, but definitely no one else. I'm glad I was there to represent the Steenerico Society. I look forward to their next attempt, and hopefully one that I can share with my friends.

So after that match I was still really hot to give them their letters, even though I'd sworn that I wouldn't wait again, and anyway AJ matches these days just devolve into chanting USA and I despise that, so I hightailed it back outside to try to catch them.

I'm pretty sure I saw Sami walk to the car. I did get to thank Dustin as he was leaving, and I even conversed briefly with Jimmy Uso before thanking him too. ("How are you not freezing?" "Aren't *you* freezing?" "I *am* freezing, and I'm wearing sleeves!")

Then I came home and didn't sleep until almost 6am. The end.

With Apologies for...all this,
Autumn