Tuesday 25th March 2003

Checked in at the airport at 5:20am. Didn’t get much sleep last night, airport very busy for some reason but eventually got checked in – bags checked all the way through to Seattle.

Arrived in Amsterdam and headed directly to the gate – good job we did it took ages to get through the security at the gate. They checked the passports very carefully then passed us on to another security guy who cross examined us – questions about our luggage included – When did we pack it, where had it been since it was packed, could anyone have tampered with it, how did we get to the airport. Next I was questioned about my camera, how long had I owned it, had it been in for repair recently. Then it was why were we going to Seattle, then the funniest bit was when he asked if we were taking part in Wrestlemania or just going to watch it, I was tempted to say yes to see what he would say then he asked if the Rock was going to be there, finally we were free to go and he told us to have a nice time. We moved on to the actual hand luggage x-ray etc. every 2nd person or so was searched or had to remove their shoes or had their bags hand searched so it was no surprise how long it was taking. Then we just had time to nip to the toilet before boarding the plane.

9.5 hours later we touched down in Seattle. Flight was uneventful thankfully just very long. Managed to locate the Grey Line of Seattle Express Bus office and bought tickets to W Hotel in downtown Seattle. Checked in with the minimum of fuss – room was taken care of already but had to leave credit card details in case we ordered room service etc. finally got settled in – great Hotel, very smart room with Large screen TV, CD/Radio player and even a Video. Unfortunately made the mistake of taking a nap and woke up 8 hours later ! Raided the mini-bar and snacks in the room, watched TV and eventually went back to sleep. Woke up at 4am (this pattern was repeated every morning, I’m sure something happened every morning at that time that woke me up but I still don’t know what it was.)

Wednesday 26th March 2003

Spent all day Wednesday sightseeing and getting our bearings in Seattle. Quickly learned our way around and found the Seattle centre where the Key arena is and also discovered the Seahawks Stadium and Safeco field. Luckily the WWE tend to put you in Hotels that are within walking distance of the Wrestlemania venue – it was the same in Toronto last year. I didn’t want to go up the Space Needle ( I don’t like heights at all) so my sister didn’t bother either. Found out later that the Dudleys had been there meeting with some school kids at the top of the Space Needle that day.

Thursday 27th March 2003

Thursday went shopping in downtown Seattle and then returned to the Hotel to pick up WWE tickets and souvenirs. Turned up at 4pm as per our details but WWE staff thought it was supposed to be at 5pm so didn’t turn up until 4:20pm and then took a while to set out all the stuff before letting us in. Got a wrestlemaniaXIX cap, wrestlemaniaXIX sweatshirt, wrestlemaniaXIX bear, WrestlemaniaXIX tickets, raw tickets and fan access tickets. Got back to the room and checked the tickets to see where we were sitting – front row tickets for Wrestlemania I couldn’t believe it and 2nd row seats for Raw, boy were we happy ! Fan axxess was due to start at 7pm so we got ready for that and walked down to the Seahawks Stadium. Once we got there we joined the queue waiting to get in. Once the doors opened we got in quite quickly. Immediately noticed it was much smaller than last year’s one in Toronto but there were a lot less people as well so you had time to access everything. Checked out who was at the photograph booths and who was signing and decided to go hang around the ring and see who was going to feature there. Didn’t have to wait long for Howard Finkle to come out to his music and announce the plan for the evening. It was to feature different superstars doing Question & Answer sessions in the ring, first with Howard and then taking questions from fans. Decided we wanted to hang around and hear the QA sessions. First up was Ric Flair, you know I really used to hate this guy back when he was feuding with Randy Savage in WWF ( I was a big Macho Man fan then) but since he’s come back I’ve really got to like him and appreciate his work especially with Hunter. Anyway, out he came and gave a great interview with Howard, then the floor was opened up to the fans for their questions. Someone asked him “If he and HHH were both in their primes who would win a match between them ?” Ric gave the unpopular answer of HHH and went on to compliment HHH saying that he really was the best in the business and that very few people could wrestle at his level as consistently as he had and that although Ric had been the best in his day, HHH has taken it to a whole new level. He also stressed that today’s wrestlers are bigger, stronger aqnd better than in his day as well. Eric Bischoff and Booker T occupied one of the autograph booths (90 mins each) and Brock Lesner and Torrie Wilson occupied the other (again 90 mins each). You could get your photo taken with FBI at one photo booth and Rodney Mack & Teddy Long at the other. Then The Hurricane took over from Rodney & Teddy (they hardly got any customers at all it was really embarrassing for them). Trish also made a fleeting appearance with Hurricane in the booth and I think Nidia & Jamie Noble replaced FBI in the photo booth. There was also the play by play announcing where you could call a match and get a video of the match with your commentary to take away and there was an area where you could play video games against an opponent (occasionally a superstar would take part as well). The merchandising stand was in the middle and there was a small cage where the Hardy Boys were signing copies of their book, they were later replaced by The King and JR (Barbeque sauce & king’s book). Then down at the opposite end from the ring there was muscle beach – loads of exercise equipment with instructors and occasionally superstar appearances, John Cena was rapping away at one point down there.
Howard Finkle kept us entertained in between Superstars by doing trivia quizzes with the fans giving out prizes of trivia books, t-shirts and even Raw tickets at one point. The guy running around with the mic for the fans was Mark Corrano (remember the Triple H radio interview with Opie & Antony a while back where he got Mark involved in the spanking, well that’s the guy). Tom Pritchard and Timmy White (referee) were hanging around the outside of the ring. Maven & Chris Nowinski were out in the ring next. Then we had Chris Jericho who was very entertaining indeed and they finished off with Tommy Dreamer and Bill Demott who were also very entertaining.
Then it was all over and we trudged back to the Hotel, unfortunately every trip to fan axxess was downhill on the way there and uphill on the way back, some of those Seattle streets reminded me of the old TV show Streets of San Francisco – I wouldn’t like to be there in winter that’s for sure.

Friday 28th March 2003

Had a long lie and watched TV in bed then surfed the internet etc. the internet access was not very good it kept dropping out in the middle of me composing e-mails to Linda! Lol It didn’t help using a wireless keyboard which seemed to miss out every second letter I typed ( I’m sure Linda had to work hard to decipher my e-mails). I didn’t have a mouse either so found that very limiting. Eventually went out for lunch etc and then went to fan axxess 4pm session. More people were queuing for this one than were yesterday but still got in about 15 mins or so after doors opened. The people scanning the tickets seemed to take multiple attempts to actually scan the tickets which didn’t help. One thing about wrestling fans though they tend to very good natured and exchange a lot of friendly banter without resorting to violence, you’d never be able to get rival football fans (soccer to you guys) to all queue up together like this without trouble. There were always police on duty but they had a real easy life sitting on their motorbikes or in their patrol cars with nothing to do. Once inside we did a quick check around the booths etc and then made our way to the ring to find out who was going to be there. Apparently, Undertaker was not going to make it (you overhear a lot at ringside) but Steph was going to be there although she was running late. Session opened with Matt Hardy & Shannon Moore. Shannon was quite entertaining and has a deeper voice than you would expect for his look and size. Matt was saying how he wished Matt fans would go to Raw and chant we want Matt at Jeff because he’s fed up with Jeff fans chanting we want Jeff at Smackdown. HBK was over at the Raw signing booth next to the ring and was very popular with a long line of people waiting for his autograph. Matt came across very well – very determined to succeed in the business and looks like he’ll be main eventing someday. Next up was John Cena, again very impressive and definitely main event material. He really can rap off the cuff as he demonstrated a few times when fans challenged him. The problem with this fan axxess thing is you quickly learn that the heels tend to be a lot more talented than the faces and a lot of the time a lot nicer as well! LOL. Next up was Rey Mysterio, now I was very impressed with him on the mic as I haven’t heard him speak a lot at all. He has a great attitude and mind set and believes he’ll eventually main event and I wouldn’t put it past him despite his size. All along we’d been overhearing that Steph was running late and I’d noticed that HBK has been signing for almost 2 hours instead of the normal 90 mins split but didn’t think anything of it until a massive cheer erupted I glanced over to my left and Oh My God there he was Triple H arms upraised holding the belt. Suddenly the line for autographs tripled in the space of 10 seconds or so and it became impossible to move in the crush. All too soon they cut off the line as they knew there was no way he would be able to sign all the autographs. Settled for front row at ringside again and drooling from a distance eager to see and hear from Steph. Eventually Howard announced her and she put in an appearance. I have to say I along with most of the crowd were bowled over when she came out, I can’t stress enough how beautiful she is in person, slim figure, lovely smile and twinkling eyes and she’s just so nice as well – darn it! A quick look at her ring finger confirmed this was going to be an in-character interview which was quickly established once Howard opened the floor to the fans questions. I think the very first question was “When are you and Triple H getting married ?” to which she replied “ We’ve already been married and now we’re divorced “ which set the tone for personal questions – obviously she wasn’t answering any! She comes across as very intelligent and very determined to keep her private life private which I can’t blame her for. It was extremely funny to hear every male who asked a question tell her how hot she was in person compared to TV (honestly if I’d been her first thing I’d have done when I got backstage was find out who always films her with such unflattering clothes and camera angles on smackdown and fire their ass – I mean it’s great to get all these compliments but she must wonder why the camera lies on smackdown so much). As I’ve mentioned before they did a little back and forth banter between the ring and the signing booth which went over big time with the crowd. She managed the obligatory Playboy question with great panache but take it from me it’s not happening – she’s going to take over from Vince one day and she already attends business meetings and events and you can’t do that and be in Playboy as well – you’d never get taken seriously as a business woman. She actually answered one question out of character – she was asked out of all the many hats she wears in the WWE which does she prefer, she says she likes producing best as she likes to helping superstars show off their abilities and help them achieve what they can etc. All too soon it was all over so we moved over to the barriers at the signing table and took some photos of HHH. I have to explain that the reason I don’t have too many photos of fan axxess was due to my digital camera eating batteries like nobody’s business so I only took pictures sparingly. HHH finally finished signing just as 7pm approached and we were being thrown out of the building! Lol Another uphill walk back to the Hotel and eventually to bed after eating, reviewing the pics on the camera and surfing the internet etc.

Saturday 29th March 2003

Another long lie – put the do not disturb notice out and chilled. Eventually got up and went out for lunch and a look about. Headed out to fan axxess 3pm session and & 7pm session. Eric Bischoff was up first in the ring at the 3pm session, RVD was signing next to the ring and Kane was in the ring after Eric and then swapped places with RVD and RVD came into the ring. As per Steph and Triple H, RVD & Kane has a bit of interaction during their interviews.

There was a much bigger queue to get in than in previous days and because the USA football team (soccer) was playing in the stadium we had to queue in the opposite direction and snake back and forth to keep out of the way of the exiting football fans. They all kept giving us funny looks and asking what we were queuing for ! They thought it was Wrestlemania itself and not just fan axxess. As a result we were much later getting inside and took a bit longer to get into a good position beside the ring to watch the QA sessions. So Eric was already in the ring when we got there. He seemed to do okay and answered all the questions posed to him I think he attempted to stay in character but with Eric it’s difficult to tell. He was asked about the cruiserweights and said he’d like to bring them to Raw (the day before Steph said she wanted to bring the women’s championship to Smackdown.) I don’t know if this means we will actually see any changes or not or even any trades between smackdown and raw. Kane was pretty cool as usual. Interestingly, he was asked about being the last intercontinental champion and said he supposed you could say that technically HHH was the last IC champ as he won the match. When asked who he’d like to face in a match for the Heavyweight title he said “No disrespect to Booker T but he would really like to kick HHH’s ass for the title”.

That’s something Ric Flair implied on Thursday night saying that there was a WWE title and a World Heavyweight title but everyone knew that HHH was the man in the business today and he was the one you had to beat to be the considered the best.
Kane is very very nice and he gives a great interview I think they teamed him up with RVD partly to keep RVD under control in interview sessions and boy does he need to do that.

RVD is the one guy that HHH is blamed for holding back more than anybody but having watched him do his QA session I believe he buries himself. When asked he openly condoned smoking dope and frankly he might even have done so before this session the way he was acting. One of his questions was who would he like to face in a hell in a cell match to which he replied What’s a hell in a cell match, I don’t know what that is – Kane was quietly shaking his head over at the autograph booth. He was continually asked questions about Sabu & ECW and unlike the other ex- ECW wrestlers he never expanded his answers to say how the past was good but he had a great opportunity here and now in the WWE. When asked about Triple H holding him back he said you’d have to ask the office about that or Triple H because he didn’t know anything about it. It’s clear he only came to WWE because ECW closed and he doesn’t even tried to hide it. It’s obvious he’d be a nightmare to send on media appearances.

I can’t remember who was in the other autograph booth or the photo booths. We grabbed a couple of cheeseburgers and some water and went outside when the session finished at 6pm and after sitting on the steps for a while eating we then joined the queue for the 7pm session.

After a quick scan around we once again headed for the ring to see who Howard had in store for us tonight – we were expecting some Smackdown big names as it was the last session. To our surprise we once again got Matt Hardy and then Rey Mysterio – they were both very good but we’d seen both of them before. Next up we got Trish. She was very cool. Again the guys in the audience were drooling and asking the usual Playboy question. She’s said she preferred wrestling and would leave Playboy to Torrie Wilson . She told the story of how she got into wrestling from studying to be a doctor, fitness modeling and then working on a wrestling radio show and interviewing wrestlers. She said one of her favorite wrestlers was Macho Man Randy Savage growing up. She praised Fit Finlay for all the work he does with the Divas and how he pushes them to achieve what he knows they are capable of constantly causing them to surprise themselves. I think the results of that are visible every week on Raw as the quality of the womens matches continues to get better and better. Once Trish was finished there was only about 30 mins left and when Howard announced Jamie Noble was up next we decided to head back to the Hotel as we had the special Bacon, Bagels & Biceps breakfast meal to look forward to on Sunday at 10am. I did find it strange that unlike last year the Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening didn’t feature any of the big name superstars especially as these are the two sessions that come with the travel package. I assume Rock, Undertaker, Austin, Hogan, McMahon must have been at either the Friday evening or Saturday morning sessions if they put in an appearance at all. Never mind we saw Steph and Hunter and that topped everything else. Oops fogot to mention Kevin Nash was signing at fan axxess in the evening session he took over after 90 mins from Goldust.

Sunday 30th march 2003

Walked down to SeaHawks stadium from Hotel and joined queue for 10am breakfast. Once we got inside we discovered the ring set up and surrounded by tables set for 8 people. The ring has 8 chairs facing in one direction and 8 chairs facing in the opposite direction. The tables has special souvenir placemats, menus and cups at each place setting and in the middle of each table was a toy wrestling ring with 2 figures and a chair or ladder in it. Ours had Triple H (with leg cast) and Booker T. Once we were all seated the host asked us to turn over our menu cards and whoever had the red dot won the ring and the figures to take home. Ours was won by a lady from Seattle wearing a Brock Lesner t-shirt who promptly clasped the Triple H figure to her chest and saying, Yes I’ve won my guy ! See I told you, loads of closet Triple H fans who don’t wear his t-shirts because they get hassle from other fans.

Next we lined up at one of 4 buffets and helped ourselves to breakfast. Once we were finished they brought in raw & smackdown stars for a question and answer session.
Raw – Molly Holly, Jazz, Rodney Mack, Randy Orton, Hurricane, Al Snow, Terri, Jeff Hardy, Maven.
Smackdown – Matt Hardy, Big Show, Nathan Jones, Tajihri, Funaki, Rhyno, Dawn Marie.
Josh was the host and asked the stars questions before asking for questions from the floor.
Big Show was very entertaining – he’s an extremely funny guy with great comedic timing. He was taunting Nathan Jones all the time and calling Josh midget , he even started on Tajhiri at one point. Most of questions were for Hurricane who seemed to be the most popular star there. Randy Orton got a few questions as well with one fan managing to get in a verbal low blow after massaging his ego and commenting on his good looks etc. she asked when he was going to stop getting injured and actually do something – poor guy actually seemed crushed by it – I think his injury is definitely a sore point with him at the moment although earlier he did once again state that evolution would be back once he and Batista recovered from their injuries. The whole session was fun from start to finish and the stars certainly treated it like such and seem to be having fun as well.
After the stars left they raffled off 2 autograph chairs and 2 lifesized autographed ‘slammers’ one of Steph and one of Eric, they had been used as part of the cage setup at fan axxess and were basically lifesize photos printed on white vinyl with foam inside and black handles to hold them by at each side. I think the idea was you held onto the handles and slammed them to the floor – a lot of guys certainly had their eyes on the Stephanie one anyway ! After that we left and walked back to the Hotel carrying out breakfast souvenirs ( mug, place mat, Wrestlemania program etc.). As it was about 12 noon we were passing people going in the opposite direction heading for Safeco Field (doors opened at 2:30pm) who wondered aloud where we’d been and where we were going as according to them we were going in the wrong direction ! Lol

Spent time packing up our suitcase and discussing how were going to safely transport our chairs home – decided we needed bubble wrap, tape and black bags.

At 3 o’clock we left the Hotel and headed to Safeco field, took about 15 mins to get there and another 10 mins to get inside. Eventually got to our seats which I couldn’t believe were so far away from the barrier – they look so much closer on TV – don’t know if it was just because were behind the announce tables or not. The rest you basically saw on TV if you saw Heat or the PPV. Crowd was loud, atmosphere was great and matches were brilliant. We had to hang around after PPV to get our souvenir chairs untied so we could take them away with us. We’d been moaning about the uphill climb to the Hotel all week but that night it didn’t seem all that bad and we were carrying chairs as well ! Lol

Monday 31st March

Got up late as usual and went out for breakfast and then got stuff for wrapping chairs. Went back to Hotel and packaged them up and left them sitting next to suitcase in the Hotel room. Decided to head over to Seattle Centre as there’s plenty to do there anyway and we could have something to eat and buy t-shirts etc. before doors opened at Key Arena.

Funniest bit about waiting around for doors to open at key arena was this religious guy who decided he could preach to a crowd of wrestling fans. Well I’m sure you can imagine the response, What chants abounded as he spoke, these then degenerated into Asshole chants to which some wiseass roared out “Where’s Triple H I didn’t know he was out here “ as you can imagine the crowd was in hysterics by this time. Luckily for the religious guy the doors opened and the fans lost interest in him quickly and streamed into the arena. Once the night got underway the crowd was really hot and on it’s feet for most of the matches. I’d never been to Raw live before and it’s so much better than on TV. All too soon it was all over and we trooped off to the monorail and then back to the Hotel.

Tuesday 1st April

Up early to finish packing and check out, arriving at the airport around 8am. Lots of people off to Hawaii for some reason so big queues at check-in desks. As with every local person we met the woman on the check-in desk was very friendly and recognized the shape of a Wrestlemania souvenir chair and undertook to make sure it made it’s way safely around the corner of the conveyor belt and off with the rest of the luggage. She said some of her family had gone to Wrestlemania but she hadn’t talked to them since Sunday so didn’t know how they got on. She even moved our seats from the middle of the row over to 2 seats at the side so we had an aisle and window seat – yippee no clambered over other people to go to the toilet etc. Flight wasn’t until 12noon so we went for some breakfast and got some last minute presents from the shops – again very friendly people who recognized we were there for Wrestlemania as my sister had her souvenir sweatshirt on. After a 30 mins delay on take- off (Amsterdam has a curfew and doesn’t allow flights to land before 7am in the morning) we were off on our journey home ( 8hours and 15 mins later we touched down in Amsterdam where unfortunately it all went wrong with our flight to Aberdeen being delayed due a technical fault with the plane. Two gate changes later we were sent back to our original gate and boarded the replacement plane, an hour later the pilot finally got the documents he required from the airline only to discover they’d changed the route and he need to get more fuel, another 30 mins later and we were finally able to leave. So we arrived back home at 12noon Aberdeen time on Wednesday 2nd april having left at 12 noon Seattle time on Tuesday 1st April – lost a night there somewhere !! I’m slowly getting back on track and fighting jet lag – I’m due back at work on Monday.

Was it all worth it – yes definitely, will I be doing it again next year – you bet! New York will be my 3rd Wrestlemania trip in a row and this time like last year there will be 4 of us going. All I’m waiting for now is the WWE to get in touch with the details which they’ve already said they’ll be doing later this month. New York here we come, March 14th 2004.

Fiona

Here's a picture of the view Fiona had from her seats at Wrestlemania and Heat:

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