This past Tuesday the WWE invaded the Inland Empire by taking over the Citizen’s Business Bank Arena in Ontario for a sold out taping of Smackdown. While not the first time the company has come to entertain the masses in Ontario yesterday’s show marks the first time the show was taped for television, the event in question aired this Friday on Syfy.
I had never attended a WWE event before in my life, so to go this past Tuesday was a landmark moment for me where I finally got to cross off another item from my bucket list. Like most wrestling fans my age I grew during the Attitude era of the WWE, then WWF. I had paid attention and enjoyed wrestling beforehand in my younger years, playing some of the early super nintendo games and watching it on tv whenever it was on. However, I didn’t develop the love for it I do now until that specific era.Yet somehow between then and now I just never made it to event whether it be scheduling, money, or plethora of other reasons. Thus it seemed like the stars had aligned when I finally bought my tickets.
Having no real expectations for the event I have to say I was extremely impressed on behalf of the WWE as well as the Citizen’s Business Bank Arena. Both worked very well to ensure that the show was as spectacular as can be; a testament to the longevity of the former and the high standards of the latter. Each entrance to the venue had lines several feet long, the merch tables were crowded to the brim with people trying to pick up shirts of their favorite superstars, and as cliched as it sounds you really could feel the excitement in the air. All signs of an excellent show.
It was impossible to find a single person in the house who wasn’t pumped that night as smiles were all abound. As most of the crowd had settled in the show kicked off and we were treated to a dark match featuring Dolph Ziggler and Alexander Rusev before heading into some WWE Live matches. The highlight of those matches was easily the Wyatt Family taking on Los Matadores & Sin Cara. The Wyatts have finally grown on me despite hating them for so long. Now I can’t get enough them. Coupled with Sin Cara whom I absolutely love to see in the ring you had a match that got me standing most of the time yelling as loud as I could. The WWE has some highlight footage posted online if you want to get a glimpse of the awesome match that took place.
The matches set for the night were pretty damn fun and didn’t disappoint. They even threw a few curveballs at us; especially with main event between Cesaro and Orton. If you haven’t seen it yet google it! Of all the fights from that night I have to say one of the best was easily the 4 on 4 tag team match which saw Los Usos alongside Goldust and Cody Rhodes defeat the New Age Outlaws, Curtis Axel & Ryback. However, the opening match featuring The Shield taking on Daniel Bryan, Christian, and Sheamus is pretty up there as well. The latter of the two got the crowd riled up as the people of Ontario joined the Yes Movement that night, chanting “YES” as loud and as much as they could.
Really, the only disappointing factor of the night was the lack of CM Punk. Not that I expected him to be there given current events. Even in spite of his absence that the night was an overall success. Hopefully the WWE will bring Smackdown back to Ontario again in the near future and maybe some day we could even host Monday Night Raw. Wishful thinking but a guy can dream can’t he!