You Can’t See Me… from where I’m seated

Live in Manila. Despite the helter skelter outside, restless souls like myself braved low fuel and potential barricades to escape for a few hours into the world where spandex-wearing men are considered cool, and spandex-wearing women look cool kicking ass.

The show ended pretty earlier than I expected, so this is a rare time that i get to type my thoughts while fresh. I guess the earlier thing is the driving point of my adventure today. Everything was well below my expectations.

I’m not blaming wrestling. There might be a few other factors, such as the sad fact that I was seated at the nosebleed section.

Of course I tried getting nearer seats but aside from the fact that there were prohibitively expensive, they were also conveniently sold out. Like I mentioned earlier, it was only through the kindness of a benefactor that I was able to go in with my nephew and two sub-10 year nieces who are wrestling nuts in their own right.

Throughout the show, i waged a losing war against vertigo and nearsightedness, but made the most by standing up when a really popular character is introduced. I like a few heroes, and more villains than i should - despite the underdog mentality, i was rooting for Carlito, Chris Masters, and Triple H.

Anyway, i noticed that throughout the 3-hour show, the effects weren’t as flashy as on TV. Observations led me to two reasons:

1. There were no giant screens where the producers can flash their AVPs as well as close in on the action.
2. Watching it live meant the absence of color commentary.

Anyway, overall it was fun -- the most fun i had controlling myself because i'm trying to look and sound less enthusiastic than a teenage boy and two little girls at least a dozen years away from puberty. However, i must note the sad fact that wrestling, like most things in life, are better when looked at from a TV screen, with all the lighting, color corrections, and play-by-play annoucements.

I thought it was just me, but SeiferGene (my nephew, as he calls himself) was also on the lookout for something else - something I myself wondered about it for a couple of times: what do the losing wrestlers do when the match is over? How do the organizers segue between matches?

Turns out that the losers continue writhing in pain for a few more minutes, or is helped off the ring by the referees to polite applause from spectators. It wasn't exactly a revelation, but at least we know something TV viewers don't.

The matches in themselves were nothing you haven't seen before, but there is something Zen about watching something you already know the outcome of. How many times have we seen a nice guy being robbed of a win? Or how many times has a referee looked the other way just when the deciding moment is at hand? Or why do we remain surprised at why some players bring managers who interfere at matches and some don't, and most of the time the former ekes out an upset?

Even better than the matches were the introductions, accompanied by a theme that thanks to continuous coverage by JackTV, we're now all too familiar with. Pity the walkway at Aranete was too short. John Cena's entry was the best at bringing the house down, but Cena was too modest to accept Manila as his turf, thus unwittingly depriving all of us audience members his acknowledgment that we were bona fide members of his Chain Gang. That was a letdown, unlike Ric Fair's confident claim (to wild applause) that he stepped into "Flair Country." Side note: Flair lost, and Cena won. So i forgive him. For tonight.

--

PS: Ending abruptly like it started, we soon found ourselves hearing the piped-in annoucements of forthcoming events, so we crawled out the exits. I was about to complain about the sluggish movement, when we spotted a familiar figure in front of us. Not wanting to disturb the celeb, but insistent on posting proof on this blog, we did the next best thing. We took turns having our pictures taken with this wrestling figure. So, who's this wrestler? Isn't it obvious?