Source: BuddyTV.com
Tomorrow Wrestlemania 25 will air at a special 7PM EST/4PM PST on pay-per-view. But tonight at the WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony the fans went wild for a very unlikely performer, Bill Watts drew shocked silence from the crowd in a moment sure to be cut from the DVD, the 24 clock ticked, Austin brought down the house and a production assistant took an unintentional pratfall. I was in attendance at the Toyota Center to report what you didn’t see on TV. While I thought the show as a whole was subdued even by the standards of past years it was still nice to hear some familiar voices and listen to their stories.
In the past five years the WWE Hall of Fame has gone from a small event held at the hotel to an arena show with expensive sets, souvenir programs and fans in suits. The Houston crowd was more excited by the idea of dressing up than the fans at the Amway Arena in Orlando were for last year’s induction ceremony. The vast majority of men in the crowd worse business attire while the women favored a wider range of dresses, from Prom Night to cheetah print. While the crowd in Orlando was constantly screaming their feedback at quiet moments to make themselves audible on the DVD this year the crowd was well controlled for the most part.
There was one exception. After the crowd had stayed seated with fewer comments back and forth than at your average movie for the first several speakers Michael P.S. Hayes came out to introduce The Von Erich Family. Hayes, in case you don’t know, was a member of the NWA and World Class Championship Wrestling team The Fabulous Freebirds. He’s now a lead writer on Friday Night Smackdown.
A man seated behind me freaked out from the moment Hayes walked on stage and began screaming his adoration for the Freebirds with enough ferocity to leave him hoarse tomorrow. He did not stop for the five minutes that Hayes was on stage, saying that Hayes looked glorious and going on a profanity ridden tirade about the Freebirds being the greatest tag team of all time. He had two pretty girls in evening gowns with him who shrieked and screamed about Hayes like he was one of the Beatles.
Interestingly, given that the Freebirds feud with the Von Erichs was roughly from 1980-1984 there’s almost no way that these guys were old enough to remember watching these fights at the time. Yet if there was a trace of mockery or insincerity about these outbursts it wasn’t obvious. They really seemed to be there to see Michael Hayes. In a night full of wrestlers saying sweet nothings and fans applauding politely it was one of the only moments of unbridled pro wrestling enthusiasm. It just illustrates that some of the earlier, un-televised inductions that seem slightly arcane to modern audiences may really matter to somebody out there.
In a moment sure to be cut from the DVD it was Texas promoter “Cowboy” Bill Watts who went far off script. Referring to his days as a wrestler in the 1970s Watts said, “Back then we didn’t know what a steroid was.” The crowd did not howl with excitement at sharing in his subversive strike against the company that was honoring him. There was a groan and then dead silence. That went over like a bad stand up act.
Throughout the evening a six foot tall digital clock ticked down at the far end of the stadium, beginning with a set number of minutes and seconds and started counting when a performer took the stage. An adorable little girl sitting near me suggested that the clock was ticking down the minutes until “Stone Cold” Steve Austin came out, and that when it reached 3:16 something would happen. In reality it was, of course, the countdown to the orchestra playing and forcing a performer off stage. Well, okay, the cheesy orchestra recording.
This got to be an issue when the live show began because the countdown also signified the number of seconds left until a commercial break. While Ric Flair last year spoke for well over an hour “Stone Cold” this year spoke for a disappointingly brief time and said very little that was controversial. That was the one moment in the night when fans really struck back against the show, shouting for Austin to ignore the clock. That was something The Texas Rattlesnake was not rebellious enough to do.
That’s not to say, however, that Austin didn’t bring down the house. When a button popped off of his coat he went on an improvised rant against Men’s Wearhouse in a moment that was wonderful for its unexpectedness. His overall tone was perhaps equally surprising, though, as he shut down the crowd’s chants for “One more match!” by saying that he had come to say goodbye.
It wouldn’t be a “Stone Cold” Steve Austin speech if a corporate stooge didn’t get his in the end, though. A production assistant ran out during every commercial break with a badly made posterboard sign that said “Applause” and jumped up and down. Nobody reacted. He just leapt around waving his sign in a frenzy until it was too late and the show had returned from commercial.
After the show two large air blowers filled the air with confetti. The production assistant wasn’t on top of that cue, though, because he was standing a foot in front of the air blower when it went off. The dweeb got blasted with confetti before he could make a break for it. It was a beautiful moment that very few people were paying attention to.
The Hall of Fame ceremony was mostly tedious with fewer off color stories and specific anecdotes than in past years, presumably sanitized and cut short after a thorough talking to from WWE management. It was definitely a loss for the show. But anytime you get to see “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Ricky Steamboat, Ric Flair, Vince McMahon, Dusty Rhodes, Jim Ross and Koko B. Ware speak it’s a great night at the arena. The Hall of Fame induction ceremony makes Wrestlemania into a weekend rather than an event, which is invaluable to the local economy as well as the WWEs DVD collection sales, magazine retrospectives and WWE 24/7 Video on Demand service. The show no doubt more than pays for itself and its become a must for any fan traveling to see the event.
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I think flair was drunk! And growing up watching Nwa and pre Bischoff WCW I marked out when he and Steamboat locked up… I would watch them to a 1 hour Draw any night still at 55+ over 3/4th of the wwe roster. I would at least know I was gonna get a great macth.