AS I SEE IT
Bob Magee
Pro Wrestling: Between the Sheets
PWBTS.com
The ECW Arena has had some bizarre moments in its past.
Old ladies waiting outside for midnight Bingo at what was still then the home of the South Philadelphia Vikings Mummers group.
The impromptu strip tease of Kimona Wanalea in the middle of an ECW show.
Fans buying frying pans from a store down the street for ECW wrestlers to use on their opponents.
Bottles that had been filled with dozens of brands of beer being neatly lined up along the outside ECW Arena wall before each show.
But I can safely say I’ve never watched a larceny in progress until last week (OK, there WERE those Club ECW tickets still being sold in the last weeks of the promotion, but…), while hanging out front before the CZW show of last week.
As maybe 100 of us were in line for the show in broad daylight…we stood and watched as three teenaged kids “borrowed” what appeared to be a shopping cart (the type used for large objects) from the Lowe’s down the street. It’s not the first time anyone’s seen a shopping cart being “borrowed”, but still… Then, a half hour later, they came back to a small building across the street from the Arena with a white couch propped up on their borrowed shopping carts (as this was all going on… they saw clearly that the line outside the Arena was watching this entertainment and offering comments, as Philadelphia fans often do).
Yes, a white couch…which they got from God knows where, since there are no houses going down that way toward Oregon Avenue. They these kids attempted to pick the lock of the outdoor security fence surrounding a small building across Swanson from the Arena, which is being rehabbed. When that didn’t work, they got together, carried the couch to the other side of the fence, and somehow lifted the couch over a lower part of the security fence onto the concrete surrounding the building, jumped over the fence themselves, and disappeared somewhere into the building with their couch.
If anybody ever called the Philadelphia Police, can you imagine the explanation for that one if they were arrested?.
Meanwhile there was another bizarre event this week…
Because of a volcanic explosion in Iceland and the subsequent block on most European air travel that it’s created, the WWE crew that was winding up a routine European tour, is now scarmbling to get back to the United States for RAW and Smackdown tapings. There are all sorts of thoughts for what RAW may look like Monday night, with the most recent rumor featuring a RAW with Smackdown talent and taped interviews from the RAW roster to be shot in some studio in Europe.
Aren’t we all glad we aren’t the person who had to call Vince McMahon and tell him about this?
Finally CHIKARA King of Trios 2010 begins this Friday night at the ECW Arena
The biggest pro-wrestling tournament of 2010 features talentt from CHIKARA, TNA, Ring of Honor, CMLL, F1RST Wrestling/Minneapolis, Big Japan Wrestling, Perros del Mal, Osaka Pro Wrestling, IWRG, and Cleveland’s Absoulte Intense Wrestling. The first round of tournament action is made up of the following matches to take place in first round action this Friday night:
KING OF TRIOS: Opening Round Match
Team Delicioso (Curry Man & Los Ice Creams) vs. Team Perros del Mal (El Oriental/Alebrije/Cuije)
KING OF TRIOS: Opening Round Match
Team Osaka Pro (Atsushi Kotoge/Daisuke Harada/Tadasuke) vs. The UnStable (Vin Gerard/STIGMA/Colin Delaney)
KING OF TRIOS: Opening Round Match
F1rst Family (Arik Cannon/North Star Express) vs. Bruderschaft des Kreuzes (Tim Donst/Lince Dorado/Pink Ant)
KING OF TRIOS: Opening Round Match
Team Big Japan Wrestling (Daisuke Sekimoto/Kankuro Hoshino/Yuji Okabayashi) vs. Team Frightning (Mike Quackenbush/Hallowicked/Frightmare)
KING OF TRIOS: Opening Round Match
F.I.S.T. (Gran Akuma/Icarus/Chuck Taylor) vs. The Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield/Sugar Dunkerton/Matt Classic)
KING OF TRIOS: Opening Round Match
The Future is Now (Jigsaw/Equinox/Helios) vs. TNA stars Generation Me/The Young Bucks + Malachi Jackson
KING OF TRIOS: Opening Round Match
The Colony (Fire Ant/Soldier Ant/Green Ant) vs. The Jack of All Trios (Johnny Gargano/Flip Kendrick/Louis Lyndon)
KING OF TRIOS: Opening Round Match
Bruderschaft des Kreuzes (Claudio Castagnoli/Ares/Tursas) vs. Team Mexico (El Valiente/Turbo/Skayde)
The event features the King of Trios tournament, a Rey de Voladores mini-tournament, the interactive CHIKARA Fan Conclave. Information on the weekend’s events can be found at King of Trios.com.
Until next time…
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