Went To Axxess

And it was an absolute disaster.

Let me put it this way: we left over an hour early because it was so boring and we were so sick of being there. Never in my life have I seen such a disaster in one place and it can be summed up in a few major issues.

1. TOO MANY PEOPLE. This was the most packed Axxess session of the week and a lot of that is due to them cutting it down to three sessions on Saturday to make room for an hour in between. If that’s the case, they need to add the fourth back immediately as there were too many people in this mess to possibly have any real fun.

2. Find a better way to organize it. The problem here is there’s no way of knowing who is where because the only schedule you get is on the WWE about three minutes before the session starts. The lineups change (more on that in a second) at the halfway point, or at 4pm in our case. The new schedule was unveiled at 3:57pm. How in the world is that the best they can do?

3. Bad lineup. Here’s the list of people advertised for the four hour session:

Sheamus

Sasha Banks

Dolph Ziggler

AJ Styles

Jim Duggan

Kane

Cesaro

Jake Roberts

Michelle McCool

There were a few other names, including Ted DiBiase inside the Elimination Chamber. Now here’s the list of people who were actually in the second half.

Ascension

Becky Lynch

Summer Rae

Sgt. Slaughter

Cody Rhodes

Mandy

Tyler Breeze

Cesaro

Darren Young (inside the Chamber replacing DiBiase)

King Barrett

David Otunga (replacing AJ Styles)

Jim Duggan

Look at that second list and tell me who you would stand in line for two hours to see. Cesaro maybe? Perhaps King Barrett? There were actually people who were walking out of lines when they found out about the switch because, simply put, would you stand in line to meet David Otunga?

What this show needed was some groups of wrestlers to meet. Like say the League of Nations (Or at least three of them as Alberto Del Rio was a VIP guest. New Day and Edge are regular guests tomorrow, but ALBERTO DEL RIO is a VIP guest?) or the Social Outcasts or three or four NXT stars (yes stars, as the NXT people we had were Mandy (hasn’t debuted yet), Peyton Royce and Billie Kaye. Yeah there was an NXT show going on (which you couldn’t get near unless you were there at the beginning) and apparently wrestling a few minutes kept you from being able to sign autographs.

The whole thing felt like a job we had to get through instead of something we got to do. I get the idea that you need to make as much money as you can, but I have a major issue with what you’re getting at an event like this. I shouldn’t only be able to meet one person in that span of time. There is no way that should happen and it’s really not acceptable.

Like I said, put a group of people at the end of a line or something like that or have some better names (I’m sorry but I don’t care to sit around waiting to meet Michelle McCool, Darren Young or Candace Michelle.) available. WWE has an army of talent and that’s really the best they can get out there?

Two years ago the legends booth was the Wild Samoans/Lanny Poffo and then Ricky Steamboat/Paul Orndorff. This year I believe one booth (the NXT booth) had more than one person as a guest. Yeah these people might be at multiple sessions but so what? Oh no: they have to sit there and sign autographs for more than two hours at a time. I think they’ll survive.

Now that all being said, there were a few fun moments.

I met Jake Roberts. Uh yeah that’s about it for that. He was very quiet and seemed to want to move the line along quickly. Not rude or anything but really quick.

Linda McMahon of all people was walking around and I got a quick handshake, even though she really seemed to want to get out of there.

I got a hello from Dolph Ziggler as he was on his way to his booth.

There was a cool memorabilia section with all of the statues (Andre, Dusty Rhodes, Bruno Sammartino and Ultimate Warrior) and A LOT of stuff from the Hall of Fame class. Other than that there was some random stuff like a Goldust bodysuit, the Ultimate Warrior’s ring gear from the 1991 Royal Rumble, the Million Dollar Title, an Undertaker costume and Seth Rollins’ white outfit from last year. There was also a collection of really cool posters from each Wrestlemania, along with Brock’s ring gear from the Undertaker match, Eddie’s boots from 2005, Harley Race’s robe from Wrestlemania III and the tights Edge wore at Wrestlemania XVII, along with a bunch of other stuff.

Overall though, this was a VERY bad event because of how much they tried to cram in there without having the first thought of how to organize it. The biggest problem though was probably the lineup. At the end of the day, I need some better options than what I was given and I really shouldn’t have Cesaro and King Barrett as my top choices to wait an hour and a half to see. Just a disorganized mess that felt like a major cash grab instead of anything worth seeing.

Pictures of all the memorabilia and some cool stuff coming later.

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