I attended the NWA Anniversary show last night at Philips Arena.

First let me qualify what I am going to write. I am 44 years old... I have been an avid fan & chronic viewer of wrestling for over 25 years now. I used to regularly attend TV tapings at the TBS studios & Center Stage here in Atlanta..... I used to attend house shows at The Omni.....I have been to NITROs, RAWs, SMACKDOWNs, THUNDERs, PPVs from NWA, TNA, ECW, WCW, WWF & WWE.....when I was in college in Wichita, KS, I attended house shows from NWA Central States, WWF & even Bill Watt's UWF/MID-SOUTH. So much for my resume; the show last night was an example of a group doing EVERYTHING they could do....wrong.

Now I understand that this was the NWA, not Jim Crockett or Bob Geigel; everything seemed to be upside down. There were just a little over 2000 people there in attendance. My sister arrived late and when she got to the arena, she thought it was closed! I talked to 2 people I know who work there and they confirmed the attendance number I quoted and said the only event they ever saw THAT empty was the recent AFL FIGHT show, but that number was higher than this one... even WNBA gets bigger crowds!

I went with a good sized group of a few guys my age, a couple of friends about 10 years younger that got into wrestling because of nWo & Austin 3:16, and there were a few teenagers who only knew Triple H and Undertaker stuff.

The crowd was DEAD!!! Yes, it is hard to get something going in an 18,000 seat arena with the upper level tarped off and empty seats everywhere, but this crowd just seemed to want to sit & watch. The crowd was about half black, half white, and any type of Latin contingent that usually frequents the WWE events was absent. There were alot of kids there, but they only comprised maybe 25% of the crowd. I overheard a few folks call this show WWE (as if ALL wrestling nowadays is WWE), and it seemed as if most everyone was waiting for Triple H to come out! My 19 year old sister was attending her first wrestling matches and later complained, "There was no pyro!"

Nothing against her, but I think Vince has succeded in his quest to be "the only game in town." There is now a whole generation that only know wrestling as pyro, merchandise & divas.

The arena was kept dark, the house lights never came up, and the ring seemed dark, though there was a nice light rack over it. Though it was being taped by a few folks, I can't imagine anything from last night being anywhere close to broadcast quality. We got there about 7:50 for a 7:30 bell time (thanks to a major interstate road repaving project downtown blocking many lanes on the interstae and Atlanta Braves traffic). We missed 2 local matches with local guys there to get their $50 payout. From that, they went right into the Hall of Fame ceremony.

Jim Cornette came out to a decent reception (alot didn't know him or his legacy). They brought the guys out one at a time and gave them a medallion and let them talk.... and that was it! Paul Orndorff was there.... he ran down the WWE & vowed the NWA will be back. They also said he was the first inductee to the Class of 2009.

Nikita came out said a few words & left.

Corsica Joe came out, was helped into the ring, spoke briefly & left.

Midnight Express came out, seemed kind of hurried, spoke & left.

Then Tommy Rich came out. He screamed something about ATLANTA, GA & TENNESSEE, shrieked a few things about NWA.... was blown up already from that... and was interrupted by Abdullah the Butcher & Honest John Cheatam (Abdullah's manager). Neither were formally introduced and something was yelled into the microphone which prompted Wildfire to go out & attack Abdullah. We then were treated to 2 laps around the outside of the ring of Abdullah attacking Rich with a fork, attacking the ref with a fork, then Wildfire getting the fork from Abdullah and another lap around the outside of the ring where Rich used the fork on Abbdullah. Crimson masks everywhere.

We then were told the match was ruled a no contest... no bell ever rung....Abdullah left, Rich screamed more into the mic and left... that was it!

After that, most of the matches were a blur. Rob Conway & a Oulette from Montreal wrestled a pudgy X-Pac and some Blue Demon looking masked wrestler. Rob Conway did his tired late 70's style promo and showed all of us why he was fired from WWE. No one seemed to care about this match really at all, but the biggest pop of the night came just prior to this match..... X-PAC came out to the dX theme music... the crowd went bananna! And he was introduced as X-PAC as well. No joke... the intro music received THE BIGGEST reaction of the night. And while we are on the topic, the 2nd biggest reaction of the night, no question, went to a wrestler who wasn't even there... RIC FLAIR!

Everytime his name was mentioned, a cheer went up. When the knife edge chops were done, a chorus of WHOO'S! went up. ANd when Mike Quackenbush used the figure 4 leglock on some Latin wrestler named Vega... more WHOO'S!

And of all the Hall of Fame inductees, Nikita Koloff received probably THE biggest reaction, simply because The Nature Boy was mentioned so much.

Let's see, what else.... the Quackenbush match I just mentioned treated the HARDY induced audience to a few high spots. We got a 3 way Tag match for the NWA tag belts with the Champions, Los Luchas (2 small Latin guys wearing Ultimo Dragon like masks) vs. The Naturals playing heel vs. another heel team of 2 guys doing some BORN IN THE USA/MALE MODEL gimmick that was terrible. They got eliminated first. Los Luchas retained the titles. And as their intro music of LIVING COLOR's "CULT OF PERSONALITY" blared from the PA, the Naturals teased a breakup to virtually NO ONE's interest or amusement.

Then came Sid. Sid's name was actually on the ticket stub! Ricky O, the head of the NWA came out & ran down Sid, and brought out some team from New York wearing pink tights & claiming to be some other NWA tag champions... well, you can guess what was next... a 4 minute squash fest. It was just one Sid spot after another... I do not think these two opponents mounted ANY offense at all... it was basically "get into position for the next Sid spot", be it a clothesline, a choke slam or a jack knife. The "match" looked like it was in slow motion.... the faithful like me actually turned on Sid, but the huge empty arena didn't carry sound that well... I doubt he heard it.

And I apologize I didn't catch more of these names, but it was all so echo-ey, you couldn't hear it.

The show was supposed to go til 10PM. The Sid thing ended at about 9:55 and folks started filing out.... well, not everybody, but it was noticeable. We still had MIDNIGHT EXPRESS v. ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS.

Yes, it was nice to see them together in the ring once more, but neither team has aged well, and by this point, you really just wanted it to end. Cornette came out with the tennis racket, ran down Atlanta & the fans to a large ovation ..... then the Rock & Rolls came out, and you could just tell... barely anyone knew who they were. I told some of the younger folks in my entourage that when it comes to tag team wrestling, these two teams are like watching The Lakers v. The Celtics, or The Yankees v. The Red Sox...... boy, did I look stupid to them later. The whole art of stalling the match to work the crowd that Cornette & The Midnights always do so good was totally lost on the crowd... the lack of crowd response, one could tell, was visibly frustrating to Ricky Morton... and Robert Gibson was... well, he was there.

A buddy of mine made it to the merch stand where they had some NWA shirst & hats, he didn't say anything about any of the wrestlers in the lobby doing "gimmicks" (selling pictures & signing them, selling their shirts or DVD's which is how I imagine most of these guys make their money). And when it was over, it was over.... everyone just left... no parting words...oh well.

I had fun with my group of people. Overall, it would not have been worth the $32 our tickets would have been priced at for our section, had we not received free tix... which most everyone there was a recepient of. I went to a WRESTLE BIRMINGHAM show 3 years ago at the Zamora Shrine temple in Birmingham.... it was a 1000 seat hall, Tix were $17, it was more intimate and we had a BLAST!!!!! This was just kind of a waste of time.

Just my 2 cents, just my opinion, nothing more... let the flames fly.

BIGGEST POPS:

1) The dX music played prior to X-PAC's intro

2) Any mention of Ric Flair by anyone

3) Sid Vicious (by default)

BIGGEST HEAT:

hard to say, the crowd just didn't seem to care... probably the ruling of the non-match between Abdullah & Wildfire as a no contest. What match?????

One last note... probably not a big deal... The Omni was mentioned a few times, and Ricky Morton even called Philips "The Omni", but no one seemed to even know that The Omni was gone and where they were standing, there in Philips Arena, was the site of the old building! {plug}