The combination of thousands of professional wrestling fanatics, an impressive pyrotechnics display and overly priced memorabilia makes for a WWE invasion worth writing about.
A steady stream of bright orange John Cena t-shirts, Rey Mysterio lucha libre masks and supportive parents willing to spend a pretty penny to make their kids happy filtered into Tampa’s St. Pete Times Forum on Tuesday for a night of professional wrestling to be broadcast on three different WWE series.
The night’s lineup included bouts being taped for NXT (the WWE’s newest competition in search of the next big wrestling great), Superstars and the main event, SmackDown.
NXT, like a game show but with more spandex and muscle-bound hotties and less Chuck Woolery, isn’t why people pay the big bucks, but it’s something to keep the audience occupied. The wrestlers included Alex Riley, a high school jock who sports a sleeveless letter jacket; Eli Cottonwood, a supersize dude with a degree in psychology; and Percy Watson, whose gimmick seems as simple as wearing thick-framed red Ray Bans and smiling a lot. The show, which was recorded live as the premiere of the show's second season, was promising in more ways than one.
This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2010.