Noah Goes To: Full Sail University (NXT Taping)

'Ello! Me again! It's about time to delve once again into the wacky and wonderful world of wrestling in this special addition to the blog. Originally, I was going to add it in as a 'BWOTW Special', but instead, I figured why not start a new series? So, seeing as in the future I definitely hope and aim to go to as many wrestling shows as possible, I'd introduce 'Noah Goes To' as a way to recount on my live experiences.

Here goes, welcome one and all to the inaugural 'Noah Goes To', featuring NXT at Full Sail University! Be waned this has spoilers from now until TakeOver: Brooklyn II, I will spoil things. Immensely. Also, sorta shittily taken pictures.

I have missed out a fuck tonne of stuff I've forgotten or didn't really have much to write about.

Gotta love Greg

Originally I wanted to go to the Cruiserweight Classic taping the night after, but that sold out. Luckily, I managed to later score tickets to this. I was pretty surprised with how cheap they were, the tickets for the tours here in the UK can get pretty high, and these were like $15 a pop. Del Boy would be proud.

However, I did nearly die on the way there. Whilst I did throw up on the plane there, that's not what I'm referring to (actually it was quite handy, through nearly collapsing and having quite bad jaundice, one of the security guards got me a wheelchair so my family could speed through customs). My Dad is not a smart man, my Dad is not the best driver on American roads. Therefore, my Dad, thinking it was still like the interstate or when them big roads you guys have over there, merged into oncoming traffic. I did bring it to his attention before the lorry ploughed into us though. 

Good times.

We pulled up to Full Sail with like 15 minutes before the scheduled start time, again, Dad's not the best driver. By the grace of the wrestling gods (excluding JBL), we got in fine and was sat down relatively quickly. 
For those who want to try and pick me out (I know I will be), I'm the dude in glasses with hair like Wesley Blake (HE COPIED ME DAMMIT) and an 'I'm a Hugger' shirt. I'm sat opposite the stage and to the right near a big bald guy in a business shirt who me and my brother labelled as 'Vader'.

The matches themselves were pretty good. We got our fair share of NXT style squashes but they were met with a match of awesome moments to make up for it.

We got sat down just in time for the dark match, Oney Lorcan vs Tino Sabatelli (the guy from Breaking Ground). Walking in was just magical. It's the same with any wrestling show I've been to, as soon as you walk in the doors, your eyes are attracted directly to the ring. No matter the arena, the promotion or the location, its always been the same for me. Plus, seeing the whole NXT setup was something else. It was a strange feeling of familiarity and surrealism. As soon as I saw it all I did whisper "Ooh fuck."

Just magic

The first match we got was fucking Shinsuke Nakamura. Sweet lord above. The best bit was, because its such a cosy arena, you could see everyone perfectly (thanks glasses). At first, I just stood there and thought 'Fuck me that's Shinsuke Nakamura'. I mean, just a few months ago I never thought I'd get chance to see Nak at all live, let alone NXT. 
The 'NAK-A-MUR-A' chants were just deafening, and I nearly fucked my throat up from shouting it for so long. Joining in with the 'YeaOh!' was also devilishly cool.

Just a sidenote, if you were part of the ridiculously stereotypical group of black women behind me, please, go and fuck yourselves. From what I could tell, they had never properly watched wrestling before. Mainly from them laughing at goddamn everything. Actually, all of them didn't because one opted instead to proclaim 'That's hilarious!' instead; headlock laugh punch laugh dropkick laugh OH FUCK OFF. 
They wen't fucking apeshit for Bayley for some reason though (I mean, I did too, but I was not expecting it at all from them). Plus, during her segment they were pretty racist about Asuka, so that just confirms they're assholes outside of Full Sail too.
And another thing, to the one that kept saying 'FINISH HIM!' thinking it was the funniest thing ever, fuck off twice. Of course they would hit their finisher 20 seconds into the match after a shoulder block and a clothesline. 
In the end, they left after the second hour prompting me to believe that God has some mercy for me.

Back to the good stuff now, I saw Kota Goddamn Ibushi. As I said on the BWOTW featuring his match, it was a special moment when his name popped up on the tron. That night was the debut of the Cruiserweight Classic on the Network, which was live as we were there, so I saw him here before his CWC appearance. The crowd popped hard when he came out and so did I. 'I-BU-SHI' chants throughout the match, but there was one massive Buddy Murphy fan a couple rows in front who did make me giggle.

However, despite my pops for Nakamura, Ibushi and Bayley, nothing topped this man;

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 

Fucking hell this was the best thing I've ever seen in person. It was glorious. Bobby Goddamn Roode. I had a feeling we'd see him on the way there and I was not disappointed. He came out, dressed sharper than a freaking katana, delivered one hell of a promo and left, picking a fight with a little kid as he went. Cannot wait for him at TakeOver and his future in NXT/WWE. And later in the night, we saw him pop up again to issue his TakeOver challenge at the previous addition to the roster, Andrade 'Cien' Almas

Prepare to lose, dude

Along with that big TakeOver match scheduled we also found out that Ciampa & Gargano would be facing The Revival for the NXT Tag Team Championships. I am so goddamn hyped about that. I've been wanting to see Ciampa & Gargano get a proper showcase like this since they debuted. They've had a weird run of winning some, losing some, some singles matches and then back together again. But, finally we've got them at TakeOver and my hopes are high that they'll claim some gold.

BWAM BWAM BWAM

Another cool thing was that they were against that Josh from Tough Enough. He's got his face on his tights and I couldn't help but laugh, they're awesome and I want some too, but not with my face, his. And there was a guy in a hoodie I can't really remember.

As well with the tag team situation in the yellow branded developmental place, I saw TM61 like 4 times during that one night and I think they had 3 matches. I mean, I like the team, I like their theme, but by God it gets hard to cheer for their entrance when this isn't their first time out. Plus, the thing where one almost hits the other when he jumps off the turnbuckle in their entrance sorta loses its charm. But, it wasn't too bad, still lots of fun.

Later we got a pretty cool 6-woman tag match with some debuts in it. That Mandy Rose was in it with that Daria (?) who I think was in Tough Enough as well, they teamed with Alexa Bliss. That Nikki Storm (now Glencross) was in it too, with Liv Morgan and Carmella. It was a pretty good match, I especially like how Daria just took people out, she had this super MMA gimmick which was cooler than I though it'd be.

It took me a while to notice but sat in front of the hard camera were some of the Cruiserweight Classic competitors. At first I noticed and went "Oh bloody hell its Zack Sabre Jr," because it was Zack Sabre Jr beside Drew Gulak and Tony Nese, who all scrub up really well. Then later on there was Jack Gallagher, Rich Swann and I think Noam Dar. Nice little tid-bit to my night.

Hands down the strangest main event I've ever witnessed - Samoa Joe vs Mojo Rawley

As the picture above shows, I saw the strangest main event ever. It was set up with Joe being pissed about Nak being his opponent, disrupts the show to get back at Regal, he attacks Mojo, Mojo comes back later and attacks him, match is made.
The match itself was okay, there were rumblings recently that Joe has been wrestling with a bit of a poorly elbow lately, which would make sense seeing as he didn't do a whole lot. Another thing that was kinda sad was that Mojo was so angry he didn't say 'He ain't hyped!', so no joining in for us.

The King versus The Destroyer

The show topped off with a confrontation between Joe and Nakamura as a sending off point to Brooklyn. Honestly, it dragged a little. It ended kinda weirdly, because for TV, they're just gonna cut whenever they're done and we just watched as Joe was done kicking the shit outta the security, stood there for a bit, then left. 

I just want to mention aside here that Full Sail LIVE has some of the nicest toilets I've ever used. They had a nice grey-scale design, pretty clean and a little bit of music. Though, not sure if they were nicer than the ones at Nando's (for all you Brits out there), for those who haven't been, you get a nice little room to yourself with some Portuguese music on and just the best hand washing/drying station.

Overall, it was a fucking great night and I'm glad I went. Best match was probably The Revival vs TM61 so we've got that to look forward to. I'd go back in a heartbeat, if only I lived in the Sunshine State. 

Where to next? Fuck knows. All I know is that I will jump at every chance I get to see some live wrestling, and I encourage you to as well if you get the opportunity. Seeing pro wrestling live is a whole other experience from your front room. My throat was shredded by the end of the night from screaming and chanting so much, and I didn't regret any of it. 

I loved it all.