frank-erwin-center

Worst: The Frank Erwin Center Is Not Suitable For DiBiase Posse Parties

I’ve only lived in Austin for about a year, and up until now my only experience with the Frank Erwin Center (besides driving past it to do anything downtown) has been sitting at the Mohawk on Red River for Anarchy Championship Wrestling shows and having them mention in an extremely indy wrestling sort of way that the “other guys” being “down the street” there. Now that I’ve been to/inside it, I can confirm: the Frank Erwin Center is the ugliest building the entire world. It was named after University of Texas Board of Regents member Frank Erwin, whose dying wish was to have an enormous f**king tan toothpaste cap on the side of the Interstate named in his honor.

I don’t like Katy Perry and I have only a passing interest in the Harlem Globetrotters so I’ve never had to park here, which is great, because apparently you can’t park here. You have to go two blocks over, park in one of the random city garages and walk to and from your car through these little ominous pitch black parks or drive down and park at “Mike Myers Stadium”, which does not even for a moment conjure up the image of somebody stabbing me to death with a butcher knife.

I wanted to attend my first ever DiBiase Posse Party, the tailgating brainchild of tender tattoo enthusiast and former Actual Wrestler Ted DiBiase, but I couldn’t find one. I guess I don’t know where Longhorn fans line up trucks and get piss drunk before games, I just assumed they used the entire city.

Best/Worst: The Indignity Of The Will Call Window

I was supposed to pick up some will call tickets when I arrived, but the Q-T window (easily the cutest window) told me they weren’t there, but not to worry, because they just didn’t have them all yet. Keep in mind that this is going down at about 7:10 and I am in danger of missing a Michael McGillicutty vs. Sin Cara dark match. They eventually showed up, but not before I got a show unto itself, featuring (but not limited to):

- A guy who bought tickets for his entire family on StubHub, only to be told by the box office lady that he’d been sold a phony duplicate ticket and would have to “bring it up with the person he bought them from” if he wanted to get in.

- A guy who said Santino Marella had put aside a bunch of tickets for him, and when they weren’t there he tried to show them text messages and a picture of him with Santino to “prove [he] won’t bull-sh*ttin’”. He went on to explain that his cousin wrestles (present tense) for OVW, so either he meant to say “FCW” and hasn’t updated his contacts lately or his cousin is Television Champion Rocco Bellagio and he thinks that earns him preferential treatment.

- An Army lady in full uniform standing around sheepishly for several minutes by herself before timidly asking the box office lady if Army people can get in for free. When told they can, she turns around and shouts “FORM A LINE, BOYS” and starts waving her arm in a circle, and like 40 Army guys show up out of nowhere to form a huge single-file line like we’re in a goddamn cartoon.

- A lady trying to buy Taylor Swift tickets and thinking “during Raw” was the best time to do so.

Best: Sign Of The Night

We parked in a garage near the Capitol and walked over through one of those back-alleyway parklets that made me feel like I was a second away from becoming a Political Prisoner in need of saving by the Batman. The closer we got, the more surrounded by kids in Y U NO C ME Cena shirts we became. We also ran into one of the best homemade signs I’ve ever seen.

the worst wrestling sign ever

In case U NO read that, it says “John Morrison #1 Of“. I don’t know what John Morrison was originally going to be the number one of, but it should be noted that the kid holding this sign was at LEAST ten years old. How much time did you spend making this sign, kid? When I was little I put work into that sh*t. You’re gonna block somebody’s view for something you yourself scribbled out? I guess at least your lack of effort and inability to understand basic artistic concepts explains why you think John Morrison #1.

Worst: Priority Tarp Seating

During my stay at the will call window I heard it explained that 1) they didn’t have enough free seats for the army people to sit together, and 2) there was a service charge required to reserve your seat in the building. Of course when we went in, we saw that 3/4 of the upper deck (where they were sitting everybody anyway) was tarped off and that almost an entire row on the floor, about ten feet from the security barrier, was empty. I hope that OVW guy’s two extra dollars helped your sh*tty vendors who made me walk all the way around the building because the eight feet between my seat and where I came in was “closed” feel more rewarded for their work.

Best: Superstars

I was pretty pissed that NXT was being filmed before Smackdown in Houston tonight, rendering my Bate-Max signage useless (and yes, I missed the entirety of Sin Cara vs. Michael McGillicutty Negro), but at least I got to see a couple of tag team matches filmed for Superstars. The first pitted Air Boom against JTG and Primo (or, as I like to call them, Black Colon) and the second highlighting Brie and Nikki Bella as 2011′s answer to Doug Furnas and Danny Kroffat against Kelly Kelly as Kenta Kobashi and Eve Torres as Tsuyoshi Kikuchi. They were fine, and random people who have no idea ACW runs a great show on the same street every month love Kelly Kelly about as much as you’d imagine.

In retrospect I should’ve enjoyed these matches more, as they were the last time I’d get to see wrestling for about an hour.