MY S F WRESTLE FANFEST REPORT
- 10/25/2007 (5:30:29 am)
- Adam Crites
…..
Well, my wife Crystal and I attended the recent Wrestle FanFest in San Francisco...and to say it was a "Titanic" level disaster is a bit of an overstatement...more like a "Poseidon Adventure" one.Let me say at the onset...I have no reason to lie or exaggerate anything in this write up. Sure, I am filing a couple of claims on tickets for people who didn’t show, but I am not asking for all of my money back. Also, I am not owed money as a vendor, talent or agent.
I had been going back and forth for a while about going at all for a while, but when I saw some of the names listed (Nick Bockwinkle, Harley Race, Great Muta, Team 3D, Demolition) I knew that the odds of my ever getting to meet them would be slim or none. So I made the plunge and purchased a Weekend Warrior Pass, Front of the Line Pass, and several headliner tickets for both of us.
These purchases were made after several e-mail and direct phone conversations with the “Promoter” Chris. [I would use a last name, but I have seen in recent days that it keeps changing.] I was assured that everything was on the up & up, all of the people were confirmed, if people were backing out they had a binder to show records proving it wasn’t the conventions fault.
We were also assured there were going to be “300” people working the event in Sports USA blue polo shirts who could answer any and all questions we might have. Chris repeatedly sounded off on the more that 20,000 tickets had been sold. Add in that the convention was guaranteeing over “100” pieces of talent. This all sounded great.
I started assembling photos from all over for people to get signed, as well as certain other special items.
(I should mention at this point that I have to use a wheelchair for crowded events, am immune-supressed, and can best be described as medically fragile. We were also assured that these concerns would be taken care of and we should have no worries.
THURSDAY =
Coming from Southern California, we drove 10+ hours on Thursday.
We got the hotel with not much problem and go into the lobby and I am at first struck by “where is everyone?” But every quickly we are met by one person who we dealt with all weekend who was honest and tried to do his very level best while staying sane.
Just to get you ahead of any inaccurate news, my wife and I were both there for all 3 days, and saw a lot of beyond the scenes stuff happen by chance...but through it all one person did his ABSOLUTE BEST to try and keep the ship from floundering = Rob Senita
If anyone says that Rob did ANYTHING but his 100% best to try and get this event through the weekend despite the disaster it was becoming, they are more full of crap than a 5 pound bag holding a 20 pound load.
Rob came in as a vendor, then got roped into helping helping with "this and that" and then was put in charge of the autograph area and taking care of those with identified special needs. Rob met us right at the front desk, helped us get checked in, had our room changed to a handicapped accessible one, then said he would go ahead and get all of our passes and badges for us if we wanted to go ahead and rest up in the bar. My wife went to unload the car and I sat in the bar. Couple of people passing through were Sandman and Scott Norton with his wife.
We check in for bed that night and decide to get a good nights sleep for the day ahead. If only we knew...
FRIDAY =
We got up bright and early to make sure we had everything packed and we got the wheelchair tires filled. We then headed down to the “convention check-in room” because I wanted to pick up an extra Powers of Pain ticket and a Great Muta ticket. While we are in line, the announcement is casually made for the first time that “oh yeah, The Outsiders canceled yesterday, but they were very polite about it.” I didn’t much care, as I have met Kevin Nash before, but I did have 2 tickets for Scott Hall and asked what I should do with them? They said they hadn’t been told yet what to do about them, but they were sure someone over at the Arena would know.
We tried to check in with Rob to see where we should go for wheelchair access. Unfortunately, by Friday morning, it was becoming quickly very apparent that more and more was being dumped on Rob - and he has too much integrity and sense of ethics to have said no when he could have. Rob did try his best to keep up with his original responsibilities (as he repeated many times "I said I would take care of you and I will") but was frequently being pulled into areas that he had no foreknowledge at all.
(As a note, Rob is the one who found Lex Luger and got him to the hospital, and then took care of him and keeping in touch with Luger's family)
We went ahead and headed over to the Cow Palace, getting there about 1:30, since Weekend Warriors were classified as VIPs and we were supposed to get in at 2. Unfortunately, we discovered that no one had bothered to tell the arena staff anything. What time, what doors, what tickets. You name it, they hadn’t been told anything by anyone.
To make this more confusing, because we had come from the hotel and had our badges, people kept coming up to us asking us everything from “where do we catch the shuttle?” to “who is going to be here today?” to you name it. Our mantra quickly became “We don’t know, sorry.”
While waiting outside, we say a couple of people arrive, including “Dr.Death” Steve Williams, who came over to me as he was walking in and shook my hand. First of many great interactions.
About 2:30, the arena staff let us and headed down to where was supposed to be the vendor/autograph area. Underwhelming would be the nice way of saying it. If there were 20 vendors total, I would be amazed. More than 50% of the them were sadly what you would see at a swap meet. Highspots.com was there, and Ring of Honor would show up on Saturday & Sunday though.
The schedule we were given on the convention website had kept going into how photos would be taken in one location at one time, autographs then at a separate time elsewhere. If anyone ever read this, I would be amazed.
About 3 or 3:30 the first group of talent arrived, including Larry Zbysko, Sunny, April Hunter, Blue Meanie and a few others. And they were left to just stand around in a group with no direction or escort for quite some time. FINALLY, someone came over and took some people one direct and directed the rest to go ahead and set up at the autograph tables.
You could see that some of the wrestlers were very unhappy already. Sunny was the most upset. At one point she left and I am not sure what was said to get her to come back, but she did stay for all 3 days.
Then “Mean” Gene Okerlund, who was listed as headliner, all of the sudden was walked into the general autograph area. First, Headliners were were supposed to be in a different area. Then “Mean” Gene was left to stand by himself with no direction, before finally taking a seat behind one of the tables.
At no time was any explanation given to any of the talent how the various badges were to work, what the different tickets meet, what limits were established, etc. My wife and I ended up with this job on NUMEROUS occasions having to brief the talent so that they could try not to get screwed more than it was beginning to appear they were. There was also no line security, so anyone could walk up to any talent any number of times to get anything signed.
To be fair, no one seemed to abuse the limits - no one person handed someone 15 items expecting them to get all signed. At most I saw were people with 3 or 4 items, when there would be no lines. The same respect was not shown as far as Headliners. People were jumping into those lines regardless of what ticket they had.
Oh yeah, and those Front of the Line Passes? Pbbbtttt!!! Those things were no more honored than a $3 bill at a Vegas Craps table.
We kept going back and forth from the main hall up to where the “GCW Talent” were supposed to be signing and taking pictures, picking up autographs and photos each time. Once again in the GCW area, we had to explain to their photographers, Rick Steiner and Barbarian how the tickets were supposed to work. All of the guys seemed to take this stride, realizing that it wasn’t the fans fault. The one exception was Scott Steiner, who seemed to be refusing to sign items unless you made a purchase from him. If the issues on his not being paid are even half true, then I can’t really blame him.
At the end of the first day, we ran into Rob again, who looked like he had been drug down 40 miles of gravel. He asked how everything had gone. We were honest and said “not well.” We told him of the problems we had had all day and he was extremely apologetic. I said flat out my biggest disappointment was that we were supposed to meet Great Muta and that was one of the 5 main reasons I came to this convention. He asked about him running the items up to get signed and Crystal said “it isn’t the signature that’s important, its the photo.” Rob said give him 15 or 20 minutes and he would be right back. We sat and waited and then about 20 minutes later, Rob comes back and says quietly “Adam, the Great Muta.” To say my jaw hit the floor would be an understatement. As my wife said, she hadn’t seen my face light up like that in a long time. Muta was very gracious to us, taking a pictures and signing our items. We were on cloud nine at this point.
We headed back to the hotel and when we get in the lobby, low and behold is none other than Jimmy Snuka checking-in. Or rather TRYING to check-in. The front desk could not find a reservation for him. Fortunately, I still had Rob’s cell phone number stored and called him and told him what was going on.
It should be noted again, that Rob was in NO way a promoter for this event, he had no control over money, nothing. He especially had nothing to do with the MMA fight disaster yet to come. He would repeatedly keep trying to find Chris to get information, only to keep being delayed.
He immediately spoke to the manager on duty, moving his stuff from one room, Snuka into that one and then he would handle the other issues with that change later. Snuka was thankful and we were off to bed having done our good bit for the day.
SATURDAY =
Saturday dawned with a new hope. Boy would that get killed fairly quickly.
VIPs again were supposed to be allowed in at 9am. We get there and there is NO ONE. We manage to get inside through the good gracious of the Cow Palace staff to get out of the cold. From there, we see them walking back and forth basically in a great state of confusion because they have been told nothing by the FanFest people. Finally, we stopped Diana, one of the managers, and offered to show her the schedule we had. She looked at this and said “can I xerox this?” When she came back she asked us where we had gotten this? I explained that the Convention itself had posted it on their website. To say this was a complete shock to her and them would be pretty accurate.
About 9:45 or so, we headed down to the vendor area and started looking around and seeing if anyone new was there yet. We found the ROH folks had set up (in what would be the first of their 3 locations during the con...I felt so sorry for these guys when they kept having to move.)
A big moment for me was that the Cauliflower Alley Club was there and I had always been interested in becoming a member. This was my chance and took. To make it all the sweeter, Nick Bockwinkle was at their booth and he helped welcome me into the Club.
We sort of picked up where we had been the day before, hitting any new people that were there, getting to talk to other talent once again. But the problems quickly raised again.
We were trying to find out how to get refunds on our Scott Hall & Sid Vicious tickets and kept being ignored or blown off - ESPECIALLY by the Sports USA Blue shirted man going by “Jay.” At one point he said he didn’t have time for us because Christian Cage had just arrived and he had to take care of him. This would be great...except not 2 minutes later I see that Christian is standing by himself in the autograph area and Jay has left the hall completely.
I had Crystal take me over to Christian and whispered to him to get his attention. I said “Your best bet is to get beyond one of these tables, get seated, and then let the staff come back and find you again or you are screwed.” He took my advice and asked about photos and how this all worked. I did the quick ticket/pass explanation again (unfortunately I was getting pretty good at this) and told him that people could purchase pictures over at the main table. He then asked about Sharpies? Fortunately I had numerous extras and gave him 3 or 4 to get started.
When he signed my item he asked if it was this bad yesterday. I said “you could say that.” His response? “I figured as much when I was sitting in baggage claim for 40 minutes.”
At this point and time, no one had seen or heard from Promoter Chris. There really seemed to be no one in charge. It was about the time of the Bill Goldberg signing that Rob declared a mutiny and took over running the show. He is the only reason Piper and Goldberg came down and signed on Saturday.
We were basically done, but could not get a straight answer from anyone on wither or not Kevin Sullivan was going to be appearing . The SportsUSA Blue Shirt people (who were supposed to be "in charge") or the GCW Vendors who sponsored him couldn’t or wouldn’t give an answer.
My wife went to Rob and finally asked him "what do we do with these?" Rob asked her how much they cost? $30 for 2. Rob reached back and took out his own wallet and started counting out the money. When he started counting out $1 bills, my wife started crying and said she couldn't take that from him. Rob looked at her, almost in tears himself and said "I don't **** my friends." When she told me, I nearly broke down.
The next morning, we hunted Rob back down at the hotel and demanded he take the money back - breaking down again, I told him it wasn't his fault and we didn't blame him. He kept refusing saying "we were owed the money." I finally said if he didn't take it back, I was going to donate it to charity. He finally relented then, saying he would donate it charity himself then.
To show you the difference, when we went back to the convention hall, we ran into one of the SportsUSA Blue Shirt staff, the gentleman Jay again, who asked if we got our money back. I said "sort of, Rob had to take it out of his own wallet." He got this smart ass grin on his face and said "well ok then, what are you unhappy about?"
We got finished on Saturday and headed back to the hotel again. While there, we saw the police called out not once, but twice. Next morning we would find out about the MMA disaster, the brawl in the lobby and its sequel on the sidewalk. Fortunately, we missed all of this.
SUNDAY -
Originally, we had planned on heading back early, but decided we would stick around for the Austin signing later that day.
That morning, we went to breakfast with one of my Uncles in who lives in San Francisco in the hotel restaurant. While there, several wrestles came in to yet. With voices like they have, it wasn’t hard to not overhear. There was talk of this person being owed $6,000, this person being owed this amount, etc. We also saw a couple of wrestlers come in to get breakfast, who had been told it was part of the room, be told by the dinning room staff that “no, it was not paid for that day” and that they would have to pay for it themselves.
In the lobby, there was a great deal rumor of if the Cow Palace was even going to let people in that morning, who was going to go, checks having bounced, etc.
During all of this I overhead a very interesting conversation. One of the woman who was part of the “Sports USA” group was on her cell phone and said “Chris, I am in the lobby...they don’t want you to come down there are too many people here.” Take that for what you will.
We decided to take the chance and headed over. The Cow Palace was open and we got inside to see that more than 50% of the vendors had already packed up and left town.
With Chris no where to be found and rumored to have no skipped town, the Sports USA people as incompetent as ever, Rob made the decision to take total control on Sunday. He was able to get talent there (with them knowing that he didn’t have checks to pay them) and he got the show through its last day. He did have one guy (I don't know if it was a friend or what) who decided that from then on where Rob walked, he had him with him as a bodyguard. And I don't think even Scott Steiner would have wanted to screw with this guy. That is the kind of respect and loyalty Rob inspired.
We have nothing but love for Rob after this weekend with how much help he gave us and showed us all weekend.
We finished our weekend getting Austin and then we were out there.
So...in the end was this a bad experience? Well, I would exactly call it great or good. But it certainly had it’s very UP moments, that when you subtract all of the BS that the promoter self-inflicted on the event, where just great.
My Top 5 Meetings & Moments =
Tied For #1 - “Dr.Death” Steve Williams & Scott Norton :
Steve Williams - I have wanted to meet for quite some time. First for his impressive career, and then later for his recent battles with cancer. Having battled cancer for 20 years, this was a great chance to meet someone who has driven that same road. We got to talk several times that weekend and wish I had thought o get his e-mail or given him mine so we could try and keep in touch.
Scott Norton - There couldn’t be someone more different from his TV persona than he is real life, it would be Scott Norton. Another one we got to talk to several times that weekend, he was very upbeat and just a lot of fun to sit and talk to. His comment about Koko B. Ware alone was priceless. You also learned, according to Scott himself, that it was his wife to be scared of something went bad...lol
#2 - Dawn Marie : A beautiful woman, inside and out. We got have a conversation that touched on the Benoit family tragedy this summer that was very meaningful and meant a lot to me. I have to send her the picture we took.
#3 - Larry Zbysko : A gentleman’s gentleman. We talked about several topics - golf, current announcers, the current talent, steroids, etc. All that without losing traction in the conversation. Should “The Living Legend” ever make it to California for golf, let me know and I will see what contact and I can dig up for you.
#4 - Roddy Piper : One I have wanted to meet for 20 years. He really did seem interested in talking to each and everyone who came up. He also loved the G.I.Joe figure I had gotten of him to have signed. My wife’s only complaint was she didn’t get the picture of him kissing my head!
#5 - Great Muta, Ultimo Dragon, Harley Race & Nick Bockwinkle : These 4 alone...the odds of my ever meeting them again are probably zero. 4 living legends in one place. Just the sense of history you could feel when shaking their hands would give you goose bumps.
Beyond these I was also fortunate to meet these great talent =
Bill Goldberg, Nigel McGunness, Gene Okerlund, Rikishi, Rick & Scott Stiener, Power Of Pain, Maven, Francine, Steve Corino, Slick, Sunny, Billy Kidman, Miss Brooks, BabyDoll, Al Snow, James Mitchell, Chavo Guerrero Sr., Cheerleader Melissa, Ernest Miller, Brutus Beefcake, Greg Valentine, Demolition, Brian Knobs, D-Von Dudley, Abyss, Bubba Ray Dudley, One Man Gang, Sandman, Jimmy Snuka, Christian, Koko B. Ware, April Hunter, Gail Kim, Blue Meanie, Molly Holly, The Headhunters, Butch Reed, Godfather, Nikoli Volkoff, Shark Boy, Ted DiBiase, Vince Russo, Chyna, Road Warrior Animal, Rock Riddle, Cryme Tyme & Steve Austin.
I want to say, at least in my experience, not one of these wrestlers let the screw-job by the Promoters Chris & Sports USA affect how they interacted with the fans who came to see them. Some for example, as I said earlier about Sunny, you could see were clearly angry. But at no time did she take it out on the people who came to see her.
Other may have left early, but so would have I if I knew I wasn’t going to get paid and I wasn’t losing money hand over fist just being there. But even then, these folks were as polite as they could be to the fans.
In the end, I would say that I probably got more out of this then I lost. My hope goes out to the vendors and talent who were hosed by the promoters and truly wish that they get everything they are owed...and that Promoter Chris gets what’s coming to him.
From: Adam Crites
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