Are you ready to rumble?
Famous words, to say the least. And words that were proposed to me as I boarded a plane recently bound for Orlando, Fla., where World Wrestling Entertainment was hosting its annual Royal Rumble, one of its marquee events and the one that officially kicks off WrestleMania season.
Yes, yes, I thought, I am ready to rumble.
I was, after all, part of a small contingent of international media afforded the opportunity to experience the Rumble weekend, along with a tour of the WWE's state-of-the-art Performance Center, where it trains its future talent and nurtures its current crop of stars, among other things. The weekend was to see us get a private tour of the facility, attend the television tapings for the company's hottest wrestling product, NXT, and then attend the Royal Rumble.
To say I was excited would be akin to calling Wayne Gretzky a decent hockey player.
So after boarding my plane in Ottawa, I was off.
Friday brought with it the busiest day of the weekend, with the media gathering Friday morning at the hotel to set off to for the Performance Center, where we would get a personalized tour led by the centre's head coach Matt Bloom. Bloom, for the wrestling aficianados out there, is a nearly lifelong wrestling talent himself, having portrayed the likes of A-Train, Albert of Test & Albert (T&A in the edgier Attitude Era) and most recently Tensai. Bloom is a hulking man, standing well over six feet tall and owning the room like few others. But he's also eloquent, friendly and well spoken.
He greeted us upon our arrival. What followed was a total tour of the facility, complete with a green screen room for promos, a fitness centre devised by WWE legend and current executive Paul (Triple H) Levesque, seven rings, a staffed medical facility and live camera feeds into the offices of WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and Levesque...More?
source: thewhig.com
