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WWE came to the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena for a WWE Live Road to Wrestlemania event on February 7, 2015. While there were some empty seats it was a pretty full crowd with at least a couple thousand people by my estimates.
First match of the night was Jack Swagger vs Titus O’Neil. Swagger actually got a better reaction than I thought he would, and people were eager to chant a long with “WE THE PEOPLE!” The match was nothing special but nothing awful. Titus controlled it for a bit so that Swagger could make the heroes comeback. Titus kicks out of a Swagger Bomb at two, only to tap to the patriot lock a minute later.
Winner: Jack Swagger
Next match was a 6 man tag – Los Matadors & El Torito vs Curtis Axel, Hornswoggle and HEATH SLATER!!! I was excited to see Slater back into things here. The crowd was decent for this match, and would oblige with the ‘Ole! chants when the Matadors wanted them. Slater was working one of the Matadors with a move on the ropes, and then when the ref broke him off, Axel would get in a cheap shot by slamming the Matadors arm over the rope. However, the Matador threw Slater into the rope, and Axel proceeded to just slam Slater’s arm OVER AND OVER again – and the crowd was laughing so hard at this. The Matadors and Torito walked out of the ring and over to Axel – and that’s when he realized he was beating on his partner. Then Hornswoggle, Axel and Slater all started fighting for a few minutes but the eventually hugged it out. Then the Matador’s head butted them all together, and El Torito would hit Hornswoggle with a springboard moonsault for the 3 count.
Winners: Los Matadors and El Torito.
Rosa is in the ring and out comes Fandango. RTruth comes out to a pretty big pop, and the crowd gladly chants “WHATS UP” – I, however could go the next week without hearing that phrase and be fine. This match didn’t last long and really wasn’t memorable in the slightest. I just remember RTruth rolling up Fandango for the win after a few minutes.
Winner: RTruth
Lights go out. Crowd is talking and getting excited about it being Bray Wyatt... BREAK THE WALLS DOWWWWN. And out comes Chris Jericho to a THUNDEROUS reaction! He’s coming out to do a Highlight Reel. He gets in the ring and talks about missing being in the ring regularly and begins to talk about the authority. Goes on to call Stephanie a “Filthy, dirty, disgusting, bottom feeding, trash bag..” And the crowd finishes the saying while he goes on to say “We’re PG now, I can’t say that word!” As he continues to bash The Authority Luke Harper comes out. Harper smacks the microphone out of Jericho’s hand and Jericho sends Harper out of the ring. Y2J asks the crowd if they want a match between himself and Harper RIGHT NOW and obviously we say yes – so he demands the ref to ring the bell and we have a match! Chris Jericho vs Luke Harper – This was a solid match all around. A couple of really stiff shots from both guys that had the crowd going oooooo. Everyone was completely behind Jericho in this match and we thought he was going to make Harper tap to the Walls of Jericho – but Harper makes one last effort to get to the ropes and he does. Harper gets back in control for a bit, and just when it looks like he’s going to finally finish of Jericho, Y2J hits the codebreaker for the win, and the crowd goes wild!
Winner: Chris Jericho
Next up – lights go out again, and this time it really is Bray Wyatt. Seeing the cell phone lights in the crowd in person is so much more awesome than on TV. His opponent for the night? Dean Ambrose! The crowd absolutely goes nuts for Dean – probably just as big of a pop that Jericho got. The match was pretty darn good. They really hit all the spots you’d think they would. Bray countered Dean’s “almost fall through the ropes, but rebound to clothesline you” move. He then goes for Sister Abigail, but Dean counters out of it. Now he DOES hit his rebound clothesline, then hits Dirty Deeds for the win. Really fun match between these two.
Now – it’s intermission. JoJo comes out to tell us to vote for if we want a singles or tag match for the Diva’s match tonight and to vote during intermission. We come back from intermission to find out it was like 93% in favor of a Diva’s tag match and its coming on now!
Alicia Fox and Sasha Banks vs Paige and Natalya – Paige and Natalya both got some really great crowd reactions, I know I was excited for Paige to be here! The match was pretty standard. Babyface team was in control earlier, cleared out the ring – and then the heel team turns things around. Sasha and Foxy work on Paige for a while until she FINALLY makes the hot tag to Natalya. Nattie hits the NattieByNature on Banks but Foxy saves it at 2 (Honestly, this was a three count – it seems like the timing was a little off here, so the length of time after the ref counter 2 until the pin breakup was awkwardly long.) Paige comes back in and clears Foxy out of the ring, and then the best part – Paige STANDS on Alicia while she’s on the floor outside to keep her from interfering again. Nattie gets Banks in the Sharpshooter – and oh my god, the crowd went NUTS for the Sharpshooter! – and Sasha taps out.
Winners: Paige and Natalya
Next we have a Tag Team Championship match.
Out first, Miz and Mizdow. Miz is scolding Mizdow, reminding him to stay behind and not copy him. But Mizdow is awesome and sneaks in some love. They get to the ring and Miz makes JoJo correct herself and mention that Mizdow is his personal assistant. “Looks like SOMEONE DIDN’T WATCH RAW” is what he said to JoJo. For all the Miz hate, he really is a fine heel. We get a video recap from Monday when Mizdow was fired. Out come The Uso’s to a MASSIVE pop. This may have been louder than Y2J and Ambrose, seriously. Uso’s get the crowd to show Miz that we hate him and love Mizdow. And to really show we hate Miz, The Uso’s raise the refs arm and the crowd cheers the ref. Miz wouldn’t let Mizdow take off his sunglasses, and forced him to get a chair and sit in the corner and NOT mimic him. Of course, Mizdow winds up mimicking Miz at points, and also tags himself in! Miz gets pissed and tags back in. And while he’s scolding Mizdow, Uso’s are up and setting up for double super kick. Mizdow, seeing this, gladly slides out of the ring to let Miz take the beating and he indeed eats the two kicks and then a Uso splash for the win. And yes, even THIS crowd was hot for Mizdow.
Winners: The Usos.
Lana and Rusev make their way to the ring. Standard Lana promo, gets a little weird and rambling when she starts bringing up Cena’s accomplishments – something definitely got messed up, but no big deal. She calls out for their next victim and out comes Eric Rowan. Rowan is decently over here, plus he’s benefitting from USA chants – this IS a US Title Match. Not much to say here really, pretty standard match. It was short, and ends with the Accolade.
Winner: Rusev
Up next is the MAIN EVENT. The crowd is ON THEIR FEET (This did NOT happen at all during the night) in anticipation of Reigns’ entrance. But out first is Big Show – to a chorus of boos. Finally, Roman’s music hits and the place just explodes. JoJo announces Reigns’ name and as he makes his way through the crowd, they just continue to pour on the love. BIGGEST pop of the night, hands down. There was a small group of fans booing at one point and even tried starting a Daniel Bryan chant but it was just a small, small section. Reigns is MASSIVELY over, no doubt about it. This is a “Jacksonville Street Fight” between the two. Standard action to start until it finally spills outside. Roman is able to hit that apron kick on Show into the ring post. Reigns pulls two tables out from under the ring, and the crowd loves it. He props them up in 2 of the corners of the ring. Big show gets control and goes to Spear Reigns through the table, but Reigns moves and Show slams through the table Crowd loves it. Reigns regains control and gets a kendo stick to punish Show with. Show fights back and starts to regain control. Goes and gets another table and places it in another corner. Attempts to choke slam Reigns through it but he counters and throws Show into the table. Some more back and forth – Show hits a choke slam for two, Reigns hits a Spear for two. Reigns goes to spear show through the remaining table, but he gets KO punched instead. Show goes for the pin but only gets two! Show can’t believe it, he’s a little slow getting up, kind of arguing with the ref a bit. Shortly after, Reigns finally spears Show through the final table and gets the one, two, three.
Winner: Roman Reigns.
Overall it was a fun shown. Crowd was very receptive to all the matches, and it was great to hear the pop for Paige and Nattie – especially that Sharpshooter pop! Again, Roman Reigns got an unbelievably massive pop. The crowd was on their feet, and they would NOT stop cheering this man. Good night of wrestling, crowd definitely went home happy from this one!
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