This one’s gonna be light on content, heavy on the pictures for two reasons. 1) To get it done before I leave for the show of shows, and 2) The Hall of Fame is the type of thing you can’t really convey beyond just generalities, you have to be there to experience it. Like how batshit insane Bob Backlund ended up being, or how much they booed Maria Menounos until it looked like she was ready to cry, that’s all not gonna make it on TV. So sit back and take a look at the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2013, and maybe you’ll even see a Spinarooni or two.

So, I have a lot of disposable income, and a lot of time off banked at work, therefore I have the ability to do a lot of stuff pretty much whenever I want. When I heard WrestleMania was going to take place pretty much right in my backyard, I figured I may as well go, even though I’m at best a casual fan. I watch all the shows every week, but usually just for background noise and only pay attention for the good matches. I grabbed my camera and took a trip up the turnpike to WrestleMania Axxess, WWE’s fan convention, to pretty much wait in line all day. See the pics and details after the jump.

In case you missed Part 1 of my recap, get all caught up here.

Well, let’s just jump right into it, shall we? When we left off CM Punk had just called Jericho bullshit and stormed up off the ramp with his best sad face. And then what happened? Read on after the jump

Who among us can say they didn’t get swept up with the WWF back in the glory days of the 80’s and 90’s? Hulkamania, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Ultimate Warrior, Bret Hart, Macho Man Randy Savage, Undertaker, they were legendary heroes. Before this week, I’d only been to two other WWF shows. One house show in like 1991, which featured a match with Ultimate Warrior and Undertaker I believe, Tatanka and Ricky The Dragon Steamboat were both there, and there was a six man tag match involving Earthquake and Jake the Snake Roberts. That’s all I really remember about it, other than I was in row 6, and I was mad because I wanted to be on the aisle because I wanted to see Ricky Steamboat breathe fire, and the ticketperson who sold us the tickets told us we would be, but she sold us tickets on the opposite side of the arena. Other than that it was a good time I suppose. Back then I was huge into WWF, I had the posters, the coloring books, the card sets, the magazine subscription, ate the ice cream bars. I once won $50 of Toy-R-Us dollars at a school raffle, I used it to buy a ring and a bunch of LJN WWF Superstar action figures. I made my parents get cable so we could get WrestleMania VII on pay per view. But soon after I went to high school, and kinda outgrew it for a while.

That all changed when I went off to college. When I was freshmen, I had 4 other roomates, all of whom were big WWF fans. This was late 1999, the heart of the Attitude era. So as a shared bonding experience, we all went together to a Raw taping. Because we needed 5 seats together, the best we could get was the very last row of the lower bowl, all the way on the farthest side of the arena. It wasn’t all that good, mostly because as it turns out, all my roommates were assholes, and we couldn’t see shit. All I remember was there was a steel cage match, I believe involving Shane McMahon. I stuck around through the Invasion, but I got a girlfriend sophomore year and had moved on to other things right before the brand extension started.

That was the last I had really been into WWE until last year. One of the girls I worked with went down to see WrestleMania XXVII in Atlanta, and as she was telling me about it, I got back into it. Along with the CM Punk “pipe bomb” incident, which blurred the kayfabe line got me intrigued. That and the episode of Tosh.0 with the “It’s still real to me” guy. So I started watching Raw again, went on bit torrent, downloaded all the “Big Four” 4 pay per views, and watched them all in order till I got caught up.

So, what’s it like for a childhood lover of WWF to go to a RAW taping 22 years later? Read on after the jump.

So, WWE Monday Night Raw is coming to my neck of the woods tonight, with WrestleMania XXVIII just two weeks away. It should make for some exciting times. Especially since I’m going be be there, front row and center. OK, actually it’s second row and center, that was the best I could do, but I should be on camera all night long. So if that’s your thing, you can catch it live on USA at 9PM EDT (check your local listings for channel number, local Comcast viewers it’s channel 40). Be on the lookout for my sign below, and for my writeup on the whole live WWE experience sometime tomorrow.

And if you got here after reading one of the said signs, welcome, i hope you stick around.