Hello everyone, I have quite an interesting adventure that happened. So IRA my brother in law is a pro-wrestling fan, collecting the action figures and watching the events, and having gone to a big event in Texas some years ago. And despite having a lot of similar interests and people saying "you seem like the kind of person that would like wrestling," I'm just not into it. In my youth I stayed away "because it was all fake" like they were trying to deceive their viewers with sport (and maybe my parents had a hand in it because I wasn't allowed to watch things with immitigable fighting), then when I was an adult I watched a match with IRA and see "of course it's fake it's obvious stage fighting, they aren't even pretending it's real, it's no different than the sit-coms and prime time drama series I watch," but by then I'm like "it's a soap opera arc, trying to get in now would require catching up on years of story lines and there just isn't enough plot to engage me," so it's still not my thing. Nothing against anyone who enjoys it (a quick glance through my past content shows I'm not one to cast stones at "unconventional entertainment"), but I'm just not into it. So when my father-in-law basically told mskate "I need Pokematic to go to Summer Slam with IRA in Detroit, I'll pay for everything," I was kind of conflicted. On the one hand, stay in the good graces of my in-laws, bond with my brother-in-law, and have an all expenses paid weekend trip to a major event while staying at a "luxury" casino hotel that was sure to be a great story. On the other hand, I don't enjoy pro-wrestling or gambling, and as the weekend grew closer I kept having commitments to where I wasn't able to relax, and then the "concert in my parent's back yard" party my college friend throws every year got postponed to this weekend and I was really looking forward to that, which sucked (plus, even though Detroit has gotten better somewhat recently, it's still "dangerous Detroit," there's a reason IRA needed someone to go with him this time even though he did one in Texas without help). Oh well, I took it as an opportunity to see what it would be like to travel with me when I'm excited about a thing (because I get very excited about things).
Friday was the "get there" day. I went to work like normal, packed up my electronics and snack foods, and drove to the Motorcity Casino Hotel. This is the second time I've been to Detroit for a big event, and it wasn't super easy getting to the hotel. I struggled a little to find where to park, because my GPS didn't do a great job of taking me to the parking garage and the parking garage didn't make it easy to distinguish what was the VIP entrance and what was the normal entrance. I got a bit turned around and had to drive into a bad block, turning around in a parking lot of some abandoned building, and found my way to the parking garage. I technically parked in the casino garage and not the hotel garage, but it didn't really matter since it's all the same property and casinos are open 24 hours. Mskate and IRA got worried I was going to get toed, but that didn't happen.
Now for a problem with semantics. I was going to get there first and mskate told me "the reservation is in your name, see if you can check-in." I did arrive first and so I tried to check in, and I was able to check in but had to put a credit or debit card on file. This was going to go on my father-in-law's card but I didn't have it with me so I put my card on file. When I book hotels I always pre-pay with hotels.com gift cards I get through swagbucks, so I assumed dad-in-law did something similar, but he didn't and then I had a $900 pending charge on my account. When mskate and IRA got there she was all "I told you to wait," and I'm like "no you told me to see if I could check in, and I was able to." I was able to transfer the charges to the right card, and the receptionist was kind of confused annoyed that I was changing the card less than 10 minutes after checking in, but whatever. Dad-in-law also didn't get a room with 2 beds so we had to get a roll away, which I can't remember the last time I had one in a room (it was one of the last times my grandparents, mom, brother, and I shared a hotel room when I was a kid, but I don't know when that specifically was since we did that a lot). All's well that ends well though.
Aside from 1 king bed, the room was pretty OK, but definitely not $450 a night in my opinion though. The bed was decent, and there was a chromecast in the TV which meant we didn't need to bring our fire stick which was cool, and the shower was nice and tiled with a cool bathtub that was separate from the shower, and there was a big whole wall windows that gave you a nice view of some bad parts of Detroit (there's the Ambassador Bridge to Canada, the GM corporate building, a burnt out wearhouse, some drug dens, overgrown vacant lots, perfect encapsulation of Detroit). When my dad and I went to Sault Saint Marie to find one of the last analog broadcast TV channel where we also stayed at a casino hotel the price was like $250 a night for a room of pretty equal quality (no "wall of window" or fully tiled bathroom, but better view and better neighborhood). Maybe it's because this was because there was a big event and supply and demand, maybe I'm too caught up on location and the rest of the amenities made up for it, maybe the other hotel does more business as JUST a casino and this one gets more business of people coming without throwing their money away in the casino, but whatever the reason it didn't seem like it was really worth what was charged. Whatever though, not my money.
Dinner was pretty good. There was a food court with a Little Caesars, burger place, taco place, Chinese place, bar, closed breakfast place (it would be open in the morning), and the buffet. I would have enjoyed the buffet, but I wasn't hungry enough for it, plus the Chinese place had beef and broccoli with a side of fried rice, which ended up being the better option for me. After eating we went to the casino. Mskate and IRA had never played casino games before, so it was kind of interesting for them. We put $1 in a penny slot and they played some without knowing what was happening. After winning 3 cents we went to the fountain drink station and got some drinks. We walked around some, played another slot machine that ended up being a 2 cent machine and went down by 7 cents. Mskate and IRA were like "I don't get this, I'm done." We walked around some more and found a keno machine. I like playing club keno every so often at restaurants so I decided to try it. Unfortunately the game wasn't very user friendly and I ended up losing 60 cents. Oh well. IRA wanted to play "the game with the ball" but social anxiety stopped him, so we found the cash out machines, found our way back to the room, and that was basically it for them for the rest of the night.
After some rest I decided to explore the hotel and casino some more. I don't know what I was hoping to find, but I figured I'm here might as well. I wandered around and decided to play a couple slots. I put in $1 and lost about 40 cents. I wandered around and found an automated roulette table. I saw I could make bets of 50 cents, so I decided to give it a shot, placing 50 cent bets on black, red, odd, even, first half, second half; just the ones with the highest odds. After about 5 minutes I realized that the minimum bet was $5 and none of my bets were being placed. I cashed out my nothing and wandered around some more. I got another free drink at some point and that made wandering around feel less awkward. I found myself at the lounge and listened to one of the live songs. I think it was Motown. After the lounge I found another automatic roulette table, and this time I decided to do a full bet. I put it on red and the ball landed on red, so I ended up being up about $3.50. I decided to quite while I was ahead, get another drink, and go back to the room. The whole adventure took about 1 hour, which was a nice break from the family. The rest of the night was just hanging out and then bed.
Saturday was the day of the big event, but first we had the whole day to ourselves. We went to the breakfast place that was closed the night before. Mskate had oatmeal, IRA had pancakes, and I had eggs and hash browns. It was pretty good, and IRA had left overs. After breakfast we went to the casino so IRA could play the automated roulette. He put $10 in, lost the first bet (I think he bet on high and it was low), then won on the second bet (I think it was odds), so he broke even. Better than losing, and now he can say "I played roulette." After some light gambling and some resting it was time for an event, the WWE pop-up store. It was a place to get official merchandise for the summer slam, and IRA was really into it. He got 2 t-shirts, a program, a stuffed slam buddy, an action figure, a hat, and an autographed Asuka funco pop. Now I think funco pops are stupid, but autographed is pretty neat I guess. They also had other funco pops (signed and unsigned), signed photos, toy championship belts, and high quality replica championship belts. IRA wanted a champion belt, but we convinced him that it was too expensive ($500) and he hadn't budgeted for it. If he goes to another one he'll probably get a belt, but not this time. The only thing I got was a picture with the Elton John walk out costume. It was pretty neat. Here's some video.
The pop-up store only took us to about 11 AM, and the doors to the event wouldn't open until 5:30 PM. I walked mskate out to her car (after proving that my car was still there), and that was OK. At some point IRA and I went back to casino to watch the roulette table just to watch the ball run while getting more free drinks. I made 4 hypothetical bets and "won" 3 of them. I could have won $15, but I didn't put money on the line so I didn't win anything. At some other point we got a personal 4-corner pizza from Little Caesars that we split before the event. I had half of it and my left over fried rice. At another point I went to the work out room and got in a good 30 minute work out. I played a game on an exercise bike that was pretty fun, then I did some high incline treadmill walking.
OK, now it's getting time. We got down to the lobby and were trying to order the uber. For some reason when we typed in "Ford Field" the app wanted to take us to somewhere in Dearborn. I looked up the address and that got us to the stadium. The uber got us to a service drive about a block away from the stadium because all the roads were blocked off, but that was fine. IRA and I got to the outside and he wanted to just get in line, but I said "no let's walk around some." I'm glad we did because there were 4 cars from other shows, and IRA was really excited to see them. Then we got in line and I ended up running into someone from my company. I didn't know him, but he saw the logo on the shirt I was wearing (my neon yellow work shirt) and that was pretty neat.
We had a little trouble getting the phone to see my ticket, but that wasn't a problem. We found our seats and dropped our signs off so we didn't have to lug them around while exploring. From there we walked around, took in the sights and looking for BigAl2K6 (because he said he would be there, and I wanted to meet one of my inspirations to getting into online content). Unfortunately I didn't see him, but if I end up being in the same building as him I can be happy (though hopefully I am able to meet him one day). This is when things got a little crazy, there was 2.5 hours until the show really started; the pay-per-view coverage started at 7PM, but the fights started at 8PM. I got nachos for a dinner-type thing, and then basically noodled on my phone. There was a good DJ, and the stage lights did some cool dancing, but there wasn't much else.
OK, now it's time for the main event. The first fight was between Logan Paul and Ricochet, and even though I don't care for pro-wrestling, I was into this one. For those who don't know or are reading this blog years in the future, Logan Paul was a very controversial youtuber. He and his brother Jake were popular on the dead platform vine, and then moved to youtube when vine died. Logan made a video where he went to a Japanese suicide forest and filmed a dead body, who's video ended up causing major monetization restrictions on youtube (called "adpocalypse"). He's also done a lot of other bad things from what I've heard, but the main one I know about was "the dead body incident." He now does pro-wrestling and is a major heel. I booed him like everyone else, and was yelling "go film a dead body." When the crowd was yelling "*** you Logan," I decided to have some political fun and yell "*** Joe Biden" some times. Logan ended up "winning" the fight, and that sucked but oh well, it was kind of fun being in the same room as someone that famous that I knew of.
The other fight that was interesting for me was the battle royal where if anyone was thrown out of the ring they lost, mainly because there was a giant wrestler that did some impressive throws. With my martial arts knowledge of the body and physics a lot of the throws the wrestlers do are "easy;" not "anyone can do it," they still require a lot of strength, but they use a lot of the "stronger core and leg muscles" and are a lot of "balance you on me, then we fall." Kind of think of the difference between carrying a child that is holding onto you and the difference between carrying the same child that is asleep and not grabbing on at all. Well, the big guy lifted someone above his head and then just threw him out of the ring, basically using nothing but his arm muscles. I imagine the guy he threw was probably the lightest guy in the battle royal, but even then the lightest guy is probably at least 200 pounds so it's still really impressive. He was my favorite to watch just because he was generally doing things that "can't be faked."
Then the only other fight that I really remember was the Ronda Rousey fight. It was "an MMA fight," and that just didn't translate to pro-wrestling which is defined by exaggerated stage fighting. Like, wrestling is elaborate throws, hitting people with folding chairs, breaking tables, climbing on the roaps and jumping onto each other, and well telegraphed punches, all things that everyone can see. Even though it's clearly fake, it's still entertaining because of how over the top it is (at least I think that's the reason, I'm not a wrestling fan). MMA is real fighting, real punches and kicks, real grapples, and all of that is done in close quarters. Even though it's hard to see when not right at the ring or on TV, people still watch because it's a real fight. So what happened hear is the worst of both worlds, the close quarters fighting of MMA and the choreographed fighting of WWE. Everyone was chanting "this is boring" and yelling about how much it sucked. I mentioned "Ronda lousy," but that didn't take off. Maybe it was better with commentary and close-up camera, but that wasn't the case when watching in the stadium (which I'll now go into detail about).
So as I said, I'm not a wrestling fan. I've watched some matches with IRA and the commentary and camera work really makes it entertaining from what I can tell. A lot of things are "here's a thing that can only be seen up close," and even for the big throws type of things it's made more entertaining by the commentary as they explain "here's why it's entertaining" (kind of like exposition). The big title match had a big reveal twist at the end that was made exciting by a face reveal, and they went out into the crowd, and while that's all visible on TV it's not exactly easy to see when in the stadium. I wouldn't recommend going to an event like this unless you are REALLY into it and want to see it in person and "be in the same room as your favorite wrestlers," because it's really weird being in the audience. It's like "silent;" there's a lot of "ambient noise" of the fans yelling, but there isn't any "monolog or dialog" from the wrestlers or commentators. It's rather weird, and I know I'm not the only one who thought that as I heard other people say the same thing. The pyrotechnics were pretty cool though, as was the stadium energy.
OK, now it's over and time to go home. The show ended at midnight, and now it's time to get an uber back to the hotel. So, Detroit has come a long way in terms of danger, with a rather large police presence and lights after events like this, but "it's still Detroit," I had 2 ladies try to sell me flowers, a guy try to sell me candy, and another guy try to sell me his CD. It was very busy and crowded, and this was peak hours for high prices, making it very difficult. It took us close to an hour and 3 canceled rides before we finally got someone. IRA wanted to just walk back to the hotel, and I'm like "no, I wouldn't even do that in broad daylight, there is a zero percent chance I am walking 30 minutes through Detroit at 12:30 at night." After 2 cancelations I messaged "I will tip you $15 to keep this ride," and the 3rd driver said "$15 isn't worth the crazy crowd," and the other said "go to the FOX theater, it'll be easier to get you." I originally wore the neon yellow shirt to make it easier to pick us out from the crowd on TV, but then it was even more helpful because I could tell the drivers "we're both wearing yellow." When we got back I showered and went right to bed, and IRA just went to bed, and we got home around 1:15 AM.
OK, it's Sunday now. We slept in until about 10 AM, and then quickly packed up because check out was 10:30 and I had to get to church. Mskate kept calling to see how we were doing, and I'm like "no we need to pack up so I can't talk." We got out around 10:20, checked out, and threw our stuff in the car. I got IRA back to his parents, and then went to my parents and we went to mass together. I had lunch with my parents at their house and told them all the adventures. It was fun. Then I went home and then got ready for the week. It was a pretty fun weekend, though I really wish I could have gone to my friend's party instead. Oh well, it was quite an experience. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
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