Thanks to WrestleZone.com reader Bassel for the following: I was invited backstage at the FCW Tapings and here is a list of WWE names and faces that I recognized.
Ric Flair
John Cena
Chris Jericho
Kelly Kelly
Crymetime
Jamie Knoble
Dean Malenko
Maven
Katie Leah
John “Big”
Pat Patterson
Afa
Billy Kidman
Brian Knobs
Rocky Johnson
Justin from Tough Enough III
And many more whose names I cannot recall at this time or were not visible as it was pretty dark backstage.
featuring color commentary by Todd Grisham and Dusty Rhodes.
Overall it was a great show. I wish I had followed FCW more in depth because there is a lot of good talent here and I wish I knew the names of the performers.
Ric Flair made an appearance in the ring to talk about how he is an ambassador of the WWE and is glad to be here at FCW to witness the start of the careers of future WWE talent. He said he wants to come down to Tampa every week and make sure that he sees the building sold out. (For the record, tickets sold out in less than an hour as there were probably about 200 seats or more). The crowd followed with chants of “Thank You Ric.”
John Cena also made an appearance to give a similar speech to Ric Flair’s. He talked about how Tampa can have a new place to bring their families every week to check out a good wrestling show…. but was interrupted by a Canadian FCW wrestler named Shawn Spears. This led to some arrogant trash talking on his part. He said that he wanted WWE to notice him and figured what better way than to get a piece of John Cena. He threatened John Cena and Cena dropped his mic and began to get annoyed. Afterwards Spears sort of backed away and walked away from Cena…suddenly he turned around and tried to attack Cena, but Cena countered and set him up for the FU.
Chris Jericho also made an appearance and began insulting the crowd saying that we are the kind of folks that look up to Shawn Michaels. He introduced Nic Nemeth as a guy who stood for honesty and integrity, which drew lots of heat from the crowd. He then introduced Joe Henning and began insulting him as a guy who does not follow in the path of Y2J Chris Jericho. The trash talking resulted in a beating of Joe Henning by Chris Jericho and Nic Nemeth.
That was the extent of WWE talent’s involvement with the show. The rest of the matches were all FCW talent. Pretty good matches especially considering the show was done in a small warehouse with only three rows of seats on all sides of the ring, except the one by the main camera that overlooks the ring in which there were about 5 rows. Many fans also stood since there were not enough seats to accommodate them.
I’d definitely recommend and FCW show to folks living in or near Tampa as something to do on a Thursday night.
