Live Report From WWE Axxess

Alright, so before the 25th WrestleMania, WWE held the Axxess fan convention event at Reliant Center next to Reliant Stadium in Houston, TX from Thursday to Sunday. Yours truly got to check things out for a couple days. I unfortunately missed the big Legends of WrestleMania tournament event since I was checking out ROH Supercard of Honor IV. Don’t feel too bad though, I think I got the longer end of the stick there.

Since I had a media badge, I was able to get up close and take some close-up pictures of the WWE superstars. However, you could only take pictures of them and not interrupt any of the signings or other pictures taking place in line. So no cutsies.

Axxess had many exhibits, activities, and things for fans to check out and explore. THQ had a setup for the full, finished version of the new game, Legends of Wrestlemania to play on PS3. The game is actually pretty fun and there’s a different control scheme that’s actually pretty interesting. There are some button command prompts during grapple or in-game cinematics. Kind of like GOW gameplay meets WWE.

There was a Hell In A Cell exhibit set-up where fans could actually go into the ring and take pictures within the partly set up cell structure. Beneath the ring was a “Hornswoggle’s home” beneath the ring, showing how Hornswoggle handles living under the ring with all sorts of homey touches. Hornswoggle also took pictures outside of his “home.”

Inside the Hell In The Cell.

Hornswoggle in his yard.

There was also a WWE title belt collection where fans could take pictures of WWE title belts as well as get the chance to hold the John Cena spinner world title belt and take a pictures with it. Observe:

Many WWE stars were in attendance signing autographs and taking pictures with the WWE fans. While most of the big main event stars were doing QnA sessions in the ring set up in the middle of the auditorium, both Christian Cage and CM Punk did an autograph session at one of the booths, and I was luckily able to get some ink from the former world champions.

The Great Khali takes a yawn during an autograph signing session.

Rowdy Roddy Piper at Axxess.

Chavo Guerrero at Axxess

Farooq/Ron Simmons at Axxess.

Honkytonk Man at Axxess.

Dusty Rhodes and Ted DiBiase at Axxess

Quick pic with Cryme Time.

Jeff Hardy at Axxess.

Legacy members Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase Jr. at Axxess.

Former NWA World Heavyweight Champion, WWE Intercontinental, Tag Team, and European Champion, Christian Cage, now back in the WWE.

My CM Punk autographed action figure.

ECW World Champion, Jack Swagger and assistant general manager of ECW, Tiffany, were also at the booth doing autographs and pictures.

Throughout the weekend, various big time WWE superstars did QnA sessions where they would answer questions written in by the fans. JBL, Ric Flair, HBK, Shawn Michaels, and Mr. Kennedy all participated in the question and answer sessions. Flair said John Cena is the only person he hasn’t wrestled that would like to, and that if Cena ever wanted to be the true world champion, Cena would have to wrestle him sooner or later. Flair got a little upset when most of the questions came from guys and wanted to know if there were any women in attendance that wanted to know more about him. Jimmy Hart then went out to the audience to get some questions from the ladies, and one lucky female asked what the ride Space Mountain is like. Ric Flair: “Three words: All. Night. Long!” Flair informed the ladies that he was staying at the Marriott.

JBL also had his own QnA session moderated by Tony Chimel. JBL openly talked about a hazing incident where he stripped Chimel naked while Chimel’s wife was watching. JBL also constantly ragged on Chimel for being fat and would even refuse to answer Chimel’s questions while JBL just glared at the announcer. Chimel did have a good comeback by saying, “Now I don’t really mind being called fat by *skinny* people . . .” Oh, burn! JBL also made it clear he didn’t like Canada or miserable Canadians.

Mr. Kennedy did one of the last QnA sessions at Axxess despite not being a part of WrestleMania this year since he was still out rehabbing a shoulder injury. Kennedy made Jimmy Hart pantomime the microphone coming down from the ceiling so Kennedy could do his announcing. Kennedy said anyone who has gold will have a target on their back when he returns to the ring. Kennedy had a string of bad luck in the last year two years. Hopefully he can come back from that soon and get back to his old hot streak.

Kennedy does a little bit of the Peoples’ Eyebrow in tribute to The Rock.

In the same ring as the QnA sessions, live WWE matches were also held with wrestlers from Smackdown, RAW, and ECW who wouldn’t be making it on to the main WrestleMania card. On Saturday, Vladimir Kozlov defeated Ortiz, and on Sunday he wrestled and beat Festus:

Some other cool stuff I wasn’t able to cover but was around was a life size action figure box where you could pose in a full size WWE Jakks Action figure package. The Undertaker’s graveyard that was set up like a cemetary with a lot of cool mist surrounding it. There was an art gallery featuring wrestling related art by people like Jerry Lawler. A tattoo shop where people could get fake tattoo designs related to the WWE. And of course lots of merchandise to destroy my wallet. I picked up some shirts and the official program.

Next up will be the live Wrestlemania report and also the interview with Brent Albright.