Next, it’s ‘Smackdown’

The box office success of the two World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) shows last Friday and Saturday has convinced co-producers Solar Entertainment Corp. and the Araneta Coliseum group to bring in another set of grapplers in October or November.

That’s the word from Solar executive Luke Pasiliao who says the WWE’s lineup of "Smackdown" stars will likely perform at the Big Dome before the year ends. That means the likes of Dave Batista, Kurt Angle, the Undertaker, Randy Orton, Booker T, Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio, Matt Hardy and Melina will be in town to grunt and groan.

"It’s still in the planning stage but we’d like to do it," says Pasiliao.

Tickets for the two recent shows, featuring the WWE’s "Raw" stars, were sold out over a month in advance. Every single section of the Araneta Coliseum was packed to capacity.

An Araneta source said over 32,000 fans witnessed the matches on those two days. The wrestlers would’ve also sold out a third show if only their schedule allowed. Ticket prices ranged from a high of P10,000 to a low of P450. General admission accommodated 5,000 spectators and was filled to the brim.

The fans got their money’s worth and for Pasiliao, that was the bottom line. The fans enjoyed every second of the theatrics.

Were fans disappointed they couldn’t get autographs backstage?

Pasiliao says he, too, wasn’t allowed to go backstage. He had an all-access pass but the WWE’s security group made the "restricted" area an off-limits zone. So Pasiliao, who used to be the Araneta Coliseum general manager, wasn’t even able to penetrate the tight security cordon.

I bought two P3,500 tickets for my daughter Cristina and me to watch Saturday’s show. My sister-in-law Vicky got two tickets for her son Pedro and daughter Maricar so we were four in our group.

However, I missed the entire show. I attended a planning meeting with my co-workers in Tarlac that day. We started the meeting before 9 a.m. and I left at about 4:45 p.m. I rushed from Tarlac to the Big Dome but you can only do so much against the traffic.

When I reached the Araneta Coliseum, I tried to enter through the South Gate. I was stopped by the guards. I pleaded to enter because I knew the final match had started–it was around 6:50 p.m. Luckily, a stadium supervisor was in the parking lot and instructed a uniformed usher to escort me inside through the South Gate and into an elevator.

By the time I reached my seat, John Cena was about to leave the ring. He had just beaten Edge in a steel-cage match for the world title.

I looked around the coliseum and saw what had to be a promoter’s dream. The place was packed. I was told by an insider that the two shows grossed over P50 million.

Of course, bringing in the wrestlers was no easy thing. The WWE traveling group consisted of 43 people, including 19 wrestlers. Shawn Michaels wasn’t in the team but stars like Triple H, Rob Van Dam, Shelton Benjamin, the Big Show, Mick Foley, Ric Flair and those alluring divas Trish and Tori were in the fold.

There was some initial apprehension that the shows wouldn’t go on because of the state of emergency declared by the President. But when the wrestlers were reassured that there wouldn’t be a problem staging the matches, they readily agreed to do their thing.

I think there would’ve been more of a problem if the wrestlers decided to pull out. The fans would’ve surely raised hell.

The only problems the wrestlers encountered were at the airport coming and going. First, there was the incident involving a reporter who crossed the line in trying to penetrate the grapplers’ security cordon. Then, after the wrestlers checked in their luggage to leave on a Philippine Airlines flight Saturday night, someone forgot to bring the cash to pay for the P550 terminal fee. The money–about P20,000–had to be rushed from the Araneta Coliseum.

Only 30 of the 43 members of the tour group left Saturday night. The others, mostly technical people, still had some packing to do at the Big Dome and left the next day.

If "Raw" was spectacular, "Smackdown" promises to be a knockout.

The focus of attention will surely be on "Smackdown" star Dave Batista who is supposedly half-Filipino. A source said his real surname is Bautista.

Batista is no ordinary human being. He’s a 6-5, 317-pound specimen of a perfectly sculpted physique. His parents split up when he was a kid. His father, purportedly a Filipino, worked as a hairdresser in Washington, D. C., and his mother lived in San Francisco as he grew up.

Coming from a broken family, Batista had difficulty staying out of trouble as a boy. Before he became a teenager, he was already in and out of jail for shoplifting, stealing bikes, running away from home and fighting. At 13, he decided to live with his father. He was involved in high school sports, including football, basketball, track and wrestling. At 17, he left his father’s home to live on his own and a year later, found a job as a bouncer in a nightclub.

Eventually, Batista enrolled in Wild Samoan Afa’s wrestling school in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and made his WWE debut in 2002 as D-Von Dudley’s personal enforcer. Before the year ended, Batista had emerged as a rising solo star in the WWE circuit.

I heard fans are already calling Ticketnet and the Araneta box office to check if they can make reservations for "Smackdown."