MVPs of WrestleMania #9

By Kevin Hunsperger & Chad Smart

@kevinhunsperger, @chadsmart, @my123cents

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Last year I had the idea to do an MVPs of WrestleMania blog, but came up with it a day or two before the big event.  So I held my list waiting for WrestleMania 32 to roll around.  Admittedly I've made a couple of minor tweaks to the original list and debated internally over the quality of my list.  I invited Chad to play along too.  While the lists aren't perfect (he's not in our top ten), I hope you enjoy.  A new blog will be posted daily until March 31, the day I leave for Dallas.

Austin beats HBK at WrestleMania XIV
Courtesy: WWE

Kevin's pick:

9) "Stone Cold" Steve Austin:  When a newly named "Stone Cold" Steve Austin appeared at his first WrestleMania (XII) 20 years ago I had no idea he'd become one of the biggest stars the business would ever see. I had liked Austin from the start of his career and his "Stunning" days back in World Class Championship Wrestling.

But in WWE Stone Cold truly heated things up, really breaking out in his match at 'Mania 13 against Bret Hart.  He "lost" the contest but won over fans everywhere.  He went on to capture the top prize in back to back WrestleManias (14 & 15) and again at 17, beating Shawn Michaels and the Rock twice. Even in retirement, Austin has had an impact on WrestleMania, playing the role of special enforcer referee for matches like Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar and Jerry "The King" Lawler vs. Michael Cole.  I'll never forget his presence at WrestleMania XXX and the opening segment with fellow legends Hulk Hogan and The Rock.  

Piper gets stunned and it's the pits...
Courtesy: WWE

Ironically my pick met Chad's pick in a showdown of sorts at WrestleMania XXI in Los Angeles...

Piper vs. Hogan
Courtesy: WWE

Chad's pick:

9)  "Rowdy" Roddy Piper:  For the initial WrestleMania to be a success, there had to not only be a great hero for the fans to cheer for, but also a great villain for the fans  to want to see get his comeuppance. That villain was “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.  Piper was the perfect foil to ultimate good guy, Hulk Hogan.  The rowdy one may have only won one match at WrestleMania but that doesn’t negate the importance he had for the impact of WrestleMania 1.

In case you missed any...

10) Brock Lesnar, Edge and MVP

Geek Week 2016 Part 2: Montreal

On the road to Montreal 

By Chad Smart

@chadsmart & @my123cents on Twitter
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After a fun two days in Ottawa, it was time to cross the Ontario border and head to the Quebec city of Montreal. While it was intended to be a relatively short two-hour trip, the lack of scenery made it feel more like a five-hour trek.  

Our first stop in Montreal was a break for lunch. Mike had found a place online that looked appealing…or is that a-peel-ing? The Montreal institution known as the Orange Julep would serve as our welcome to the city.  


If you read the Ottawa blog, you may remember I said we left on March 17 in hopes of avoiding St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Apparently in Montreal, calendars are merely suggestions. Getting off the freeway at an exit a short half-mile to the Airbnb location, we quickly found out we had landed in the middle of a huge St. Paddy’s Day parade route and could not use the road we intended to use. Instead, we had to go about three miles out of the way to get around the closed off sections of town and find our way back to the townhouse. Normally, a slight detour wouldn’t be much of a problem. However, when you’re in a country where cell phone usage is out due to international roaming charges and all the street signs are in a foreign language, it can be a bit daunting.  

Once we got to the location and unpacked the car, it was time to hit the city. One positive I can give Montreal is the subway system is pretty simple to figure out and easy to use. We took the subway up to Olympic Park. The site of the 1976 Summer Olympics has been retrofitted to house a biodome, insectariums and the building used for the swimming events is now a fitness center. Sadly, Olympic Stadium, the former home of the Montreal Expos, now stands empty for the most part. 

After taking in the sites in Olympic Park, it was time to head back downtown to the Bell Center to watch the Canadiens de Montreal battle the Calgary Flames. I say battle, but really it was a continuation of the poor performance we saw the night before with the Canadians vs. Senators. At least this time the Canadians did manage to score a goal. Unfortunately, Calgary scored 4 to win the game and the home crowd booed their team off the ice.  Sadly for me is I failed to realize I was in a building where wrestling history will never (as much as it should by this point) be forgotten. I was in the same arena where the infamous Montreal Screw Job happened. That fateful night in November 1997 where Bret Hart screwed Bret Hart, or Vince McMahon screwed Bret, or Earl Hebner screwed Bret. Maybe it was Sunny. No matter who it was, this was the arena that changed the battleground of the Monday Night Wars and I almost left Montreal without realizing it. 

With the disappointing game and atmosphere still echoing in our minds, we needed something to erase the funk. On the walk back to the Airbnb, we decided to stop off at a barcade called Foonzo. If you’re ever in Montreal, I highly recommend stopping at Foonzo. Unlike most barcades that have different video game cabinets in the building, Foonzo has different tables set up with old school video game consoles. Everything from the classic NES to X-Box are waiting to be played. As long as you’re a customer, the games are free. Mike and I relieved the glory days of college with some N64 Goldeneye and Mario Kart. Having not played these games in 15-16 years, it was fun to look at them now and instead of seeing state of the art graphics, realizing they’re really blocky looking. A few games later it was time to call it night. 

The second day in Montreal was spent walking around Old Montreal, the base of Mount Royal and Parc Jean-Drapeau to see the Montreal Biosphere. While it was a nice day of site seeing, I have to say that there wasn’t much that I saw that would justify highly recommending a visit to Montreal to someone. Plus, the people of Montreal lived up to every horrible preconceived opinion I had about New Yorkers. That’s unfair to New Yorkers because they didn’t adhere to any bad opinions. Montrealers though were either rude or totally indifferent to anything we said to them. 

With four days in Canada behind us, it’s now time to cross the border back into America and “Feel the Bern” with a stop in Vermont. 

TO BE CONTINUED...

MVPs of WrestleMania #10

By Kevin Hunsperger & Chad Smart

@kevinhunsperger, @chadsmart, @my123cents

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Last year I had the idea to do an MVPs of WrestleMania blog, but came up with it a day or two before the big event.  So I held my list waiting for WrestleMania 32 to roll around.  Admittedly I've made a couple of minor tweaks to the original list and debated internally over the quality of my list.  I invited Chad to play along too.  While the lists aren't perfect (he's not in our top ten), I hope you enjoy.  A new blog will be posted daily until March 31, the day I leave for Dallas.

Brock Lesnar ends the Streak
Courtesy: WWE

Kevin's pick:

10)  Brock Lesnar & Edge:  Okay, I couldn't whittle my list down to just ten, so I'm throwing in a bonus.  Lesnar obviously doesn't have a whole lot of WrestleManias under his belt, but just for the fact that he's the ONE in 21 and 1, I couldn't ignore that.  He also captured the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 19.  His other showings were less than stellar, but again I'm basing this largely on the ending of the Undertaker's streak.

Edge wins MITB
Courtesy: WWE

Edge deserves to be in the conversation of WrestleMania MVPs for a number of reasons.  He started off strong in his first handful of WrestleManias.  He's 6 and 4 at the annual event.  He and Christian made their Mania debuts at WrestleMania 2000 (16) and won the the tag team titles in one of the most memorable ladder matches ever.  Edge went on to win the first ever Money in the Bank ladder match, defeat Mick Foley in a hardcore match and retain the World Heavyweight title in his final match against Alberto Del Rio. 

MVP vs. Chris Benoit
Courtesy: WWE

Chad's pick:

10) Montel Vontavious Porter: You can’t have a list of MVPs without including a literal M.V.P right? While a list of WrestleMania MVPs sounds like a simple idea,  it was actually harder than expected to come up with 10 names. Well, 10 names that are more qualified than just trotting out 10 stars. So with that said, MVP comes in at number 10. MVP’s biggest WrestleMania match was his match against Chris Benoit at WrestleMania 23 for the U.S. title. Outside of that; he competed in the Money in the Bank ladder matches at WM24-26 before leaving WWE for Japan and TNA.

Geek Week 2016, Part 1: Ottawa

By Chad Smart

@chadsmart & @my123cents on Twitter
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For the third time in the last five years, I find myself on an extra excursion while on the Road to WrestleMania. Previously, as I recounted on a recent episode of the My 1-2-3 Cents Podcast, I traveled to New York City and Key West, prior to WrestleMania 28 with my friends, Jackie and Gary, whom I’d met at WrestleMania 22 in Chicago. Two years later, Jackie, who was working at a ski resort, and I made a road trip from Banff, Alberta to New Orleans stopping along the way to pick up Kevin before hitting “The Big Easy.”  

Kevin also made an extra trip this year and you can read about his exploits here. While Kevin was smart and headed for the warmth and sunshine of Florida, I went in the opposite direction. My friend Mike decided this was a good week to continue our goal of seeing all 30 NHL arenas with a visit to Buffalo, NY. Originally, Buffalo was the only NHL game we were going to see while hitting up all the New York AHL teams. After looking at the schedules some more, Mike decided it didn’t make much sense to only see one NHL game if we were going to be in the area for a week. Thus, the trip evolved to include stops in Ottawa and Montreal. That sounded good and then I had a look at the weather prediction for the week. Canada was only going to top out around 32 degrees for the days  we’re visiting.  It’s times like this where I don’t understand why people complain about global warming. 

Thursday afternoon (3/17), we skipped all the St. Paddy’s Day celebrations (or so we thought) and flew to Buffalo, arriving at 1am on Friday. After a short night of sleep, it was time to hit the road. Before leaving Buffalo, we stopped by the Wilcox house where Teddy Roosevelt was sworn in as President of the United States following the assassination of President William McKinley. Since I wasn’t that familiar with the events of McKinley’s death and Roosevelt’s taking over the Presidency, the tour was extremely interesting as well as educational. Would definitely recommend it if you ever find yourself in Buffalo. 

After the tour, it was time to hit the road for the five and a half hour drive to Ottawa. Maybe if it weren’t the dead of winter the drive would have been interesting. Instead, the drive was five hours of bare trees and dead grass. Eventually we made it to Ottawa and were ready for the first of three hockey games in three days. 

Once we dropped off the luggage at the airbnb apartment, we made our way down to the TD Place arena to watch the Ottawa 67s battle the Hamilton Bulldogs. The interesting aspect is how the hockey arena is built underneath a section of the football stadium’s seating.  As is a tradition whenever we see a hockey game, Mike and I try to track down the mascot to get a photo. During the first period, we hadn’t seen the mascot so we went in search of trying to find Riley Raccoon. Having no luck in our raccoon hunt, I asked a female usher if she knew where Riley liked to hang out. This was my first encounter of the trip that showed why Canadians have the reputation they have. She was very friendly and walked us around the arena to point out places we might find Riley. Later she gave us free Ottawa 67s pins to commemorate the game. Eventually we succeeded in our quest and got photos with Riley. The 67s won the game to the delight of the hometown crowd. Following the game, Mike and I went out for post-game snacks with a friend of his who writes for the 67s (@msconduct) before calling it a night. 

Saturday day was spent walking around Ottawa and examining different buildings. We saw Parliament and went up in the Peace Tower. It’s a memorial tower to honor Canadians who died during wars. There are remembrance books with the names of all the soldiers who died during a particular war. In the center of the room is an altar with the first book that commemorates those lost during the Great War. While talking with a security guard about the altar, he mentioned how the book is very regal looking because when it was made, the persons making it thought it would be the last book of its kind. Once again, while talking with the guard (and some of the tour guides as well), I was struck by how friendly they all were and their willingness to help. It made it very difficult to hang on to my 20-year irrational dislike of Canadians. 

With my opinions of Canadians being called into question, it was time to head over to the Canadian Tire Center to watch the Ottawa Senators battle the Montreal Canadians. Since Montreal is relatively close to Ottawa, I’d say the crowd was about a 60-40 split in favor of the hometown Spartans. Saturday night hockey game in Canada between two Canadian teams is what you’d expect if you follow hockey.  The crowd was into every play. Whenever the Spartans looked to score, there would be an audible gasp from the crowd when the Canadians goalie would block a shot. Unfortunately, due to a rash of injuries, the Canadians team is pretty much limping their way to the end of the season, which led to a very lopsided 5-0 victory for the Senators. Two fun hockey games down, it was now time to rest up and hit the road for a couple days in Montreal.  

TO BE CONTINUED...

Celebrating a birthday at Disney World

Toy Story Mania! 

By Kevin Hunsperger

@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter
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I have loved Mickey Mouse and all things Disney for as long as I can remember.  My second birthday was Mickey Mouse themed.  Little did I imagine 41 years later I'd be celebrating my birthday at Mickey's house!  It worked out this year that my birthday fell during Spring Break and members of the Carterville High School performing arts programs would be performing at various Disney parks this year.

Disney's Animal Kingdom:
The Tree of Life

My wife, daughter and I made the trek to watch the performances, hang out on the beach and play at the Disney Parks.  We made plans to visit both Disney's Animal Kingdom and Disney's Hollywood Studios on my 43rd birthday.  My wife told a cast member it was my birthday and she promptly gave me a button proclaiming it was my day.  Lisa and Brooke received buttons too, letting people know they were in the park to celebrate. 

TV at the 50's Prime Time Cafe

We ate dinner at the 50's Prime Time Cafe at Hollywood Studios.  It's a step back in time, complete with a loud and cranky waitress named Janice.  She lectured everyone in our dining area about setting the table, keeping elbows off the table and leaving the "toys" (cell phones) unattended.  When our other son, who couldn't make the trip, called to wish me a happy birthday and I answered, Janice let me know I was breaking a rule.  She then stood by our table and directed the group to sing "Happy Birthday" to me.  

Chewie!

We wrapped up the meal with a great dessert and rode a handful of rides, including Toy Story Mania, Star Tours, The Rock 'n Roller Coaster and The Tower of Terror.  One of the "must dos" at Hollywood Studio was to meet Chewbacca.  My wife stood in the 20 minute line with me and my daughter and took a picture of us with the resident Wookiee.  We scored a few bonus pics of a Jawa and Storm Troopers as we checked out all the Star Wars paraphernalia on display.

We're not the Droids you're looking for...

I can't tell you how much fun it was spending my birthday at Disney World.  The cast members who greeted me with birthday well wishes, riding the rides and hanging out with most of my family were the greatest presents ever.  I try to be a big kid at heart and on that day I really left like it was a mission accomplished. 

Performance (Center) anxiety

The WWE Performance Center

By Kevin Hunsperger

@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter
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I'm in Orlando this week and spending time at Disney World and the beach.  Since there was a break in our schedule Monday afternoon, I decided to drive over to the WWE Performance Center.  I'd tried to make arrangements to get a tour of the facility before we came to Florida, but WWE doesn't do that.  So I hopped in my car and spent nearly an hour in traffic heading to the facility that trains the Superstars and Divas of tomorrow.

I had no idea what to expect when I got there or what I was even going to do.  The first building I saw with the WWE logo on it and the words "Performance Center" didn't look like much.  What was even more surprising was the lack of cars in the parking lot.  But I decided to walk up to the windows and peek inside.  It was a large room filled with tools and equipment and an NXT box truck.

Gotta get a selfie there...

I took a few pics from the parking lot and while doing that, a big white pickup truck pulled in.  The man behind the wheel was large and covered in tattoos.  He had a man bun too.  I didn't recognize him.  But I'm guessing he was a trainee.

When I pulled out of the parking lot, I glanced to my left and there was the ACTUAL performance center.  Because there were a bunch of cars in the lot, I debated if I should pull in too.  I did and took a few more pictures before noticing the sign on the door "No Soliciting".  I wasn't soliciting, but I was loitering and didn't want to cause any trouble.  I'm pretty sure NXT commentator Tom Phillips left the building while I was there.  

Again, trying to not look like a crazed fan, I quickly walked back to my car and noticed Norman Smiley.  The street I tried to leave on was a dead end so I had to go back around.  Leaving the facility was four or five cars.  I didn't recognize anyone behind the wheel, and as I made my way out the cars, led by Smiley followed behind.

While I was only there probably five minutes or less and didn't do any more than take some pictures, I consider it a neat experience.  And yes I'm aware I acted like a big ol' mark.  It happens sometimes...

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Motivational Monday: Do what Walt says

By Kevin Hunsperger

@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter
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Disclaimer: I am not an expert, but the advice dispensed here has been researched or is something that has worked for me in the past.  Proceed at your own risk...

Since I'm currently spending my Spring Break at Walt Disney World, I thought it was only appropriate to share some of the inspirational words of one of the greatest businessman of all time.  Walt Disney without a doubt changed the world with his imagination and hard work.

Walt & Mickey 

In last week's post I mentioned that Disney was fired from his job at a newspaper because he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas."  I'm sure that boss ate a nice plate of crow years later.  Walt had a good idea in creating what would become a dynasty.  He didn't give up on his dreams.  From Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to Mickey Mouse to finally bringing Snow White to the big screen, he changed the entertainment world.

There are now Disney theme parks and resorts around the world.  The empire continues to grow with the expansion into other forms of entertainment.  Disney now owns ABC, Marvel and the Star Wars brand.  It's amazing how one man's vision and determination lead to all of this.

Cheers!

Many times we have a good idea.  But often we keep those thoughts to ourselves.  We may tell some people about it.  How much work goes into making the idea a reality?  Admittedly I've had plenty of ideas that have never seen the light of day partly out of fear, partly out not making the time for them.  I'm working on a new project with my buddy Tom Harness.  Details will be released soon and while we're not going to have a theme park named after us, we will be making a splash online.  If you want success, hard work, dedication and a positive attitude are required.