Show Off

My husband and I were lucky enough to not only score great seats for the June 2nd Raw in our hometown, but to also get tickets to Payback the night before in Chicago, IL.  One of the perks of being in the live audience is the opportunity to get yourself noticed on TV by either geeking out to the point that the cameras can’t stay away from you or by creating a good enough sign to grab attention.  I like to keep my fangirling as private as possible, but I do tend to go a bit overboard with my sign preparation.  For Payback, I went with the Wyatt Family.

Not my best work, but I was proud of it.  I don’t know if it made it onto the Payback PPV at all, as we have yet to hop on the network and check it out, but I hope I got a second or two of screen time.  For Raw the next evening, I decided to go with Dolph Ziggler after this happened:

Had no choice but to do it after getting a nod from the man himself.  I went in search of the loudest colored markers I could find and got to work:

My arms were about to fall off at this point.

This one I was damn proud of.  It could not be more obnoxious looking.  Sadly, it decided to rain before Raw, and my trash bag didn’t quite keep it completely dry, so the ink ran a bit.  My husband and I spent the better part of Raw glued to our seats, just waiting for Ziggler’s music to hit.  And finally, he comes out, we lose our minds, and he POINTS RIGHT AT US!  Excited doesn’t begin to describe it.  The first thing we did when we got home afterwards was check the DVR to see if that brilliant moment was captured on TV.

My husband is pointing at Ziggler there.  Immediately afterwards, the camera cuts back to Ziggler and you can see him pointing back at us.  We have the gif at home; I’ll try to add it later on.  It was such a cool moment!

Three rows in front of us, we had a guy with a “BLUETISTA” sign and one that said “DANIEL BRYAN SUCKS.”  They spent the majority of Raw holding their poorly made creations up and blocking the view of myself and quite a few others.  Eventually, security intervened and ended up ripping the Bryan sign out of the guy’s hands.  Those two are the perfect examples of what not to do.  The people around you don’t want to have to spend their evening leaning left and right and left again to see around you because you’re only worried about getting on TV as much as possible.  The cameras aren’t going to focus on you for more than a moment or two, so it’s pointless to be obnoxious.  The audience at home is going to get more and more bored seeing you if you insist on trying to get on-screen during every single match.  It’s beyond annoying.

What you should do is put some effort into what you decide to make.  Hold it up when it’s relevant, throw it up a time or two when it’s not just in case, and then sit back to enjoy the show.  Trust me, actually getting the direct attention of one of our favorite superstars was INFINITELY cooler than seeing my sign pop up here and there during a match.  That is a moment that we’ll keep with us forever.  (Also, the Team Foley sign I made for the 2012 Survivor Series will live forever on the DVD, which is another awesome moment)  Aim for that.  Plus, I don’t want to be the only one with arm cramps after spending far too much of my weekends making WWE signs.