I got home late this afternoon from Waterloo.
I won't go into much detail in the days leading up to the Tragos/Thesz weekend since I have them on another thread but briefly after attending Galacticon last weekend I went to Baltimore (for ROH's Best in the World,) to Canton (to see the Pro Football Hall of Fame,) Columbus (to see a former co-worker for lunch,) to Cincinnati for almost 24 hours (which included a brief trip to Kentucky to eat dinner at Skyline Chili and a tour of the Reds' Great American Ballpark,) and Indianapolis (to go to a AAA game between Indianapolis and Omaha and to catch my next flight, both with
TTX.)
Thursday I caught a very early (4 AM) hotel shuttle to the airport in Indianapolis where I met Troy and we flew to Chicago for our connecting flight to Waterloo where we were picked up by
Chad Olson and
TDalton and driven to the Best Western hotel where we met up with
Mike M and his family. Although we arrived early, thankfully I was able to check into my hotel room. Me and Troy walked across the Cedar River (there were some bridges) for breakfast at a diner and then went back to the hotel to wait until things started at the Hall of Fame later that day.
At the Kickoff Social at the Dan Gable Museum, I met for the first time
"Emperor Norton" (Mark T) who is awesome. I also met others there too including
Cory Olson,
Thomas (TK) and his son Marcus,
whlineup and his brother, and
EpicDave. In addition to Emperor Norton, TK is another great community member who I met for the first time in Waterloo. At the Kickoff Special we ate pizza from Doughy Joey's and they had various beverages including Gable beers.
After the Kickoff Special, there was a trivia contest in the bar at the Best Western. I was entered into a team called the Filsinger Five with Emperor Norton, Troy, TK, and Marcus. We were later joined by Epic Dave. We did very well as we were in first place for most of the game and finished in second place. Emperor Norton and Troy got most of the correct answers for our team. We probably would have won except for they asked a question about which "active" WWE wrestler has the current highest net worth. The answer turned out to be John Cena. And while I saw John Cena make his return tonight at Money in the Bank, at the time the question was asked Cena had not appeared in 15 months so we did not consider him to be an "active" wrestler.
After the trivia contest, a number of us sat around and closed out the bar listening to Don Kernodle's brother (who was really nice to meet) tell us some good stories about Don Kernodle.
Friday For lunch, me, Troy, Will, and Will's brother went to SingleSpeed Brewing before going to the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center for the afternoon wrestling event and for the evening wrestling event both by Impact Pro. I sat in the front row next along with Tim, Cory, TK, and Marcus. For the Hall of Fame Classic Tournaments, Jeremy Wyatt won the men's tournament and Miranda Gordy won the women's tournament.
At the shows, I got the following color cards autographed:
Heather Monroe
Miranda Gordy (I also gave her copies of her card)
Barry Windham
Baron Von Rashke
Thunderbolt Patterson
Jerry Briscoe (Troy Peterson told Jerry I came all the way from Las Vegas for the Hall of Fame weekend and Jerry told me he was really pleased and impressed to hear that.)
Bob Orton Jr.
J.J. Dillon (his wrestling card, I got his manager color card autographed the last time I was in Waterloo)
James Beard
Rock Riddle
Ric McCord
At the shows, I got the following autographs to add to my WWE Encyclopedia:
Barry Windham
Mike Rotunda
Baron Von Raschke
Ken Shamrock (Shamrock actually signed his picture in my book the following day at the autograph signing session at the Dan Gable Museum.)
(I already had my WWE Encyclopedia signed by some of the other wrestlers who were there including Sgt. Slaughter, Mark Henry, and Bob Orton Jr.)
At the evening show, I met up again with
iowaoaks who did an outstanding job helping with the Filsinger Game merch table (I was asked to work the table briefly but thank you to Iowa Oaks for relieving me so I could get some autographs!)
After the shows, we went to the afterparty at Doughy Joey's which included a pizza buffet and a few beers. At that afterparty, I got to meet
malicelover for the first time, thank you to malicelover for saving us a table!
SaturdayI missed the morning events as I slept in (I had trouble sleeping the night before,) and I found out I really needed to do some laundry at the hotel after being on the road for almost 10 days at that point. For lunch, I had an incredible sub at Doughy Joey's. I think Doughy Joey's has the best food in Waterloo. If I am able to make it back next year to Waterloo, I again plan to eat at least once every day at Doughy Joey's.
I briefly attended the afternoon session at the Hall of Fame to meet Ken Shamrock and get my WWE Encyclopedia autographed by him and then returned to the hotel to get ready for the evening banquet and induction ceremony.
Thanks to Chad Olson for helping me iron my shirt (which after 10 days of being in a roller bag really needed ironing) for the Hall of Fame Banquet and Induction Ceremony. I actually did OK with my tie as the knot was fine but I had problem with the length of it as my tie at first was hanging down almost to my knees. But thankfully in the lobby, Chad and Mike helped me adjust my tie (as you can probably tell I do not wear ties very often.) Afterward, one of the guys who was with Chad told me that if Trish Stratus had made it to Waterloo this year she would have asked me for a dance. I sort of doubt that but it was a very nice compliment.
At the banquet, I was assigned to sit at the table with Chad, Chad's son Connor, Cory, Tim, Mike, and John Arezzi. The food overall was very good (although I skipped the pasta as it had onions.)
At the induction ceremony, Chad did an excellent job as the Master of Ceremonies. Don Kernodle (represented by Rocky Kernodle and Sgt. Slaughter) was inducted into the Hall of Fame, Ken Shamrock was this year's George Tragos Award winner, Mark Henry was this year's Frank Gotch Award winner, Gordon Solie (represented by his son Jonard Solie who I got to met at the hotel bar later that night) was this year's Gordon Solie Award winner, and Mark James was this year's James C. Melby Award winner.
After Shamrock gave his speech, Mike gave a good speech about the game and the money raised in this year's auction for the Hall of Fame and he presented a large $5,000 check to Jerry Brisco. Jerry issued a challenge for us to donate $10,000 next year.
Afterward, I hung out at the hotel bar with Emperor Norton, Will, and Will's brother and we took turns buying each other rounds of beer.
SundayChad and Connor drove me back to Des Moines so I could catch my flight home. We stopped at Chad's home first and I got to meet his dogs Amy and Cooper. Afterward, Chad drove me through the Iowa State campus where he works (it is a nice campus) and then dropped me off at the airport where I caught my flight home to Las Vegas and where I will once again resume mostly drinking only non-alcoholic beer (I make exceptions when I go on trips like this 10-day trip or out to dinner.)
Thanks to Chad (who again did an incredible job helping to organize this weekend's activities) for driving me to Des Moines today!
And speaking of Chad, the LOW team (Chad, Tim, Cory, and Mike) this weekend with some help in some cases from Jerry Brisco made a number of incredible LOW signings for the game. You will be very happy once those names get announced!
I had a great time and I hope to make it back to Waterloo (July 21-23, 2022) for my third time next year!
