Smackdown Your Vote in Style

Try to imagine what it would be like to have witnessed gladiators battle for honor back in the glory days of the Roman Empire (think Russell Crowe in The Gladiator). Now fast forward to the 21st century with the aid of pyrotechnics, extreme lighting, and blaring rock music and you just might begin to have an inkling of what it is like to witness a WWE event.

I was the lucky ticket winner of the Battle of the Interns here at Rock the Vote. We were all asked to submit a compelling essay as to why we each deserved to go to Smackdown and I was the winner. As the lucky winner I was able to meet the wrestlers before the show, get autographs, and get escorted into the arena- totally stylish, totally VIP care!

During the show I was able to witness firsthand the rough and sweaty grappling of the brawny WWE wrestlers. The event at the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. was the taping of Saturday’s WWE Smackdown and Monday night’s RAW programming (be sure to check them out when they air this upcoming Saturday and Monday). I saw giant men defying gravity not only by flying through the air to land feet first into the necks of their opponents, but also with the sheer size of their abnormally large muscles bearing down on their mortal frames.

The atmosphere was electrified by the screaming chants and taunts from the crowd and escalated with the almost continual indoor fireworks displays that occurred every thirty minutes or so. I have always heard that adrenaline is contagious, but I hade never believed it until somewhere between the tension of when John Cena apologized to Batista for accidentally hitting him in a previous show and when Kelly Kelly won her match hands down that I felt compelled to jump into the ring and start fighting. I don’t know if anything was in the water, but I do know that there was definitely something in the air that night.

As I share this with experience with you today, my throat is sore from hysterically screaming for my favorite wrestler- John Cena- but the pain was worth it and this will not be the last time you see me at a WWE event.

OOOOOOO, ROCK ON!

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Rock the Vote Bio: Rock the Vote was founded in 1990 to organize artists and fight against censorship of musicians. Since then we've evolved to focus on empowering young people to get involved in the political process. We use pop culture, peer-to-peer organizing, and the latest technology to raise visibility of politics and demystify the process of registering to vote. @rockthevote Email the author at: blog(at)rockthevote.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.