Thanks to Danny Walk for this:
I just returned from the WWE Vengeance Press Conference in Vegas and thought I’d give you a report.
The event was held at the Thomas and Mack in a meeting room. It was a standing room crowd with more than a couple hundred people there. It was set up like a boxing press conference with two long tables and a podium that was in the middle. The faces sat at one table and the heels on the opposite side. Everyone who came out entered from a curtain with their music.
Vince McMahon was the first out to welcome everyone. He was greeted with a big ovation. He thanked us for showing up and he talked about how he was glad to bring the WWE back to the fans in Vegas. He introduced Eric Bischoff, who emceed the rest of the event. He first came out and started to heel the crowd but surprisingly was really courteous to everyone. He talked about the history of the WWE in Las Vegas.
Triple H was the first wrestler out and was very entertaining. I’m not the biggest HHH fan but when he drops this whole “I’m the toughest guy in the world” crap, he is extremely funny. He mentioned how in Vegas he lost the title to Vince because he was laughing so hard from watching Vince try to wrestle him he got rolled up.
Edge and Lita were up next. Lita talked about she was proud to be Edge’s slut and whatnot and then Edge got on the mic very briefly. He surely cut his promo short because the crowd was chanting “Hardy” very loudly. He acted like he heard wrong and said “Party?” “Yeah, we’re gonna party after Vengeance on Sunday” and went and sat down.
Kurt Angle was introduced to a very babyface reaction and went through the motions on his promo. Bischoff then had Christy Hemme come out next. She talked about being lucky to be here today and said she received stitches from the attack from Victoria yesterday.
John Cena was up after Christy and received an enormous reaction from the crowd. The fans really love him. He said he’d beat both Christian and Jericho because he had the Chain Gang behind him.
Batista was the last introduced and was also very over. He squared off with HHH immediately and then said he didn’t have much to say except that he was going to beat HHH in HIAC and that he’d have to be killed to lose the title. Also, very interestingly he said the REAL champ was here and stared down John Cena, who was sitting down.
Finally, Bischoff opened the floor to questions from fans. A fat guy asked Triple H a question he didn’t like and HHH totally ripped into this guy, insulting him for minutes to the crowd’s delight. Throughout the press conference, he would ad lib to what others were saying and the crowd was very into him. He seemed to play a cocky face instead of the bad ass heel that has gotten stale. Another fan (obviously an internet fan) asked Vince that he had read that he met with Sabu yesterday and wanted to know how that went. Vince corrected him and said he did not meet with him but was very impressed with his performance at the ECW PPV and looked forward to speaking with him in the future.
Overall, I came away from the press conference extremely excited for Vengeance and was very pleased with the WWE’s effort to put together another chance for the fans to see the stars live and in person. Definitely a thumbs up live event.
