Taking in the Smackdown, for one night only

After 25 years of covering sports in one city, you periodically become a little melancholy. You tend to look through the rear-view mirror almost as much as you look straight ahead.

You wax whimsical about all the great moments you've witnessed and begin to feel pressure to visit the places and events that have escaped you.

Recently I've been putting together a to-go-to list.

Wimbledon; the French Open; the Daytona 500; a football game at Notre Dame and another game between the hedges at the University of Georgia; the Indianapolis 500; a soccer match at FC Barcelona; the World Cup in South Africa.

And, of course, WWE's Smackdown.

Like most impressionable pre-teens, I grew up watching wrestling on television. My friends and I would watch the late-night Saturday shows, then talk about them in school on Monday.

But, as I tell my friend and pro-wrestling maven José, I've never seen an event in person.

"You know," José says, "I once met Rick Van Dam. Even got my picture taken with him. It was awesome. You know he's big time. I was lucky enough to catch him during a personal appearance. At the Jack in the Box on Leary Way in Ballard."

Instantly, I know José would be my perfect Smackdown tour guide.

"I'll call today and get the tickets," he says.

From the moment the lights go down and the fireworks start popping, the crowd at Key Arena is on its feet screaming, waking up the echoes of an old Nate McMillan alley-oop pass to Shawn Kemp.

The crowd of about 10,000 is louder than any Sonics crowd this season. In fact, the Sonics' Robert Swift, Mickael Gelabale and Johan Petro are sitting ringside, occasionally mugging for the TV cameras.

Directly in front of them, Hard Core Holly is writhing in alleged pain outside the ring as his opponent, Bobby Lashley, reaches under the ring apron and pulls out a table. He begins to unfold the table as if he's preparing for a picnic.

"This match is being conducted under extreme rules," José says as if he's reciting Robert's Rules of Order. "The table is in play."

Before the table can be used, however, Holly, who has miraculously recovered, is throwing haymakers to the back of Lashley's head. Lashley is dazed and crawls back into the ring for safety.

Holly grabs a chair from under the ring, climbs through the ropes and begins to attack Lashley with it.

"We want ta-bles," the crowd chants, clapping in unison.

Holly prepares to end the match by slamming Lashley head-first into the chair. The crowd is booing Holly as if he were Vin Baker, when suddenly Lashley reverses him, and smashes Holly's head into the chair.

Lashley wins.

For more than three hours, we watch as the parade of athletes and charlatans make their dramatic entrances into the ring. All of them make linebacker Ray Lewis' entrances before Baltimore Ravens games look positively understated.

We watch all of the classic moves — The Twist of Fate, The Alabama Slam, The Spear, The Last Ride.

The Bogeyman defeats Finlay and celebrates by eating worms. Actually, he wins the match when a mini-Bogeyman crawls out from underneath the ring and jabs Finlay in the, um, midsection with a shillelagh.

For a moment I feel embarrassed to be in the building.

"Yeah, it's kind of sad, when you think about it," even José admits.

To be honest, Smackdown is lasting too long, and there is too much dead time and far too many commercials hyping the next pay-per-view event.

There is a sameness to every bout. Every winner pulls himself off the mat. Every loser snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

Finally we come to the main event, a tag-team match pitting Edge and Randy Orton against Batista and The Undertaker.

"The fans don't like Edge," José tells me. "But Randy Orton gets mixed reviews."

The fans, however, love evil-looking Undertaker. "Sometimes the lines between good and bad get blurred," José says.

The Undertaker is dressed like Lee Van Cleef in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly." He enters to the tolling of church bells and chants of "We want The Taker."

Looking near death early in the match, The Undertaker recovers and wins when he drops Edge on his head in a move called The Tombstone Piledriver.

The evening is over and almost everybody seems satisfied as the Key quickly empties.

Everybody except José.

"They booed Rick Van Dam," said José, whose hero lost earlier to Matt Striker. "That is so disrespectful."

Mercifully, I cross Smackdown from my to-go-to list. I can't wait for the chance to go to Wimbledon.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists