There we were. My dad, brother, and I, sitting in the highest cheapest seats in Key Arena. Everywhere we looked there were screaming kids wearing Mexican Wrestling masks and hoards of humanity decked out in their favorite WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) merchandise. Looking across my row I could see an entire family all wearing their own golden oversized wrestling championship belts.

And there we were, unprepared for the show we were about to see. My brother and I wearing what we’d worn to school with the exception of two little green John Cena armbands. My dad wearing his bright construction company jacket. We definitely did not fit into the mass of WWE Monday Night Raw fans.

Before we bought tickets, my brother and I had watched countless youtube videos of Monday Night Raw. This was about the only experience we had with WWE. So when we saw Raw scheduled to come to Seattle, we bought the tickets on the spur of moment; we wanted to really see what WWE was about.

We sat in our stadium seats waiting for the show to begin; listening to the buzz of anticipation all around us. Two rows down, a third or fourth grade girl was performing  her favorite wrestlers’ signature hand signals and chattering away about how she wanted to see her idol, Sasha Banks. We had no idea who Sasha Banks was. To the left of us, an entire squad of college guys were blathering about another wrestler, Brock Lesnar, and who he was going to pummel tonight.

My dad, brother, and I kept laughing and looking at eachother with the same expression of, “What’s going on?” and “Wow, I really don’t know anything about WWE”.

All we knew was we wanted to see John Cena, and hopefully, if the universe was kind to us, The Rock.

Finally, at 4:30, the lights dimmed. The crowd erupted from a drumming noise of chit chat to a wild frenzy of redneck shouts and hollers. People threw up homemade signs for their WWE stars, and waved their hands in the air forming the distinct hand signals that each WWE wrestler coined. We joined in and raised our hands into John Cena’s Hustle, Loyalty, Respect.

Down below, a lady sauntered out from behind the stage and down the ramp leading straight into the ring. As she made her way centerstage, her theme music blundered through Key Arena amidst excessive booing from the crowd. Stephanie McMahon, her name as we found out, was a widely unliked character in WWE. She introduced Monday Night Raw and a few minutes later, the wrestlers came out on stage.

Each wrestler came out alone while their catchy macho theme songs boomed. On the dangling megatron, the wrestler’s promo played on repeat until the next buff guy walked out from behind the stage. I’ve never experienced such a dramatized and elaborate presentation of people before. Camera operators zoomed in on the wrestlers to show the over-expressive emotions etched into their faces. With the megatron, every person in the arena could see all the action happening on the floor.

When all three wrestlers arrived in the ring they began to ‘sign contracts’ with Stephanie McMahon on a flimsy pop out table when, apparently, one guy started to annoy the others too much. Immediately, like a light switched on, the other two wrestlers teamed up and flipped the table lunging for the guy that got under there skin. All the fans jumped up and cheered on the first match of the night.

We sat there gobsmacked.

Although we knew WWE was all theatrics and wasn’t real wrestling, we couldn’t believe how intense it looked down in the ring. A couple minutes later the skirmish ended and the lights dimmed once more so stagehands could clear the ring and prepare for the next part of the show.

And so it went on for three hours. Announcers would welcome wrestlers to the stage and the wrestlers would perform extremely entertaining moves and takedowns. Within the first few matches, we were catching on and getting into it. We’d cheer for the crazy stunts and gasp when we would hear the massive flop the ring made when when a wrestler got slammed.

At first, only two wrestlers battled it out in the ring. Then, teams of two and three started to come out and perform and soon you didn’t know what to expect anymore. Sometimes, there were matches with one huge guy taking on two or three others or matches with a steady stream of new wrestlers coming out from behind the stage to join in on the brawl. In my opinion, the most insane and heavily anticipated match was the tables match.

The tables match consisted of eight beefy guys forming two teams. The winning team had to successfully snap the tables in half by throwing each member of the other team onto them. This single match produced the greatest and deepest cheers from the crowd. It was definitely the most popular match of the night.

Another exciting aspect of WWE was there were matches between female wrestlers. The women wrestled with even more ferocity than the men.They threw each other out of the ring and wrangled with one another on the concrete floor of Key Arena. They’d throw each other over the announcer’s table and do crazy stunts of the ropes that would leave their opponents writhing around on the ground.

Throughout all of these unhinged animal-like displays, I had to keep reminding myself that WWE is all scripted, rehearsed, and full of well-acting. Watching the show though, it was very easy to forget.

Despite all of the momentous displays of strength and skill, there were lots of moments the entire arena would laugh. These moments were my favorite parts. Cameras would zoom in to show one WWE superstar mocking the other and making provoking faces. Each match wouldn’t be complete without a series of cheesy antagonistic jokes made by wrestlers beforehand. The show was definitely not short of wrestlers roasting each other.

By 9:00, Monday Night Raw had come to an end. All of the wrestlers and announcers came out on to the stage arms around each other. In one sweeping motion, they all bent into a bow and thanked the fans for coming. Although we hadn’t been able to see John Cena or The Rock, we had a rocking awesome time. We watched wrestlers we’d never heard of before and even gained some new favorites such as, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, and Roman Reigns. We got to see how dedicated and excited WWE fans really are. Overall, Monday Night Raw was a success.

One thing was for sure, WWE kept  fans on the edge of their seats awaiting the next wild event.