When TNA announced they were finally taking Impact on the road on a consistent basis, I knew I had to make the three-hour trek from Atlanta to Huntsville to see the show. Having been to the Bizzarro World that Is the Impact Zone, I really felt like this was a huge chance for the company to see which wrestlers were over in front of a real wrestling crowd. And it didn’t disappoint.
We got there about an hour before the show and made our way into the Von Braun Center. By the way, I tweeted a bunch of pictures and one video during the show, so follow me @mattbaxendell and check my timeline for all of those updates.
Anyways, the usual live event staples of Don West hawking expensive guitars signed by Double J and a merchandise line that was ten people deep were all there, just everything was heightened by the size of the event. I was a little surprised to see that a good 75 percent of the arena was being used for the available seating, as they only used half of a similarly sized venue in Fayetteville, N.C.
My seats were on the floor, so I had a very good vantage point to figure out the available crowd on hand. By the time Jeremy Borash came out to introduce the announcers, the entire side opposite the main cameras (all the way up to the top of the arena) was full. The floor was obviously sold out on all sides, but the end zone of the arena was much smaller than you would expect. Even though it was full, there wasn’t the same capacity on that edge compared to Fayetteville.
The side where the hard camera was located had about 70 percent of the lower bowl filled, while the upper deck had three sections opened and they were about half full. My estimate in attendance was about 3,500 people, though that could go as high as 4,000. All in all, it was a nice crowd, though I did see a fair number of kids holding TNA action figures that earned them a free ticket to the show as part of a local promotion to get people at the arena on a school night.
Also of note, the Bound for Glory 'Tron from last year was still in use, though the third screen kept having issues. The show began with Hulk Hogan making his way to the ring and you knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore because the crowd actually booed him, unlike the tourists snapping pictures of him in Orlando.
