I reported a story in today's Newsday about the two fans accused of stealing commemorative chairs from Sunday's Great American Bash at the Nassau Coliseum.
Here's a few things I found out about the alleged heist:
. That's a police evidence photo of the commemorative chairs given away to ringside fans at the Bash.
. Police said the defendants, Timothy Vandewater and Keith Powell, had upper level seats to the show, but snuck down to the lower level. From there, they admired the ringside chairs.
. The chairs the two men are accused of stealing actually weren't from the Bash. WWE officials say Vandewater and Powell snuck into a trailer and made off with chairs from another pay per view event.
. WWE officials said one of the men also tried to steal some sort of lighting equipment case.
. The roadie who stopped the two men was an independent contractor and refused medical treatment at a local hospital because he didn't want to risk his job by possibly missing WWE's next tour stop last night at the Mohegan Sun. He said he'd go to a hospital in the next city, police said.
. As of yesterday, the two young men still hadn't been arraigned, meaning they have already spent two nights behind bars over the alleged stunt.
. Police said the roadie was a pretty big guy and showed a lot of restraint in how he handled the two young men.
. After all the trouble that the two defendants and the roadie went through, in the chaos of the chase, the men dropped the items the chairs they were trying to steal, and another fan made off with them, WWE officials and police said.
. A WWE spokesman said the incident would not put a damper on WWE's future plans to return to the Coliseum.
You can read my story here.
Comments (6)
I know the "defendants" personally and the WWE guy is lying.
Getting hit and cut by a bottle is bull, there are no glass bottles in the coliseum. And the chairs supposedly stolen were from the front rownot a trailer. Also thery weren't the ones trying to steel the electric case, that was someone else. The WWE guy lied about everything to justify his assault on the two kids(who were much smaller than the security guy). They should get their story straight.
Wrestling fans doing us all proud once again.
Yes they do sell beer bottles you idiot. I was sitting ringside & I saw it. You and those two guys are the type of morons that try to steal chair to those who buy ringside seats, me being one of them and try to ruin peoples fun at these events. Its disgusting and they should be banned from attending events.
Yes they do sell beer bottles you idiot. I was sitting ringside & I saw it. You and those two guys are the type of morons that try to steal chair to those who buy ringside seats, me being one of them and try to ruin peoples fun at these events. Its disgusting and they should be banned from attending events.
Hi Alphonso. While the headline is accurate, it might be a little misleading. The road crew members (not the production crew), but the riggers, cameraman and workers with the physical labor tasks are idependant contractors, not actual employees of WWE. I know that several of the cameramen usually work such sporting events as the superbowl, NCAA Final Four and the World Series. Several of the riggers work on stage construction and breakdown of the stages for several rock concerts. So if the gentleman in question was hurt and was deemed to be medical attention, he would not have been "fired", he would have just missed a payday to work at Mohegan. I think the headline is a little misleading b/c it implies that WWE would have fired a worker for seeking medical attention, which would be the case, they would have just used someone else in his spot and, most likely, used the him again when they came back into the area. With all the talk in the Ring of Hell book about talent scared to seek medical attention for fear of losing their job, it's easy to misconstrue this as a similar case, when in actuality, it's not. Again this is just my two cents, but "back in my day", this was how it was done. The actually WWE production team had "favorite" independent contractors all over the country, and would contact them to work the tapings whenever we were in town. If a new guy sucked, they wouldn't fire him, they would just never ask him to do another show. Kind of wish they would take this approach with some of the workers *cough* Snitsky *cough*.
I'm not sure I'm getting the whole story here. I attended Wrestlemania 24. There were lots of ringside seats left after the show ended and people were going down to get them. No one seemed to care. I already had too much to carry or I would have gotten one too. Someone paid for them and didn't want them, so why couldn't someone else have them? Is this how the seats you were talking about were "stolen" or did the kids grab the seats before the show ended?