The Victoria-born grappler hopes a boisterous crowd Saturday at Survivor Series: WarGames shows her bosses that Vancouver can handle bigger events
Chelsea Green wants Saturday’s Survivor Series: WarGames card at Rogers Arena to be a rousing success so that it can be a resumé line for the WWE putting WrestleMania in Vancouver one day.
“I was a wrestling fan growing up but I’m also a Canadian girl. I’ve always been a hockey fan. I dated hockey players. We go to these (NHL) rinks and there’s always someone I’m friends with. Going into Rogers Arena is always really cool, especially because growing up I really couldn’t afford to get off the island, go to Vancouver, stay in Vancouver and pay for a Canucks ticket,” she said.
“Now I’ve got the privilege of changing in the Canucks locker rooms, of going down the Canucks entrance to park my car. This is just stuff that Little Chelsea dreamed of. This is exceptionally special for me because of that, and because I get to show my co-workers this. This is me. These are my friends. These are my family. That’s where my sister lives. That’s where I partied when the Canucks played Boston in the finals.
“I want Rogers Arena (on Saturday) to be full to the brim, busting at the seams. I want the excitement level to a 12 out of 10 so that there’s no way that the WWE doesn’t want to come back and doesn’t want to have another moment here. I mean, if Taylor Swift can go to B.C. Place … WWE can go to B.C. Place.”
Survivor Series: WarGames is one of the WWE’s premium live events. There are four or five major ones every year, and they’re used to drive storylines toward WrestleMania, which takes place every April. Saturday marks the biggest WWE show in Vancouver since Rock Bottom: In Your House, which took place at Rogers Arena (then known as General Motors Place) Dec. 13, 1998.
Saturday’s card features two WarGames matches, which pits two teams of five wrestlers battling it out in side-by-side rings enclosed by a steel cage.
The women’s match has Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belair, Naomi, Iyo Sky and Bayley taking on Liv Morgan, Raquel Rodriguez, Nia Jax, Tiffany Stratton and Candice LeRae. With the men, it’s Roman Reigns, Jey and Jimmy Uso, Sami Zayn and CM Punk versus Solo Sikoa, Jacob Fatu, Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa and Bronson Reed.
According to Ticketmaster, there are seats available, including on the floor.
Cities reportedly bid to host major WWE events, but it’s hard to come up with information on how that exactly works. The WWE has said the past couple of years that a WrestleMania can bring US$200 million or more in economic impact to a region, so it’s easy to assume that the competition to land one is fierce.
The next WrestleMania is in April at Allegiant Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders. The previous three stops for WrestleMania were Philadelphia, Inglewood, Calif., and Arlington, Texas. Toronto has hosted WrestleMania twice, the last coming in 2002.
Toronto hosted the Money in the Bank WWE show at Scotbiabank Arena in July. Green says that Canadian crowds are “smart fans,” gaining momentum as a show builds. She maintains the building was loud in Toronto. She’s hoping for the same on Saturday.
“That’s the allure of WWE. It’s the fandom and the crowd chants and us reacting to the crowd chants,” she said.
Green was just in Vancouver. She was part of the fan march with the Grey Cup, she was at a Canucks game and did a bit with mascot Fin. She isn’t listed on the card, but is promising to be there and says “you never know…I might just wander through the stands…anything can happen.”
Green has been getting more TV time from the WWE. Her move set has been featuring a flying leg lariat, which is an ode to her husband Matt Cardona, 39, a former WWE grappler turned independent wrestling staple. He uses it as a finishing manoeuvre that he’s tagged as Radio Silence.
“I’m trying to include their move set in mine,” Green said of Cardona and his buddies Brian Myers and Nic Nemeth, two more former WWE competitors who have moved on to other companies. “You know, keeping them alive (to WWE fans).”
Green says that she and Cardona rarely talk wrestling at home, which is in Florida.
“When I step off the airplane and into the Orlando airport, I like to turn off,” she said. “I’m often talking wrestling 24/7. When I’m done this interview, I’ll go downstairs with a cup of coffee and watch some terrible Christmas movie.”
Wrestling couples are commonplace. Vancouver indy wrestlers Artemis Spencer and Nicole Matthews are another example. They’ve actually been known to square off in the ring for local promotions like Nation Extreme Wrestling.
Don’t expect something similar with Cardona and Green.
“We trained together once and will never ever, ever be training together again,” Green said of mixing up on the mat with Cardona. “Let me tell you — it takes a special couple to be able to live together, be friends, work together and then train together. That’s where I draw the line. I love my husband but ‘No, thank you.’
“At the end of the day, he’s taught me so much, but it’s not in the ring. It’s everything else. It’s the way I handle myself, it’s my attitude, it’s my social media, it’s my promos.”
@SteveEwen