Randy Orton, Val Venis, Axcess, Hillbilly Jim & More

Thanks to Joel Crolye for the following:

I just attended the Randy Orton autograph Signing at Best Buy in Schaumberg, Illinois yesterday. (Suburb of Chi-town). It was a really great outing. Randy was nothing but nice, especially to the kids who were there. He signed basically one thing for everyone but sometimes two. People were chanting "RKO, RKO!" when he walked through.

The line started at approximately six am that morning. I got there a bit after eight and had about 150 people in front of me. By the time he arrived (11:37am) there were problem 500 there.

I walked up to him shook his hand. I had with me an older copy of the Smackdown magazine. I had it to a page where it had Orton holding Angle in a rear choke neck lock. He said "Wow, look at that Kurt's face, pitiful." I then said "So, you're gonna be champ tomorrow right?" and he replied "You got that right." he then shook my fianc?e's hand as well and kept signing.

I then headed over to Fan Axcess. Unfortunately the stars were only there between 12 and 1:30. Because of the Orton line we got there at 1pm. We got in line for Val Venis and the others but they cut the crowd off at 200 people and wouldn't allow any more in.

Axcess itself was fairly cool. You could do commentary for matches, be your own superstar, play PS2 WWE 2006 with others and such. We had a good time. One thing I was surprised at was that they sold NO MERCHANDISE. They have a built in fan base and weren't making a dime. I guess that is admirable but actually a lot of fans who were there couldn't attend Mania because it sold out so quickly. Many wanted there to be a booth.

Near the mid of the day Hillbilly Jim came out. Talked about the matches, especially put over Mark Henry vs. Undertaker and the Ladder match. He is very good on the mic and wonderful with the fans.