Wellywood | Queen's Birthday

I'm going to begin by saying, I don't know who's idea it was to emulate Hollywood by nick naming our capital Wellywood and trying to rip off the iconic Hollywood sign, but I'm pleased AF to learn that the intended sign was replaced by a new art peice called Wellington: Blown Away. It also features as one of the Wellington Snapchat Geo filters.

And after spending four days in Wellington I have sworn I will never again complain about it being too cold in Auckland.

Hello.

It's me.

Queens Birthday weekend was my third visit to Wellington and my second for wrestling related reasons. This time though, my trip was for the Wellington Armageddon Expo from the 3rd to the 5th of June. Our team at IPW put on THREE SHOWS A DAY FOR THREE DAYS.

A few of us arrived the day before to set up prior to the event and spend some quality time catching up and seeing the sights Wellington had to offer.

We roamed the Cuba Mall strip while waiting for our other friends who were arriving later that night, we found a night market and a really cool second hand bookstore, before heading to Ballroom for a few games of pool and a drink.

As it got later, we made our way to Chow for dinner, I was really impressed by how many clearly marked Vegan options they had available, and I chose the Jungle Curry which was 10/10.

After dinner, we all headed to our accommodation to meet up with Amber Saint and her partner who had just arrived. It was a long day for me so I fell asleep pretty quickly.

Next morning, we got up early to get ready for Day 1 of Armageddon. We had decided to cosplay for today and because I was extra AF I also went to breakfast dressed as Harley Quinn, later on Amber & Candy became Sailor Moon & Wonder Woman.

For Breakfast we went to Deluxe Cafe on Kent Terrace which was pretty much directly opposite to where we were staying. They had a great Vegan Sammie and a few sweet treats that differed each day. We ended up returning every day for breakfast as they were so good.

Vegan Tofu Sandwich modelled by Amber Saint

Blueberry and Chocolate Cake

Peach 🍑 Cake 

After the Armageddon sessions were done, I left with my partner to go and have dinner with his parents who had travelled up from Blenheim for the weekend. Adam's Dad is very old school and asked me why I didn't get presented a Gold Medal for my win over Candy Lee earlier in the day. He also calls the Ref an Umpire 😂

The following morning it was right back into it again for Day 2. I had a singles match with Candy Lee first up, and in the second session we had a 6 Woman Tag match where I teamed with JPE & Delilah against Britenay, Candy Lee and Grace Lightning. 

It was a pretty big step in the right direction for New Zealand's Women's Wrestling division.

On Sunday night we went to Laundry for dinner, I had a Vegan Pulled 'Pork' Burger and fries.

As we walked  back to our accommodation we stopped of at Kaffee Eis on Courtenay Place which is  a tradition for Wellington Armageddon weekend.

Sorbet flavours at Kaffee Eis

We ended Sunday night chilling in our room and telling stories.

Day 3 - our final day of Armageddon I was too tired and sore to do anything much, I took the morning session off to explore the other stalls, I ended up buying another Sea Shepherd shirt and a Joy Division band tee.

I finished up with two matches, a singles with Candy Lee in which I used The Famouser on her twice, before making her tap out to a cross face submission, and my last match of the weekend; a mixed gender tag with Charlie Roberts which we lost but was so much fun. I lost my voice from all the yelling I did during this match 😂

As it was the end of Armageddon we had to pull apart the ring and load it into the truck so it could be driven back to Wellington for our show Winter Warfare this weekend. 

If you would like to see me wrestle in a Triple Threat match for the Women's Title against Britenay and Candy Lee this Saturday, you can buy tickets here.

That's all from me for now!

See you later this month.

-Ash.