August 20th – Autograph Signing @ Hot Topic in Garden State Plaza; Paramus, NJ

I arrived at the Garden State Plaza at roughly 4:20 PM for Hot Topic’s Kevin Owens signing. You had to purchase his t-shirt to score a wristband; I believe only 225 wristbands were being issued although people were being placed on waitlists! That’s pretty awesome of Hot Topic though not surprising. An employee told me they were sent 300 wristbands.

I was curious how this signing would go down considering Hot Topic is a VERY small store. How would they contain the line? Well, they actually managed to pull it off with a little creativity. The store is located downstairs, right near the food court. The line started upstairs, right above the food court/hot topic. They lined everyone up along the railings and brought people downstairs about 15-20 at a time. Here’s a photo of the line when I first got there:

The line went fairly quickly. A little over an hour, which was nothing considering the Ryback & Charlotte line. Plus, I made a friend while on line. Anyways, I was brought to Owens as he was chugging a bottle of water. He chugged too much and some of the water spilled on his t-shirt as I introduced myself and rained praise upon him. He finished drinking his water and says, “I spilled some water on my shirt. The lengths I go through to please you people!” Owens was AWESOME.

I asked him if he would sign his profile in the ROH Global Wars ’14 program as Kevin Steen and he said “Sure man, no problem! Whatever you like!” He then remarked that his Steen and Owens signatures were nearly identical. We took this picture:

Perfect signing. The staff was great, the GSP security handled the line terrifically, and I left a happy customer. Here’s what he signed: