Imagine winning a contest to see your favourite performer in action only to find out 24 hours later that the seat had been taken away.
That is almost what happened to Guelph resident Mike Ashkewe last week but thankfully his story finished with a happy ending.
Ashweke, who uses a wheelchair to get around, recently won a Toys R Us contest for a free ticket to attend the WWE’s Money in the Bank show, which took place at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto over the weekend.
“One of the first things I said to Toys R Us when I won the contest, I said, ‘All right, look, before this goes any further, you need to know I need accessible seating,’” Ashweke explained during an appearance on CJOY radio in Guelph on Tuesday morning. “And they’re like, ‘Yep, don’t worry about it.’”
So he began to make plans to attend the show including booking his transportation.
But within a day, the retailer emailed Ashweke to let him know that the accessibility seating for the show had sold out and to offer him the cash value of the tickets. That prompted him to create a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, to express his disappointment.
“So when I took the social media, I was hoping the best-case scenario was just to get somebody’s attention and they change the policies going forward,” Ashweke explained. So at least this won’t happen to somebody else. Because I do accessibility advocacy here in Guelph, both provincially and federally, I was like, okay, maybe if I can make some waves, change will happen.”
The post went viral, garnering a thousand likes and spurring the WWE into action. Within a day, a reporter was speaking with Ashweke and handed him his phone.
“Mike, it’s for you.”
“But who knows that I’m here?” he said and soon discovered WWE star Cody Rhodes on the line. “It was very, very shocking. It was very weird to see. And I’ve never seen what genuine surprise looks like on my face. That’s what I’m imagining Christmas morning probably looked like when I was younger. Yeah, it was incredible.”
The wrestling star let him know that he had a seat for the event and that his travel needs would be taken care of. But the WWE did not stop there. When he arrived at the arena they had a little surprise waiting for him.
“They gave me something really, really limited edition,” he explained. “They gave me this little Money in the Bank suitcase with this replica title belt inside of it.”
In addition, he had brought a replica toy of Rhodes along with him as well. He asked a representative of WWE if it could be signed.
“I was like, ‘If it’s not too much trouble, I don’t want to bother anybody, especially considering we’re so close to show time’,” he explained. The rep said, ‘Just hold on five minutes.’ Then he went back and brought me back Cody Rhodes autographed.”
While Ashkewe says the WWE rolled out the red carpet for him, the highlight of the night came when he met fans of his own.
“When I got to the arena, the most memorable experience I had, besides the wrestling itself, is there was a trio of older ladies in their wheelchairs going into Scotiabank, and they’re like, ‘Hey, you’re that young man from the news’,” he said. “They chatted with me for a few minutes, and one of the older ladies had shook my hand and said, thank you for speaking out.”
He said dozens of other people approached him at the arena and said they were happy that things worked out for him in the end.