Dot Net reader Maurice Smith attended Monday’s WWE Raw show in Seattle, Washington and sent the following report.
-The distance from the entrance to the ring was comically small. Whenever someone was walking away and waiting for a cue, they had to walk painfully slow and eventually just stop. When Brock Lesnar was waiting for Ambrose, Paul Heyman had to slow him down to make sure he didn’t make it to the top of the ramp. The production crew did a great job of odd angles/blurs to make it look like a big ramp.
-The Dean Ambrose low blow on Lesnar got a few boos picked up on camera. In the arena, it was full heel heat. Lesnar continued to sell the low blow through the commercial break as he gingerly walked around and eventually slowly went to the back.
-After we shifted from constant Daniel Bryan chants (Thank You Daniel, Dan-iel Bryan, Yes, Please Don’t Go, No) the only other sustained non-prompted chants were for Sasha Banks (We Want Sasha, Sa-sha Banks), New Day, and the Seattle Seahawks.
-Speaking on Sasha, we didn’t know that she wasn’t in a match. She got the biggest non-Bryan pop of the night (which didn’t come off superb on TV) and when it instantly went to commercial break and the Daniel Bryan video cut in, we erupted into boos. Of course, we stopped when we realized it was another Bryan video, but I was very surprised. There was mostly silence during the women’s match until Tamina began to jaw with Sasha. The moment Sasha stood up, we cheered and made a bit of noise during the rest of the fight. The Lass-plex(?) on the outside looked brutal. Also, since we never see her win on TV and have her music play long enough, it’s borderline amazing how racist sounding the “Pacific Islands'” music used for Tamina Snuka is. There’s a separate tribal chanting that conveniently stopped on TV almost exactly when they showed the replay. The family of Islanders behind us that had been supporting Tamina – and Sasha – looked highly perturbed.
-Lots of New Day Rocks/Sucks chants from the second that the doors opened. There were no good dueling chants. The younger fans started off with New Day Sucks but eventually it was just everyone saying New Day Rocks by the time the dancing started. There were lots of chants going with the New Day Rocks cadence. We didn’t know it was an 8-man match until the Renee Young interview.
-We thought that the Uso (Jey?) whom was pushed off of the rope before the finish had a legit knee injury. He landed and his knee buckled and he immediately rolled into the ropes signaling at his knee. When he was being set up for the powerbomb from the top, he and D-Von’s timing was a bit off and they had to try twice to hoist him up. After going through the table, after the camera cut, he immediately grabbed at his knee again. It wasn’t until after the lights went out for the video package and they started clearing the ring did he walk normally to the back.
-The Dudley’s heel turn got a pop, as expected. There were chants of One More Time after the 3D on Jimmy followed by ECW chants. Unless they were putting Bryan, Sasha, or AJ through the table, we were not going to boo them. Nostalgia acts doing nostalgic things will be cheered lol.
-From the moment that the Bryan video ended after the tables match, we did not stop chanting – all of the aforementioned Bryan chants – until it was time for his speech. They zoomed in on a few fans during the intro but this was legitimately the only time I’ve ever noticed where they could have just shown any part of the crowd and captured emotion. Aside from one (drunken) fan who was kicked out for trying to start an unnecessary chant, it was a lovefest for the retiring hero. When Bryan made his comment about having kids, there was an immediate cheer which turned into “holy shit” by the adult males on the bottom ring closest to the mics vs. “That’s What Brie Said” from the upper ring. By the time that it filtered back down to the lower ring, it changed to “That’s What She Said.”
-There was already a tinge of “allergies” going around but when Bryan mentioned his dad and started to break down, the largest, most macho men in the crowd all of a sudden needed tissues. That’s why the constant chants were necessary to distract us all (LOL). The YES chant that Bryan led us in–when Brie was about to come out–was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard at a wrestling event. Due to the acoustics of that tiny KeyArena, the noise/emotion was comparable to being at a Sounders game against one of our rivals (we can push about 65k into our stadium).
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