Dot Net reader Marq Manner attended the WWE Raw event in Omaha, Nebraska on Monday and sent the following report.
Omaha is an odd town for wrestling. We have a great old school wrestling history and lineage, two awesome local promotions with a third one on the way that involves Vince Russo, and Colt Cabana is wrestling in the venue I live above on Thursday as part of PWP’s 11th anniversary celebration. Our WWE crowds are pretty timid though and slightly family and kid based, and there is nothing wrong with that, but we are not a prime WWE market. There was a good crowd tonight, but not sold out and I think if John Cena would have been promised that we would have filled the room.
Eden Stiles was announcing and no Lillian, Eden did great tonight.
Chris Jericho came out to good heat but a slight pop also as it’s the first part of Raw in Omaha.
Good heat in for Jericho with mixed cheers. There was a huge pop for Enzo Amore and Big Cass’s music. We saw one of the best Jericho talking segments and Cass more than held his own. We were pretty happy with this hot opening.
There was a tepid response for Dolph Ziggler. I’m a big fan, but it’s so hard to care. Baron Corbin got jobber’s reaction. They both worked hard and Corbin earned some heat, but the air was taken out of the room after the Jericho/Big Cass open.
R-Truth and Tyler Breeze came out and it barely registered to the live crowd that Breeze was there. It was all about the kids singing “What’s Up”. Fandango and Goldust were fun live, and Fandango looked good in this short match. This face/heal combo is odd…but once they swap partners it could be fun.
The fan thank you video is pretty great
Charlotte came out without Ric Flair and people were not happy about it. He was in the pre-match graphic….so one would assume he was there. Some of the loudest pops of the early night were for Paige’s near falls. We were super into the Flair run in, the Shane surprise, ref removal, and Paige win. The story live was perfect and energized us in a big way and was one of the highlights of the night.
Sami Zayn came out to an OK reaction, but he did get Ole chants going early. There was a good chant for Sami after the mid-match outside the ring spot. Then people really got into the bout and some small “this is awesome” chants tried to happen. There was a good pop to the end of the match.
Omaha leans Roman, but not by a lot.
Good pop for Lucha entrance. I smoked during this match after Lana’s off TV entrance.
Not a huge reaction for The Club. There was a reaction for Roman Reigns and the Usos (mixed, but a reaction). Most people wanted New Day at this point. The Usos can still get their chant over mid-match though. There was a really strong Roman chant after Luke Gallows was eliminated. AJ being tossed over the announce table looked great live. People got loud and divided during the chair handoffs. Great storytelling live for this match.
At this point, Omaha wanted one thing and one thing only and that was New Day. A local ice cream shop made New Day Ice Cream (with BootyO’s-Honey Nut Cheerios) and the New Day came to the creamery to eat it today. New Day merch was adorned by many at the event.
Zack Ryder came out to zero reaction. Kevin Owens got the light reaction from wrestling fans. Ryder got no reactions to near falls, but people woo woo’d on cue. This would have been more effective live as a monster squash on Ryder.
New Day were massive. This is who Omaha came to see. They ended up in a stunned silence after the Vaudevillains attack.
We fell for Big Cass tonight. He came out to a legends greeting and we had already saw him. The Dean Ambrose ambush was so awesome in the dark from our standpoint. The execution of this angle from then opening segment to the close of Raw was so well executed live and Jericho gets credit for that with a surprising assist from Big Cass.
Post show, we got super heel Jericho in one of my favorite performances ever. He told a ref that “after 25 years he knew how to get heat” and called out Ambrose and told him that the Jericho Jacket was to go in the Smithsonian Institute and that he was going to get arrested for a federal offense. Their back and forth was “dark match” fun, over the top and brilliant. I am sure it’s been done before but over Jericho’s shredded jacket was awesome.
I have been going to matches and pay-per-views and such around the Midwest since the AWA days and this was one of the more fun live events I have been to.
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