Dot Net reader Chris from Glendale attended Monday’s WWE Raw in Los Angeles, California and sent the following notes.
After the show, Braun Strowman walked out and Rock’s music hit (he also appeared prior to the show). This time he headed down to the ring. He’s in promo mode now. The crowd is really excited to see him.
He told us what the “Fighting With My Family” movie is all about. The camera crews were setting up and there were directors and assistants giving orders around him. He said they were going to recreate Paige’s WWE debut and title win against AJ Lee. This started a ‘CM Punk’ chant and it got loud. Rock was like, you know what, I’m going to call Punk right now! The place went nuts. He dialed, and got it on speaker. It went to voicemail 🙁
Rock left a message. ‘Hey, I’m here in LA at Staples with about 15,000 people and they want to say hi’ or something like that. A MASSIVE CM Punk chant started. This was really fun.
So the cameras were ready and Rock basically took the role of directing the crowd to make reactions. Big cheer, small cheer, boos, etc.
One thing to note is that when the Rock was asking us to boo, several times he mentioned to boo like you’re ‘booing Roman Reigns’. He took digs at his cousin!
Then Rock looked at his phone and says, oh, Punk called me back! He tried to get him on Facetime but it didn’t go through.
Just a couple minutes later, I noticed a WWE referee run up to the apron. He gave the ‘kill sign’ across the neck. Rock smiled but then didn’t mention Punk again. Hmm…
After the reaction shots were done, they were ready to perform the match. This was surreal. I kept looking at my buddy and the people around us and we’re all just not able to believe how crazy this was. We were watching a re-creation, with actors, pretending to be wrestlers. My friend said ‘I fell like I’m kayfabe-ing kayfabe’. We cheered all of the spots like it was a great match.
The actress playing AJ Lee entered to her old music. Man, I loved that music. She looked a bit like AJ but she really captured AJ’s promo style. She also bumped a little so we were impressed. The actress playing Paige didn’t really bump.
They then brought in a stunt Paige in a black wig. They ran through the match again and the stunt wrestler took all of the Paige bumps. I assume they did the same with an AJ stand in, but we needed to get going so we left.
I was bummed that we didn’t get a dark match but the movie shoot was one of a kind, and the Rock being there made up for the lack of big stars on Raw.
As for Raw, it played well in the building but personally I was wishing we could have seen one really great match. Too bad AJ Styles is on Smackdown. The big man match did surprise, nobody around us was excited to see Big Show work. He really went all out and that’s not something you see on Raw every week, so in the end we left happy.
One thing that bummed me out was the snarky guys who were sitting behind us. I’m not sure if this is a common thing, but these guys spent the entire night absolutely ripping into everything they saw. They were just constantly criticizing the work rate, ‘you can’t wrestle’ chants to EVERYONE, and saying how they wish they could fast forward the show like they can at home. I mean, why are you there if you hate the show? It wasn’t the best Raw I’ve seen, but I paid money to go there, buy in to the stories, buy in to what I knew I was getting, and have fun. I’d much rather hit a Smackdown Live, but I can’t get there tomorrow so I’ll take this. Why go if you are just going to hate the whole time? Is this what the Internet Wrestling Community is all about?
This is why I stick with Dot Net. Fair reporting, easy on the hate, staying positive, and respectful of others. You’re the best.
Powell’s POV: First off, thanks for the kind words, Chris. Second, Punk responded to Rock via Twitter…
Thanks Los Angeles. Nice to hear from you. @STAPLESCenter
— Coach (@CMPunk) February 21, 2017
To Chris: The lady playing AJ Lee is a wrestler, that’s why she knew all the moves. And I’m sorry you got stuck sitting near a person like that. I also wonder why people watch things they hate.