Dot Net reader Phil O attended Monday’s WWE Raw in Brooklyn, New York and passed along the following report.
Just thought I’d share the live report with you as I was there for my first ever Raw show. I haven’t been to a live show since Sunday Night Heat!
The place was absolutely packed to the max other than the taped off area behind the stage. The crowd was red hot before the show started, already chanting, CM Punk, We Want Paige, and New Day F—s.
The show started off really well. Stephanie McMahon is so hated it’s crazy. The crowd will not let go of CM Punk…..EVER. After the opening segment, I heard a couple of fans next to me talking about how they prefer Smackdown over Raw due to how much Stephanie is featured over three hours and how it is overkill. Steph got a lot of heat and what you hear on TV is not what you hear in the area, she talks VERY loud into the mic it almost is hard to hear her. I do agree, it’s a bit much that Steph has her finger on every feud and is featured all over Raw-too much authority figure going on on Raw.
After the Mick Foley segment, things died down a lot but the crowd made the best of what we all agreed on was a disappointing show overall.
Nothing but Crickets for Charlotte vs. Dana Brooke match.
The crowd truly made this show a lot of fun. During the Bayley vs. Jax match, they got the wave going and started an inner battle with the sides which was a lot of fun.
Anytime Paige or Xavier Woods were shown on the big screen during commercial breaks the crowd erupted.
Finn Balor, Enzo Amore, and Big Cass merch checks must be absolutely insane.
They had A LOT of down time during the show. I would say well over an hour was video packages and backstage segments with the lights in the area dimmed.
A lot of dull moments with both women’s matches and both cruiserweight matches. The crowd kept themselves occupied during the down time. The cruiserweight division outside of Austin Aries and Neville are really struggling to get any reaction whatsoever
Enzo and Cass were way over, as were Shamus and Cesaro. it made me feel the Tag Team division is headed in the right direction based off the crowd reactions.
Chris Jericho is wrestling royalty. The man is untouchable on the mic and the crowd just went absolutely crazy for him. He is such a great character and plays his role to perfection. You can tell this has been such an enjoyable era for him. He loves the crowd and they loved him right back. He truly is in a class of his own.
Roman Reigns got crazy heat when his music hit and anytime he was featured in a video package or his pictures were shown during commercial breaks. Yet during the match when he pulled off a big move (ex: the Samoan drop on Stroman) the crowd was red hot for him. It is so weird it almost feels like they want to hate the guy because it’s the “cool” thing to do, but they quickly forget he is a damn good talent. He was heelish during the commercial break by egging the crowd on while waiting for Braun Strowman to come out, which I found interesting.
They made it crystal clear that Undertaker was going to be there – a big security team escorted someone in a black sweatshirt looking thing during commercial break and shoved him under the ring, so the crowd was chanting Taker’s name the whole match.
Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe and Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman were the best matches of the night by a landslide.
Triple H came off great. He knows he’s loved but knows how to turn a crowd real fast.
After the show ended on air, Brock Lesnar came out just as Taker was exiting. The crowd was insane, they exploded for him. “Suplex City” chants filled the arena, for the first time in a VERY long time, Brock grabbed the mic and simply said “Suplex City, Bitch!” The crowd went red hot.
Paul Heyman is magical in person. Big Show came out to an open challenge vs. Brock (to a nice pop) but that lasted maybe 19 seconds. After Brock left, three ref’s tried to move Big Show, then one ref jumped on him for the pin and Big Show kicked out and chased the refs out. JoJo announced that WWE will be back at Barclays or SummerSlam!
All in all, I thought the show itself was very disappointing given it was so close to Mania. Everyone was somewhat expecting Finn Balor to pop up, the man sells a TON of merch, and WWE always throws BK a surprise. There was definitely some disappointment that Balor didn’t show up, a group next to me thought when Samoa Joe came out to distract Jericho that maybe Balor would come out and fight off SJ to set up a WM match since neither is booked, which is odd. I have not been to a WWE live event since the Attitude Era. I have always watched wrestling and never stopped. It truly is a great experience and I had a blast.
Biggest Pops
Chris Jericho
Enzo Amore and Big Cass
Mick Foley
Undertaker
Brock Lesnar
Most Heat
Stephanie McMahon
Triple H
Roman Reigns
Either my son or I could have written this review. We attended last night. I have to say I’ve never seen the crowd this loud and crazy and I’ve attended lots of RAWs and PPVs over the years. There was way too much downtime and reminding us what happened last week like we have short term amnesia. I think they should have a Foley vs. Undertaker hip vs hip match