By Jason Powell, Prowrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Dot Net reader Mike Balena attended the WWE Raw event in Montreal, Quebec at Bell Centre on Monday and sent the following report.
-The Bell Centre was completely sold out. There was no areas tarped off.
-I’ve been to about ten live shows in Montreal and the boos for Roman Reigns were the loudest I’ve ever heard, hands down. They really let him have it. A lot of chants didn’t make TV like “shut the f up” and “we don’t care”. It was rough. Hopefully one day Vince McMahon will finally listen and change how he’s booked.
-Sami Zayn got an insane pop when he came out. The line he said in French was “tabernac, it feels so good to be home”. The word “Tabernac” is considered a strong swear word for Quebecers. Owens came out to another insane pop. His French line was “I won’t say tabernac because I’m a mature 33 year old adult, but I will say me and Sami have been waiting a very long time for this night,” which drove the crowd crazy and prompted the instant “oui” chant, which lasted the whole night afterwards.
Editor’s Note: A reader wrote in the comments section below that Zayn said tabarouette and noted that it’s not a swear word, it’s like saying fudge instead of f—. I don’t speak French so any help with this would be appreciated. Mike followed up after watching the segment again and apologized for the mistake.
-Brawn Strowman got a big pop when he came out but slowly started to get boos as he was beating on Owens and Zayn.
-Elias was really over with the crowd. They played along to his promo perfectly, cheering and booing when necessary.
-The jobber team of Jean-Paul and Francois was funny and got the crowd hot for a obvious squash match. The post match promo from Authors of Pain was really hard to understand live and came off as gibberish.
-Seth Rollins might have received the most genuine babyface reaction I’ve heard in a long time. The crowd loved him. A lot “Thank you Rollins” and “you deserve it” chants during his promo. Miz’s music got a huge pop until people realized who it was instead and it turned to instant boos.
-The crowd was really hot for the six-man tag. Anything Owens and Zayn did got a huge reaction. Even during his chinlock spot there was a pretty loud “chinlock master” chant. Braun didn’t get a big reaction this time around, mostly for being on the same team as Reigns and Bobby Lashley. Lashley got almost no reaction at all. Not a good sign.
-The ending of the match with Owens taking the pin seemed to suck a bit of the energy out of the crowd for a while.
-The crowd was excited for Ronda Rousey, but I think a little let down afterwards that she didn’t do much except chase Alexa Bliss.
-The main event with Rollins and Finn Balor was really good and got the crowd back into again. They worked a good pace and kept the energy up. Seth once again got a massive pop before and after the match.
-After the show ended, Rollins took the mic and addressed the Montreal crowd. He said he wanted everyone to know he was serious about what he said before about the traveling back and forth and how it was all worth it to come here and feel this energy. He sincerely thanked everyone and seemed a little overwhelmed by the reaction. He said thank you in French one last time and walked off to close the show.
-Overall a pretty good Raw. It never really slowed down too much and the crowd was really off the charts tonight.
Sami Zayn did not said: Tabarnac. He said tabarouette. it’s not a swear word. It’s like saying fudge instead of f—. Please correct this.
I concur with Jonathan Savoie. He said Tabarouette and his description is accurate
Remember, the boos for Reigns in Montreal were not the typical crowd response…the typical crowd response is outright hatred.