I haven't been to live WWE event since the SummerSlam where Brock beat The Rock at Nassau in Long Island so I had no idea what to expect after missing a few years. I was pleasantly surprised, though, with the RAW event that I attended last night.
Never having gone to a RAW or Smackdown! taping, I wasn't prepared for the long, commercial breaks in the arena, but I was prepared for something good to happen. And something good did, in fact, happen. I'm not good at these "live notes" reports, so I'm just going to list out some of the good, bad, and weird parts of the event! I'll try to do one of those "biggest pops" reports at the end of the column.
The best part of the night for me was seeing Rowdy Roddy Piper. Many of the kiddies out there just know him as a wild, crazy guy who got inducted into the Hall of Fame a few months ago, but this guy was one of main characters that I watched while growing up. I really was surprised to see him there and that really made my night. Of course, that was only the beginning of the night!
The other big highlight was seeing Matt Hardy come out and attack Edge and Lita. The crowd had a nice "holy shit" chant during the commercial break after Hardy blindsided Edge in the back. It definitely was one of those, "What the hell just happened?" moments for the fans in the arena, but watching it on the tape it comes off as extremely planned and a set-up. I'm not too foolish to think that McMahon would have allowed something like that to happen at one of his shows, so I don't buy into the train of thought that this is a gigantic shoot. It's obviously a work and Hardy is playing the internet crowd to his advantage (which I have no problem with - it's about time WWE acknowledged the massive internet audience).
And yeah, Matt Hardy did say something about WWE kissing his ass and that you could see him at ROH, but before he could get that last H out he got knocked on his ass by the "police."
One of the things that always gets me about live events is the loudness of the pyro inside the arena! Take a look at the pictures below and you'll see how the arena completely lights up when the pyro goes off. Shocked the hell out of me, really. Espcially when Batista's pyro went off - I wasn't ready for that one so I jumped a bit! And I was sitting up in the cheap seats, so I don't know how the people in the lower rows were able to stand the pop of the pyro. It definitely adds something to the live crowd's reaction, though.
The Piper's Pit segment was another good part of the night. However, the Kurt Angle Invitational (which went over really well with the live crowd) presented one of the weirder moments of the night. Apparently the kids who that Stryker guy taught were sitting a few rows back from us (literally in the last row of seats in the joint). They had some weird "social studies" and "that's my teacher" chants (which were all of 5 people strong). Just an odd little occurrence.
Some of the bad parts of the night included the Chris Masters match and a few of the Diva Search contestants. Some of the Diva Search ladies actually got a great reaction from the crowd and the segment wasn't an overall dud, but that Masters match was as dead as I've ever seen a crowd. I don't know where they're going with that guy and his gimmick, but it presents no charisma for the live crowd to either cheer or boo.
The dark house main event was pretty cool, too. It pitted John Cena and Batista against JBL and JPL (John Paul Levesque). The biggest pop of the night easily went to Batista when he came out while John Cena came in a close second. JBL and JPL had pretty much the same crowd reactions each. The match was alright with a cheesy, yet pleasing double pin as Cena and Batista pinned JB/PL at the same time. After posing for a few minutes, Cena and Batista went to the back and that was the end of the show (and my camera's battery died at the same time).
As far as who got the biggest pops, like I said Batista and Cena were first and second respectively. Piper was up there, but no one else really got a great "pop" per se. Y2J and Carlito had a large amount of cheers instead of boos (thanks to a New York/Mew Jersey crowd) and Matt Hardy got a great reaction from the crowd. I wasn't around for the Heat tapings so I couldn't give you too much information on them other than I saw the Heat main event of Renee Dupree and Val Venis (which Dupree won, obviously).
One of the worst parts of the night, though, had to be the meandering high school interbrats sitting a few rows behind us. Interbrat = someone who reads the internet wrestling websites, thinks that he's the only one who does so, and wants everyone to know it; as such he believes that he knows "facts" that no one else in the arena knows. These interbrats apparently didn't like John Cena's wrestling ability and chanted all night (from the very last row of the arena) "Cena Sucks" and even showed how classy they were by arguing with a row of preteen girls who were there to see Cena.
As if that wasn't aggravating enough they had to start screaming out "What about Halloween Havoc and Starrcade? Do you guys even know what Starrcade is?" after the Great American Bash promo. At this point I felt like going up there and crapping in their laps, but that would have brought me down to their level. But you know these types of people...these are the ones that boo the faces because the rest of the world likes them and cheer the heels because the rest of the world hates them. I've cheered some heels in my day, but that's only because they did an excellent job in the ring, not to try to prove a point or something.
Then the Matt Hardy event took place and these guys start hollering about ROH and how it was great, blah blah blah, what websites to check it out on, etc. And truly at this point I wanted to go up there and tell them that I've owned an internet wrestling website from the time that they were sucking on their Mom's teet and that no one was impressed with them, but again I took the high road.
Anyway, the wrestling and the show itself was certainly of the best quality, but those ashole teenie boppers definitely took something away from the show. That being said I'll definitely go to RAW again when it comes to Jersey. I'd love to go to the Philly show next week, but I've got my gall bladder removal surgery that day so I won't be able to. Enjoy the pics below and remember that they were taken from a 5 year old digi-cam from way in the back of the arena!
Dupree vs. Venis
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Dupree vs. Venis
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Free T-Shirts
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National Anthem
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National Anthem
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Jim Ross
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Jerry Lawler
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Setting up the Cabana
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HBK Video
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RAW Opening Pyro
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Carlito's Cabana
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Carlito's Cabana
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A few thousand WWE fans
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Carlito's Cabana
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Y2J Enters
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WWE Hall of Famer Roddy Piper
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Chris Masters
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Snitsky, Edge, and Lita
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Benjamin Enters
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Benjamin vs, Carlito
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Carlito Exits
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Cena and Bischoff
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Cena Enters
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Cena Paces
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Cena on the TitanTron
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Bischoff Gets a Mike
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Cena Calls Bischoff an Asshole
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Diva Search
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Outta Here!
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Kurt Angle Enters
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Edge Enters
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Edge Prepares for Kane
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Kane's Stage Pyro
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Kane's Ring Pyro
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Kane vs. Edge
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Hardy Gets Edge
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Hardy Gets Edge
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Setting up the Pit
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Hot Rod Enters
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Hot Rod Enters
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HBK Enters
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HBK Talks to Piper
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HBK Explains Himself
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HBK Stands Over Piper
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JBL Enters
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Batista Enters
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Levesque in the Ring
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Main Event
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Main Event
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Cena and Batista Pose
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Cena and Batista Pose
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