Thanks to Mark Satrang for this report:
The crowd was about 75% full, maybe 3000-4000 people. The crowd was pretty energetic and loud all night, mostly due to the fact that WWE hasn’t been to Sioux City in seven years and WCW hasn’t been there since 2000.
Match 1: Rhyno & Tajiri beat Rodney Mack & Chuck Palumbo. Lots of playing to the crowd to get them riled up. Jazz wasn’t with the heels, but Mack and Palumbo seemed to be a good fit together. Maybe they’ll get paired up on TV. Rhyno gored Palumbo for the win to a pretty good pop.
Match 2: Val Venis beat Simon Dean by count-out. Simon got little reaction when he came out because no one knows who he is. He got heel heat right away when he called Sioux City fat, lazy, etc. Val responded on the mic and called him Semen Dean, and he had the crowd chanting that instantly. Val got a pretty decent pop as well and gave his towel away at the end of the match to some lucky female.
Match 3: Tyson Tomko beat Hurricane. Tomko won clean with his reverse F5 move. Hurricane was still playing face and gave his mask away to a young fan even though he was heelish on RAW last week.
Match 4: Maven beat Muhammed Hussein by DQ. I honestly had no idea who his Arab guy was. He came out with a manager and they drew huge heat by saying they represented the Arab nation and they would jack oil prices up. He also got the crowd riled when he prayed on his little rug thing. Never heard of the guy, never recognized him. The only one I could think would be Mark Magnus from OVW. Maven won by DQ when the manager guy ran in for a DQ. I think the manager must be a trained wrestler too because he was bumping his ass off. Sgt. Slaughter made the save for Maven in the end and got the crowd rallied.
Match 5: Shelton Benjamin beat Christian with an Exploder. Christian got some great heat, did lots and lots of stalling. Tomko came out with him but got ejected a couple minutes in.
Match 6: La Resistance beat Eugene & William Regal in a Tag Title match. Eugune got one of the biggest pops of the night. I marked out like crazy for him myself. Eugene had the crowd in hysterics with some of his antics. Resistance won with a flag pole shot to Regal.
Intermission: T-shirt guy shot off No Mercy t-shirts and then got the biggest heel heat of the night when he ran out of shirts.
Match 7: Victoria beat Gail Kim. Pretty short, standard womens match. Both looked hot in person.
Match 8: Kane beat Gene Snitsky. Surprised this was on the show. It was originally advertised as Kane-Benoit. Didn’t think Snitsky was going to be a regular character, but I guess he is. Kane played the face and got a MONSTER face pop on his entrance.
Match 9: Randy Orton and Chris Benoit beat Triple H and Batista when Orton hit the RKO on Batista. Lots of alternating RKO and Benoit chants. Good main event to cap off the evening.
At the end of the show, Fink thanked us all and said look for RAW to come live to Sioux City in the spring 2005, which got a massive pop from the crowd, including myself. Already counting the days til that one. Really good show, only notable absences were Jericho and Michaels and I was personally disappointed not to to see Trish or the Nature Boy.
Biggest pops had to Eugune, RKO/Benoit and probably Kane.
Biggest heat probably would go to the Arab guy and La Resistance for the anti-American stuff and Evolution and Simon Dean after they badmouthed the crowd.
Mark Satrang
