Heat spoilers
Simon Dean def. Robbie Brookside
Some good face heat for Dean, some ECW chants broke out in our section too. Brookside was announced from Birmingham, as a face. At the last show in Manchester, he was announced from Liverpool, as a heel. They knew their geography I guess.
Heartthrobs def. Domino & Swartz
Crowd were dead during this one. Typical jobber tag offence from the Domino & Swartz, but the Heartthrobs are no great shakes in the ring. They finished with their double flatliner.
Hurricane def. Maven
Mixed reaction for Maven, crowd were into Helms. Hurricane won with the eye of the hurricane.
Raw taping notes
Although the arena was very small, it was completely full, and not as some have suggested having tapered off segments. I don’t think WWE would come back to this arena, considering they sold out the much larger MEN arena last time.
Jerry Lawler was extremely over with the crowd for some reason. During the commercial breaks, Lillian Garcia kept flirting with a group of guys in the front block, and managed to get a ‘We love you Lillian, we do’ chant going. Strange.
Batista got a good reaction for the opening interview, unlike in recent weeks. However, he was booed by the majority of the crowd during the main event; probably due to Christian’s stellar work on his promos throughout the night. Got to give him credit for that, he really stepped up tonight, and proved he is worthy of a good push. Perhaps he will be drafted to Smackdown.
The Viscera and Trish segments were ok, but did they really have to drag on all show? And how exactly does that build for the match at Backlash? They focused on the wrong plot for that.
Jericho def. Grenier
Bad match, Grenier is just not a good enough wrestler; even to have a quick five minute match. Crowd were far more into Benjamin, and popped big for attacking Jericho.
There were a LOT of boring chants during the Masters segment. Who are they trying to kid with this guy?
It was obvious to me, but not to many other people judging by the later chants for Hogan that their segment was pre-taped. I mean come on, how fickle can people be?
Hassan & Daivari def. Regal & Tajiri
Bye-bye tag division. Regal was mega over, but there was not a great deal of heel heat for Hassan & Daivari. Lots of ‘England’ chants, which infuriated me, because I’m Welsh.
Edge def. Venis
Are you kidding me? What the hell was Venis doing on RAW. Lots of chants for Matt Hardy; Edge even gave the finger to our section of the crowd. We managed to get a “You F**ked Lita” chant going too.
Batista def. Christian
As I alluded to earlier, Christian was really over at this point of the night, and got A LOT of face heat from the crowd. Batista got booed when he was on the offence. Good match, but not RAW main event standard, and certainly not pre-PPV build quality stuff. Christian took his chance to shine however, good for him.
After the cameras went off air, HHH shouted at the crowd; “Shut your holes you limey bastards!”, funny stuff. Batista got up, and cleared the ring, and then posed with the belt.
Overall Thoughts
I was really disappointed in the lack of talent at the show. Would it have killed them to give us a Benoit match, or even a longer Jericho match? The lack of in-ring action really hurt it for me, and sure the backstage segments were funny; but I can go to a comedy club to laugh and for less money too.
Thomas Kilduff
