Black Widow
04-16-2008, 08:11 AM
I attended WWE Raw last night here in the UK. I live in Scotland so was on an early flight to London. Hopefully one day WWE will bring Raw to Scotland as the house shows always do well up here.
We arrived at the O2 arena at around 1 p.m. and all the merchandise stands where already set up and believe it or not there were actually people already in the queue to get into the Arena. I spent the day in one of the bars in the O2 and the place was buzzing all day. The merchandise stand was super busy all day. I was hoping to get the Ric Flair Retirement t-shirt but they had few very choices of T- shirts - all Raw stars except CM Punk. I think he will move to Raw in the draft if it happens now.
Doors opened at 6.30pm and we got into the arena at around 7pm. I was surprised that they had the HD set over here for Raw. I thought it would be the usual UK set up but was very impressed with the new set. When we got in the KOTR screen was already on the Tron (I tried to text Dave but it wouldn't work, sending a text to the US).
The show started at 7.30 on the dot with a Tony Chimel voice over introducing Lilian Garcia, who looks so so hot in person and she she said some of the following matches could be seen on WWE.com ( or Sky Sports 3 here in the UK its still on TV here).
Bob Holly got a huge reaction being the first superstar out. I thought this was a dark match as the jobber got in a huge amount of offense in this match.
Melina & Jillian def. Maria & Ashley - I was surprised that Maria was on Heat. Playboy must have a new issue out. She was way over with the crowd. Melina's red carpet must have been heavy as the guy moving it struggled to pick it up before Maria and Ashley came out.
DH Smith def. Super Crazy. DH Smith got a huge cheer, as expected
Cody Rhodes def. Charlie Haas. Good toilet break after being in the pub all day. (Toilet was packed when I got there).
Snitsky def. Val Venis. Snitsky got a very loud brush your teeth chant ( this was the first ever TV taping I have been to in the UK where a heel wrestler didn't slag British teeth/smiles).
Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler got the huge cheers you would expect and came out separately.
Lillian then told us we where going live in on the USA Network in and 1 minute and even started a countdown which people got very excited about - some must have though they where really going out live.
HBK got a monster pop as did Ric Flair's music ( My heart stopped when it came on, Huge Ric Flair fan here ). Jericho is obliviously turning heel , probably in the main event at Backlash.
Crowd loved Santino. I think they are definitely done with the Santino/Maria story now.
Mickey James was very over and the crowd loved the title change. Loads of people where shocked that they changed a title over here.
JTG v. Trevor Murdoch was another toilet break for people - crowd wasn't happy when the money money song.
Orton was booed on the way to the ring while Regal got the biggest cheer of the night. After the match off camera Orton held up the title on the way to the back and got a big big cheer.
I knew there would not be two title changes in one night so expected Jericho to win and this continued his heel turn. Umaga got a good cheer from the crowd.
Paul Burchill and Jim Duggan both got huge cheers from the crowd. Katie got a really big cheers for her entrance.
At this point the guy next to me was told by security that he should be ejected because his camera was 58mm and should not be bigger than 34mm but they said he could stay as long as he put the camera away.
The crowd was into the main event big time until the run in . The crowd cheered loudly for Cena to make the save and where very disappointed when it became clear he wasn't coming out. HHH stayed for 10-15 minutes posing for the crowd after he had hit his finisher on Orton ( after Raw went of the air) I think he done this to make up for no Cena . Over all it was a good show live and I will be back again in Manchester in November since as I said earlier I can't see them coming to Scotland anytime soon .
One more note, I checked WWE.com during the day and on the preview it said Batista would be at the O2 arena on Raw ( I even told 2 kids with Batista t-shirts what I'd read) but he didn't show obviously.
PWInsider.com
We arrived at the O2 arena at around 1 p.m. and all the merchandise stands where already set up and believe it or not there were actually people already in the queue to get into the Arena. I spent the day in one of the bars in the O2 and the place was buzzing all day. The merchandise stand was super busy all day. I was hoping to get the Ric Flair Retirement t-shirt but they had few very choices of T- shirts - all Raw stars except CM Punk. I think he will move to Raw in the draft if it happens now.
Doors opened at 6.30pm and we got into the arena at around 7pm. I was surprised that they had the HD set over here for Raw. I thought it would be the usual UK set up but was very impressed with the new set. When we got in the KOTR screen was already on the Tron (I tried to text Dave but it wouldn't work, sending a text to the US).
The show started at 7.30 on the dot with a Tony Chimel voice over introducing Lilian Garcia, who looks so so hot in person and she she said some of the following matches could be seen on WWE.com ( or Sky Sports 3 here in the UK its still on TV here).
Bob Holly got a huge reaction being the first superstar out. I thought this was a dark match as the jobber got in a huge amount of offense in this match.
Melina & Jillian def. Maria & Ashley - I was surprised that Maria was on Heat. Playboy must have a new issue out. She was way over with the crowd. Melina's red carpet must have been heavy as the guy moving it struggled to pick it up before Maria and Ashley came out.
DH Smith def. Super Crazy. DH Smith got a huge cheer, as expected
Cody Rhodes def. Charlie Haas. Good toilet break after being in the pub all day. (Toilet was packed when I got there).
Snitsky def. Val Venis. Snitsky got a very loud brush your teeth chant ( this was the first ever TV taping I have been to in the UK where a heel wrestler didn't slag British teeth/smiles).
Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler got the huge cheers you would expect and came out separately.
Lillian then told us we where going live in on the USA Network in and 1 minute and even started a countdown which people got very excited about - some must have though they where really going out live.
HBK got a monster pop as did Ric Flair's music ( My heart stopped when it came on, Huge Ric Flair fan here ). Jericho is obliviously turning heel , probably in the main event at Backlash.
Crowd loved Santino. I think they are definitely done with the Santino/Maria story now.
Mickey James was very over and the crowd loved the title change. Loads of people where shocked that they changed a title over here.
JTG v. Trevor Murdoch was another toilet break for people - crowd wasn't happy when the money money song.
Orton was booed on the way to the ring while Regal got the biggest cheer of the night. After the match off camera Orton held up the title on the way to the back and got a big big cheer.
I knew there would not be two title changes in one night so expected Jericho to win and this continued his heel turn. Umaga got a good cheer from the crowd.
Paul Burchill and Jim Duggan both got huge cheers from the crowd. Katie got a really big cheers for her entrance.
At this point the guy next to me was told by security that he should be ejected because his camera was 58mm and should not be bigger than 34mm but they said he could stay as long as he put the camera away.
The crowd was into the main event big time until the run in . The crowd cheered loudly for Cena to make the save and where very disappointed when it became clear he wasn't coming out. HHH stayed for 10-15 minutes posing for the crowd after he had hit his finisher on Orton ( after Raw went of the air) I think he done this to make up for no Cena . Over all it was a good show live and I will be back again in Manchester in November since as I said earlier I can't see them coming to Scotland anytime soon .
One more note, I checked WWE.com during the day and on the preview it said Batista would be at the O2 arena on Raw ( I even told 2 kids with Batista t-shirts what I'd read) but he didn't show obviously.
PWInsider.com