LG
04-23-2013, 03:02 PM
Credit: Matt of Aylesbury & Pwtorch.com
- After Raw finished taping, there was no speech from Cena, no dark match or anything, just Justin Roberts thanking us for coming and the Fandango music playing us out.
- The place was pretty much packed out. I’ve never been to a Raw taping before, as we normally go to Smackdown, so I’ve never seen it this busy inside. At Smackdown we normally queue for about ten minutes once inside. But, tonight, we spent well over an hour trying to get into the main arena.
- The crowd was HOT. From where I was sat, it seemed like a really good crowd that showed JBL a lot of love, and Regal got a huge ovation, but I think The Undertaker probably got the biggest reaction of the night. The only time the crowd annoyed me was during the Ziggler-Jericho match. It was a great match, but the crowd were still into amusing themselves, showing the match very little respect and eventually started the dreaded, “WE ARE AWESOME” chant. Aside from that, though, the crowd was great and surprisingly, played along with storylines, booing heels and cheering faces. John Cena, Paul Heyman, Fandango, and Dolph Ziggler were the only obvious exceptions that got the opposite reactions, but Cena obviously had his vocal supporters there, too.
- At one point during the Ziggler-Jericho match, someone started bouncing an inflatable dolphin around the crowd opposite the hard camera. It was a bit of a half-hearted effort, but when it got close to being on-screen, it was quickly confiscated by security, much to the audible dismay of the crowd. Someone then produced a smaller inflatable dolphin and a loud “DOLPHIN! DOLPHIN!” chant started. It will be interesting to see if any of that made onto TV.
- Undertaker looked great and the six-man tag was definitely the highlight of the night. A lot of great action courtesy of all six guys, although Bryan was probably the workhorse of the match. There’s really nothing quite like experiencing Undertaker’s ring entrance live; it was certainly one of my personal live wrestling highlights. After the match, Daniel Bryan ran after Taker trying to get a hug, which he claimed he got backstage. He then made the crowd cheer for Kane to hug him. Thankfully it was off TV, as it all seemed quite serious after they lost to The Shield. The hugging stuff killed the moment live.
- After the six-man tag match, quite a few young kids started to leave, despite Cena not having come out yet and despite there being another 30-45 minutes left. They really didn’t need to have two throwaway Superstars matches beforehand and a dark match prior to those. One Superstars thing of note – Michael McGillicutty got a really good reaction and a “Mr. Perfect” chant broke out.
- One final thing, I know WWE have got a lot of flak recently over taking signs, but on the flipside, the one time I noticed it happen tonight was when some jackass held up an “FGT” sign. As we were behind him and we didn’t know what it said, I couldn’t say how long he had it up, but he was quite near the front so it may be visible on TV. That was the only time I saw a sign taken away tonight and in that case, it was absolutely justified.
- Overall, while not the perfect show (two Divas matches), I thought it was probably the most fun show I’ve been to at the O2.
WZR
- After Raw finished taping, there was no speech from Cena, no dark match or anything, just Justin Roberts thanking us for coming and the Fandango music playing us out.
- The place was pretty much packed out. I’ve never been to a Raw taping before, as we normally go to Smackdown, so I’ve never seen it this busy inside. At Smackdown we normally queue for about ten minutes once inside. But, tonight, we spent well over an hour trying to get into the main arena.
- The crowd was HOT. From where I was sat, it seemed like a really good crowd that showed JBL a lot of love, and Regal got a huge ovation, but I think The Undertaker probably got the biggest reaction of the night. The only time the crowd annoyed me was during the Ziggler-Jericho match. It was a great match, but the crowd were still into amusing themselves, showing the match very little respect and eventually started the dreaded, “WE ARE AWESOME” chant. Aside from that, though, the crowd was great and surprisingly, played along with storylines, booing heels and cheering faces. John Cena, Paul Heyman, Fandango, and Dolph Ziggler were the only obvious exceptions that got the opposite reactions, but Cena obviously had his vocal supporters there, too.
- At one point during the Ziggler-Jericho match, someone started bouncing an inflatable dolphin around the crowd opposite the hard camera. It was a bit of a half-hearted effort, but when it got close to being on-screen, it was quickly confiscated by security, much to the audible dismay of the crowd. Someone then produced a smaller inflatable dolphin and a loud “DOLPHIN! DOLPHIN!” chant started. It will be interesting to see if any of that made onto TV.
- Undertaker looked great and the six-man tag was definitely the highlight of the night. A lot of great action courtesy of all six guys, although Bryan was probably the workhorse of the match. There’s really nothing quite like experiencing Undertaker’s ring entrance live; it was certainly one of my personal live wrestling highlights. After the match, Daniel Bryan ran after Taker trying to get a hug, which he claimed he got backstage. He then made the crowd cheer for Kane to hug him. Thankfully it was off TV, as it all seemed quite serious after they lost to The Shield. The hugging stuff killed the moment live.
- After the six-man tag match, quite a few young kids started to leave, despite Cena not having come out yet and despite there being another 30-45 minutes left. They really didn’t need to have two throwaway Superstars matches beforehand and a dark match prior to those. One Superstars thing of note – Michael McGillicutty got a really good reaction and a “Mr. Perfect” chant broke out.
- One final thing, I know WWE have got a lot of flak recently over taking signs, but on the flipside, the one time I noticed it happen tonight was when some jackass held up an “FGT” sign. As we were behind him and we didn’t know what it said, I couldn’t say how long he had it up, but he was quite near the front so it may be visible on TV. That was the only time I saw a sign taken away tonight and in that case, it was absolutely justified.
- Overall, while not the perfect show (two Divas matches), I thought it was probably the most fun show I’ve been to at the O2.
WZR