Credit: Stevie J | PWInsider.com
The Qwest Center filled up very quickly once the doors opened. I'd say there was a packed house even before the first dark match took place.
None of the WWE souvenir stands had Christian t-shirts for sale, which I thought was very strange since one of the marquee matches going on was Christian vs. Ric Flair. This was obviously a huge mistake on WWE's part. I don't know how well it came off on TV but there were a TON of Christian signs in the Qwest Center, including my homey Kevin's "I'm a member of the Christian Coalition" and a huge five piece sign that said "O M A H A" on the first row and "P E E P S" on the row underneath.
WWE was examining all of the signs in the crowd, particularly those of anybody at ringside or on the ramp, and confiscating any that they didn't like. They targeted dot com signs (so much for my AngryMarks.com sign), things to do with Matt (so much for my "Edge Speared Lita" sign), anything excessively derogatory about Triple H, and lewd signs like the one guy who brought "11 and 3/4" with an arrow pointing down at his crotch (I thought it was funny myself).
The dark match before Heat was some guy from Omaha who got no pop versus a African American man with a massive physique- a figure that's as good or better than Chris Masters. He got love from the crowd for squashing the Omaha jobber but showed no emotion at all.
The first Heat match was Regal versus one of the Heartthrobs, Romeo I think. Very loud pop for Regal from the hometown crowd. The match turned into a clusterf*** and was thrown out because the other Heartthrob kept interfering and Tajiri ran into the ring to take him out, at which point the ref rang the bell.
Robert Conway versus a jobber from Lincoln named Trevor was next; he looked like a cross between Dustin and Dusty Rhodes complete with cowboy hat. After we razzed him about it repeatedly (I yelled "DO A BIONIC ELBOW" several times) he actually busted out the bionic elbow during the match, so he's obviously a fan of The American Dream.
The last Heat match before Raw was Grenier versus Val Venis. Venis wasn't so much over as Grenier was under - he got HUGE heat and the U-S-A chants for both La Res members were strong. Val was the eventual winner with a Money Shot.
The live show was off the hook. I got two signs on TV several times - one said "TAES 189" and the other said "I don't like dog shows or bimbos." I also spotted the TAES 189 sign during the Heat portion of the show but I think that was during a dark match. It did show up during the segment where Viscera was wooing Lillian, and the "I don't like dog shows" was clearly in the opening of Raw.
The "YOU SCREWED MATT" chants were even louder in person than they were on TV, particularly when we saw Edge backstage with Lita (it did get over the air a little bit). Kane got a surprising amount of face pop in the Gold Rush final as a result.
I'm not surprised Chris Masters had to resort to cheap heat by dogging Omaha. The guy is not over at all. A lot of people were sitting down when he came out, although I was standing by the railing giving him two thumbs down - the lights were off though so you can't really see it on TV.
The dark match afterwards was Christian v. Batista. A lot of comedy spots with both men trying to pop the crowd, and Batista showing up Christian time after time. The match ended with a demon bomb and Batista got a huge ovation, going all the way around ringside to hi-five people (but unfortunately nobody along the ramp where we were sitting).
