Thanks to reader Chad Knight for sending in the following:
I went to Raw last night and the Allstate Arena was packed, I would say around the 15,000 mark... I got my tickets right before the show after about a half hour wait until they setting the stage up, there was one guy who waited there for 6 hrs only to be told that it was sold out by this jerk at the box office, and then a second box office window opened and another guy let us buy tickets. Before the show, Chris Masters was seen outside talking on his cell phone but as fans started to notice, he quickly went back under the garage door.
HEAT NOTES:
Might I tell you, Lillian Garcia looks absolutely GORGEOUS live.
- Rene Dupree & Rob Conway vs. The Highlanders: Pretty big pop for the Highlanders. The crowd popped huge when one of them rolled up Conway for the win.
- Chandler McLure vs. Striker - When Chandler came out, he got lots of "You suck" chants, then Lillian announced him from Chi-Town (which he really is) and got a massive pop. Striker pins McLure.
- Goldust & Snitsky vs. Brad James & Colt Cabana. An OK match, LOTS of Colt Cabana chants, one funny spot came as Snitsky took down Cabana and then took his boot off to try and lick his foot. Goldust then interrupted him. Snitksy then pinned Cabana with a wheelbarrow suplex. Snitksy chased Goldust up the ramp for some weird reason.
- Trevor Murdoch vs. Eugene. Big pop for Eugene and some scattered Eugene sucks chants. An OK match, Murdoch wins with a DDT.
RAW NOTES:
Before going live, they played a video package of the troops. Any time John Cena would come on, the crowd would boo like crazy. The Crowd seemed stunned that there was no opening pyro to start the show and when Cena came out, they let them know about
it.
Not many people knew that Umanga was Jamal. There were a few 3-Minute Warning shouts but that's all.
The Crowd was in disbelief when the Spirit Squad won the titles although it weirdly got a big pop.
After RAW went off air, crowd was split 50/50 about John Cena. He got up on the mic and thanked the Chicago crowd for a great week they had in Chicago and said to the people who like him or dislike him, it doesn't matter to him, he told everyone that they were a hot energetic crowd and reminded us of his first WWE match in this building. By this time, most of the crowd was cheering John Cena, you have to give the guy a break, he tried very hard to turn the crowd, and it seemed like it worked.
POST-SHOW
After the show, about a thousand fans waited by the parking lot. Snitsky was a true class act and shook hands with everyone, so was Lillian Garcia. Chavo Guerrero came out in a suit, and just saluted the fans and drove off. Ted DiBiase, Doc Hendrix and Dusty Rhodes all left together in a limo - there were HUGE Dusty chants). CM Punk and Maria were spotted together, I started a CM Punk chant, was very little though. Maria saluted the crowd and went in, then CM Punk came out and hugged Joey Styles. That was pretty much where I left...
Biggest Pops
- Carlito
- RVD
- Ric Flair
- Triple H (after the "you should hit him because of saying that" comment)
- Kane-Big Show entrance
- Chavo G (Lots n lots of Eddie chants)
- Video of the Undertaker dive to the outside on Henry
Biggest Heat
-John Cena
-Alejandro interruption of Flair
-Coach
-Chris Masters
-Edge
The Crowd was hot all night... Just the commercials seemed a little long, and we were very pissed of there being no opening pyro and to add to that, John Cena comes out instead of the pyro... Boy, way to go WWE!!
The WWE Superstar banners are still up from the night before and the scattered lights on the balconies, the only thing that was changed was the entrance set, they still had the WrestleMania 22 sign in front which blocked a lot of the Titantron view from
where I was sitting at. Overall, it was an OK Raw live.
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