Live notes by someone at the Royal Rumble

Once again, I will keep all of my live notes on things the viewer at home probably did not see or missed. If you saw the show on pay per view then there is no need for me to explain what we all saw.

300 tickets were released before the show started outside at the ticket box.

Lilian Garcia came down to the ring and sang the national anthem.

DARK MATCH: J.T.G. with Shad vs. Lance Cade with Trevor Murdoch. A short time killer for the crowd was all this match was. J.T.G won the match by cheating with his feet on the ropes to pin Cade. This was a typical comedy match.

Next up the Raw announce team came out. This is always funny in Texas because Jim Ross comes out to Oklahoma Sooners music, so naturally everyone always gives him a few boos. King came out and was cheered. Smackdown's JBL and Michael Cole came out next and JBL was kicking the camera guy filming them. Very funny. Tazz and Joey Styles came out next to a big pop.

The Hardy Boys vs. MNM: I don't have any live notes. What you saw on tv was what we saw. The Hardy Boys clean sweeped MNM which suprised some of the crowd.

Test vs. Bobby Lashley: The only live note I have is in the middle of the match the time keeper, Mark Yeaton got up from his chair and removed the white tag rope from the wrestling ropes. It was weird and I didn't really understand why he did that.

Batista vs. Ken Kennedy: Good match and the crowd was popping huge for Batista. I was near gorilla position and now know why Batista has been shaving his head. He has a nice new bald spot if you look carefully. Not bad since he is in his forties, but that might explain the recent bald look.

Umaga vs. John Cena: Great match live. Not sure how it came off on ppv, but live it was awesome and the crowd was 90 percent pro Cena. The only note I have is that Styles kind of gave away the table spot by Umaga live. He started backing away in his chair really early on and Tazz kept motioning for him to get back to the table as not to give the spot away. By the time he rolled back to the desk they had to bail for the huge table spot.

Royal Rumble Match Notes: A few notes to make on the rumble itself. After Sabu pulled the table out, the referees had to move it more to the center on the padding for the spot to come later. This was funny live because a referee should get rid of the table, yet they were setting it up for the wrestlers.

After Kane was eliminated, he walked back to the gorilla position, but when the crowd started counting down for the next participant he was by the pyro section of the ramp. So he ran fast to the backstage. My belief is he didn't want to get hit with pyro just in case the next wrestler had pyro.

Shawn Michaels got the obvious pop of the night. The hometown hero always does in San Antonio. Undertaker also got a huge ovation later in the match when coming out.

Shelton Benjamin was eliminated and proceeded to mess with the red hat fan. This fan is at almost every show and the wrestlers always mess with him. Shelton used the guys head to stand himself back up. Pretty funny off camera stuff.

After the Rumble, Lilian Garcia signed a few autographs for some fans by the barricades. Good show live. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it live.

After the show I stuck around and noticed the new RAW referee getting girls for some off the wrestlers. All of a sudden when the arena was almost empty about 5 really good looking women were escorted to the gorilla position by this referee. Lance Cade came out and flirted with one woman and kissed her on the cheek. The RAW ref was able to get a lot of really good looking women to go back there, but I am proud to report one turned him down. That's really all I have! I will have another report of live notes for WrestleView on Tuesday after I go to Smackdown and ECW.

- Cory Wiatrek