RAW Off Air Notes, Cena Gets Massive Pop
HEAT results (I showed up about 10 minutes late so I’m not sure if I missed anything):
Some fat guy who I didn’t catch his name def. Val Venis with a Vader Bomb-type elbow drop
Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch def. Hacksaw Jim Duggan & Eugene when Murdoch DDT’d Hacksaw. Hacksaw looked hurt after the match. Not sure if it was a work.
The Highlanders def. 2 local jobbers with a sweet double team bounce off the rope flapjack
Cryme Tyme def. Chris Masters & Viscera when Shad rolled up Masters for the pin. Confused as to why Vis was teamed with Masters.
Notes from RAW:
Cena got a big pop when he appeared on the screen in the opening promo and Vince got a lot of heat. Then, HBK got a huge pop when he came on the screen.
Randy Orton got a huge face pop in the match against Edge, and there were many “Randy” chants. Might have something to do with him being from Knoxville, TN (a few hours from Nashville)
Lots of dead time between the Edge/Orton match and the very short Hardy/Nitro match. Made me forget how evenly battled the Hardy-Nitro feud was a few months back in a basic squash. Cade & Murdoch doing commentary must’ve been interesting. They got good heel heat when they tried to shake Hardy’s hand. Where was Matt?
Grisham did a bad job with the Sign of the Night during a commercial break.
RVD got a big pop. Where was Estrada? Seemed to be some confusion when Umaga caught RVD on the Five-Star. I was surprised there was no real interference by Shane-O at ringside.
In my opinion, great job with the swerves in the backstage attacks for the most part. When HBK got attacked, I thought Edge did it for sure.
When I saw that Edge was down, I figured they wanted to make it seem like it was Orton, but my friend and I both saw it coming that he was going to be attacked as well. We were convinced it was either Cena himself or Vince, but maybe that was just us hoping it wasn’t the obvious choice, Khali.
Again, there was confusion when Kennedy came out for his promo when he’s supposed to be on SmackDown! I thought he made the attacks, but he denied it. I have a feeling that he will be cashing in the MITB before WM 24. He got a huge pop when he asked if we wanted him to cash in the MITB tonight, and then a lot of heat when he said the obvious, “not gonna happen.”
Candice got a big pop on the Kiss Cam in a break.
The Carlito turn was pretty obvious. He got a lot of heat when he attacked Flair, but Flair got a HUGE pop when he was able to battle back.
I went to the bathroom during the women’s match. So boring.
Cena got a huge pop when he came out. I had trouble hearing the boos initially, but they came out when he started talking. I really thought that it was gonna be Cena who attacked HBK, Edge, and Orton, but again, maybe that was hoping that it wouldn’t be Khali. A lot of boos when Khali came out. I was expecting Vince to come out first. The pop was absolutely HUGE when Cena got Khali up for the F-U. I was disappointed when he couldn’t pull it off, but that’s also expected. A lot of heat for Khali when he held up the belt.
Dark Match: John Cena def. Shane McMahon with the STF-U
What a bad dark match. I was hoping for HBK, who didn’t even fight tonight, or at least Edge. Shane ran out after Cena got dropped by the two-handed chokeslam of Khali, and said “Well, since I have title envy, let’s start this match for the WWE Title, now.” Of course, Cena kicked out and ended up doing his Superman routine. Five knuckle shuffle, F-U, STF-U, tap out. Cena got huge pops for that. Then, the entertaining part where Vince came down. Cena said, “Vince, you didn’t come down here to save your son. You just came down here to show all these people what a jackass looks like in a doo-rag.” Huge pop. Hilarious. Then, Vince looked like he was gonna get in the ring, but instead tossed Shane in for another F-U. Cena said “The Champ is Here” to a huge pop as the show ended.
Biggest Pops:
1. Cena
2. Flair
3. RVD
4. HBK (for the brief moments that he was in it and his music)
5. Orton
Most Heel Heat:
1. Edge
2. Vince
3. Khali
4. Carlito when he attacked Flair
5. Cade & Murdoch
source: W-E
