Thanks to reader Don for sending in these live notes from last night’s RAW:
Arena was packed with exception of upper decks behind the camera – very nice crowd on hand on a school night. I managed to sit next to a guy who must have weighed 400 lbs. I was waiting for the seats to bend and break.
Start time was announced as 8:15; started off with all of the Superstars gear on the ring and the Superstars lights going – just one thing missing: the ring announcers! Not sure why they had it all running during the dark match.
Dark Match was Heath Slater vs. Jamie Noble – Slater hailed from some town in W. Virginia; he cut a decent heel promo and got the crowd behind Noble. Noble looked at least a foot shorter than Slater, but he still managed to hit his finisher to get the pin on Slater.
Ring crew pulls the ring apron for Raw out and we get a 10 minute wait for Raw to start.
They ran a promo for the fall of WCW DVD and also did a memorial for Captain Lou Albino.
Lots of promos (at least 4) pushing ticket sales for Wrestlemania 26 that starts on November 6. All of the promos for WM26 included every Jeff Hardy spot from WM 25 as well as Edge.
One thing that they did all night was turned up the music at certain points during the intros – it seemed like they were using the changes for a cue to the wrestlers/host.
Raw begins with Snoop Dogg taking his sweet time to come down to the ring.
During the commercial breaks they ran a few salute to the troops in Iraq and they featured Jeff Hardy in a few shots. No real attempt to ‘clean’ him out of any of their promos during the evening.
Crowd was dead for Orton-Ted Jr. – crowd popped for anything related to Cena, DX or Snoop.
Snoop Dogg did a little free style dancing during the break after his Chavo run in – Kelly Kelly didn’t look like she wanted to be out there with the other girls!
They showed NASCAR drivers Kyle Busch and Joey Logano as hosts for Raw next week – entire arena booed loudly. I thought we were screwed with Snoop Dogg.
Right before Jericho comes out the ring crew set up Kane’s pyro – we knew Kane would show up somewhere. Was surprised to see him come thru the crowd with the rest of Team Smackdown. We knew there was no match when Jericho waltzed out at 11:01.
Not sure where the live feed cuts off – Team Raw gets an assist from John Cena who cleared house of team Smackdown, only to get blindsided by Orton who was joined by both Legacy members. DX runs off Legacy to leave Orton in the ring with all three men. At some point during the melee HBK puts on Jerry ‘the King’ Lawler’s crown and wears it into the ring.
Orton grabs HHH’s DX cap and puts it on, and tries to talk HHH into doing the DX chant. Orton plays the crowd with the cap, doing the X with his arms, only to get boos. Orton turns into HBK to get Sweet Chin Music, followed by a Pedigree, followed by Cena hitting his F-U.
Cena gets a standing ovation, heads up the ramp only to be called back to the ring by DX.
DX try to teach Cena the DX stance, tells him to swivel his hips, says he too stiff. HHH makes a ring rat joke about HBK and swiveling his hips, then includes himself on the joke saying he did the ring rats thing too!
DX ask if we’re ready…then break down when talking about this might being Cena’s last show. Cena hugs HBK then HHH, Hunter reminds him that he can’t hug if his hips are loose now. They do the DX gimmick after some coaxing by the remaining fans and give Cena a send off.
HHH and HBK circled the ring and shook hands and took pictures to wrap up the night.
As we left, Ring announcer Justin Roberts announced we would see them again very soon, but no date given.
