Thanks to Kim Gray for sending in this live report:
My husband and I attended Raw last night in Memphis, and we
had a blast. Here’s my live report!
There were still a lot of empty seats for the dark match.
It was Snitsky vs. a guy that I had never seen. I couldn’t
hear his name. But, he had cuban sounding music. He didn’t
even have a Titan Tron video. That guy won and Snitsky was
mercilessly booed out of the building.
Lillian sang the National Anthem. It was fantastic…it
gave me chills!
As the show started, I looked around and there really
weren’t a lot of empty seats. I’d say 85% full.
We were all surprised to see the cage being lowered first
thing. The refs had a little trouble getting it hooked onto
the ring. The crowd was hot for the cage match. Punk got a
huge pop. Jericho was booed pretty much with some Y2J and
Y2Gay chants going.
Dolph Diggler introducing himself to everyone all night was
ridiculous…I couldn’t even hear his name. I thought it
was Dolph Ziggler or something.
Jillian’s “singing” is even worse in person. My ears were
bleeding! Candice got a great reaction. I know that she
still needs a lot of work, but Candice has the potential to
be great. But, she’s really skinny in person. My husband
commented he didn’t realize how thin she was.
JBL got the most heat of the night by far. The crowd was
about to come unglued while he sat in that chair in the
ring. Dolph Diggler even come out and introduced himself to
JBL during commercial. Then, Randy Orton (thank God) came
out and saved us from that. He amazingly got a pretty good
pop! I can’t even boo Santino anymore. He’s just funny.
Crowd went nuts for Batista. Beth slapped Batista really
good both times. It was loud. The crowd loved it even more
when he bombed her on top of Santino.
Charlie Haas as Jim Ross was really funny…he’s so good at
those impressions.
The crowd could have cared less for the Jamie Noble/Paul
Burchill match, but it had it’s place to move the
Regal/Noble/Layla story.
Rey Mysterio came out to a huge pop. But, I don’t know if
it looked this way on TV but his match with Kane was very
sloppy. I really like Evan Bourne and wouldn’t be surprised
if he were on Raw before the end of the year.
Jericho come out and started with that promo – being booed
mercilessly. We pretty much figured out HBK had to be the
#1 Contender. I loved the look on Jericho’s face when the
HBK chants started. Then the roof blew off the place when
HBK came out!
After Raw went off the air, HBK ran to the ring and gave
sweet chin music to both Cade & Jericho. Then HBK
celebrated with the belt. Then he went around the ring
slapping hands with fans and left.
After the show, my husband and I went to Hooters on Beale
Street and had the pleasure of meeting Charlie Haas, Manu,
Shad, Kofi Kingston, and Rey Mysterio sans mask. They
actually sat at the table next to us. We got them to sign
our ticket stubs. All were super nice. My husband asked
Shad why Cryme Tyme didn’t come out and Shad said he was
hurt – pointing to his shoulder.
Biggest Pops:
1. HBK – by far
2. Rey Mysterio
3. Batista
Biggest Heat:
1. JBL
2. Jericho
3. Mike Adamle