Thanks to Michael Davis for sending this in:
The following are notes from the live RAW! last night in Nashville, TN.
The Place was packed full of people sans the upper deck of the Bridgestone Arena on the right hand (Announce Table) side of ring. They had that end closed off while the last RAW! event (which was right before WM) had it open. Crowd was nuts before going live, primarily due to two "free matches" prior to the Opening Segment and Match of "Superstars" being filmed. Prior to going live, everyone could see the "NEXUS" getting into position in the ring and the boo’s were deafening. Shame it didn’t come across on the TV but, by then, the crowd had quieted dramatically.
When Cena’s music hit, one of the loudest, all-Cena POPS! I have heard live ever. You could feel the loud in the concrete by the time the locker room emptied. There were near riots in my section by then. If there was anything to compare the loudness to, it would be a jampacked arena during the NHL Playoffs with the Nashville Predators winning. Great way to start RAW! off and the crowd was set from there.
The Biggest pops were for Randy Orton and John Cena clearly. Even Golddust, who wrestled prior to RAW going live, got a nice well deserved pop when his music hit. Shame the Randy Orton-Evan Bourne match was cut in half by commercials because the match was a pay-per-view quality match in person, hands down. One of the best live matches I have ever seen on a RAW! live since the Attitude Era. Part of that is the fan following in Nashville for Jericho too. His band, "Fozzy" is quite popular in the underground music scene here and even Chris was out hitting the clubs last night after the show. Very good overall and had the crowd really on the edge for the duration of the match.
The End of RAW! was almost like the beginning all over with folks looking around for "NEXUS" to run out from somewhere in the arena. John Cena still had a full showing of support from the crowd. If there were any boo’s, you couldn’t hear them at all. After RAW went off, Sheamus came out and so did Edge, the bell rang while John Cena was in the middle of the ring. Darren Young was still stinging from the beating he took at the end of RAW!. It appeared to be a 2-on-1 match and Randy Orton’s music hit and once again, the roof was raised and the place went nuts. Great aftershow match with Randy Orton and John Cena "winning". Cena goes around the ring and celebrates and we all wait for Orton to R-K-O him, but he walks up to Cena and raises his arm and the place goes crazy. Everytime Randy went off the ring to the back he was gracious off camera to the crowd for the support as was Cena. With Randy originally being from Knoxville, that had to play into that because he appeared to have some friends in the floor section next to the ramps. Great show overall like the last RAW! here in The Music City!
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
