We set off at 5am for the plane and with no cars on the road Manchester was only fifteen minutes away. After checking in involving a bizarre experience with a stag party which contained roughly forty men dressed as various characters such as Scooby Doo, Buzz Lightyear, Sylvester, a Pink Lady (of Grease fame) everything went smoothly. A fine plane ride ensued and the luggage came off the carousel as soon as we stepped off the plane. There was a little wait until the final leg of the journey occurred on the train but a Jeremy Clarkson book ensured it flew by. The train journey couldn’t have gone smoother; fine connections and perfectly on time, everything was going swimmingly. It was a half mile from the station to the hotel and thanks to the huge landmark that is Wembley stadium it was no problem to find. Of course we arrived there far too early and couldn’t check in for another two and a half hours, or so I thought until they said we could check in right away!
So everything had gone perfectly, surely something else must be go wrong? The show’s cancelled? We’ve lost the tickets? Hunter’s water bottle hits me clean on the head on knocks me out? Well luckily nothing that extreme happened more a case of a disappearing Asda. I looked on the internet where the Asda website informed me that there was a store 0 miles from the hotel. From that I expected to step outside of my hotel and step into the store. Incorrect. So I decided to take a walk around the stadium. A bunch of people were hanging around all with wrestling t-shirts on, I got chatting to a few of them about who’d turned up and who they’d seen. I have to say this is the greatest part of the trip, the fan interaction. As a wrestling fan, I am totally a minority in fact I know nobody who watches wrestling (at least on a semi-regular basis) anymore so attending these shows and having the opportunity to interact with like-minded people is great.
It turned out that Big Show and Viscera had made an appearance in the canteen (no surprises there) and Joey Styles had also got himself some lunch. Talk of the hunger reminded me that I was in fact very hungry and as I could see the big Asda sign in the distance I headed off for my sandwich… until I nearly reaches ‘Asda’ and it turned out it wasn’t Asda at all it was some stupid green store (no clue what the name is). Turning to my left Asda was visible and this time I can guarantee it was Asda. Finding it was another matter; after heading towards it, the four green letters faded out of view. After half an hour of searching I finally found it and got my food. Why I am writing this? You want the wrestling don’t you? Yes.
It turned out that I missed seeing Flair and King enter but I got my sandwich so everybody’s happy. It came to Raw and although the actual TV show didn’t seem that good, from where I was standing it was awesome. This is my third event of been to and the atmosphere was never as good as this before the show started. Wooooos, Eddie chants and we want God chants, Cena sucks and Cena rules chants prevailed through the arena until Lillian made her way to ring. Some bloke behind me was in love with Lillian and he let it be known throughout the show, unfortunately she never acknowledged it once. She sang the national anthem greater than the England football team has ever sung it before and announced it was time for Heat.
Surprisingly, Big Show was out first to a huge pop (half because he’s Show, half because he was the first guy out). Show is over huge with kids, they love the guy, I suppose it’s the fact that he’s seven foot and looks like he’d kill anybody in sight, take note Vince tough guys work. He faced two jobbers, one of which was German so he got huge heat. The crowd were totally into this as Show took his time to dismantle them, finishing one of them off with a chokeslam where he nearly dropped one guy mid-air. This was a fine opening match that the crowd were into, really perking them up for the rest of the night. This is the way to open a show; an over face winning. Simple.
Lance Cade was the second named guy out of the evening to little reaction as he took on Eugene who was over huge. This was a basic comedy match including Eugene putting on Cade’s hat, hulking up and hitting the Rock bottom. Cade eventually won with the Sweet (I’m guessing that’s what it called as when he did it with Murdoch it was the Sweet and Sour and I presume he’s the sweet guy of the pair). Again another decent match for the live audience with the crowd totally into Eugene.
Goldust & Snitsky teamed for the next match against two jobbers. It was mainly built around comedy spots including Snitsky’s foot fetish where he tried to get his opponents shoe off. A portion of the crowd laughed, but I don’t think that many of them actually got it. Team Bizarre eventually won with some sweet looking German suplex by Snitsky. Sweet looking and Snitsky in the same sentence, there’s something you never thought you’d read. This was probably the match on the card the crowd were least into.
Murdoch versus Kane was the main event with Kane going over in no time with the chokeslam. The crowd were totally into Kane for the same reason they were into Big Show; he’s a well known ass kicker. It was interesting to see that Kane was still wrestling as a babyface here despite his turn on Show last week. The crowd chanted May 19th at Kane but he gave no reaction to it at all. Another good squash to get the crowd ready for Raw which was next.
Coach came out to loads of heat, Styles came out to no reaction and any attempts at an ECW chant were ignored but Lawler got a huge reaction and plenty of Jerry chants. The Edge/Hunter/Cena saga was comedy gold. Hunter was damn funny with his ripping on Edge and this was apparent amongst the older members of the crowd. The crowd went mad for Hunter and his King of King’s music is awesome live. Plenty of bowing down to him and Triple H chants ensued. When Cena’s music hit the place went crazy; 75% hating him and 25% loving him. It was interesting to see that it wasn’t just kids who loved Cena, plenty of older teenagers and lads in their twenties were chanting for him. The segment went over well with the crowd all in all.
The six-man went over well with huge pops for RVD, Carlito and Shelton. RVD is over huge amongst everyone and there was a lad in the place in front of us who was on his feet all match chanting RVD doing the thumbs, he must have been knackered by the end of the match. Carlito got plenty of chants and Shelton got a good pop. I liked what they did with Carlito by not having him tag in straight away as he has history with RVD. A video or a segment would have been better here highlighting this rather than the Matt Striker heel heat that was attempted to be gained on the Unlimited segment that aired previous. The segments on the show didn’t seem to go over particularly well with the crowd who spent to it talking, can’t blame them really.
Maria did kiss cam which went down well and the two girls kissing got over huge. Fortunately this would not be the only time we’d see Maria that evening. Yay. Kane and Big Show made their Raw appearance in a backstage segment which got a good reaction and more May 19th chants from the crowd. Most people were asking what the hell May 19th was, I had no explanation except marketing.
Shane versus Shawn didn’t get a particularly good reaction during the match but got huge pops for Shawn and Vince’s entrances. The elbow through the table went over huge and Vince almost got booed out of the building by the live fans.
Umaga is pretty over. A section of the crowd were chanting his name but I was chanting we want Flair and when Flair finally made his appearance the crowd went wild. They didn’t really know what to chant or say, it was just excitement. The nature boy has still got it with the crowd totally into his chops and thousands of woos coming from all around.
The Trish/Mickie segment fell flat on its face after Trish did the interrupting thing. There was little noise from the crowd as nobody really seemed to care that much which is a shame because actually I like this storyline. They should have a fine match on Sunday.
The main event was awesome. Duelling chants including Fuck You Cena being busted out again and massive pops for Hunter lead to an awesome main event match. The Spirit Sqaud are awesome at just being the Spirit Squad and the crowd loved to hate them. After the cameras stopped rolling Cena got on the mic and commented on the number of DX fans in the house. He asked those who supported Triple H to make themselves known and it was damn loud. He then asked for the Chain Gang to let themselves be known and my god the roof nearly came off the place. The figures seem to flip round and when the heels were quiet the Chain Gang was so loud. Cena pushed the Backlash PPV (it’s free over here John) saying that it was going to be a moment in WWE history when a man comes down to the ring with a sledgehammer in his hand and leaves with a sledgehammer up his ass.
The crowd were awesome for this show, especially during the Cena segements as they totally ate it up. I love the atmosphere that’s created with the two sets of fans for and against the same guy, it makes the show so awesome. It may not have come off well on TV but as a live experience this was just great.
After the show I headed to the place where the wrestlers were leaving and there was quite a crowd there. Security were getting upset because people were looking (yes looking) over the barrier, they really were up their own arses (all but two who’ll I’ll talk about tomorrow). Through the window that looked over the car park I saw Flair and about a hundered backstage guys. This was a really good part of the night because there were a large number of kids outside and women who all loved Cena. As a person who loves to hate Cena I exploited this to the max. An ambulance came out and some kid asked his Dad who was in it; I responded with Cena saying he’s been attacked with a sledgehammer by Triple H. The boys face nearly fell off the end of the earth. I’m not that cruel so I told him I was joking by the way. Somebody drove past in the car with The Time Is Now playing at full blast, I started shouting turn it down and Cena sucks and I got a torrent of abuse from everybody there, but it was all good banter. Like I said before I think this is what is really good about these events.
Eventually RVD came out and gave his wristbands to a couple of fans. This is why RVD is over, he loves the fans so the fans love him. He’s the only guy who came out and I thought that was pretty cool. The coach went past at about midnight with everybody on it. The curtains were shut but Snitsky, Hunter and Victoria had left there’s open so we could see them. A chase ensued with 50 rabid wrestling fans were running after the coaches. We were hoping they were staying nearby but it turned out they weren’t as they sailed off into the night sky, well sailed off through the traffic lights so we lost them.
Overall this was a great experience. A really fun show, mainly due to the awesome atmosphere and meeting some cool people after the show. Shout outs to everybody I spoke to; sorry I tend not to do names (I can never remember them) including the Irish dude who’d traveled over, the guy who didn’t want RVD as champion and all the women and children that got annoyed with me.
I’ll be back with the Smackdown report on Saturday (because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone), don’t forget to download Friday’s podcast with this road report and a big Backlash preview and potentially a Lockdown review.
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