SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)…
WWE RAW ON-SITE REPORT
MAY 6, 2019
CINCINNATI, OHIO
REPORT BY ZACK, PWTORCH CORRESPONDENT
-The only part tapped off was the second deck behind the camera. It was about 75 percent full, so probably 12,000 or so out of 17,000 capacity. A pretty good crowd.
-The crowd was into the show, as usual. It’s never crazy loud here, but they got loud for the babyfaces and there was enough throughout the show to keep people’s energy up.
MAIN EVENT TAPING
(1) Cedric Alexander beat EC3. It was a pretty quick match and Cedric was in control most of the time. There were a select few who threw their hands up for the One Percenter entrance, but the fans were still filing in and it wasn’t big.
(2) Peyton Royce beat Nikki Cross.
NOTES FROM RAW…
-When Vince McMahon first came out, there were both cheers and boos. I couldn’t really understand some of what he was saying. I maybe could understand half or three-fourths of what he said, for some reason. Everyone was excited that he was there because it indicates big news is going to happen.
-It was weird when A.J. Styles came out during the opening segment. Everyone just hung out in the ring during the commercial break on TV. That happened two or three times during the show where a wrestler came out and they just hung out. When Ricochet came out, they ran a commercial and then The IIconics came out and ripped on Cincinnati and then returned to the back. That was apparently done to keep the crowd entertained during the break as Ricochet just stood in the ring.
-Roman Reigns got all cheers. I didn’t hear any boos at all. It was kind of surprising. His second ring entrance got half the pop, but it was still all positive and good.
-The tag match with The Viking Raiders vs. Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins didn’t have much heat. When Ryder & Hawkins first came out, their music started but there wasn’t a graphic on the screen. Then it came on mid-way to the ring. It was a dead match. Fans around me were looking at their phones and looked up for the pin.
-After the Firefly Funhouse ended, everyone around me looked around trying to see other people’s reaction. One guy asked if fans really like that stuff. It wasn’t getting people too excited, they were just questioning what it was all about.
-I was very surprised at the reaction to the Usos-Revival skit. When they showed a reply of last week’s angle, people were cracking up around me thinking it was the funniest thing ever. It continued with the angle tonight. People in the crowd around me were loving it, but I didn’t like it, and it didn’t seem as popular around the rest of the arena was it was in my section, for some reason.
-Top reaction of the night went to Kofi Kingston. Becky Lynch got a pretty good pop. When Braun Strowman interrupted Sami Zayn, that was the second-loudest pop of the night.
OTHER NOTES…
-It didn’t air, Mojo Rawley came out during Raw with his new face-paint and cut a promo against the fans. No one seemed into it. He had a New York accent I hadn’t heard from him before.
-Titus O’Neal came out during a commercial and blamed Baker Mayfield for the Kentucky Derby controversy.
-After Kofi Kingston came out with his platter of pancakes, a WWE staff member handed pancakes to fans in the crowd. People were taking handfuls of pancakes. That guy was using his bare hands to hand them to people.
-The lowest ticket price was about $35 and first level was around $50. I paid about $50 for the second row of the first level. Right before the show, tickets were as low as $17.
-Before WrestleMania they advertised this as a “Road to WrestleMania” show with advertisements for The Shield appearing. They listed a couple matches on an email yesterday from WWE, but they didn’t present any match after Raw ended.
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