Last night, as of this writing, I attended the WWE Monday Night Raw event here in Little Rock Arkansas. It is not often the company comes to central Arkansas, so it is an event for me to get to see it live. An event it was. For those that are not fans of WWE, I hope you see why they are so popular with people as you read this review of the event. For the fans, you already know what to expect and WWE didn’t disappoint.
Getting to the show is almost as fun as the show
I am not sure how parking is done in other cities but here in Arkansas, when they build an arena, parking is not even planned (outside of required parking to put on whatever show). That means there is no parking deck or anything near the arena for fan parking which leaves fans at the mercy of local businesses. Considering these are businesses, they are not going to do much for free. Parking for events at the arena is one thing they are going to charge quite a bit for.
Cheap parking is $10 for the events and is obviously usually sold out quickly. Last night I had to park in the $20 parking area, it did come with much easier exiting of the area though (we had a private exit to a lesser used road). That meant no waiting to go home. Others that attended and got in on the $10 parking have told me that they waited nearly an hour to leave the area due to traffic jams.
I don’t know about you, but I will pay an extra $10 to be gone and out of that area and save an hour doing it.
I attended the show with my girlfriend so there was two of us at the show. She took a pic of my prior to the show with one of the semi-truck trailers that featured The Miz (not my favorite wrestler but much respect for what the man accomplished). Later I was able to get a picture of her in front of another trailer featuring her favorite wrestler, Roman Reigns.
We made use of the digital Ticketmaster tickets option so going through security and getting into the show was a breeze. Empty pockets, walk through scanner, make an ill-timed joke about wearing steel toe shoes and kicking butt that night, and get scanned. I lucked out and got a cool security person who laughed at the butt kicking comment. I mentioned I wear them because I hate getting my feet stepped on and he mentioned they wear them too for the same reason. Cool guy, the lady he was working with was not so cool. She asked him if we were going to have a problem after my joke and he told her “No, he’s cool.” I can only imagine how that would have gone if they had been swapped. Lol
Usual activities prior to the show
Bathroom breaks, meeting up at the seats, etc here. We got messed over on our seats a little bit. I always buy seats close to the edge of the aisle, mainly because the seating is so cramped from row to row. Well, we were seats 12 and 13 of a row of 16 seats. Unfortunately, WWE had a camera setup taking up the three end seats, so we had to enter the row from seat number one rather than seat number sixteen. A lot of people were not happy about it but well, what do you do?
To show my respect, I never left my seat once seated. I didn’t miss a thing. Lol.
We got there in time to catch the last match of Main Event, which airs on Hulu and I believe on the WWE Network. It was a six-man tag featuring a couple of my favorite wrestlers, Robert Roode and Eric Young. They won so it was time to chalk one up for the good guys.
Oh, I do want to mention, if you are expecting anything about Bray Wyatt as the Fiend, or himself, you will be disappointed. Little Rock was skipped for anything – not even a video package on the screen. Weird considering they are pushing him on Smackdown Live as I write this. Maybe they are moving him to Tuesday night for a little while to cause a few scares? Anyhow, Little Rock didn’t even get any puppet pop-ups. Sad. Especially considering the live fans were very vocal about wanting him (I am not sure if it carried over on TV or not). The lower bowl area seemed to had tried to get a Bray chant of some sort going but it didn’t pick up much momentum, later in the night the upper area tried as well – maybe had they planned it or joined in together on both attempts it would have been more powerful.
On with the show
Before we get going here, I have a few caveats for anyone that has not watched a sporting event live. Especially one like WWE which depends so much on the announce team helping keep the viewers up to date on things. Things such as what match is next, who is participating, and what the stipulations are. Fans there live are flying blind. They don’t even put this information on any of the huge screens in the arena. That is something I wish they would do.
I was loading Sling TV up on my phone and catching the entrances there as that is when the announce team usually mentions the match details. This was the only way we knew any details other than what we saw. I wish they would fix this in the future. Especially considering we will be attending the WWE Live Holiday Tour on November 29th 2019 at Verizon (and an independent event on October 12th 2019 in another town). Can you tell I like wrestling?
One of the most interesting titles that WWE, hell wrestling in general, has going right now is the 24/7 Championship. They had a mosh pit style match between R-Truth and Carmella and Drake Maverick and Renee. This was apparently a mixed tag match that would have the 24/7 title’s fate being decided even if the women were involved in the pin fall. Kind of weird but this is WWE and this is not the weirdest thing of the night.
For us live at the show it was confusing as to what was going on. Then we saw the entrance for R-Truth and Carmella and the arena blew up. If it sounded like the crowd was into their entrance it is because the crowd was. It was hard to hear during this. I would venture to say, live R-Truth and Carmella got at least the second biggest pop from the crowd. The first being Rollins.
Comedy is money which is probably why they keep R-Truth bouncing back and forth as 24/7 Champion. He is gold with or without the title. Monday night, he won. Considering this was a “mosh pit” match, long term fans probably refer to this as a Lumberjack Match, where there are many wrestlers arranged around the ring. The difference here was they were not waiting to throw competitors back in the ring, instead they were waiting for the winner to be announced.
Why the 24/7 Championship is so damn unique and entertaining
The title should be a clue for anyone that is not familiar with the 24/7 Championship. It is literally a title that can be defended wherever and whenever there is a referee available to do the three-count making it official. This is a reference to a previous title WWE had years ago that featured a similar stipulation – the Hardcore Championship. If I am not mistaken after that title was retired it was eventually officially retired to Mick Foley (who is the person that introduced the 24/7 Championship – sort of passing the torch to this new title).
We have seen title changes occur in hallways, in the ring, parking lot, in cars, even paid championship changes. We even saw R-Truth take the title back from Drake Maverick at Maverick’s wedding and on the night that marriage was supposed to be “consummated” of all places.
I am telling you R-Truth is gold here. I am glad they are finally utilizing him in something prominent, even if it is a joke angle – he is making it the hot thing to watch on YouTube highlights.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming
We end up with what was expected after the mixed tag that was apparently for the 24/7 Championship. The group outside climb on the ring apron and enter the ring to pig pile on R-Truth and a referee counts three but it is clear even he doesn’t know who won. This is evident because as he was pulling people off the pile, Mike Kanellis gets out of the ring with the title and the ref points at him and signals there is the winner of the match. It was a different ending compared to other times Truth was cornered like this.
If you don’t get wrestling, then you will probably not get this next bit
Mike runs like hell to the back and locks himself in a room that happens to have “Officials” on a sign hanging on it. This should tell anyone that has seen 24/7 matches that this is not good.
I am combining the 24/7 segments here instead of breaking them up as they were during the event.
Of course, the group from the ring find him and start slamming on the door wanting in. Maria Kanellis shows up and plays the “pregnant” card to gain access to the room with Mike.
Long story short here because I zoned out a lot during this short period as it was clear where it was going is – Maria is the first pregnant 24/7 Champion. She forced her subservient husband to lay down for the pin, considering this was a dressing room for WWE officials, there was a referee readily available.
While I see this as an interesting story angle, I am not interested in it because I know WWE will carry this out for way too long. They are going to have Maria playing the pregnant card to get her a stupidly long title reign as the 24/7 Champion. This will become a marketing gimmick of sorts as she is not only the first pregnant champion of any promotion, she will have a title reign of weeks, maybe months, with a title that is known for championship changes happening in seconds.
On with the rest of the event
We got a gauntlet match next. This is something that was unique for WWE as I don’t remember seeing one lately. I may have and simply forgotten it as I do watch a ton of wrestling, not just WWE. These are not often used because they take so much airtime to process. Tonight, we got just that as this series of matches seemed to take forever.
I am not knocking the people involved in any way. It is just the booking for this match was predictable till Andrade took out Rey Mysterio. Look, I don’t have anything against Mysterio but something is off. Timing is not right or just Cesaro is not the right opponent. Same for the next opponent to feel the 619. I am going to have to go with Mysterio being at the end of his career here, as sad as that may be for some fans.
I personally lost interest in Mysterio with the whole WCW “Giant killer” angle they went with, then recreated in WWE years later and apparently made his career stipulation.
Now that is out of the way, the next opponent was Andrade but of course, Zayne must extend the match even longer with a series of complaints. Andrade steps aside and lets Zayne get his butt handed to him again by Mysterio before entering the match and winning that round.
Can you tell I am not a fan of artificially extending segments?
Anyhow, finalizing the gauntlet match was Ricochet taking the win against Andrade and moving on to take on AJ Styles at Summer Slam. Ricochet’s style is one you must witness live – he has some great moves, but I do wonder how long he will be able to do some of those things before they take their toll physically. Enjoy it while you can because memories are forever.
A Moment of Bliss was next, or as the audience viewed it, a bathroom/food break. Nothing major happened here and it was completely forgettable as usual.
Tag Team Triple Threat Match picks up the pace
At first, I was thinking this was going to be a throw away match where the titles don’t change hands. Boy was I wrong. We got The Revival versus The Usos versus the OC, Anderson and Gallows. At first it seemed that The OC were not going to get much involvement in the decision as it was constantly Revival/Usos.
This was a good solid match in a category, tag team triple threat, that is usually hard to pull off well. There was a good build up to getting Anderson and Gallows involved and they were able to pull of some decent heel moves (that the live crowd cheered). Overall, a good match here.
Squash matches making a return
Anyone that watched wrestling up to the Monday Night Wars era knows what a squash match is. Back then it was commonplace to see an established wrestler for the company taking on local talent and just decimating them. Once WCW and WWF at the time, now WWE, started going head to head, they both had to start putting on headliner matches more often. This ended the squash match period for the most part.
This year and late last year we started seeing more squash matches in WWE programming. Following the same formula of local talent getting squashed by stars WWE wants to present to fans but not have them taking a push from someone else.
That is what happened with the Viking Raiders against Cole Carter and Johnny James. It was the usual match and it was over quickly. While I like the Viking Raiders, they need to be given better competition that presents a challenge if they are going to be built up as formidable.
Womens Championship match that was predictable
When are we going to see someone other than Alexa Bliss or Charlotte Flair in the two Women’s Championship singles matches (does WWE even remember they have a Women’s Tag Championship title?). I mean, it is predictably sad at this point that when Bliss is involved and in any kind of danger of losing, she is going to fake an injury and come back immediately to attack her former opponent. If they are going to do this, at least have her play it out a week or two, attacking when no one can prove it was her or something, and build into a match at a PPV a couple months away. That would give her matches for the title a little more oomph because right now, they are bathroom break material for most fans.
Becky Lynch got quite a pop when her music hit. She certainly has fan support. Too bad she is given matches like this.
After Bliss fakes the injury, they have Nikki Cross challenge Lynch and this ends with Cross on her back. Then the inevitable happens, we get a Bliss run in and beat down including Cross against Lynch. The big difference her was Natalya breaking it up to put Lynch in a Sharpshooter.
Time to burn it down in suplex city
Next is Seth Rollins taking on Dolph Ziggler. This one starts out fun as Ziggler comes out to Shawn Michaels’ music to much fanfare till fans realize it is not HBK. This gives me the impress that we might see Bray Wyatt at some point considering he has been attacking other stars that have multiple personalities or entrances (Ziggler has come out to MANY a superstars entrance since returning). No such luck.
Starts out as a good match but it is interrupted by Brock Lesnar, for whom the fans blow up for, and the beat down commences. Several F5’s and belly to back suplexes later and we see Rollins leaving on a gurney.
Now, I don’t know how the sound of Rollins hitting that chair was handled on TV but live, it was a very sick sounding noise. Sure, it may be a gimmicked chair and such but until you hear that stuff live, it doesn’t really have the same effect. It just sounded awful.
There is a skirmish backstage involving Roman Reigns and his opponent, Samoa Joe, the Usos and the OC. It was a good break up while the ring crew cleaned up the ring after the Lesnar beat down.
The next scene is the F5 on the stretcher that looked horrible how Rollins landed. He landed more on his hip than stomach where he could have deflected some of the impact with his feet and hands. Again, a rather sick move.
The scheduled match for Joe and Reigns doesn’t get going as Drew McIntyre interferes first, then Cedric Alexander, then the Usos and the OC all get involved. It is a brawl as expected but the highlight is Alexander jumping off the top of the Raw screens. It was a cool move.
This just leaves Joe and Reigns to continue fighting next week and then at Summer Slam without either taking the hit on their push before the payoff.
All in all, the show was fun. Most online are rating it between 5 and 10 on a scale of 10. I would give it a 7 or maybe an 8 but that is biased a bit as I was there live. It was a fun time and worth every penny to attend live, especially if you have a smaller arena to view it in like I do. Verizon Arena seats about 8,000 people and it was not sold out (there was large portions curtained off and there were some empty seats across from us – behind the hard cam). That is normal at this arena though, they curtain off the higher up, farthest away seats at all the shows I have attended here (wrestling, monster trucks, bike races, etc) so this is not a case of “WWE not being able to sell out a small arena” it is just that arena. I don’t think those seats are even offered (maybe they are skybox seats or something).
If you get a chance to catch wrestling live it is completely different than watching on television, I can tell you that.
As already mentioned, I will be attending the WWE Live Holiday Tour stop on November 29th and on the 12th of October will be catching a smaller promotion in another town. What can I say, I like wrestling and want to support those putting on shows so that maybe I can catch more wrestling in the future.
What events have you caught live?