Dark Match, Heat Tapings & Bonus Match from Fort Lauderdale, Florida
On Tuesday, November 20, 2007 at 4:39 PM EST Rohan Campbell sent this report in:
Just got home from RAW. Doors opened around 7pm. Dark matches didnt start until 8pm. The top seats were mostly tarped off, but most seats were filled. Near a sellout.
Many "woooooooooooooo's" and scattered Y2J chants before the show began
Vladamir Koslov fought suprisingly Norman Smiley. Smiley got a decent pop since he's from the South Florida area. Koslov got no real reaction. He wins in a squash. Hacksaw Jim Duggan faced some overweight dude who dressed like Umaga and had hair like Carlito. "Hoooooo" chants all over the arena. Duggan wins with a three point stance. Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch beat the Highlanders. Kind of odd there were 2 heel tag teams fighting, but the crowd was behind Cade and Murdoch. I forgot how they won, but they did. Brian Kendrick and Paul London beat the Worlds Greatest Tag Team. Very entertaining match.
They showed a few videos. Cena got a mixed reaction every time his face was on the screen (mostly cheers). Lilian Garcia (she's so much hotter in person) came out. Jim Ross came out to a nice ovation. Odd that Jerry Lawler didn't come out (which we found out why later). Lilian sang the national anthem and here was RAW!
Note: I saw MANY Y2J signs that weren't confiscated (shocking) around the arena
Damn, RAW pyro is LOUD! Crowd was into nearly every match. HBK got the loudest reaction (until you know who). People were confused when William Regal announced the match between HBK and Kennedy when HBK superkicked the chair to Kennedys head and all of a sudden, the match was over.
Santino/Jerry Lawler: King got a decent reaction. Crowd ate up Santino taking King's crown and mimicing him on the mic (I really wish people would stop doing that WHAT? bullshit when someone's talking, it's annoying and it's played out). Boring match, until Orton came out. Every RKO Orton did, he got booed loudly.
Umaga/Jeff Hardy: Match of the night to me. Crowd was WAY behind Jeff. Booed Umaga mercifully. Crowd was upset when Snitsky came out. Triple H came to "save the day" and got a good reaction. Crowd was laughing when Triple H made the comment about todd grisham and transvestites.
Cody Rhodes/Hardcore Holly: decent match. Crowd didn't seem to care. Only reaction is when Orton RKO'd both men.
Divas match: No one knew who that guy was that Jilian was talking about. Some one asked: "Is it 1992 again?" Anyways, her singing made my ears hurt. Thank God Mickie and Maria came out. That 450 splash Jillian did and mistakenly hit Melina looked like Jillian's knee did hit Melina in the face. I thought these women would have learned from Candice Michelle.
Don't remember hearing that Carlito/Hornswoggle was no dq, but anyways. People ate up Hornswoggle running around and making jobberito (oops, I meant carlito) look like a fool. Finlay got no reaction when he hit the ring. Crowd was behind lil' mcmahon. The way things are going, Carlito should be done by next week. To show he doesn't care for WWE, as he was leaving to head to the back, he gaves us the finger.
Before I write about the last segment, let me just say this. The American Airlines Arena is at least 30 minutes from the Bank Atlantic Center as far as driving distance is concerned, so when the runner ran from the triple A to RAW in under 2 hours, it seemed kinda fishy. Anyways, when the runner was running into the arena and "someone" clotheslined him, the crowd lost it. From that moment until his music stopped, it was the loudest ovation I heard since Stone Cold came back to WWE before WrestleMania on RAW. Crowd ate up everything he said. It's so good to see him.
When RAW went off the air, DX's music hit and we had a dark match. They faced Kennedy and Umaga. Crowd ate up DX. Typical DX match. When HBK was doing a sunset flip, he pulled down Kennedy's trunks and Kennedy's bare white ass was shown (worst 30 seconds of my life). Typical DX match (HBK takes most of the beating, tags in Triple H and he "saves the day" again, with a spinebuster here, facebuster there). Match ends with the superkick to Kennedy, then a Pedrigee to finish Kennedy off. DX goes in the crowd, high fives everyone in sight, and the night is over.
This was my first ever WWF/E event so I went home happy. In all a great night and a lot of fun.
Biggest Pops
Chris Jericho
HBK
Jeff Hardy
Triple H
Biggest Heat
Randy Orton
Umaga
Santino
Jillian (when she sang)