WWE Raw - Live Report From Nashville - April 30, 2007

Hey everyone. I attended Raw last night in Nashville and as always have a live report for you.

Pre show notes. Good size crowd in Nashville. The place was mostly full and this crowd was HOT. Outside the building, there was a guy from TNA handing out advertisements to people in line. If you didn't know, TNA's home offices are located there in Nashville. He was handing out info on the Slamiversary PPV from what I heard from someone else. Merchandise stand was pretty good and they had a good variety of stuff. Stuff seemed to be selling well.

On to Sunday Night Heat. Yep, Heat is still around but you have to watch it on WWE.com. Some good matches and I was surprised at the results of some of these matches. Where has Kenny gone? He's jobbing on Heat!! In the opening match of the night, Kenny wrestled Chuck Palumbo who I forgot was still even with WWE. Palumbo has a new gimmick of riding a motorcycle into the building. Palumbo got a quick win on Kenny which was surprising to say the least. What is Val Venis doing now? Well, he is now jobbing on Heat to people that I've never even seen before. He wrestled this guy named Anthony Polaski. Polaski wins with a move where he does drops an elbow out of a vader bomb style start off the ropes. The arena was stunned that Val lost. Highlanders defeated this twin looking tag team. Funny that the Highlanders continue to slap each other to tag each other in. Big reaction for the Highlanders from the fans. Next was Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Eugene taking on Cade and Murdoch. Fun match and I enjoyed seeing Duggan live as I've never seen him live before. Cade and Murdoch get the win. Cryme Tyme was next taking on Chris Masters and Viscera. Gotta say that I'm surprised to have heard the pop that Cryme Tyme got. They got a huge ovation and the biggest of the night so far. I was impressed with their match. Crowd was really into them. I'd like to see this team work more off of TV where they get more time to see what they've got. Then, it was waiting around for Raw to begin.

Raw opened up with a funny segment of Shawn, Cena, and Vince all talking backstage. A rematch is announced for the main event of Shawn vs. Cena. I'm thinking, oh my goodness, yes!! The opening pyro goes off. First time I've heard the new Raw theme as far as live in the building since they changed it back in October. We actually didn't know any of the matches set to take place until the show progressed. Edge vs. Orton opened the show and this was a very fun and good match. I seemed to be one of the few people cheering for Edge. Maybe I need to take a sign that says "Edgehead since 1998". Orton was getting a lot of cheers and chants of "Randy". The Edge spear off of the apron that sent Orton crashing on to the announce table looked as nasty live as it did on TV. The sound of the landing made it seem even worse. Great spot. Orton was cut open during the match and Edge did get the win after a spear. We went to the Santino Marella interview and honestly I didn't pay any attention to it so I don't know what he said. We get to Cade and Murdoch returning but this time to do commentary on the Jeff Hardy/Johnny Nitro match. Crowd was really hot for Hardy. Fun match that ended with Hardy winning with the swanton bomb. After the match, Cade and Murdoch got in and congratulated Hardy on the win. Hardy didn't trust their appreciation and walked off from them. Shane McMahon comes out and this was the first time that I've seen Shane in person as far as in character. It was fun to see the Shane dance as he walked out. He introduces Umaga. His opponent, Rob Van Dam. This was a great surprise!!! They got in my good graces with putting him on the show. RVD goes for the 5 star frog splash but Umaga catches him in a choke on the landing. He then nails the Samoan spike and gets the pin on RVD. After the match, Vince comes out and celebrates with Shane and Umaga. Backstage to Carlito, Flair, and Torrie. Carlito apologizes for taking out the loss last week on Flair. Carlito tells Flair that to make up for it that he got a match with Haas and Benjamin. Next is the Shawn/Cena match set to take place. Shawn's music hits. We're loving it and waiting for him to come out but then suddenly start feeling bad when it's taking too long for him to walk out. Sure enough, the screen cuts to a shot in the back of Shawn knocked out backstage. Someone has attacked him. Cena is there and Coach blames him. No Shawn Michaels!! Next match hits the ring and it is Flair and Carlito taking on Benjamin and Haas. People were wooo-ing all night even before this match. So, you can imagine how much woo's that were going on in this one. It was pretty clear that Carlito was turning especially right before it happened. Flair was on the offense and Carlito was just kind of stumbling around looking out of place. Sure enough, the heel turn happens as Carlito turns on Flair. The two end up brawling as Flair ends up chasing Carlito up the aisle. Fans were really into Flair jumping on Carlito on the ramp and I loved that too. Haas and Benjamin were just watching from inside the ring as this brawl went on. I thought their reaction was pretty funny watching their opponents just pounding on each other. Cut to the back and Edge is knocked unconscious as well. Out comes Mr. Kennedy and my first thought was maybe he's the guy taking people out. He immediately says he didn't have anything to do with it. He teases cashing in the money in the bank in Nashville. Come on, what sense would that make? He didn't but kept talking about how he'll make an impact when it happens. He looked really cool in the ring with the lights out only with the spotlight on him. Kennedy says that he'll cash it in at WrestleMania 24. Cut to the back and Randy Orton is unconscious backstage. Coach goes to Vince and tells of all the guys that are down. Vince gets mad saying that Coach was supposed to figure out who is doing this damage. Vince says that the reason that this is happening is cause of John Cena and to tell Cena to go to the ring and face off with the man who did this. Women's match is up next. Mickie James and Candice vs. Melina and Victoria. Good women's match!! I'm a big Mickie James fan and this was the first time that I've seen her live. Candice tried to get the crowd all fired up at one point and got very little of a reaction. Candice ended up getting the pin on Victoria. As they went up the aisle celebrating, they immediately cut to Cena in the back on the big screen and the attention went to him. The music hits and out comes WWE champion John Cena. Mixed crowd but I'd say the fans were cheering for Cena more than booing. I'd say it was at least 80% cheers for Cena. He had been getting some boos throughout the night but it seemed like the boos mostly got drowned out when he made his way to the ring. Loud pop!! Whether you like Cena or don't, he draws a reaction. Very cool to see his entrance and his music sounded awesome in the building. Cena called out whoever "is trying to make a statement". Then comes the groan of Khali's music hitting. I mean I groaned bad when I realized it was him that was the guy who was taking people out. We had been speculating too that it might be him. I couldn't really judge what kind of immediate reaction that the fans gave. Everyone just kind of reacted at the same time but I don't know if anyone was really excited about it. The crowd was into the fight between Cena and Khali though. Khali is a MONSTER in person. He's boring but he is one large human being. The crowd went nuts when Cena got Khali up on his shoulders for a moment. There was also a section of fans though that were cheering for Khali at ringside including chanting his name but it should be pointed out that it was an anti-Cena section. Khali picked up Cena for the tree throw or whatever it is called. He dropped him and it looked NASTY live. He launched Cena across the ring!! The show then went off the air with Cena laying on the mat.

After the show went off the air. Cena was still down on the mat. Shane McMahon's music hit immediately and he runs out ordering a WWE title match.....right now. He goes for an immediate pin but Cena kicks out. Shane puts a beating on Cena for a little bit but Cena then gets back going. He hits the five knuckle shuffle and then hits his finisher. Then, Cena hooks the submission and Shane taps out. Out comes Vince McMahon and Cena eggs him on to get in the ring. Vince keeps going to get in but doesn't. He then throws Shane back in who gets hit with the finisher again. Cena and Vince continue to have words for a couple of minutes. Vince then throws Shane back in....again who takes another finish from Cena. It was really funny.

Other notes from Raw. The sound system in that arena is amazing. The music sounded great all night. So, RVD comes out and does his thumbs pose and he was looking right at our section as we were doing the thumbs and yelling his name with him. It was great!! Has the opening pyro for Raw gotten louder??!! It was really loud last night!! Speaking of pyro, isn't it funny how you know the pyro during entrances but tend to forget when you are there live? I completely forgot about the Jeff Hardy pyro and it made me jump. Pretty funny though. The ECW clips were shown throughout the night of the originals being upset over Vince McMahon as ECW champion. Sad thing was that there were some ECW chants throughout the night but they were VERY quiet and couldn't get going for the most part. In attendance in the front row by JR and Lawler was Cowboy Troy. We kept having this camera man walking down the aisle in front of us trying to get crowd shots. Funny thing was that he was encouraging fans to boo or cheer who you were supposed to. Benjamin and Haas were in the ring and he was trying to get people to boo. I am not booing Shelton Benjamin!! So, I guess the only way for Val and Kenny to get on Raw is to have them backstage helping the guys that had been knocked out. Stuff done during the commercials was the kiss cam thing that had Candice Michelle come out and they put the camera on people in the crowd and they kiss on the big screen. Hey, I thought Maria hosted that thing?? Bummer. They showed the music video from the Raw Tribute To The Troops show to the Goo Goo Dolls song which was great. I still love watching that music video. The crowd really settled in watching it and a USA chant broke out afterwards. They showed another music video of the divas set to "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?". They also showed a feature on Triple H and his recovery. Same one that has aired on Raw before.

Match Of The Night: Edge vs. Randy Orton

Signs Of The Night: There was this DX sign that a fan actually drew by hand. It was great but kept getting ignored on TV. In fact, they did a thing for the live crowd during commercial where they are looking for the best signs. We and literally everyone around this guy were all standing and pointing to get that sign shown as it was amazing. We asked the guy how long it took to make and he said a day and a half. I did get him to hold up the sign so I could get a picture of it. Funny thing was that the people behind later asked him to hold it up so they could get a picture of it too. Going to give it sign of the night. Another good one was this boy holding up a sign that said "Torrie, will you be my first kiss?".

Overall thoughts. Really fun show!!!! The Edge/Orton match was a great way to start off the show. RVD/Umaga was good. Hardy/Nitro was good. Women's match was good. Heat matches were good for the most part. I got to see most of the stars that I was looking to see. The negative of the night was no Shawn Michaels obviously. Very loud crowd and just a lot of fun overall.