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| Dan Wahlers talks about going to Raw live at MSG |
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Why There's Nothing Like an MSG Raw This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it On Monday night, I had the pleasure of attending Raw at Madison Square Garden. Despite the fact that the show did an abysmal job promoting this Sunday's Survivor Series PPV, I had an awesome time. As a stand alone show, from a pure entertainment perspective, I thought it was a good show. As I've often said, there's nothing like an MSG wrestling crowd, and the crowd was a big part of what made the show work on Monday. It was such an interesting dichotomy. You have a company that from all accounts is in a major creative funk right now, with people tired of seeing the same stars pushed month after month. You go on some of the wrestling messageboards that I frequent, and there is such a level of apathy and a general lack of caring for the WWE product right now. Yet you sit inside MSG on Monday night, and you would never know that WWE is in a rut right now. Sitting in that crowd, you would have sworn that it was 1999, and that WWE was as hot as its ever been. The crowd was hot for pretty much everything on the show, the wrestlers were over, the angles got over, even Hornswoggle got a reaction, that actually had me literally shaking my head in amazement. There's just something about an MSG crowd. If you've never been there, then you won't understand. You have the true diehard wrestling fans that come out everytime whether the business is hot, cold, or something in between. I got to talking to an older gentleman on my way to the concession stand that said he had been attending wrestling shows at The Garden since the 60's. Of course, that was probably the old MSG that was located on 50th Street and 8th Ave, before the current version opened on 33rd Street and 8th Ave in 1968. Those are some of the people you see at these shows. The diehards. The people that are there through the highs and lows. You have the kids and their families, you have the teenagers and 20 something year olds, and everyone else, and for whatever reason, it just clicks everytime. It's the perfect mix. What I'm going to do is sort of run through the Raw show from Monday. It will be less of a report on the show, since Todd Martin does a great job handling that for the site every week, but more just my thoughts on the various segments, the crowd reactions, and so forth. Of course, what trip to NYC would be complete without seeing NYPD arrest a man outside Penn Station. It happened literally about 5 feet away from me and my friend before the show. Apparently this man wasn't aware that touching a random woman's ass in public was illegal, and stupid, especially in a crowd full of witnesses. Never mess with NYPD, that's all I can say. Great way to start off the night. Another interesting tidbit from before the show, my friend saw Hornswoggle actually driving a car, and he had Chavo Guerrero, Jack Swagger, and Primo Colon as passengers. I don't know how he was able to reach the peddals, or see over the steering wheel, maybe he was sitting on a couple phonebooks stacked on top of each other. But he was actually driving. I thought that was tremendous. Once we navigated through the common feeder cattle line and into the actual arena, the first thing that struck me was the fact that the usual Raw stage and set was absent for this show. Instead, they chose to use the entrance way that they've often used for house shows and for PPV's. This was the first time I've ever recalled them not using the standard set for a Raw or Smackdown taping at MSG. I would imagine this was done to get as many people into the building as possible, since they often lose quite a few seats with the standard set. I don't know what the actual, legitimate attendance number was, but the 20,000+ number that Michael Cole used on the broadcast might be pretty accurate. It was definitely the largest crowd that they've ever had for a Raw taping at The Garden, and the place was sold out. Going with the classic short aisle way gave the show a different and fresh look. I think that's something they should do more of in other cities. Whenever they have a chance to give us a different look for Raw, they should do it. Anything to change things up from the same general set that we've been seeing for going on 13 years now is a definite positive. I loved the stripped down, old school feeling of the show. Aside from the DX pyro in the ring, which scared the shit out of me, by the way, because I wasn't expecting it, there was no other pyro used on the show. And the funny thing is, I don't think anyone really missed the pyro, either. It's become so overused and almost cliched in recent years, that it's actually a nice change of pace when it's not used. Justin Roberts came out to welcome everyone to the show. Howard Finkel, who was a staple of so many classic MSG shows, was definitely missed. But I'll say this, Justin Roberts does a good job. The dark match was Ted Dibiase against Primo Colon. Dibiase got a pretty positive reaction from the crowd. It seemed like people saw him as a superstar, and I think his eventual face turn will be a success, provided that it's done right. He seems to be a guy that people want to cheer. Pretty non-descript match that Dibiase won with his Dream Street finisher in about 5 minutes. Primo sure has fallen a long way since him and his brother Carlito were the undisputed tag champs earlier this year. In fact, has anyone seen Carlito anywhere in the last few months? He seems to fallen off the face of the earth. Primo deserves better, however. I like the fire he shows in the ring, and I think he could be something if they ever chose to do anything with him. The match taped for Superstars was Mark Henry vs. Cody Rhodes. Henry got a big face reaction coming out, and Rhodes didn't get nearly the reaction that Dibiase got. Henry won in about 8 minutes with the World's Strongest Slam. Rhodes sure has been doing a lot of jobs lately. I wonder who he pissed off. He probably didn't shake someone's hand in the back, or maybe he didn't wear the right pants to a show, who the hell knows. If Legacy totally disintegrates after Dibiase turns face, and Cody is left to fend for himself on his own, I could see him having a hard time. He works well as part of the group, and he's got good heel mannerisms, and an impressive looking body, and he's got the basics down in the ring. But watching him in the ring, he seems to be missing something. It's something that Dibiase seems to have, but Cody doesn't, for whatever reason. I can't exactly put my finger on it. But it's obviously something that others have seen as well, since Ted is apparently ticketed for a major babyface turn, and Cody is not. Either way, it was interesting to see both members of Legacy out on the pre-show, and then no sign of them, or even a mention on Raw. You would think they would have ran out to try and help Orton during his brawl with Kofi Kingston. Maybe that will play into part of the storyline. Lilian Garcia made a special cameo appearance before Raw went on the air to sing The Star Spangled Banner. She got a big reaction from the crowd. She lives in NYC, so she was probably there to visit, and they figured they'd use her. She did her usual phenomenal job on the song. I hope Lilian makes it big in her singing career, because she's very talented. It would be nice to hear some more people out there actually singing music, instead of almost every song out there nowadays, that seems to feature what sounds like someone singing into a computer, sounding about as real and natural as Chris Masters' hair plugs. Raw opened with the new opening video and theme. The song they're using is “Burn It To The Ground” by Nickelback. It's a good song, and it fits well for use in pro wrestling. It does sound kind of like all the other music they usually use as show themes, but change is good, and Raw can use all the freshening up it can get. The show opened with Roddy Piper backstage, and he had character actor Luis Guzman with him. He's been great in movies like “Boogie Nights”, “Carlito's Way”, and “Traffic” among others. He was there to plug his new movie. The Iron Sheik showed up. Based on the reaction he got, or lack thereof, I would say that a good majority of the people in the crowd had no idea who the hell he was. One of the negatives about MSG is their sound system isn't the best, which hopefully will be corrected as the building is renovated in the next couple years. It's often hard to hear what's going on in backstage segments like this. So I had a hard time hearing what was being said. I heard Hulk Hogan's name mentioned, which wasn't surprising, given he chose to have the press conference announcing he had signed with TNA at MSG a couple weeks ago. I wondered what the over/under would be on Hogan references on this show. If you took the over, you won. Having Piper open the show backstage is one area where I thought they made a mistake on the show. When he first appeared on the screen from backstage, he got a huge reaction in the arena, as you would expect in his unofficial home. They wasted that moment and that reaction by having him open the show backstage. When he came out in front of the crowd later in the show, at the top of the second hour, the reaction wasn't nearly as strong, because they had already seen him once. I thought it would have made a lot more sense to open the show with Piper coming out in the ring, getting the big pop, and then doing the Vince McMahon angle. They could have done the segment with The Iron Sheik and buried Hogan later in the show. I thought the show was booked ass backwards in that respect. It gave the impression to some people watching at home that Piper wasn't getting a big ovation in The Garden, which he was, but it wasn't nearly what it was at the beginning of the show. The Miz was the first wrestler to appear in front of the crowd on Raw, and he got a genuine superstar reaction. Main event level heel heat, in my estimation. They really need to be doing more with him. He's become so good on the mic, that he knows how to rile people up, and generate a reaction. He didn't really even need to resort to getting cheap heat by talking smack about the Yankees. He was getting big heel heat before that. I definitely felt from being in the crowd that people saw Miz as a superstar. Hopefully his United States Championship reign is a stepping stone to bigger things for him, because I think he's just starting to hit his stride. The feud with John Cena and the way he was treated like a joke did a lot to hurt him, and was very counter productive in a lot of ways. But it also clearly put him on the map, and put him at a level that he wasn't at before. MVP got a decent reaction, but nothing special. He's another guy that I think they've dropped the ball on. Santino Marella coming out wearing all the NY sports jerseys, and the Phillies jersey got over very well live. It was funny hearing the different reactions for the various sports teams, including the putrid Knicks getting booed in their own home building. I popped big for the Johan Santana jersey, since I'm a suffering Mets fan, but the Yankees jersey obviously got the biggest pop. People were laughing at Santino's antics in the ring, and then Hornswoggle came out for the finish, and like I said before, I was amazed at the kind of reaction he got. Kids were literally screaming with excitement when he showed up, and it seemed like a flood of little kids came running towards the ring from everywhere when he showed up. Despite how lame the Hornswoggle character might seem to most of us, he's definitely over huge with the kids, which is the reason they keep him around, I would imagine. Then DX came out and did the same shtick they do every week. The cute wink wink, “we're not shilling our merchandise” speech that got old about 12 years ago when they first started doing it. They talked about Survivor Series for about 30 seconds, like it was an annoyance that they had to get out of the way, and then they got down to “serious business”, which was dealing with the midget. I really hated this segment. They did a bunch of comedy that fell completely flat, and the segment ended with Hornswoggle getting the Pedigree. I'm not sure what that was designed to accomplish, or where it's headed, but people didn't know how to react to it. Some people cheered, some people booed. People were just confused. Not a good segment at all, and while DX got a good reaction when they came out, it paled in comparison to a lot of the other crowd reactions on the show. The DX thing has definitely run its course, and hopefully they have some plans to go in another direction with Triple H and Shawn Michaels, whether it's HHH turning heel again, or whatever else. I'll take anything else over the same old DX nonsense week after week. Next was a fantastic video package on the history of WWE at MSG. It's amazing to me how the same company can produce something as great as this one minute, and then the next minute do such an atrocious job promoting what is supposed to be one of the major PPV's of the year. The video was set to the new song “Empire State of Mind” by Jay Z and Alicia Keys. I got chills looking back at some of the great MSG moments, and remembering being there live for a lot of it. It was very well done. Everyone you would expect to be in the video was in it, and some you might not have have expected. The only notable exclusions that I could see were Bruno Sammartino and Chris Benoit. I can obviously understand Benoit, but I don't understand excluding Bruno. His hard feelings with Vince McMahon and WWE are well documented, and he bashes the company every chance he gets. But still, at least one shot of him in the piece was appropriate, and it was pretty silly and petty to leave him out. The man only headlined and sold out more MSG show than any other wrestler, and was World Champion for over 11 years combined. There's a reason why he's in Madison Square Garden Walk of Fame. It was interesting to see the way Vince McMahon sort of marked his territory throughout the night, with this video, and the various other reminders and references to MSG being WWE's home. Which was, again, in response to the Hogan/TNA press conference at The Garden, which was a definite middle finger to WWE. There have been hard feelings between WWE and the people that run MSG in recent years, mostly centered around the cost of running the building, and things like that, including WWE pulling out of running shows at MSG for about 18 months. Perhaps this was Vince's way of trying to mend fences. Judah Friedlander from the show “30 Rock” came out to be guest ring announcer for the Divas Title Match. 90 percent of the people had no clue who he was. I know “30 Rock” is considered one of the cool shows to watch these days, but I don't watch it. I just know Friedlander from the “I Love The 90's” shows that he's done on VH1. The Melina vs. Alicia Fox match was treated like intermission by a lot of fans, myself included. Hey, you gotta pick your spots. Roddy Piper came out to the ring to cut a promo, which I sort of talked about earlier. He was kind of rambling all over the place, which he tends to do, and which I have absolutely no problem with. I'll take Piper rambling over a sanitary, scripted promo any day of the week. He was clearly having a lot of fun being back at the Garden, and given everything he's been through over the past couple years, battling and beating cancer, he deserves to have some fun. The people were eating it up. He mentioned Bruno Sammartino by name, which was interesting, given his exclusion from the MSG history video. Somehow, I don't think Piper was working off a script with this one. Hogan's name came up again, and the mention got a mix of cheers and boos from the crowd. It was a fun, nostalgic promo, even if it was meandering. At one point, Piper seemed to get lost, and looked at his hand like maybe he had some bullet points written on his hand or whatever. He moved into talking about Vince McMahon, and how he was fired by Vince in the Garden after the HBO Real Sports interview with Bryant Gumbel that aired back in June 2003, which is a true story. You know Roddy's been waiting six years to bring that one up. Eventually, Vince came out to a huge face pop, wearing a suit that he must have bought at Gangsters R Us. On this night of MSG nostalgia, I guess it was appropriate that Vince would wear a hideous suit that would rank right up there with the orange, yellow, and powder blue suits that he used to wear back in the old days. Piper and Vince traded barbs back and forth, with Vince making fun of Piper's hair dye job, and calling him Father Time, and Piper making fun of Vince's ugly suit. It came down to Piper challenging Vince to a match, which got a big reaction, but everyone knew wasn't going to happen. Piper said he had been in 7,000 car crashes and 30 matches, before realizing his mistake. Vince had this bemused look on his face. The funny thing is when Piper said he had been in 7,000 car crashes, I didn't think anything of it at first. I just assumed he was doing the usual wrestler over exaggeration. You know, like how Hulk Hogan tore his back slamming the 750 lb Andre The Giant in front of 120,000 people at the Pontiac Silverdome, or more recent ones like how Hogan taught Vince McMahon everything about the wrestling business. Hogan has told a lot of whoppers in his day, he has two books full of them, but that one had to take the cake. This was a great segment, and the crowd was hanging on every word. Anytime you get two legends like Roddy Piper and Vince McMahon together, it's gold. Sheamus was out next, and he didn't get much of a reaction when he first came out, but he got big heat after he kicked Jerry Lawler in the face. It's funny how whenever they have a heel they want to get over, they have him do an angle with Lawler. That's because it usually works. Lawler is a beloved figure, and still a professional in the ring. There was a loud “Jerry” chant as they were helping King to the back. A simple but effective angle. Sheamus has some work to do, and he's still very raw. But he's got some potential. And he's also apparently a big favorite of Triple H, which certainly won't hurt. Matt Striker apparently snuck out in the dark during the commercial break to replace Lawler, because I never saw him come out. He wasn't introduced either. I thought that was weird. Jack Swagger vs. Evan Bourne was a match that started off with the fans not really being that into it, but they were hot for it by the end, as Bourne did some cool things, and got some near falls before ultimately losing. The booking didn't make a lot of sense, as they keep insisting on doing this Even Steven booking, where one guy wins one week, and then the other guy wins the next week, thereby pretty much erasing the result from the week before. And the end result is everyone goes around in circles, around and around, and no one gets over to level that they could or should. They've done this with Bourne and Swagger twice in the past few months now, and they've also done it with Bourne and The Miz. They talk about guys not getting over when one of the big reasons why they're not is the booking. Until that changes, and they stop following the same, predictable patterns, everyone will keep spinning their tires, and no one will get over unless they get the rocket shoved up their ass like Sheamus or Kofi Kingston. Next was supposed to be the Piper/McMahon fight, which turned into a Randy Orton ass kicking of Piper, and then an Orton brawl with Kofi Kingston. That was one of the best things they've done on Raw this year. And it couldn't have worked any better. When Orton first came out and was getting in Piper's face, the crowd was chanting Orton's name, which was obviously not the desired reaction. It was a pretty good hint of what Orton could be if they ever decide to turn him face, however. When Kofi came out to save Piper, and the brawl started, more people were cheering Orton than Kofi. But by the time the brawl was over, and Kofi had done the amazing spot where he broke away from the referees, and dove off the railing onto Orton, sending him through a table, the crowd was solidly 100 percent behind Kofi. That spot generated the loudest pop of the night, and actually one of the biggest pops I've heard at MSG in a long time. When it was all said and done, Kofi was getting a true genuine superstar reaction. That's great booking, when you can turn a crowd in the span of about five minutes. I hope they follow up on this, and keep the momentum going with Kofi, because they've definitely found something in him. He's made a connection with the fans, and that brawl with Randy Orton might have just been a superstar making moment for him. They can't drop the ball on this one. I loved the segment, the crowd was red hot for the brawl, including a “let them fight” chant when the referees had broken them up at one point. It was just fantastic stuff. As I texted to my friend immediately after, now THAT'S how you make a star. From where I was sitting, I saw Arn Anderson and Mike Rotundo walking through the crowd at various times during the show. A few people recognized them. They were getting things set up for the Orton/Kofi brawl, making sure things were in place with security, and that the area where they brawled would be clear, and what have you. I didn't realize what they were doing at the time, but it dawned on me later on, after the brawl had happened. One guy yelled out “IRS!!” when he saw Rotundo. John Cena made his first appearance on screen at this point, doing a promo from the back. Cena got the usual boos that he gets in the Northeast. I would say it was about 70/30 negative to him. The lame, cheesy promo that he did trying to hype Survivor Series didn't help matters, either. When Cena starts being himself, and stops trying to be The Rock, maybe things will work out a little better for him. I don't even know what the hell he was talking about in this promo, and I couldn't hear half of it to begin with. I do know that they couldn't have treated the Cena/HHH/HBK “Triple Threat” like any more of a joke if they tried. Chris Jericho and Big Show came out for the main event. Jericho cut a dark promo during the commercial doing his usual routine about how the fans were parasites and tapeworms, and talking about what a dump New York City is, and about how he was born there, but couldn't leave there fast enough. Jericho knows how to whip the crowd up into a frenzy. There were quite a few “Y2J” chants throughout the crowd. NYC fans have always been heel loving fans. Everyone came out for the main event. Undertaker got by far the biggest pop of any of the wrestlers on the entire show. He was clearly seen as the biggest star of the match by the Garden fans. He got the elaborate ring entrance with the druids and everything. I've been seeing it for almost 20 years now, but Undertaker's entrance is still always cool to see live. There's nothing like it. The match was booked well for the short time they had, as everyone kind of got the spotlight at certain points, and everyone got to run their trademark spots. It was a very crowd pleasing match, that's probably the best way to describe it. Taker and HBK hooked up for a brief time, which was cool to see. They teased Taker/HHH. It reminded me of those Raw main events back when WWE was really hot around 1999-2001. The crowd was on their feet for almost the entire match, and into everything, and everyone. Watching the match, and listening to the crowd, you wouldn't have known that WWE was in a creative funk. That was how it was the entire night. Cena pinning HHH might mean that Triple H is winning the title at Survivor Series. Why the hell not, they change the title on every other PPV, so why not this one too. Let's go ahead and make the WWE Title even more meaningless and watered down than it is now. Undertaker put the exclamation point on the night with a Tombstone on Cena to end the show. Could that have been a hint to Wrestlemania 26 like some are suggesting? I guess we'll find out. After Raw went off the air, Triple H and Shawn Michaels brought a mentally challenged boy over the barricade and into the ring. I'm sure it made that kid's night, and was a nice gesture on their part. So as I said, I had a great time at the show from a pure entertainment standpoint. They got me out of my seat to cheer at several times during the night, and that hasn't happened much for me when I've gone to shows in recent years. Definitely not like it did during the Austin/Rock years, or obviously during the Hogan years, when I was a young kid. But WWE stepped it up on Monday night. I don't know if it was because they were at MSG, or whatever, but as a stand alone show, I would rank it as one of the best Raw's of the year. It was certainly the most fun I've had at a WWE show in a number of years. Putting that aside, as a go home show for one of the major PPV's of the year, they failed in every regard. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the least bought Survivor Series PPV's in ten years. I don't know if they think the Survivor Series name alone is going to be enough, and that the star power of John Cena, Triple H, and Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Chris Jericho, and Big Show will be enough to get people to order the show. But I don't see that happening. Simply throwing people in a match with no backstory, no rhyme or reason, and basically treating it like a joke, at least in the case of the Raw title match, isn't good enough anymore. Especially when it's the same people in the same matches. People aren't going to spend $40 for that anymore, and even less are going to spend $45 when the price goes up five bucks next year. WWE raising the PPV price five bucks would be like a restaurant that's losing money because the food sucks, raising the prices on the menu instead of hiring a new chef. WWE isn't losing money, but it's same principle. Instead of going to the root of the problem, and fixing the reason why PPV buys are in the toilet, which is the stale booking, and the lack of new stars, they're raising the prices to try and make up the difference. It's not going to work until they start addressing their creative issues. They've started doing that with guys like Kofi Kingston, The Miz, Sheamus, Ted Dibiase, Drew McIntyre, and some others. But the key is to stick with it, and have the patience to ride through the ups and downs that these guys will have, and not pull the carpet out from under them if they have a bad match, or the crowd doesn't react well to them on a particular night, or they sit in the wrong seat at catering, or they wear the wrong color pants, or any of the other asinine reasons that are given for why a push is suddenly stopped. Quick Survivor Series predictions: I'm going to go with Cena and Undertaker to both retain their titles, Batista will beat Rey Mysterio, Kofi Kingston should be the sole survivor in the one Elimination Match, and I think Miz's team will win in the other Elimination Match, might as well have all five guys survive, since they could all use convincing wins, and for the Divas Elimination, I think the Mickie James team will win. There you have it. The shortest set of PPV predictions that I've ever done. That should make some people happy. A quick plug before I go. I will be appearing on the No Holds Barred wrestling podcast with Alex Reimer this week. We'll be talking about a lot of the same things I wrote about today. He's 16 years old, and he knows a lot about wrestling, and does a pretty damn good show every week. So check the show out, if you get a chance. The show with me as the guest should be posted on Friday. You can check it out here: http://thesportsstuff.com/?cat=12 Thanks for reading. In case I don't write again before next week, let me wish everyone and their families in the United States a Happy Thanksgiving. As per usual around this holiday, I give thanks to Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez for giving me the opportunity to be a part of their site. 2010 will be the beginning of my seventh year being associated with the Wrestling Observer sites. I know, I can't believe I'm still around too. They haven't gotten rid of me yet. And of course, thanks to all of you for reading my work over the years, including some that have been following me since day one back in 2003. Also, thanks for all the great feedback that you always send. Even the negative feedback. That's what makes putting the time and effort into doing this worth it for me. The positive feedback I use as encouragement, and the negative I use as motivation. So thanks to all of you for that, and again, enjoy your holidays. You can send feedback to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or track me down on Facebook, if you'd like. |
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