I was in the upper deck for tonight's show, and I figured I'd send a few things along.

Dark Match: Festus/Jesse vs Deuce/Domino. Crowd was really into Festus and Jesse, and a pretty loud "we want Festus" chant popped up when the heat was on Jesse. Festus and Jesse won with... some double team move. I was just getting settled into my seat, so I wasn't fully paying attention.

Rey vs Finlay: I couldn't tell what people were hoping for, but they seemed satisfied with the stretcher match. Crowd was pretty into it.

Punk vs Miz: Punk got a good reaction, but the reaction to Miz was first stunned silence and then anger. People weren't very happy to see him. Also, maybe it's because I've been watching alot of Mr. Perfect matches this past week, but Miz sucks at selling hip tosses. He gets yanked in his neck, then does a little flip afterwords. It's reactionary, as opposed to anticipatory. At least, that's what I think. Crowd was on the verge of booing, with a few light "boring" chants here or there, but they liked the comeback and popped for the shining wizard and the GTS. The "You Can't Wrestle" chant was largely from one section of fans on the on-camera side of the floor. They were pissed.

MVP/Hardy promo: People went bananas when they mentioned Kane. Khali got no reaction, except from me. Henry was announced first, and people "OHHHHH"ed, because I think they thought he was the replacement. I was excited for the possibility of Khali in an MMA match.

Kennedy got no reaction. Hardy got quite a pop, but it was obvious that Michaels was winning.

Hardy/Kennedy: Kennedy got boos, but not legit, good heel heat. Just kind of bored with him. People loved Hardy, obviously, but evidently not enough. You could see Hardy was a little disappointed. Or at least, that's what I thought I saw from 400 feet away in the upper deck. People seemed lukewarm to Kennedy winning. It seemed to me like a way for him to save face for getting zero votes and give him some momentum into the inevitable revival of the McMahon illegitimate son story. Or at least, that's what I thought.

MVP/Kane: People were really down with Kane. MVP didn't get nearly as much of a reaction as I thought he would. Crowd seemed disappointed and slightly confused with the finish. Perhaps the announcers put it over better. I was disappointed that there was no stipulation added to it.

HBK/Orton: Crowd was hot for both dudes. Last time I was here (Summerslam 05), there was quite a few pro-Orton pops, even though he was a heel vs Taker. This time, though, the whole crowd was passionately for HBK and against Orton. Solid match, although I was almost positive Jericho was coming out when Orton was about to kick HBK after the match. When Orton had the heat on Shawn, he started stomping on his hands, which my friend noted was the perfect anti-HBK strategy, because if he hurts his hand, he can't stomp and slap his knee for the Sweet Chin Music. Also, when HBK stomps for the SCM, why do people in the crowd count? What are they counting up to? Is there a set number of stomps before he kicks the guy? I didn't think so, but maybe I'm wrong.

HHH/Umaga: Crowd reacted to Street Fight in stunned silence. Didn't see that coming. They didn't seem too into Umaga at the start, but they liked the three-table spot. I should note, for some strange reason, Ron Simmons showed up in the entryway for our section, shaked some dude's hand, and went away. It was awesome. Crowd loved HHH, but not nearly as much as I thought they would. The video screen on the scoreboard was a little dark all night, which is wierd, because for hockey games, it's usually a beautiful, ginourmous HD screen, but they had problems with it tonight. So when Umaga and Trips went behind the monitor stand, no one could see anything for a minute. The Titan Tron was fine, though. People popped for the monitor/wall burst spot, though. As always, people went bananas for the sledgehammer. Fun match.

People generally didn't care about the costume contest at all. Not much hooting and hollering, and while you could tell everyone loved Mickie, no one really cared. Torrie as a Redskins player didn't get a big reaction, probably because the Skins had lost to my Pats by 45 goddamn points a few hours earlier. I will also note that Michelle McCool had the worst delivery of her lines possibly ever. She's a gorgeous woman, but she has literally no personality whatsoever. She also missed out on a big opportunity to win a Diva Costume Contest by wearing way too much. If you're gonna be Eve, your costume should have three pieces. A leaf, a leaf, and a leaf. No one-piece swimsuits that kind of resemble Ivy. I can't believe I'm writing this much about this.

JBL had great heat all night, from his initial entrance to his campaign video to when he started fighting Foley. Foley didn't get much of a reaction either way, except for the tail end of his YEAH! promo. People either didn't care or they just wanted Austin too much. Austin got the biggest pop of the night when he came out, as probably expected.

Batista/Taker: Solid match; crowd was into both guys, but was probably 60-40 for Batista. Taker's entrance is amazing, although I still don't get why the crowd goes bananas every time he dramatically removes his hat. Match itself was alright, not nearly the WM match they had, obviously, but the crowd seemed concerned when the heat was on Batista and loved the finish. You could feel the Batista fans collectively "Oh shit!"ing themsleves as Taker sat up near the end. Austin didn't end up doing anything in the match, but that's fine. I was worried sick that JBL could've killed him with a stomp to the head earlier, so I was just glad to see him walking.

All in all, a pretty decent show. As the night wore on, it became pretty obvious we weren't seeing Jericho, but I didn't sense much backlash against that. There was one random Y2J chant in the beginning of the show, and nothing else after. I did, from 400 feet away, look down at the announcers' monitors and catch the Saveus video thingy being shown, which wasn't shown to the live crowd. The only things we saw (besides the matches) were the live DC shots, the MVP/Matt promo and surgery footage, Foley's fathead promo (which was missing audio for about 30 seconds of the beginning, and JBL's first interrupting line, which basically ended up looking like Foley was talking, then suddenly became fascinated with the camera until JBL began talking) and the voting segments. If there were any other bits or promos (besides one Survivor Series promo; Edge didn't get much of a reaction), we didn't see them.

Biggest Pops:
1. Austin
2. Batista
3. HBK Biggest Heat:
1. Orton
2. JBL
3. Finlay
(4). Miz, although I think it was more "Please go away" Heat than "You're a good heel" heat. {plug}