I was at Raw tonight. I just got home and started watching the show on my DVR. The first thing I noticed was how drowned out the crowd was. It was extremely noticeable when Vickie Guerrero came out with the "excuse me" routine before getting down to business. There was a lot of heat live, but it didn't really come through on the TV. Her third excuse me on TV actually sounded like how the first two sounded live. Then I noticed in your report about the crowd being dead most of the night and figured I'd give you my perspective.
The crowd was hot for Undertaker, C.M. Punk, Randy Orton, and Sheamus's entrance. Crickets could be heard during Big Show's (although that's been commonplace for years). Vickie may have gotten biggest heat of the night when she came out (but again, didn't sound nearly as good on DVR). The crowd was into the Ryback vs. Cesaro match. The Dolph vs. Miz match the crowd got into. There was a strong "Let's go Ziggler" chant (that my crew started), but that was ill-timed because it ended up being during the commercial break.
The crowd was on fire for The Rock. Buffalo seemed to be anti-Cena. I was in the minority of people cheering him tonight. The crowd wasn't hot for two matches after Rock and Cena segment.
The one spot that I really noticed the crowd dead where it shouldn't have been was during Triple H promo. He didn't get nearly the reaction I would expect from a live crowd, especially after how great last week's encounter was with Brock Lesnar. The crowd really got hyped for the New Age Outlaws. I think Road Dogg and Billy Gunn got more reaction than Hunter did.
The main event was strong. I didn't really soak up live crowd buzz for that, as I was extremely tuned in on the match itself. A good match, but I felt they left a little on the table as far as match quality. Maybe it's because Punk is just so much better than the other three in the ring and he did the least amount of in-ring work of the four. Taker showing up again after match was great.
Post show, The Shield's triple power bomb of Big Show was scary. They had a tough time with him. Big Show was holding on for dear life to Reigns' neck to help stay up. I almost didn't think they could pull it off, but they made it work.
The dark match was usual business. One thing of note for me was John Cena was wearing an elbow pad on his right arm, which I can't say I recall last time he wore one. I wonder if he suffered a minor injury last Monday, or maybe at a house show during last week.
I loved the show. Buffalo wasn't the hottest crowd WWE's seen in a long time, but we weren't nearly as dead as it seemed to come through on TV. Maybe a sound problem on their part or acoustics of the arena...not really sure. We sounded much more alive than the broadcast gives us credit for.
