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LIVE NOTES AND THOUGHTS ON LAST NIGHT'S RAW TAPING IN DETROIT, PRE-SALE CODE FOR WWE RETURN TO MOTOR CITY

RAW in Detroit Live Notes
Crowd was sold out, only seats open were for production crew and camera man. I missed the first two matches - with it being sold out it took a while to enter the building.

Superstars Main Event: Miz defeated Alex Riley in a good back and fourth match, Miz got mixed reaction and won with Skull Crushing Finale

RAW

Before RAW, Lillian Garcia sings the national anthem and does a fantastic job. Later in the evening WWE would thank the troops at ringside for their service which prompted USA Chants.

-Crew gets the ring set for RAW and sets up the black carpet, table and chairs for the Cena and Brock contract signing. Edge unexpected appearance was a nice surprise. Crowd was very into Edge’s promo and loved it with his pep talk to Cena about Extreme Rules on Sunday.

-Chris Jericho vs. Kofi Kingston - good match and had crowd some what split on who they were cheering for. Jericho always has a section of fans Detroit who enjoy him and during the match the standard Kofi chants to get him back into the match. Crowd enjoyed the Codebreaker and the Lion Tamer version of the Walls of Jericho.

- Lord Tensai squashed R-Truth with his Iron Claw face plant . Detroit was calling him Albert.

-Kane promo about Randy Orton, the crowd gave Kane the “What” treatment. Fans really popped for Paul Bearer and for Randy Orton when he came out to brawl with Kane. They did a good job putting over this match. - Cody Rhodes & Alberto Del Rio vs. Big Show & Great Khali – Detroit really loved Big Show and the finish of the match. Del Rio got some cheers from some sections and Cody had good heel heat reaction. For some reason and I haven’t heard why, but Alberto Del Rio is now a Smackdown! superstar.

- Crowd was really into Lesnar’s videos from the past. When Josh was put on the stretcher, the crowd groaned.

- Diva’s Championship Lumberjill Match –Beth Phoenix landed on her leg wrong. Crowd was surprised for the title switch. I hope Beth Phoenix is ok and that the injury doesn’t result in her having to have surgery or miss significant time.

- Punk’s Sobriety Test in the ring was goofy but the crowd didn’t crap on it due to how well Punk was able to do with what he was given to work with. He did mention WWF while pretending to be drunk and received a nice pop from the fans. Punk was really over here.

- Sheamus vs. Mark Henry was about one person and he like many other cities WWE has gone to, Daniel Bryan received a lot of “YES!” chants as Special Referee. Sheamus was getting booed a little bit.

- Epico & Primo vs. Zack Ryder & Santino Marella – Ryder was extremely over with the crowd in Detroit as was Santino. I recall last year during the Holiday Tour for Smackdown a lot of people were upset he wasn’t on the show, those people were happy tonight. I am not sure how Ryder will be seen in other markets but he was loved by Detroit.

- WWE showed Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers.  During their scenes of the city received a great pop.

- Brodus Clay and Hornswoggle vs. Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger – match was a waste and the fans were into Brodus Clay dancing. Even though this was bad, they enjoyed Hornswoggle and Clay’s dancing.

- WWE did a great job with Brock Lesnar’s past opponents videos through out the show and I happened to notice they work for TNA.

After opening with the show and not getting it, fans were awaiting Brock Lesnar appearance. He received some cheers and boos but when Cena came out he was getting heavily booed with some Cena support.  After the contract signing we had a dark match

-Dark Match:

Chris Jericho and Kane vs. CM Punk and Cena – this was a very short match saw Kane and Jericho get little offense in working over Punk before Cena gets tagged in and give Kane an Attitude Adjustment and CM Punk gives Jericho a GTS in stereo fashion and both pin Kane and Jericho for a double pin.

-Post Dark Match: Vince McMahon Music plays, it’s time to celebrate John Cena’s birthday with Punk who says usually people say lets go Cena, Cena sucks but he wants us all to join in and sing happy birthday to Cena on them mic along with the rest of the roster on stage. Triple H music comes on and the place goes crazy. He said he wanted to sing and from one older man closer to another (Vince) and a soon to be older man down the line. Fans were surprised to get Vince coming out as well as Tripe H unexpectedly.

Punk made a joke that usually Triple H is splitting to go to the next town but he had to sing Happy Birthday. The Divas came into the ring and kiss John Cena on the cheek and then Cena would get pancaked by all the diva’s and Hornswoggle. Great Khali even sings Happy Birthday to John Cena which gets a pop. Triple H wants Hornswoggle to run down the ramp as people laugh. Afterwards Cena thanks everyone and thanks Punk for saying professional wrestler and WWF and that his is the best birthday he has celebrated in front of the WWE universe. The Diva’s all pile up on top of Cena and Punk put Hornswoggle on top of the pile and later Hornswoggle was pinning Cena and Punk counted to 3. Then Cena went after Hornswoggle and then went after Cole and got him down and Cena thought about dumping King’s coke on Cole but didn’t.

If you can find the video of it, it is worth checking out the whole thing.

For people in Detroit, the next time WWE will be at Joe Louis Arena is December 26, 2012 – tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10am through 10pm Friday on ticketmaster.com with the presale password :WWERAW

This will be RAW Holiday House Show right after Christmas. The Smackdown house show last year which Orton wasn’t due to injury, didn’t do very well due to holiday’s and the fact most people want to see a RAW TV taping.

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