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I'm live at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon for tonight's Monday Night Raw. I'll be bringing you dark match and off-air results and thoughts. As I walked in, I noticed new T-shirts for John Cena, Hulk Hogan, and Sting being sold at merchandise stands. Before the show started, they aired a recap package of WrestleMania 30.
The Superstars taping opened up the show with Emma vs. Alicia Fox. The crowd is definitely more into Alicia Fox as the match gets underway, with a few people here and there throwing out some Emma chants. After a series of rolls, Emma threw Fox to the outside, but when she went to follow her out, Fox tripped her on the apron and took over. Back in the ring Alicia hit a perfect Northern Lights Suplex before applying a chinlock. The crowd rallied, and Fox lifted Emma up into back breaker position, walked her over to the ropes, and dumped her from the middle rope directly to the floor, back first. Emma eventually started making a comeback with a bunch of standing strikes, and got a couple of near falls. At this point, the crowd is solidly behind Emma, who applies the tarantula, then hits a cross body block off the top for a 2 count. Emma then applies her version of the Last Chancery for the submission victory.
In between matches I noticed that the ceiling of the Moda Center is lined with a TON of red and yellow balloons that will drop during Raw. Happy birthday, brother.
Up next, Adam Rose and the Rosebuds hit the ring to a surprisingly large reaction. The live entrance for Rose is definitely cool, but it'd be way better if he had twice as many Rosebuds with him. Fandango's music hits, and half the crowd in Portland is Fandangoing. So, it's Rose vs Fandango. As the match starts, the Rosebuds are outside singing Rose's theme, distracting Fandango.
Rose hits a couple of hip tosses and ark drags to start the match, then throws Fandango over the top. Once he did that and was in the ring along, the crowd IMMEDIATELY turned on him an started booing him (or, likely, the annoying Rosebuds who are stilling singing the theme non-stop.) A small "we are rosebuds" chant breaks out as Fandango makes it back into the ring, only to get pummeled in the corner by Rose, and then duplexes out of it.
Fandango trips Rose, and hits a spinning clothesline to take the advantage, working Rose over in the corner and whipping him to the opposite buckle. Fandango locked on a side headlock, and the crowd came alive for Rose to make the comeback. Rose hits a jawbreaker to break the hold, a couple of forearm shivers, and a spine buster to set up the face plant cutter finisher. Adam Rose wins. After the match, the ring crew brought out a bunch of red and yellow present boxes to cover the stage. One of the boxes is large enough to hold someone inside, so I imagine someone will pop out of that at some point tonight!
Huge CM Punk chant while Michael Cole made his way to the ring
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