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After Monday Night Raw went off the air, Seth Rollins called Damian Priest back to the ring and shook his hand, showing respect to his challenger. It was a nice moment and the main event, live, felt like another upward step for Priest.
As we broke yesterday evening, Vince McMahon arrived at Raw sometime after 6 PM. He did not run the taping from the gorilla position but his influence was absolutely felt as we are told he "re-worked" the broadcast and changed the order of matches and segments to fit his vision of what he wanted. That resulted in a reconfiguration of the show, but we are told it wasn't overtly stressful or over the top in what was required.
Unlike the last time McMahon was at Raw, there wasn't as much resentment or anger from talents that we are aware of. In speaking to one talent from Raw after the taping, we are told that a major difference is, as they said, "the band-aid has already been ripped off" and that it's an unspoken understanding that McMahon is back on the throne. Even if he isn't around every week, it's well known by everyone that he's back in charge and his decrees will be met.
Many of the backstage segments that were presented as if they were "live" with talents then walking out to the ring were actually shot about 20-40 minutes before they aired. Some of the segments were taped a little later than usual due to the reworking of the show.
Live, Cody Rhodes easily got the biggest babyface reaction, followed by Seth Rollins.
No one on the show got more heel heat live than Dominik Mysterio and Rhea Ripley.
There were a lot of WWE execs at the show since they were in such close proximity to WWE HQ in Stamford, CT.
WWE was selling a special "I Was There" t-shirt for the Hartford, CT Raw last night. They were also selling signed Cody Rhodes photos for $20 and signed Cody belts for $250. Roman Reigns and Rhea Ripley shirts were among the top sellers last night, along with Cody.
Last night's taping was either 99% or 100% sold out, with the company even selling partial view sections that were blocked by the staging of entrance areas, so fans in those seats could only see the ring, but not the Titantron, entrances, etc. There were literally no empty seats in the venue, with the exception of seats that needed to be blocked for production areas.
With the increase in the ticket prices, there is no doubt this was likely the largest gate for a TV taping in that venue.
Taped for WWE Main Event this Thursday was Apollo Crews vs. Akira Tozawa and Candice LeRae vs. Xia Li, which were both very good matches.
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