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LIVE NOTES & THOUGHTS FROM RAW IN CHICAGO

By Jeremy Boone on 2015-07-07 12:14:24

Raw in Chicago Live Thoughts:

The crowd looked to be a near sellout last night at the Allstate Arena.  There were no tarped sections anywhere in sight, but there was a section here and there with the back rows empty.  There was of course the Chicago version of the Suplex City shirt for sale, but other than that there were no exclusive memorabilia.

Superstars: Neville d. Heath Slater – Neville received a huge ovation to start off the show with one of the bigger pops of the night, even with everybody still shuffling into the arena.

Primetime Players d. The Ascension – The crowd seemed lukewarm during this match.  It definitely didn’t carry over the steam from the Neville match.

RAW Random Notes:

The crowd went BALLISTIC for Heyman & Lesnar.  It was probably noticeable on the TV, but there weren’t any anti-Lesnar fans in the audience at all.  Even a friend who attended his first WWE show ever (and last watched in the 90s) was exclaiming “Damn” after Heyman’s promo.  I had goosebumps listening to Heyman’s promo live.  The crowd was near deafening with the Suplex City chants.

The crowd wasn’t getting into Reigns vs. Sheamus, although it seemed to be a hard hitting match in itself.  It was the typical people starting the JBL chants during this match, but not sure if it was loud enough to make it to TV.  Randy Orton received one of the louder ovations of the night on his return.

Chicago (as with the rest of the world) loves Lana.

Dean Ambrose came out to a decent ovation, but nowhere near the level of around a year ago in Chicago when he was on fire.  Chicago seemed to show a lot of support to Bo Dallas to the point his chants were overpowering Ambroses’ live.  There was even dueling chants between “Let’s Go Ambrose” and “We Bolieve.”

The crowd wasn’t really into Barrett/Truth, but the New Day chants afterwards were definitely lively.

The arena LOVED Brock destroying the Cadillac.  It was fun as hell to watch live and it looked a little rough when Joey was suplexed onto the hood of the car.

As always, Chicago was 70%/30% on Cena.  Kevin Owen’s comments about Cena made that place nearly deafening.  Cesaro and Cena was absolutely phenomenal and I hope the commentary didn’t butcher it on TV.  It started as a decent match, but as the match continued everybody was on their feet and screaming.  Wow, what a match.

Afterwards after Kevin Owens exited the stage, Cena stopped Cesaro and put him over with respectable fashion.  The crowd went insane for Cesaro.  This really should have been the closing to the show as I believe that this would have put Cesaro over huge with the WWE fans outside of Chicago.  This was the perfect complement to an amazing match.  Everybody in attendance that didn’t leave was continuously chanting for Cesaro.

In the end, this was a great show simply because of the final match.  Some were a little upset believing that the Dusty tribute was going to be held In the ring after RAW.

RAW will be returning to Chicago on October 19th.

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