Thanks to Adam Lunau for the following:
Hey guys! I just got back from RAW and I thought I'd pass along some things that weren't on the show. I'm not that great at crowd estimates so I won't offer one but there were some sections on the upper bowls that were tarped off.
Dark Matches:
Chuck Palumbo beat Bobby Rude. Rude was announced as being from nearby Medicine Hat Alberta to establish himself as a face. Match was fairly long and crowd was into it as the first match of the night. Pulumbo won with the discus punch.
Lance Storm beat Stevie Richards. Obvious huge pop for Storm as he was the local boy. Good heat for the match and Storm won with the single leg crab. This may be a heat match as Al Snow and new host Todd Grisham came out to Snow's music before the match.
Heat Tapings (I may be out of order for these)
Rob Conway beat Rosey. This was announced as Hurricane vs Conway but Rosey started the match and it went from there. Usual "heels use the flag" bit while the ref is distracted for the win.
Shelton Benjamin beat Rhyno. Yes how the mighty have fallen. Face a 16 time champ on PPV on Sunday and main event Heat on Monday. Decent match. Crowd cheered Rhyno as he made his entrance as no one knew if he was heel or face today. Solid match that had Shelton win with the "Slop Drop". Rhyno looked fairly shook up afterwards and needed help to the back.
After the Show
Edge got on the mic and talked about how this was his 10th time winning the tag titles and he hasn't had a better partner than Benoit. He then said that everyone wants to get out of the Saddledome and "watch Calgary kick Vancouver's ass" in reference to the big hockey game in Vancouver tonight. That got the biggest reaction of the night believe it or not. Benoit then called out Evolution to take care of unfinished business. After a long pause HHH came out and said that he could beat both Benoit and Edge at the same time because he's American. He then said he may have tapped but he still didn't have to deal with being Canadian. Trips then left. Benoit's music then hit and they posed for a while and Lillian thanked us all for coming.
Also I'm not sure if the T-shirt bit with Eugene will air but he came down and shot off some shirts to the crowd until Regal came down and after some back and forth Eugene shot him in the nuts with a shirt. Funny bit but Eugene's music is very patronizing to his character. It's like Kindergarden music and the video shows a name tag that says "Hello my name is Eugene". About on par with what you'd expect from Vince and Gerwitz.
Biggest Pops
1. Benoit (duh)
2. Jericho
3. Edge (especially the Calgary Flames reference after the show was over)
Biggest Heat
1. HBK (although the crowd popped huge for him when he superkicked HHH)
2. Bischoff making the match for the title in two weeks instead of tonight
3. Orton
I did see Matt Hardy and Lita coming back from the PPV last night at a coffee shop in Red Deer (half way between Calgary and Edmonton). Matt was extremely gracious and offered to sign anything we wanted. Lita was very nice as well but seemed upset about the lack of reaction to her match earlier.
credit top-rope.com
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