WWE Raw house show results
May 28, 2011
Sioux City, Iowa
Report by Mike F., PWTorch reader

I would estimate the crowd was about 5,000 at the Tyson Events Center, as the arena was about three-quarters full. No sections were tarped off. As expected, a ton of Cena shirts and Mysterio masks were in the crowd.

The show began promptly at 7:30, with a ring announcer who was not Justin Roberts introducing special guest Jimmy Hart. Right off the bat, Hart announced there would be a fan dance contest later on, where the winner would get to go backstage and meet the Superstar of his or her choice. An adult woman, a college-age guy, a young girl, and a younger boy were chosen to compete.

(1) Chris Masters beat Jack Swagger via submission with the Masterlock in 8:00. Swagger came out first, and cut a promo on Hart. He then turned his attention to the crowd, drawing heat when talking about beating Iowa wrestlers in college. Hart had enough, and decided to put Swagger in a match against...Chris Masters, who entered to a pretty decent pop, as he was the first babyface of the night. The match went back and forth, with the crowd fairly involved throughout. Swagger looked to have the match in the bag, when Jimmy Hart distracted him, allowing Masters to put on the Masterlock for the submission win.

-- Between matches, the ring announcer plugged WWE drink cups on sale at the concession stands. Sorry, five bucks for what appeared to be a 16-ounce beverage is too rich for my blood.

(2) Percy Watson beat Zack Ryder in 7:00. Ryder came out for the second match of the night. As a fan of Ryder's "Z: True Long Island Story" YouTube series, I was excited to see him in action. I think I can safely say I was pretty much the only one excited to see him. Watson entered to unfamiliar music, but got a slight reaction when his name was announced, as some people recognized him from NXT. He's lost the glasses and moved away from the "Eddie Murphy" gimmick he had on NXT. He seems much more focused and serious now, which helped him be taken more seriously by the crowd, in my opinion. The crowd seemed to cool down during this match, and was pretty flat throughout. Watson hit his finishing move to pick up the victory.

-- After the match, Mason Ryan ran out and attacked Watson. Ryan drew surprisingly good heat, especially after cutting a promo about how he was going to keep attacking people until someone could stop him. This also prompted the first "You Suck!" chant of the night.

(3) Mason Ryan beat Primo in 5:00. Since Primo hasn't received much face time on Raw as of late, I wasn't sure when/if he had turned face, because last I knew, he was teaming with Zack Ryder as a heel. But, he played the babyface role on NXT 3 as A.J.'s Pro. He's one of those guys that can play either role apparently. Primo got in a bit of offense, but this match was largely dominated by Ryan.

-- After the match, the ring announcer introduced several members of the Iowa National Guard who were in attendance, talking up WWE's support of the U.S. Military. He then announced the next match would be a Divas match, which brought one of the loudest cheers of the night so far.

(4) Beth Phoenix & Kelly Kelly beat Divas champion Brie Bella & Nikki Bella in 7:00. The Bella Twins are technically supposed to be heels, but they actually received a pretty good reception. Phoenix entered next, followed by Kelly Kelly with her own entrance. Nice crowd pop for Kelly. Since Divas matches rarely get more than a few minutes on TV, it was nice to see a long-form match for once. The Bellas tagged in and out fairly frequently, especially early on. They also pulled the Switcheroo at least three times throughout the match. At one point, Kelly did the old Rikishi "stinkface" maneuver on one of the Bellas in the corner. Kelly hit a cross-body off the top rope for the win.

-- The ring announcer plugged "Tough Enough" between matches. Next was Kofi vs. Dolph. Dolph made his entrance first, and cut a promo where he dedicated the match (and "certain victory") to Vickie Guerrero. He said they've made up and they're getting back together. Great heat on Ziggler during the promo. Kofi interrupted Ziggler's promo, drawing a good pop, but not as big as I would have expected.

(5) U.S. champion Kofi Kingston retained the U.S. Title over Dolph Ziggler after a reverse decision in 12:00. Ziggler spent the first two or three minutes of the match stalling. Eventually, Kofi hit the Boom Drop, scoring a nearfall. Moments later, Ziggler hit the Zig-Zag and got the pinfall, with Kofi's foot on the ropes. The bell rang and Ziggler was declared the new U.S. Champion at 10:00. However, referee Nunzio ran out and explained to the referee in the ring what happened with Kofi's foot. The match was re-started, and two minutes later, Kofi hit Trouble in Paradise to retain his title. Solid match. Of course, it's to be expected from those two after their seemingly hundred or so matches on Smackdown.

-- Jimmy Hart returned for the dance contest. The college-age guy went first, drawing a decent reaction for his moves. The woman and the young girl didn't go over too well with the crowd, as they didn't really do much with their ten seconds. The younger boy, who couldn't have been more than six or seven, broke out some breakdancing maneuvers, drawing loud cheers. He was the clear winner, and got to go backstage and meet the Superstar of his choice (presumably John Cena, as he had a Cena shirt on).

-- The ring announcer then threw t-shirts into the crowd and plugged the signed John Cena lithographs on-sale before sending the show to intermission.

[Intermission]

(6) WWE tag champs New Nexus (David Otunga & Michael McGillicuty) beat Santino & Kozlov in 13:00 to retain the Tag Titles. Otunga and McGillicutty entered first (to the "We Are One" theme of the Original Nexus), and proceeded to cut a promo about their Tag Title win over Big Show & Kane last week. Good heat on Nexus during this. Santino and Kozlov then made their entrance, and I really thought Santino would get a bigger pop than he did. There was a whole lot of stalling throughout the match. Santino teased the Cobra early on, then went for it again later on, with Nexus breaking it up and scoring the pinfall.

-- After the match, Santino and Kozlov lingered in the ring, soaking up the cheers and admiration from the crowd, and gesturing that they were "this close" to winning the Tag Titles.

-- Next was Rey vs. Del Rio. Del Rio entered first, sans car and Ricardo Rodriguez. I figured there wouldn't be a car, but I thought they might have at least brought Ricardo for a house show. Also surprisingly, Del Rio did not cut a promo before the match. Rey Mysterio then came out to a huge pop. During Rey's entrance, Del Rio was at ringside, taunting a young Mysterio fan, and stealing his sign. When Rey reached the ring, he gestured for Del Rio to give the kid's sign back. Del Rio got on the mic and said he would. He then proceeded to do the classic heel gimmick of tearing up the sign. This drew the second "You Suck!" chant of the night. Rey made up for it by giving the kid the shirt off his back.

(7) Rey Mysterio beat Alberto Del Rio in 16:00. After the bell sounded, Del Rio spent a good five minutes stalling, even walking through the crowd at one point. He extended his hand to Rey after getting back in the ring, but Rey was leery about shaking Del Rio's hand. To try and prove his point, Del Rio went over to ringside and shook the kid's hand whose sign he tore up earlier, then shook hands with (and hugged) the ring announcer, and even shook hands with referee Charles Robinson (who then wiped his hand off, drawing laughs from the crowd) in the ring.

Rey finally ended up drop-kicking Del Rio instead of shaking his hand, drawing a good pop. Rey teased the 619 about ten seconds into the match. This one featured a lot of good back-and-forth action in and out of the ring. As with Kofi and Ziggler, these guys had a ton of matches over on Smackdown, so it's nothing new for them. Rey finally connected with the 619 for the victory.

-- Post-match, Rey went back to the same kid at ringside, and brought him into the ring to celebrate.

-- The ring announcer then thanked the crowd (no return date was announced), and announced that it was time for the main event, which brought the crowd to its feet. The originally-scheduled main event was Cena vs. Miz vs. C.M. Punk, but Punk was pulled from the line-up two days earlier.

-- Miz entered first, with some fans actually cheering him. He cut a promo about how he got robbed at Over the Limit, and talked about how he fired Alex Riley on Raw last week, and that we'd never see Riley on Raw again. Big heat on Miz during his promo, especially when he drew out delivering his catchphrase... R-Truth was next, cutting a promo as he walked down the aisle. Truth went for cheap local heat, including such lines as "I'd rather be in Sioux Falls than Sioux City!" (Which made me wonder, seeing as the next night's show is in Sioux Falls, will he say the reverse when he's there?) Truth also got the only "What?" chants of the night... After a brief pause, Cena entered to a massive pop (not surprisingly), and quickly made his way to the ring. The entire crowd was on its feet at this point. Cena threw his shirt into the crowd, as usual, while Miz made a show of dropping his shirt on the floor right next to the ring.

(8) WWE champion John Cena beat The Miz and R-Truth in 17:00 to retain the WWE Title. This one played out like a handicap match for the first several minutes, with Miz and R-Truth teaming up against Cena, and mocking his "You Can't See Me" gesture on several occasions. The heels pulled the steel steps into the aisle at one point, intending to drop Cena on them, but Cena fought back and dropped Truth on the steps instead, and sent Miz into the other set of steps still at ringside.

Miz and Truth both hit their finishers during the match, but each time one went for a pinfall, the other broke it up. At about the 12-minute mark, Cena went into his Super-Cena comeback routine, knocking out both Miz and Truth, and hit the Five-Knuckle Shuffle on both. He was unable to score the pinfall though. Shortly after that, R-Truth went for a pinfall on Cena, but Miz hit him with a chair, knocking him out of the ring. At this point, Alex Riley came sprinting in from the back (big pop for Riley after essentially turning face on Raw last week) and attacked Miz. The two of them quickly brawled up the aisle and into the back. Cena was then able to hit the Attitude Adjustment on R-Truth, scoring the pinfall to send the crowd home happy.

-- Post-match, Cena sold the physical effects of the match, using the chair to help himself up. He posed a couple times in the ring with the title, then shook hands and signed a few autographs while walking back down the aisle. The show clocked in at right about three hours, start to finish, with approximately 85 minutes of bell-to-bell wrestling by my count.

-- OVERALL REACTION: This was my fourth WWE show (second house show), and they've all had their ups and downs. I felt like the overall star power on his show was a little lacking compared to the last Raw house show I attended. It didn't help that C.M. Punk and Kharma were not on the show.

One of the biggest things that surprised me was how mostly flat the crowd was. The crowd got excited when it needed to, but it was pretty much silent during most of the matches, save for random kids yelling that the heels sucked. It was especially noticeable during the tag matches, as the babyface partner waiting to tag in really had to work to try and fire up the crowd. If I remember correctly, this was WWE's first appearance in Sioux City since a live Raw broadcast in January 2009, so I thought there would be more excitement and anticipation than there was during the show.

Bottom line, I had a good time, and it seemed like most of the people there had a good time as well.

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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