WWE Raw HOLT Report
November 17, 2008
Atlanta, Ga.
Report by Jon Gargis of Cartersville, Ga.

Dark match: Charlie Haas (portraying Michael Hayes) defeated Mike Kruel.

ECW taping

Miz/Morrison promo.

(1) D.J. Gabriel (accompanied by Alicia Fox and coming out to music that sounds like Prince) defeated an unnamed jobber. Seemed to be a sloppy match.

(2) Jack Swagger defeated Tommy Dreamer via DQ in a five-minute Amateur Wrestling Challenge.

(3) Mark Henry & Cody Rhodes & William Regal defeated Kofi Kingston & Finlay & Matt Hardy in a six-man tag match.

After the six-man tag match, Henry got on the mic and told Hardy to come out and defend himself like a champion, which lead to Matt Hardy defeating Mark Henry via countout when Henry walked away from the match. Not sure if all of this was for the ECW taping as I believe the ring workers had removed the ECW drapery from the side of the ring after the tag match, but replaced it before the Hardy-Henry match. It could have been time filler for the live audience or perhaps even a late addition to the ECW telecast.

After the Raw telecast, our dark main event was Batista vs. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho for the World Heavyweight Title. Jericho retained the title after a Codebreaker on Batista.

As far as the overall show goes, the side of the arena in front of the cameras was mostly full save for some rows of upper deck seats that were curtained off. The other side of the arena was about two-thirds full or so. I don't know how the Atlanta crowd came across on TV, but as an audience member, I'd say it wasn't a hot crowd.

The audience was dead for the Swagger-Dreamer amateur wrestling match, so I suspect the audio sweetener will be turned used at least for that portion of the ECW broadcast.

The other thing of note was that the guy next to me had his sign taken by event staff as it was deemed offensive (and rightfully so). The sign said "Y2Gay - Not that there's anything wrong with that." The guy with the sign was a bit belligerent over giving it up but eventually handed it over when faced with giving it up or being escorted out of the arena.

RELATED STORY at PWTorch.com: Wade Keller's 11/17 WWE Raw report.

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