NEWS ITEMS: Off-air notes from Raw last night, Superstars taping, Nash reacts to Lesnar-Heyman segment, WWE trainee displays some negative stereotypes

-Last night before Raw, WWE taped two matches for WWE Superstars. Cedric Alexander & Sin Cara & Lince Dorado beat Ariya Daivari & Drew Gulak & Tony Nese, and Neville beat Titus O’Neal. In a dark match, Roman Reigns beat Rusev after Raw went off the air. A caller on yesterday’s free PWTorch Livecast Raw Post-Show that I hosted with Pat McNeill said Reigns got a pretty favorable reaction from the fans.

-Our correspondent at Target Center last night, Mario G., adds these notes: “The doors for the Target Center were open by time I got there around 5:45. Normally for a Raw they don’t open the doors until at least 6. I assuming they wanted to give fans a chance to buy merchandise and be in their seats by showtime. I would say around 9,000 to 10,000 were in attendance. (3/4th of the upper deck was tarp off.) Crowd was really into Curtis Axel. I say he got one of the biggest pop of the night being the other local guy. Not much else to add. Me and my son enjoyed Raw but beside bathroom break we sat in our seats from 6:15 to 10:30 (there was a Roman Reigns vs. Rusev dark match after Raw went off the air) we were drained. Raw needs to go back to two hours.”

-Perhaps the most talked about segment from last night’s Raw was the debacle with Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar. I heard the segment was presented the way Vince McMahon wanted it, and as you could tell watching, Heyman and Lesnar weren’t surprised he was cheered in his hometown and the valiant attempt to get “Goldberg” chants started didn’t work. Kevin Nash wrote on Twitter: “Always have the heel return to his home town to castrate the babyface. Welcome back WCW guy 101. Guess 12 years was too soon. Ladder match?”

-Former NFL player Demetrius Bronson, who is training with WWE at the Performance Center, said he his goal is to be on the main roster in a year or less. He also didn’t know Triple H was bald now, revealing he doesn’t watch the product much that he is aspiring to be part of in a short turnaround time. This pretty much fits the worst stereotype of the recruits that WWE puts so much time and money into before cutting them, while the main roster relies more and more on wrestlers who develop their craft on the indy scene. It’s one of the reasons the influx of money going into the indy scene because of FloSports pro wrestling streaming channel announced yesterday could be the best thing, in the long, to happen to WWE’s long-term roster depth. Yes, WWE Developmental can create stars, but there’s no substitute for weeding out the pretenders on the less glossy, less glamorous indy scene where the best rise to the top of the cards in front of actual fans every weekend. Read more of Bronson’s quotes over at ProWrestling.net including Jason Powell’s reaction.

NOW CHECK OUT THE PREVIOUS NEWS ITEMS UPDATE: Another TNA lawsuit, Women’s Title match winning WWE.com poll, Heyman on Raw tonight, HIAC match added