Thanks to reader Andrew for sending this in:
The arena was a near sellout as I could only see about 10 empty seats. Crowd was pretty hot and into all the matches except for the Triple H/Khali match. Indiana is a true fan base for wrestling so they paid respect for Hunter but you could tell they weren’t as into the match. The biggest surprise of the night was that there were a ton of MVP chants. I don’t know how well they came across on tv but the crowd was hot for MVP!! The tron was set up like a big movie premiere similar to Wrestlemania 21; pretty nice I must say.
A few things happened in the arena you wouldn’t have seen on tv. A few signs were taken away from the people in the front row. I couldn’t see what they said but midway through show they took them. In my area I had the biggest wrestling mark I’ve ever met. He was so into Hell in a Cell it wasn’t even funny. I also had one guy trip coming up the stairs spilling beer on himself, and believe it or not a lot there were a lot of hot chicks at the show. One big note, as I was leaving the building I had a program and shirt in my hand and this chick walked by turned around checked me out and said, “My belt is bigger than yours” she was drunk as all get out and had a toy world title belt in her hand, pretty funny!
Dark match was Big show vs. Chavo or seemed that way. Chavo got in the ring and said he wouldn’t be fighting Big Show tonight but instead Bam Neely would. Really quick match, probably about 5 minutes tops ending with Show using his knockout punch. After the match, Chavo chased after Show to attack him from behind, then Show ended up using his Cobra Clutch slam on Chavo which looked pretty nice.
When the PPV went off the air, Lilian said thank you for coming and couldn’t wait to come back to Indiana again. They fixed the cage enough to pull it up and put out the fire. They also left ‘Takers lights up while Edge rolled out from the other side of the ring. He was in street clothes and had on a hat and a WWE Crew shirt.
The biggest pop of the night was honestly for Big Show, but it had more to do with the utter shock that he was in the dark match. Other than that the loudest pops were for:
1. Undertaker
2. Hardyz (after Jeff came out to save Matt)
3. Triple H
4. Batista
5. Cena
Biggest heat:
1. Edge
2. JBL
3. Jericho
4. Khali
5. Cena
Overall the show was pretty good, I’d give it 4/5 stars. Santino got a huge pop in the sense that they were eating up him jumping on Beth’s shoulders. Right before the HHH match the ref’s changed out the ring canvas and almost didn’t have it done in time, it’s quite funny to watch a ref run his ass off with a canvas behind him trying to get off screen for Khali’s music to hit. Also after ‘Taker left the cell after the match was over cameras were on him and one of the crew members slid under the ring to remove part of the ring and came up on the other side by the announcers, basically setting up for the Edge chokeslam bump. The Punk vs. JBL match was probably the most boring match I’ve ever seen. My favorite match of the night was the inter-gender match simply because Santino had me laughing my ass off. Overall it was good and hopefully they’ll play the fallout well for Unforgiven.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
