Source: PWTorch
WWE RAW – Off Air Notes – What You Didn’t See
June 20, 2005
Phoenix, Ariz.
Report by Brian Alston of Phoenix, Ariz
After Lillian Garcia greeted the crowd, the WWE Desire video played. The crowd didn’t cheer for any of the old WWWF Superstars and only started reacting when Hulk Hogan’s picture showed up. Lillian then said they would be filming match for Heat. There were no announcers during the Heat matches.
HEAT TAPING
(1) Robert Conway beat Tajiri. Conway got first-match-of-the-night heel heat. The crowd responded to Tajiri’s kicks. A small ECW chant started. Good back and forth action. Conway won with the La Resistance finisher using the ropes for help instead of his partner.
(2) Chris Masters made Jeffrey ??? submit to the Masterlock. When Lillian said he was from Phoenix, the crowd started cheering and his name got drowned out. Jeffrey got in some moves before Masters eventually overpowered him and snapped on the Masterlock.
(3) Hurricane & Rosey & Val Venis beat Maven & The Heartthrobs. The World Tag-Team champs got the first big pop of the night. Venis sold for the first third of the match then Hurricane sold for the second third of the match. After Rosey finally got the hot tag, he cleaned house. Maven eventually got overwhelmed and Venis pinned him after giving Maven the Money Shot.
Lillian then played with our emotions by telling us to stand up and cheer for the opening of Raw. This was the opening for Heat. Cena’s Bad Man video played. Lillian sang the National Anthem. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler came out to polite applause.
Nothing big happened during the commercial breaks. The ring crew that set up the wedding props in the ring had to do most of it in the dark. They setup and tore down everything quickly. After the Cena match, the ring crew came back out and retightened the ropes. Angle talked bad about Phoenix sports teams which made the crowd jeer him harder than they already did when he came out.
POST-RAW NOTES
After Raw went off of the air, Batista got up slowing, selling the effects of the Pedigree. He made his way up the ramp and saluted the fans. Michaels and Angle never reappeared.
Extra Notes
-Loudest Face Pops for Batista, Cena, and Kane. I give Batista the slight edge over Cena. I say the signs were 55 percent Cena to 45 percent Batista.
-Loudest Heel Heat for Angle, Hassan, and Edge & Lita.
-Superstar Billy Graham came out from a side entrance and sat in the crowd about five minutes before he was shown on television. I didn’t see him leave but he was gone after awhile.
-Best sign that I saw that probably didn’t make it on TV was “Lita is a Virgin Bride.”
-After watching the old vignettes of Carlito that aired on the Titantron, you can really notice how much wilder his hair has grown since he started.
-The only SmackDown merchandise items being sold were Undertaker t-shirts and Rey Mysterio masks.
-A lot of Whooos! anytime it was quiet in the arena or out in the hallways. Kind of reminded me of the “What?” chants back in 2001. Nobody said “What?” tonight.
