10 Live Observations From Attending WWE Raw Live In Manchester

6. Fans Are Desperate For KO To Succeed

One of the biggest pops of the Raw taping was Kevin Owens coming to to the rescue of Seth Rollins and The Street Profits.

By this point, the crowd had already sh*tted all over Seth before, during, and after his match against WALTER, and even Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford coming out to save The Architect from an Imperium beatdown only got a modest pop, at best. When KO's music hit, though, the crowd went absolutely nuts.

Despite WWE seemingly flipping between hot and cold on whether or not to go all-in on Kevin Owens, the Manchester crowd were fully behind the former Universal Champion - and it was the Canadian's spots in the following eight-man tag bout that received the biggest response of anybody in the match.

The people are desperate to cheer KO, and his positive crowd response massively overshadowed the majority of the supposed babyfaces on both SmackDown and Raw on Friday night. For whatever reason, WWE just doesn't seem to know what to do with this one-time NXT Champion, yet the WWE Universe is clearly eager to see Owens given a proper opportunity to run with the ball and become a regular main event player.

Authored by Andrew Pollard

Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.

First Posted On: 9th Nov 2019

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