The Real Reason Behind THAT Reaction To Elias & Kevin Owens WWE RAW Segment Last Night
Elias was feeling Supersonic last night. That's a reference UK viewers might even get!
The problem with the cheap, region-specific pop in 2018 is that, as WWE has told us on signatures for years, "the world is watching". Now, WWE fans aren't stupid - at least those who don't chant "What?" incessantly - and so we can infer the meaning of Elias' verbal attack on the Seattle crowd at RAW last night. Elias agreed with Kevin Owens that the idea of Bobby Lashley teaming with John Cena "doesn't make sense".
All babyfaces are automatically friends, but very rarely save one another from heel beatdowns - what's so hard to understand about that?
Elias continued, generating a molten reaction in the process: "It's like having a basketball team in Seattle."
Those oblivious to basketball - much of the world beyond the U.S. - were left wondering why the crowd reacted quite so angrily as they did. Is the local sports team having a nightmare of a season, so much so that they are completely pointless? That seemed like an overreaction. Did the local sports team, like Bobby Roode, get absolutely shafted in this year's draft?
As it happens, there is no local sports team. The former Seattle SuperSonics became the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008 after much scheming from Clay Bennett's purchasing group and dithering from the state. It was alleged that, despite a "good faith agreement" designed to secure a suitable arena in the city - the KeyArena badly required renovation - Bennett's group had conspired to relocate the team all along. Lawsuits followed this clandestine clusterf*ck, and the resentment, evidently, has not diminished.
The other problem with cheap heat, in WWE at least, is that the heel acts are invariably more entertaining than their distraction-prone, generic babyface counterparts. This wasn't the case here; Elias, fittingly, played the crowd like a complete pro, and Owens' loud voice work was a spot of supreme improvisation.
The key to WWE success? Annoying fans on purpose!