10 Live Observations From WWE Raw Live Event Barclays Center
Title matches and chinlocks!
Every year, WWE does a tour between Christmas and New Year's that's typically its most lucrative house show run of the year. Part of that involves coming to New York, a hotbed for pro wrestling and the unofficial home of the company. This year was no different - the Smackdown brand ran a house show in Madison Square Garden on Monday, while Raw came to Brooklyn's Barclays Center on Wednesday.
I was lucky enough to get tickets to the Raw show - and great seats, to boot - and it turned out to be a lot of fun. For full disclosure, I actually don't watch Raw most weeks. I watch Smackdown since I write about it for WhatCulture, but Raw's three hours are just a bit too much for me, and since I always read the results, they typically made me feel like I made the right decision by skipping it.
Still, there's only so much you can get reading words on a screen (hmmm, maybe I should have picked a different career...), so being at a live Raw show exposed me to a bunch of stars I don't see terribly often. Plus, no Stephanie McMahon promos.
Here are 10 takeaways from Raw's December 28 Barclays Center house show:
10. Cesaro Is Really Popular
The opening match on the card was a triple threat tag team bout, though I didn't catch if it was for the titles or not. Sheamus and Cesaro were in action against The Club and Big E and Xavier Woods, with Kofi Kingston at ringside.
Like a lot of fans, I was disappointed by The New Day's tag title loss, and even though I like Cesaro, I'd have rather seen him pick up gold elsewhere. With that in mind, I didn't know how fans would respond to him. It turns out that there was no grudge. While The New Day got a great pop for their entrance, so did the Raw Tag Team Champion, who came out to the ring separate from his partner, Sheamus. In fact, this led to a fun pre-match spot where fans would cheer Cesaro and boo Sheamus, then when Sheamus was raising his hands, Cesaro did the same thing behind him and turned the boos to cheers.
The match itself was good, with Cesaro getting the win after pinning Karl Anderson. Again, the fans were happy to cheer "The Swiss Superman."