The episode of Monday Night RAW that happens every year the night after WrestleMania has become a major event unto itself. It’s known for a crowd that is very loud and very disruptive, though often not necessarily for the wrong reasons. Bored by the 500th match between Sheamus and Randy Orton? Fine! They’re both heels, JBL and Michael Cole (and RVD and Randy Savage…) are the biggest faces in the building and doing the wave is far more entertaining than watching a boring match. That kind of interruption and disruption is welcome because they are trying to express their discontent in the only way that they can. Not surprisingly it has fallen on deaf ears because WWE discounts the WrestleMania and post-WM crowds as being “bizarro” or, as JBL said multiple times this week, a rowdy bunch that will cheer the bad guys and boo the good guys.
Of course, we know that’s a load of hot garbage, as The New Day would say. This Monday’s RAW had that disclaimer specifically because WWE somehow believes that Roman Reigns is a babyface in the hearts and minds of all of the normal people who watch the show. But that’s getting beside the point.
The live audience in Dallas did their share of show hijacking, but not nearly to the degree that cities have been doing for at least the past half a decade. They cheered for the good guys and hissed at the bad guys with Roman Reigns shockingly being the lone exception. His cousins didn’t feel a ton of love either.
Outside of that, following the initial positive reactions to Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho among a few others, the bad guys were treated like bad guys. And the good guys likewise. Why? Because the fans enjoy Kevin Owens doing his thing as a heel and he has a strong babyface counterpart in Sami Zayn, who the fans enjoy in his current role. Result? The fans cheered the good guy and booed the bad guy. It was the same with The Miz and Zack Ryder. Ditto Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler, even though they were quiet more than anything during that particular match.
Dallas interrupted the official presentation of the new WWE Women’s Championship, but they did do with an incredible and resounding “women’s wrestling” chant that was sustained for almost a full minute. And even in that, they were shutting up the heel, Charlotte, who was trying to get to the point that she was going to take all of the credit. And once they let her speak, that’s what she did and they replied by jeering her and papa Ric Flair.
The people who took the trip to Dallas for the WrestleMania weekend festivities wanted to let WWE know what they think they are doing right and what they think they’re doing wrong. In this case, it turns out that they are largely indifferent to the League of Nations and don’t like Roman Reigns as the low-rent John Cena. Otherwise, it was pretty much business as usual when it came to crowd participation. More energetic than usual in some points, and just as apathetic as always at other times.
So it goes.