I was in attendance at the RBC Center in Raleigh tonight for RAW, and, as is usually the case, it was a great show live. Now that the excitement is dying down, however, I realize that it probably wasn’t the best show to simply watch on TV. ZZ Top as the guest hosts were pretty under whelming, not because they didn’t do a fine job, but mostly due to the fact that they only appeared live for a moment and the youth majority crowd couldn’t get too excited for them. I thought for sure the little stage where they interviewed Mickie James would be for some kind of mini-concert, but alas I was wrong and it was covered the entire night besides that segment.

We arrived to the arena around 6:30 with the doors scheduled to open at 7:15 and the event to start at 8:15. We were lucky to get a good spot near the gate and they teased us by allowing us through the metal detectors early, only to make us wait to actually enter until 7:25. I was wearing a replica Soldier Ant mask (from Chikara,) throughout the night and got a lot of attention for it, although almost everyone confused it as a Rey Mysterio mask.

You can really tell that the product is geared towards the young now, not just due to the massive amount of them attending the shows (they made up probably at least 70% of the audience,) but through their merchandise. The WWEShop tables were dominated by Cena, Mysterio, Hardy, and Triple H. The only heel merchandise to be found were the Orton gas mask and Legacy t-shirts. Surprisingly they didn’t have any Top Rope shirts for sale, although they probably cater less to the young crowd. They also had scattered merchandise for Hornswoggle, Shawn Michaels, Batista, and the Undertaker. It was also surprising not to see any shirts for Santino, Evan Bourne, or Kofi Kingston (although the latter two were just released only about a week ago.)

The crowd yelled out a ton of wooos whenever there was a break and before and after the show. As the show began they ran a Wrestlemania 25 video package that got big cheers whenever a favorite popped up. Lillian made her entrance and introduced the dark match, which was Alex Riley vs. a man billed from Raleigh named Jay (I didn’t catch his last name.) Riley cut a promo saying that he had walked around N.C. State (my current school,) and found that it didn’t seem like the people were very intelligent, despite us having an excellent football and basketball team (honestly that’s very questionable.) He asked who had taken the SAT and his valet Beverly raised her hand. He did the usual “I’m going to educate you” act, completed with his cut off letterman’s jacket. He eventually won a quick match with a modified slam that was basically a leaping Rock Bottom. He’s got the sizable look that they like.