What Happened After RAW + RAW Live News & Notes

Credit: Chris Denker and Pwinsider

The crowd was pretty into it all night. The dark matches were Regal vs. Darren Young and Tyson Kidd vs. DH Smith. The Kidd/Smith fight was actually a great bout, should've been on the live show in my opinion.

Raw kicks off. A lot of rumors running around that Triple H would be making his return. (side rant about that later.)

- Alex Riley's opening segment was great, everyone loved the quip about him "loving to party".

- Del Rio vs. Daniel Bryan: Solid match. The guy behind me must've been new because he kept chanting "Let's Go Bryan". Got a few laughs out of that one. Weird to see Bryan tap out but I guess the objective here was to make Del Rio look solid.

- The R-Truth bit with Cena attacking Nexus backstage got a HUGE pop. Not sure how it came off on TV but the place was going nuts for Cena. Very few jeers for Cena all night.

- Rhodes vs. Morrison: Short match. Decent. A very pro-Morrison crowd, he got big pops all night. Still waiting on the WWE put Cody in a decent feud.

- Drew vs. Ezekiel: Pretty dead match, definitely slowed the pace of the live crowd down.

- Second Alex Riley segment was solid too. I'm impressed with his mic work. He's a perfect fit for the role that he's playing.

- The Miz/Lawler segment got the crowd back in. The pops for The King were huge.

- Kofi/Sheamus: Good strong bout. Pretty quiet crowd throughout though. Not many Kofi fans.

- Yoshi/Henry vs. Nexus: Once Cena came out, no one was even paying attention to the bout (myself included). I was front row of the section he walked through so I got an up-close look and the whole section was going nuts. A very pro-Cena crowd. I think this "Fired" angle got some of the leaners back on his side.

- Del Rio vs. Morrison: This one seemed like a no-brainer since Sheamus vs. Del Rio wouldn't make much sense. Crowd was so-so for this one.

- The Wade/Cena segment was great. When Gabriel got tossed into the window the whole place let out a loud "Ohhhhh".. that looked like it hurt bad.

- Divas match. Dead crowd until Santino came out, huge pops for him.

- Morrison/Sheamus for King of the Ring: Great back and forth match. Once Sheamus was celebrating I (along with many other people) REALLY expected Triple H to come and take him out. It would've fit perfectly actually. "All hail the king" says Sheamus and BOOM, Hunter's music hits and he comes out and beats down Sheamus. The roof would've blown off. I feel like that was a great opportunity that wasn't taken advantage of. But I guess the WWE writers would know better than me.

- Miz vs. Lawler for the title: The crowd was extremely into this match. The spots where Lawler almost got the title, my whole section was shaking. The Cole/Lawler bit was great too. Looking forward to seeing how they're going to handle commentary together next week.

After Raw went off the air: Wade Barrett came out and challenged Cena to a fight. Cena came through the crowd and started beating down on Wade. Nexus comes out and work on Cena but Daniel Bryan and Mark Henry make the save. Cena gives Barrett the 5-Knuckle and the AA. Cena then takes the mic and tells the crowd that it's Jerry Lawler's birthday. The crowd sings as all the divas come out and give Jerry a cake. Huge cake fight ensues and all the Divas and Cena throw cake at each other. Cena exits and Lawler gets an ovation as he exits. End of show.

My Thoughts: Great crowd overall all night. I was very disappointed that Randy Orton didn't appear at all as he's my top guy. Not sure why the made the decision to keep him off TV. He was even advertised for the dark main event. I'm really thinking they're gonna tie HHH's return into Sheamus being "King of the Ring" due to the fact that Hunter is the King of Kings. I highly, HIGHLY expect HHH on next week's Raw when Sheamus inevitably comes out to brag about his accomplishment. I guess til then we'll have to wait and see.