AS I SEE IT: Chicago raised hell last week on RAW
Bob Magee
Pro Wrestling: Between the Sheets
http://pwbts.com
Well, RAW was not Punk. As predicted, the fans of Chicago raised holy hell. All night long.
The week before, fans had set up #hijackRaw on Twitter, designed to encourage fans to raise hell at RAWs. This was set up especially at Chicago last week to tell WWE they want to see CM Punk back, and that they want an end to the Daniel Bryan being the WWE version of South Park’s Kenny, with “The Authority” doing something to “kill” Daniel Bryan each and every week.
Since WWE knew Punk wasn’t going to be there, they did themselves no favors last night by not squashing the rumor. No matter what they tell you, they knew the Punk story was put out there by Meltzer. They ignored it, they fed into it by not debunking it, and had three hours of people chanting for someone who wasn’t there.
Dozens of signs were clearly visible, and the chants started from the moment the 8:45 insert promo for RAW was aired.
Paul Heyman’s killer promo at the beginning of RAW may have helped for a little while, but also came off a bit like mocking Punk and the fans at the same time.
For a lot of the show, fans were either chanting for Punk, or sitting on their hands. Some matches has so little crowd response, you could heard a cricket fart. As one example, I felt bad for Christian and Sheamus. Their match was right match, wrong place, wrong time. The Wyatt-Shield match and the Usos-New Age Outlaws matches were about the only thing that got the crowd into any part of the show not involving Danielson or (potentially) Punk.