What You DIdn't See At The Rumble Last Night

[CandyKANE]

credit:wrestlingdotcom.com

-I just got home from the show in Boston, and feelings coming out of it were pretty mixed. Match of the night of course was Benoit-Angle, as the crowd was into it throughout and was torn between cheering for Angle or Benoit. Although I was sure going in Angle would retain, the match was so compelling that towards the end I had no idea who would win. Everyone popped for the finish, and standing ovation for both Angle as he left and Benoit in the ring.

-Worst match was the women's match, but the Steiner-Triple H match was close (so much for all of the build-up to both of those). Not much of a pop as Steiner entered, and it signaled the beginning of the lackluster response he got throughout the match. The crowd was at first in absolute disbelief, and then booed the heck out of the ending.

-The tag match was there, nothing great. The crowd cared for nothing but tables.

-The 30-man Rumble was well-received, with many spots getting big cheers, although people were loudly booing when Booker got eliminated so quickly. The crowd was into Lesnar all night, and WWE went with the safe pick for the winner.

-After the show went off the air, the Undertaker shook hands with Lesnar, the ref raised his hand a couple more times, he posed, and left.

-I was pretty disappointed with the outcome of the Rumble, because this would have been a good time to begin to build a credible (Booker T or RVD) opponent from Raw for Triple H at WrestleMania rather than going the obvious route with Lesnar (who doesn't need to Rumble win to set up the feud with Angle). Guess we will be seeing Triple H-HBK IV or Triple H-Austin XX at WrestleMania.

[CandyKANE]

Just got back from sitting 4th row from the rumble. anyone wanna buy a chair for $300?

After Sean O'Haire promo was cut, he showed up inconspicuously in the crowd, in one of the loge sections close to the floor with some girl. He was trying to be incognito, but it was definitely him and he gave out a few handshakes. His new character looks pretty cool, some sort of 'screw religion' gimmick. He doesn't look as big as he used to be.

Big Stevie Cool and Spike gave us our 'bonus match' to start the night, with jackie as the guest ref. Decent match with lots of cheers for Spike.

Dudleys got the crowd fired up to start the pay-per-view off. Somewhat anti-climactic without the tables, but a good match none the less. D-Von 'testified' my I MISS ECW sign and said 'Thank You'

Nobody really cared about the Dawn Marie/Torrie match (except for the kid behind me, who actually thinks Al Wilson is dead, and was pretty upset with his widow).

HHH-Steiner match: Lots of heat on Steiner from the get-go, lots of people in the crowd were on him for being old, some "Wheel-Chair-Wrestling" shouts, perhaps unfairly, until he dug his own grave messing up that double-underhook powerbomb. People were just waiting all match for the first chance to yell, "You f'd up".Not sure how much the heat showed up on TV.

Benoit and Angle match was phenonemal. Steiner had better give those two a big thanks for making the crowd forget how bad the previous match was. The crowd was on fire for this whole contest, and Benoit got a standing ovation from the entire FleetCenter for a solid couple of minutes before he exited. What a match...blew the doors off of Raw's title match.

The Rumble, in and of itself, was decent. The crowd was hot the whole time, and Tajiri, Dreamer, and RVD all involked some ECW chants. Dreamer got a really good response from the crowd, only to kick the crowd right in the stomach by getting eliminated so fast. He did lay the lumber on Jericho before he left, busting him open pretty good. Rhyno, please bring the ECW belt with you when you come back...

Crowd was shocked when HBK bounced so early, couldn't tell if it was a mishap for not. Taker got a huge pop, but caused many "I thought he was coming back as the dead man" comments.

The crowd was going nuts for Brock every time he did anything. He worked the crowd pretty good as the show ended.

The 3 seconds the Rock was on the Titantron, 'Rocky Sucks" chants ERUPTED. I'm sure Rocky's movie producers aren't too happy about his latest crowd reactions...

Funniest comment of the night definitely goes to the kid who yelled, "You sucked on Conan" to the Big Show. He said it when Show was nearby, and he definitely heard it.

Decent show overall, it will be interesting to see how it looked on TV.