WWE Raw Live Event
Chattanooga, Tenn.
Report by Dot Net reader Brinton Hester

There was a pretty sizable crowd in the UTC-McKenzie Arena for the Raw Live Event. The arena was pretty much full except for the nosebleeds where there were a few people scattered throughout. I'm not good at estimating, but I'd guess between 7,000 and 8,000 people were there.

The show started off with Justin Roberts welcoming us to the show followed by the national anthem.

1. Mark Henry defeated William Regal. Whoever was working the audio initially goofed up and played R-Truth's music first, but corrected the error. It was a typical Mark Henry match. He won after a few minutes with the World's Strongest Slam. Henry got a decent reaction from the Chattanooga crowd.

2. The Bella Twins defeated Maryse and Alicia Fox. I guess there were no celebrities in Chattanooga this weekend since the Bellas found themselves in a match. There was nothing special about this match, but it wasn't awful either. The Bellas surprised me with their ringwork to be honest. The Bellas won, but I forgot how.

Before the next match, Justin Roberts welcomed Eve Torres to the ring. She was looking for a guest bell-ringer who could answer a trivia question. Some kid correctly named the next WWE Pay-Per-View event.

3. Yoshi Tatsu defeated Zack Ryder. Ryder got some decent heat on his entrance with a "Woo woo woo" from Chattanooga's only member of the Zack Pack, but the crowd erupted when Yoshi came out, much to my surprise as he's not often featured on Raw. As the match was about to begin, the GM chime went off and Justin Roberts told the crowd that he just received a message from the general manager.

He stated that before the match started there was going to be a dance competition. Yoshi started it off with some horrendously bad dancing that got a decent reaction from the crowd. As Tatsu was dancing, Ryder attacked him from behind and the match was underway. It was a fun back-and-forth match until Ryder missed the Rough Ryder and Yoshi hit his kick for the finish.

4. Tyson Kidd defeated David Hart Smith. Neither guy got much of a reaction on their entrances which was the first lull of the night. The match started with Kidd avoiding getting in the ring with Smith which got him a fair amount of heat. Smith then started a light "Tyson sucks" chant which got Kidd to enter the ring. They put on a pretty good match that eventually got most of the crowd behind it, but DH Smith's face mannerisms seem forced to me. Kidd won after rolling Smith up with the tights.

5. Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov defeated Nexus members Michael McGillicutty and Husky Harris (w/ David Otunga) to retain the WWE Tag Team Championship. Nexus made their entrance first and David Otunga grabbed the mic. He did the typical cheap heat spiel calling people from the south stupid before Kozlov and Santino came out to a loud ovation. The match had its fun spots, but it dragged on for about five minutes too long. David Otunga was ejected from ringside, and Santino hit The Cobra on McGillicutty for the victory.

At intermission, Eve came out and threw some t-shirts into the crowd.

6. Daniel Bryan (w/ The Bella Twins) defeated Ted DiBiase (w/ Maryse) to retain the United States Championship. One of the selling points for me attending this event was being able to see Daniel Bryan wrestle in person for the first time. For that aspect it was cool, but the match had heel Jerry Lawler levels of stalling from DiBiase, which worked because the crowd was all over him the whole match. At one point Bryan completely pulled down the back of DiBiase's trunks so that his butt was showing. Nobody's ever accused Bryan of being PG!

After that, DiBiase ran outside the ring and teased heading back to the locker room. He came back at the nine count and the match picked up a little bit before the next time he teased leaving. At some points, Maryse and the Bellas had a miniature catfight. The finish came when DiBiase hit some offense and went for Dream Street, but it was countered into the LeBell Lock and DiBiase had no choice but to tap. The Bellas came back into the ring to celebrate with Daniel.

7. John Morrison defeated King Sheamus in a street fight. John Morrison came out to a great reaction from the crowd. Sheamus came out to a decent amount of heat. Justin Roberts announced that the fans got to vote between a street fight and a two out of three falls match. The street fight won in a landslide. These two put on the match of the night as they've made a habit of doing lately.

A cookie sheet got a small amount of use, but the weapon of the match was the Singapore cane. At one point Morrison set a chair on top of Sheamus and went for Starship Pain, but Sheamus got his knees up. It looked cool in person. The finish came when Sheamus landed in a chair that was sitting in the middle of the ring and Morrison hit his finishing kick onto it.

8. The Miz (w/ Alex Riley) defeated CM Punk and John Cena to retain the WWE Championship. The Miz came out first to a chorus of boos. He got on the mic and cut what came across as a wannabe Jericho promo about how great he is. CM Punk then made his entrance in what got the loudest heat of the night. The last Superstar to make his entrance was John Cena who easily got the biggest pops, which wasn't a surprise since there was so much purple gear in the crowd I would have thought I was attending a Vikings game if they had made the playoffs (Powell's POV: Sigh).

The match started off with CM Punk and Miz working together to take out Cena. The tide turned when they took turns hitting their corner moves. Miz hit his and then Punk hit the running knee on Cena and went for the bulldog, but Cena pushed him off and into Miz. At that point Cena took over. As momentum was in Cena's favor, a ref bump occurred.

At that point Nexus hit the ring and went for Cena. They cleared the ring as Punk hit the Go To Sleep on Cena, but then Miz ran back into the ring and hit Punk with the Skull Crushing Finale for the victory. After winning he quickly high-tailed it out of the ring and Nexus surrounded a fallen Cena. Just as it looked like they were about to attack, Mark Henry's music hit and Yoshi Tatsu, DH Smith, Santino Marella, Vladimir Kozlov, Daniel Bryan, and John Morrison came out with him for the save. McGillicutty and Harris retreated but Otunga wasn't so lucky. The faces surrounded Otunga and he knew he was in trouble. The faces all hit offense on him and Cena's music hit to close the show.

Randy Orton wasn't there which struck me as kind of odd.

Top Pops:
1. John Cena (by a longshot)
2. John Morrison
3. Santino and Kozlov

Most Heat:
1. CM Punk
2. The Miz
3. Ted DiBiase

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