Raw Recap Special: The Crowd Steals The Show-Off’s Show

During what was possibly the most surreal yet entertaining nights in recent WWE history, one thing stood out during the April 8th edition of Monday Night Raw: the crowd.

The crowd in attendance for the post-Mania edition of Raw is always a hot one. Last year’s post-WM show in Miami was widely praised for being loud and ultimately played a part in Daniel Bryan’s “Yes” chants.

Last night’s crowd in New Jersey started as they meant to go on, with chants of ‘same old sh*t’ during John Cena’s opening promo. Mark Henry then made an appearance, which lead to the now customary ‘Sexual Chocolate’ chant. To his credit, Cena played to the crowd and made fun of the chants. But this was just the beginning.

During the 2-on-1 handicap match between Alberto Del Rio and Zeb Colter & Jack Swagger, the crowd and pretty much everyone watching at home were anticipating a Money In The Bank cash-in from one Dolph Ziggler. And when it actually happened, the IZOD Center became unglued.

As the show went on, more irreverent chants began to emanate from the masses surrounding the ring. It was during a pretty meanlingless match (well, about as meaningless as the twitter vote that took place before it) that the crowd began to move things into second gear. Completely dis-interested in the match taking place in front of them, they decided to chant for anything but the match. Chants for the referee Mike Chioda, the commentators – yup, even Michael Cole – and even the ice cream seller in the crowd. Once they’d run out of people actually in the arena to chant for, they turned their attention to WWE legends like Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin and even the late Randy Savage. On#ce they’d done with that, everything went out the window as they decided a mexican wave would be better than watching the match.

And then came the crowds defining moment. After Fandango has suffered a pretty brutal assault at the hands of Chris Jericho, the theme song for Mr Fandango became something of an anthem for the NJ crowd, with the crowd not only singing the theme throughout the end of that segment, but well into the next match and main event. Camera shots of the crowd saw people jumping up and down and dancing to the beat of the track. Videos of the crowd continuing to sing the track as Raw went off air and even as they left the arena only solidified the crowds status as one of the best ever.

Despite the events of last night being largely out of WWE’s hands, a special mention must go to the way WWE handled the situation. There’s a lot to to be said for way they acknowledged the irreverent chanting and basically had fun with it. They could have told the announcers to not mention it. They didn’t have to show the shots of the crowd dancing or the mexican wave. John Cena didn’t have to make the chants part of the main event by ‘dancing’ midway through the match.

It was an amazing, spontaneous feel good night that many will never forget.

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