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At the last minute, I ended up attending last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw in Hartford, CT.
Usually when I attend a show at this point in my life, I’m there to work in some capacity, but last night was different. It was very much a farewell excursion for the legendary Terrellder, who Elite subscribers have heard mentioned an infinite amount of times over the years as he’s moving to Georgia for a job opportunity, so this was going to be our last show that we’ll have the chance to attend together for the foreseeable future.
The setup of the XL Center in Hartford is very different from most Arenas these days. Having first opened way back in 1975, the building still looks and feels ancient compared to most of the newer arenas that are around. With the exception of some digital boards that are set up around the venue, I don’t know that there’s been much done to evolve it from its glory years. In 1995, I was amazed the venue was hosting Wrestlemania 11 when I was there. Last night, I was even more amazed that WWE ran Raw there, but I’m really glad they did.
In a lot of ways, that grizzled, beat-up venue helped generate a lot of awesome energy that cascaded over to the live broadcast. It felt like a throwback in a lot of ways. There were countless signs in the audience, making the show look and feel live more like an old Attitude Era Raw vs. today’s shows where you can see three quarters of the audience filming with their phone. There were chants galore and fans singing theme songs and just a feeling of a huge group of people who were happy to be there. It was a far different energy than the last Raw taping in Brooklyn, NY I attended a few years back.
I’m not sure how or when this happened, but I feel like WWE has tapped into a new, different audience of late. Last night, I really, REALLY watched the crowd reactions for different things on the show. Behind us was a father and son who were just having the best time with the kid just relishing that he was at a real, live WWE show. When everyone came out, it was like Batman and Superman were walking past them for that kid. It was refreshing to listen to their conversations about who was the better wrestler and who could win, vs. the sort of Internet discussion of who should win and get better pushes and who’s a better worker inside the ring. There was a purity to the conversation that was akin to the ones I certainly had with friends in the mid-1980s wondering what would happen if Hulk Hogan ever wrestled Ric Flair.
Across the arena, on the other side of the ring, I watched a young fan in his 20s literally lose his mind clapping as hard as he could, screaming when Becky Lynch won her match against Sonya Deville. This wasn’t the “a babyface won, so I’ll clap”' but pure electricity coursing through this man’s veins because his hero won a match, the sort of thing I would feel at his age when Terry Funk scored another win in Philadelphia. It was the sort of moment I could relate to but also felt disconnected from, since I’m a lot older. It was at that moment that I also realized what WWE had found for themselves of late.
For all the talk of how everyone is interconnected on social media and the Twitter conversation is the one that matters, WWE instead, somehow circumvented that and cultivated a new, different audience. There were lots of families with young kids, but I also believe, based on looking at the makeup of the crowd, is that they’ve captured and kept the kids from the John Cena era who are now in their 20s/30s and have income to spend and they’ve hooked them again with things like The Bloodline and Cody Rhodes. The majority of the crowd I could see and hear last night weren’t yelling inside things or being snarky - except for one hilarious fan throwing out Bullet Club references aplenty anytime he saw Finn Balor - but were living and dying, so to speak, by their heroes and villains. It was a different energy.
I think a lot of it may really have to do with the Bloodline storytelling. For all the talk of an audience in the 21st century that doesn’t have patience and chasing the quarter-hours like Jaws looking for the Orca, the fact that The Bloodline storyline has been given so long to entrench its roots in the audience has led to not just all of the personalities involved becoming so fascinating for the audience but for the actual act of watching WWE to become more of a traditional viewing experience. There are fans watching the “entire season” (storyline) as opposed to just watching an episode (match) and the seeding of the stories for long-term enrichment as opposed to short-term pops has led to the audience paying attention to not just Roman and friends, but everything else on the shows.
Less has meant more for fans to fall in love with. Three years of investment into the storytelling has paid off.
Perhaps the best example of that right now was the reaction to Cody Rhodes last night. For the life of me, I don’t remember the last time, with the exception of Hulk Hogan in the 80s and Steve Austin in the 90s, when fans were in an arena that I was sitting in, chanting for someone before they saw them. Before The Miz’s music hit for his entrance for The Miz Show last night, Hartford sat there chanting LOUDLY for Cody. Then Miz’s music hit, so they stopped, but when it came time for Cody to enter, the vast majority of the crowd were on their feet singing every note and when time came for the whoooa in Cody’s theme, you knew you were in the middle of something special.
As Terrelder wisely pointed out on our drive back to NYC, Cody in 2023 shouldn’t be the hero he is. The audience is supposed to be wiser, more jaded, most accustomed to the flashier athletics, but it works and he’s the most over babyface in the company. I think a major reason for that is what came before - The Bloodline storyline has taught the audience that if they are patient, they will be rewarded, so pay attention.
Cody’s return and winning the Royal Rumble was his equivalent of Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star. Now, he’s lost his dream of achieving the World title win in honor of his father and has a “broken arm” to boot. He’s in the middle of The Empire Strikes Back, but instead of WWE rushing to have him get his win back immediately, they’ve learned the lessons of the Bloodline. There will undoubtedly be a Return of the Jedi comeback for Rhodes, but like Lucasfilm making fans of the Original Trilogy wait years for the next chapter, WWE is, at this moment, wisely also milking it and letting the audience wait, as opposed to rushing for the quick one night PPV pop and then wondering what to do the next night on Raw.
They’ve also shown a lot more patience and nuance with Cody than they’ve shown other babyfaces in recent years. Instead of running talents on a treadmill that goes nowhere, boring the fans in the process and numbing them to the characters, Cody is going through the wringer, fighting the best he can through it and seeking his validation and victory. By doing so, the audience has fallen deeper and deeper in love with him and he’s over in a pure babyface way that WWE has had a hard time perfecting and fermenting with lots of talents they’ve chosen to push way harder and quicker.
Less of a rush meant the audience has had a chance to breathe and embrace the story and Cody, who now exists as the type of pure old school babyface that his own father Dusty Rhodes and Hulk Hogan were, both updated for today's audience.
Now, WWE has two long-term, slow burning stories, one on each brand - Roman's drama and Cody's chase for success.
If they can keep those plates spinning, and then add more over time, they will be closer than ever to the type of seasonal storytelling that they’ve always claimed to have had, but never truly, actually did. WWE creative had grown to mostly be reactive over the years. For the first time in a long time, it feels more proactive, at least as much as can be under a Vince McMahon - but the positives right now far outweigh the negatives and it’s shown by how deeply passionate the fans have been at major PPV events and especially last night’s Raw in Hartford, CT.
One thing that was also readily apparent is that the Dominik Mysterio experiment has not only been a great success, but that a few years down the line, he’s going to end up as one of the biggest babyfaces for the company. His timing, facials and delivery for his promo against Cody Rhodes last night were impeccable, to the point you’d have never believed it was the same person that was teaming with his father a few years ago. Great heels one day give way to great babyfaces, and Dominik is probably one of the best heels they have right now.
It was refreshing to see so many talents who have ascended over the last year. Seth Rollins stood center ring last night, glittering in gold, with the audience live enraptured by every line he uttered while also loving the sing-along moment of his theme music. We’ve all been to concerts where the fans keep singing as the band pauses. This was that moment. Rollins was the man to those fans, therefore, he is the man.
Inside the ring, GUNTHER and Kevin Owens had the exact type of match one would have expected of them in a ROH or PWG before a die-hard crowd, but instead, they were killing it in the ring and killing each other with big physical strikes and hard German suplexes, taking the crowd on a ride that was different from everything else on the show. Therefore, it felt fresh and unique, but still had that WWE good vs. evil tint to it with Imperium getting involved and Sami Zayn trying to even the odds for his friend.
Damian Priest, fresh off his Backlash performance, continues to rule the roost as well. When he walked out, he didn’t look or sound or feel like a star, he just was one. His right hands looked like they were drilling Rollins in the face and his pacing in the ring was aggressive and credible without stretching either. He played his role to the fullest and even in losing, continued to gain momentum.
I don’t think it’s out of question that one day, Priest and/or GUNTHER will hold the World Heavyweight Championship - not that there should be a rush for either to get there, especially since the audience today will be far more embracing of a slow build to major moments than they’ve been given credit for in recent years.
It's also readily apparent that the success of Total Divas and the women's revolution has forever changed WWE, for the better. Every female talent on the show, from Xia Li and Candice LeRae working WWE Main Event to the latest chapter in Trish Stratus trying to upend Becky Lynch's career, received legitimate big reactions with a crowd that was invested into every story and match. Compare that to a decade ago, before Total Divas had premiered on E!, and it's night and day in terms of fan caring and more importantly, fans paying to see these talents. WWE owes a big thank you and royalty check to the Bellas as that evolution of how women were presented, treated and allowed to perform changed the entire fabric of the company - which now has a far grander female population at their events - set the stage for some of the better stories and matches every month.
While anything can change at any second in professional wrestling, where eclectic and sometimes insane individuals will make decrees that make the audience members shake their heads in confusion, last night’s Raw seemed to exist in a moment in time where WWE is enjoying the momentum of having inserted patience into their storytelling and in doing so, captivated an audience that has fallen in love with the theatrics, the athleticism and the consistency of the product.
May every pro wrestling audience be as enjoyable to sit in as Hartford was last night and may every audience fall in love with their pro wrestling as much as those WWE fans last night were. If WWE can maintain that, they'll undoubtedly set the stage for another generation of families to bring their kids, looking to duplicate the types of memories they made last night.
And to my brother Terrelder, who has been one of the best friends anyone could ever ask for, good journey and I look forward to the next time we sit at a show and laugh - it’s one of the best gifts someone could ask for - and my friend, so are you.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
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