WWE Raw brand house show report
September 22, 2010
St. Etienne, France
Report by Julien Macret, Torch VIP subscriber

The Zenith arena was sold out with a full attendance of 7,200 people, including a lot of kids. WWE has definitely attracted a young audience to the product. I attended the show with my wife, my brother, and my wrestling PPV-mate.

The show opened with Justin Roberts. No one on this night would succeed in saying "Saint-Etienne" the right way.

(1) R-Truth beat The Miz and Ted DiBiase in a three-way #1 contender match for the U.S. Title. R-Truth came out to his own routine, and the crowd ate it up. The Miz came out next, saying in French "Je n'ai pas taper," maybe not realizing that we didn't all see Night of Champions three days earlier. DiBiase was out last without Maryse. The match featured typical two-on-one heels vs. babyface work in the ring. R-Truth won with his flying elbow on DiBiase. The match didn't last long enough to form an opinion, but it got the crowd into the show.

After Truth's win, Nexus members Wade Barrett and Dave Otunga attacked K-Kwik real quick, ermh, R-Truth. Wade Barrett went into a heelish routine speaking of World War II, with the U.K. and U.S. being the heroes and the French the cowards. Sorry, Barrett, but I don't think a lot of people in the arena understood what you said. He would have been better off talking soccer and coming out with a Lyon's jersey (the big soccer rival). Anyway, the crowd booed Barrett out of the ring, while Otunga didn't seem comfortable on the mic.

(2) Santino Marella & Kozlov beat the Usos. Comedy match. Marella is over, but so was Kozlov, surprisingly. The faces won with the Special Santino. Nothing special in the match with the exception of the Santino routine.

(3) Goldust beat William Regal. We've been following wrestling since the early '90s and we realized on this night that Goldust was around in 1994 feuding with Razor Ramon. Heck, I was in college, Diesel had black hair, and Shawn Michaels was molding into one of the best wrestlers in the world. Nostalgia... The GM emailed and announced a dance-off contest. A match then took place and ended rather abruptly with a win for Goldust via the Shattered Dreams. It's too bad the dance-off took so much time because I was delighted to see those two in the ring. Is it just me or Goldust is sharper right now and he doesn't carry a second belly anymore?

(4) Edge beat John Morrison. Hello, French people, Edge is not supposed to be cheered. It must happen often on house shows. He received a very good pop, maybe the second best of the night after that John Cena guy wearing that purple t-shirt that every kid must have bought. In my opinion, the match was the second best of the night. Edge won with a spear after Morrison missed his version of the corkscrew moonsault.

[Intermission. I made my way into the stands to buy Miz's t-shirt.]

(5) The Bella Twins beat Maryse & Tamina. Nothing really special, just a Divas tag match after intermission. The Bellas won after they substituted without being seen by the referee.

(6) John Cena & Evan Bourne beat The Nexus (Wade Barrett & David Otunga). The roof of the Zenith nearly exploded when Cena made his entrance, just like last November for the house shows in Lyon, France. The tag match was nothing really special. The beat down of Evan Bourne was too long, I thought, and Cena finally took the hot tag and cleaned house with his usual shoulder blocks, spinning back powerbomb, and You Can't See Me signature move. Cena then gave Otunga the Attitude Adjustment and delivered the AA on Barrett on top of Otunga. Bourne then hit the Shooting Star Press on both opponents and Cena made the cover. Nice ending sequence.

(7) Main event: WWE champion Randy Orton beat Sheamus to retain the WWE Title. This was the best match of the night. I prefer Orton as a heel, as I believe it clicks much better with his Viper persona. The effort was really good from both men. They didn't take too much risk, but it was still good and told a good story. Orton won with an RKO after he countered Sheamus's running powerbomb finisher. Orton then posed with the WWE Title belt to close the show.

Overall: the crowd was into the show all night and ate everything up. Really great experience. If someone told me five years ago that WWE would be coming to Saint-Etienne, I would have bet my house. WWE's international interest seems to be growing each year and now WWE has a home in Saint-Etienne. But, Shawn Michaels has left the building, and it's not the same without him.

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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