WWE Fans Inside The Manhattan Center Weren’t Thrilled With Raw 25

Last night, WWE aired Monday Night Raw in New York City from two different locations as part of their Raw 25 celebration — the Barclays Center and the considerably smaller Manhattan Center, the same place the show started a quarter-century ago.

Tickets for both shows were hot commodities, with the promise of real-deal legends such as Steve Austin and the Undertaker making appearances, with Manhattan Center tickets running upwards of $400 a person just to get in the building, with floor seats reaching close to $1000 — and that’s not even taking into consideration prices on the secondary market.

While no specifics were announced ahead of time, such as what exactly would be taking place at each venue, fans who dropped the cash to be inside the Manhattan Center for Raw’s first live broadcast in that venue in more than two decades certainly had expectations — and judging by the internet, those expectations were definitely not met.

The Manhattan Center crowd was forced to watch a large portion of Raw on TV monitors, as the bulk of last night’s show was broadcast from the Barclays. Nearly halfway through the show, fans began voicing their displeasure with the lack of action:

Unbeknownst to fans at Barclays or those watching at home, the Manhattan Center was treated with a few cruiserweight matches wedged in between commercial breaks. Unfortunately, that didn’t do much to subside the growing discontent among the audience:

We spoke with musician/filmmaker Anto Boros, who was in the Manhattan Center for Raw 25, who had this to say about the experience:

“The vibe was outstanding early on. Everyone was so excited, doing old-school chants. When Jerry Lawler came out, for example, everyone was chanting ‘Burger King.’ When we weren’t on the air, it was just showing the Barclays Center show. People started to get uneasy and annoyed, but everyone was hopeful that something would happen. The funniest chants came when people started to realize nothing was going to happen: ‘WE WANT SOMETHING,’ ‘WE F*CKED UP,’ etc.

All in all, it was a lot of fun but all it was was a viewing party. We were conned. The fact there weren’t more matches, I have no idea why they even set up the ring. It’s a shame because the setup looked absolutely stunning.”

After Raw went off the air, the Manhattan Center did get a little more star power: first, Ric Flair dropped by for a quick promo, followed by the Miz and Seth Rollins, which ended — as these things often do — in the Miz getting punked out:

As with most things WWE, Raw 25 wasn’t perfect. But it certainly was Raw.