Thanks to Nick Bazar for sending in this report to us:
More than half of the upper deck was tarped off. The crowd was older than usual down here in Miami, and a pretty good number were wearing Nexus shirts and hats.
Pre-Show:
David Arquette was introduced as a former WCW Heavyweight Champion. He hopped on the announcers table and was escorted by security. Funny stuff.
R-Truth def. Zack Ryder: Truth came out to his old theme music. Basic dark match.
Michael Cole came out to heavy boos, Matt Striker came out to no reaction and Jerry Lawler got a standing ovation.
Live Show:
Daniel Bryan was over. I don’t know how much of that had to do with this being the opening match of the PPV, but he was over. The crowd was hot for the entire match, more so than anything else on the card, aside from the Survivor Series match and the main event intros.
Miz’s promo drew a strong “Let’s go Heat” chant, even though most of his quips had many in my section laughing.
Morrison/Sheamus started out quiet, but slowly made the crowd care toward the end.
Ziggler/Kaval worked real hard to win the crowd over, but the place was absolutely dead. The least popular match on the card by far.
The Traditional Survivor Series match finally woke the crowd up. They were hot for every entrance, except Tyler Reks. Actually, the only time they quieted down was when Reks was on offense. They ate everything else up. Big Show and MVP were over big time.
The Sharpshooter during the Diva’s match got a great reaction. Beth Phoenix drew a moderate pop.
Kane/Edge did not manage to gain much interest. Both guys looked like they were going at half-speed. There was some confusion when the ref counted three and rang for the bell. Once Edge’s music hit, the crowd cheered for the new champion. The “tie” thing brought them back down.
Nexus came out for the tag match to mostly boos. Marella’s offense was a hit. Harmless fun.
The main event introductions drew great ovations. Cena was mixed, Barrett was booed heavily and Orton was cheered heavily. So right out of the gate, the babyface/heel dynamic was there. However, they lost the crowd pretty much when the bell rang. The guy next to me tried to start an RKO chant, but I don’t know if it caught on. Toward the end of the match, the crowd got into it and popped big for the RKO. The post-match stuff was a little strange, as a lot of people were anticipating something big…but it never came. A lot of people started leaving before Cena did his whole salute thing.
One last note, we went to a Denny’s near the arena after the show and met Michael Tarver. He was with a tall guy who had on a “RUN/NXT- Tarver” shirt. Tarver was really soft spoken.