In January 2018, WWE celebrated a milestone with its 25th-anniversary edition of Monday Night Raw. The broadcast was simultaneously from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and the Manhattan Center, which had served as Raw’s original home. While the evening was intended as a nostalgic celebration of the brand’s history, the fans at the Manhattan Center quickly grew restless due to a perceived lack of action in the ring.
Speaking on the latest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, former WWE and current TNA star Mustafa Ali recalled how the atmosphere at the smaller venue grew toxic as the night progressed. Ali, who was one of the cruiserweights scheduled for the show, explained that the crowd felt they had been misled about the nature of the event. Because the Manhattan Center broadcast primarily focused on legendary appearances and interview segments, the live audience was left sitting through long periods of inactivity while matches took place at the Barclays Center.
“It was when Raw was doing the Barclays Center and the Manhattan Center at the same time. There’s a bunch of people that have paid a lot of money to attend this event. But here’s the problem that they didn’t plan, there was no actual matches there. It was just legends coming out and cutting a promo. So about almost an hour into it, the fans start realizing, ‘Hey, we got jibbed.’ There’s no matches, and they start booing recklessly,” Ali told Chris Van Vliet.
The “reckless” booing from the Manhattan Center crowd eventually reached the ears of WWE management, specifically Triple H, who was overseeing the production from the venue. Realizing that the audience was close to a full-scale revolt, “The Game” scrambled to get active wrestlers over to the Manhattan Center to provide some much-needed bell-to-bell action. Ali detailed the “panic” that ensued as officials grabbed the available cruiserweight talent from Brooklyn and rushed them to the other side of the city.
“So Triple H is at the Manhattan Center. He gets on the phone, and he calls over Barclays, and he goes, ‘I need matches, and I need them now.’ So Mark Carrano goes, ‘I know, the cruiserweights!’ So he stuffs a bunch of cruiserweights into a van, and just sends us blindly to Manhattan Center. Hideo Itami is driving, I don’t know. So we’re running upstairs and everyone’s panicking, go, go, go, upstairs. Go upstairs. We’re running with our gear, because we’re all coming from Barclays. And Triple H goes, ‘Situation – there’s no matches during the commercial break. I just need you guys to go out there and do the craziest s**t for two or three minutes,’” Ali explained.
In the chaos of the move, Ali and his opponent Lince Dorado found themselves frantically looking for a place to change into their gear. They inadvertently threw their bags into a private room, only to realize they had invaded the personal space of one of the most respected legends in the history of the industry.
“All right, cool. So I was wrestling Lince Dorado, and we run upstairs, we have our bags, so we just open this door and we throw our bags down, we close the door, we start talking. The referee comes up and goes, ‘Hey guys, where are you changing?’ ‘Right here.’ And then we look up – private locker room for The Undertaker. Open the door sheepishly, me and Lince, ‘Hello, sir. I’m Ali, This is Lince. Huge mistake. We’re just gonna grab our bags and leave.’ We go to reach for our bags, and he goes, ‘Hey, you guys don’t want to hang out with the motherf**king Undertaker?’ Before I could say anything Lince goes ‘Hell yeah!’” Ali shared.
“We’re changing. He’s asking us about, you know, I told him I was a former police officer. He was like, ‘Oh s**t,’ we’re talking about this and that. Lince was a former teacher. So he’s like, ‘Isn’t that crazy?’ We’re talking to The Undertaker about life, and then we kind of forgot that we had to go. We just ran out and did our match up. And then, yeah, it was just one of those wild experiences,” Ali added.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
