Other than the fact that Kevin Dunn was not involved in the “Beast in the East” special on the WWE Network, I’m told that the production came off so well because it was not produced by WWE at all. It was produced by J Sports in Japan. J Sports has aired live NXT TakeOver specials in the past and they’ve used the feed sent from the United States. In this case, they handled the production and the Raw feed was sent out to the WWE Network. I think it’s just cheaper to do it that way. This explains why there were no shaky camera spots from the camera crew and why the production was praised by so many fans. It was refreshing to watch a show that felt like an actual professional wrestling show with the wrestlers getting to tell their stories in the ring instead of 20 minute talking segments.
WWE was said to be very happy with how many people tuned in live. The show was trending worldwide on twitter.
As noted early in the show, Michael Cole and Byron Saxton did the commentary from WWE’s studios in Stamford.
For those that asked, the reason why you heard chants from the Japanese fans is because, from what I was told, the fans try to fit in with the American product if they are watching WWE so that’s why you heard “Lets go Cena, Cena sucks” chants and other chants that you’d normally hear at a WWE show. I think the Japanese fans were great on Saturday. The reason why the show ended with Kane/Barrett vs. Ziggler/Cena is because Cena is a huge deal to fans in Japan and he’s the main draw when WWE goes there.
Based on the reactioni to the show from fans, I would not be surprised if they did this again. It would not cost them a lot to produce if they can partner again with J Sports like they did on Saturday.
