Thoughts on WWE RAW in Brussels, Belgium from a person that attended the show

For the first time ever, Monday Night RAW was live from Belgium last night, straight from Forest National, and aired worldwide on Netflix.

What we didn’t see on TV

Before the show started, ring announcer Alicia Taylor entered to a loud ovation. She announced that this historic RAW in Belgium would be a packed show and teased that the night would end with a match between Dominik Mysterio and Cody Rhodes.

The Main Event show was taped just before RAW, featuring two matches:

Natalya was the first to make her entrance, with her thunderous theme evoking the glory days of her uncle, Bret “The Hitman” Hart. She faced Zoey Stark, who was accompanied by Shayna Baszler. Despite being the crowd favorite, Jim Neidhart’s daughter attempted to lock in the Sharpshooter but quickly fell to Zoey Stark.

The second Main Event match featured Alpha Academy (Otis & Akira Tozawa, with Maxxine Dupri) against the current Tag Team Champions, the War Raiders, who emerged victorious.

It seems to be a new WWE habit to use drones to capture impressive overhead shots of the matches. However, from inside the arena, we could see really often the movements of drones flying over the crowd. The drone pilots, wearing their infrared goggles, could be seen stationed near the production area.

During RAW

After the quick match between Jey Uso and Austin Theory, and during the commercial

break, Grayson Waller cut a short promo trashing the fans. As he left the ring, he pretended to high-five the front-row audience, only to swerve them at the last second and leave them hanging.

After the show

Once the cameras stopped rolling—right after the face-off between Bron Breakker and Penta—WWE treated the live crowd to a dark match of Dominik Mysterio vs. Cody Rhodes.

In a one-sided and fairly short contest, The American Nightmare nailed a Cody Cutter, followed by a Cross Rhodes, to pin Dirty Dom.

Rhodes grabbed a fan’s sign that read “We want a PLE in Belgium!” and then took the microphone to address the crowd. He explained that it wasn’t impossible for that to happen in the near future—right there in the same arena.

Cody then asked the audience if they knew who made those kinds of decisions. The crowd chanted in unison: “Triple H! Triple H!”

Cody nodded and replied, “Yes, but not just him… It’s mostly each and every one of YOU who can make it happen!”

He then gave his championship belt to a young fan. After asking security to let the child cross the barricade, the kid climbed into the ring, where Cody personally handed him the title—followed by a heartfelt hug.

It was a moment the young fan would never forget, and the crowd erupted in applause, appreciating the champion’s kind gesture.

Show Atmosphere

A red-hot crowd brought the energy all night long. Some fans even wore earplugs to protect themselves from the deafening noise levels.

It was funny to see that some wrestlers didn’t seem to understand the “Simplement deux !” chant that echoed throughout the arena every time a pinfall was broken at the count of two. This chant is beloved by French-speaking wrestling fans because it’s a signature phrase from Christophe Agius and Philippe Chéreau, the French commentators who have been calling WWE for over 25 years in France and Belgium.

Corey Graves even made a reference to them during the broadcast in English.

During the Balor/Breakker match, they got their own “Agius Chéreau !” chant from the crowd—a testament to their impact on WWE’s popularity in the Francophonie.

Similarly, when AJ Styles appeared on the TitanTron, the crowd erupted in a chant of “Il est vraiment phénoménal !”—a reference to a popular French song, much like what happened last year at Backlash in Lyon.

Among the most cheered superstars of the night were Otis, Seth Rollins (with his usual never-ending entrance chants), Penta, Bron Breakker, Jey Uso, Rhea Ripley, Rey Mysterio—celebrated as the living legend he is—and, of course, Cody Rhodes.

Interestingly, despite being a heel on TV, Ludwig Kaiser was quite popular in Europe. Several German fans were spotted in the crowd holding signs in his honor.

John Cena’s Brutal Reception

The crowd responded extremely hostilely to John Cena’s promo—something that surely came across on TV. The chants against him were particularly harsh. Even though wrestling fans are generally more playful than football (soccer) crowds, Cena might not have fully grasped the impact of the “John Cena is a b****” chants (literally “John Cena la salope !”, in French).

He left the ring under a deafening chorus of boos and a loud “Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye…” chant. It was a bittersweet moment for many fans—on one hand, they loved booing him because it’s part of the show, especially after what he did to Cody. But on the other hand, there was a sense of nostalgia knowing that this was likely the last time they’d see Cena live in a WWE ring.

Despite the hostile farewell, Cena’s “Farewell Tour” didn’t stop his merch from flying off the shelves—his T-shirts were among the bestsellers at the merch stands.

A Sold-Out Success

The arena was completely sold out, with over 8,000 fans in attendance despite the steep ticket prices. WWE is on fire, and it will be interesting to see if they release official numbers for this Forest National event—which might go down as one of the most profitable RAW episodes in history.