WWE’s 25th anniversary edition of Monday Night Raw in January 2018 was designed to celebrate the company’s history in a big way. The special broadcast aired live from two locations in New York City. One portion of the show took place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, while the other returned to the Manhattan Center, the venue that hosted the very first episode of Raw in 1993.
While the idea was meant to deliver a nostalgic tribute to the brand’s legacy, the experience inside the Manhattan Center quickly turned sour for fans in attendance.
During a recent appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, former WWE star Mustafa Ali reflected on the chaotic night and explained how the crowd at the Manhattan Center grew increasingly frustrated when they realized the event would feature very little in ring action.
Ali explained that many fans had paid high ticket prices expecting to see matches, but the Manhattan Center portion of the show mainly consisted of appearances from WWE legends delivering short promos while the actual matches were taking place across town in Brooklyn.
“It was when Raw was doing the Barclays Center and the Manhattan Center at the same time,” Ali said. “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.”
According to Ali, the atmosphere inside the venue quickly became hostile as the audience voiced their displeasure. WWE officials soon realized the situation could spiral out of control if the crowd wasn’t given something more substantial.
Ali recalled that Triple H, who was overseeing operations at the Manhattan Center that night, quickly sprang into action once the reaction from the crowd became impossible to ignore.
“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,’” Ali said. “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.”
Ali described the frantic rush across the city as officials scrambled to get performers into the building to calm the restless crowd.
“Hideo Itami is driving, I don’t know,” Ali joked. “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 was scheduled to face Lince Dorado that night, and the pair barely had time to get ready before heading to the ring. In their rush to find somewhere to change, the two accidentally walked into a locker room they definitely were not meant to enter.
“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,” Ali said. “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.”
Ali said they quickly realized their mistake and awkwardly attempted to leave.
“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,’” Ali recalled. “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!’”
Instead of kicking them out, The Undertaker welcomed the two cruiserweights and struck up a conversation that Ali still remembers fondly.
“We’re changing. He’s asking us about life,” Ali said. “I told him I was a former police officer. He was like, ‘Oh s**t.’ 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.”
Eventually the reality of the situation hit them and they rushed to the ring to perform their short match for the Manhattan Center crowd.
“We just ran out and did our match up,” Ali added. “And then, yeah, it was just one of those wild experiences.”
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