WWE Monday Night Raw, April 18 2011: Live Behind the Scenes from London!

Fret not, US readers, or those who haven't seen the UK broadcast yet...I'll not be including spoilers here. You can look up results later, of course, or catch up on the reports.

This is just a taster of the action and the atmosphere from the O2 Arena in London, where this week's Raw was filmed this evening.

We begin, obviously, with the now-traditional red phone box and black taxi cab at the top of the rank, indicating to all and sundry that we're in the UK.

The evening began with some Superstars matches: Primo (who got a pleasing amount of heat, and did some good mic work) against Percy Watson (who didn't get much of a reaction before the crowd decided that if Primo was a heel, then Watson must be the face, and cheered accordingly); Maryse v. Natalya left the ring covered in ripped-out hair extensions (seriously, it was brilliant); and Mark Henry v. Ted DiBiase.

And then on to the evening's main action, beginning with R-Truth skipping out, performing his theme song, and possibly not getting the pops he was hoping for. We're a touch cynical here in the UK, Ron. We need more than rapping if you want us to get behind you.

He had a little skit in the ring with John Morrison, who seemed to go off on a bit of a tangent about Truth being a smoker (really).

It transpired this was part of the angle through the subsequent match, which resulted in a heel-turning Truth stealing a cigarette from someone in the crowd, and lighting up, triggering chants of "THAT'S ILLEGAL!" (I really hope they keep that in the TV broadcast.)

Next was Evan Bourne (I shouted "NERD!" but don't think anyone else did, and I meant it affectionately) against Dolph Ziggler, who now has dark hair. Vickie Guerrero got the most heat of the evening. Good for her.

The next section was epic, with the Miz and Alex Riley interacting brilliantly with the crowd. Miz's control over his sidekick (sorry, vice president of communications) was really well portrayed, and his chat with the audience, concluding with, "London sucks," was hilarious.

He even managed to distract many people from a little trampoline being slid carefully into place, which meant, yes, the arrival of Sin Cara, and it descended into a Sin Cara and John Cena (yes, really) pairing against Miz and A-Ri in a tag-team match.

After some comedy Michael Cole stylings, including a knighthood and a demonstrable misunderstanding of the British monarchical system (oh, and one of the Bella twins took on Eve at some point, but literally nobody was watching), Santino Marella faced Sheamus.

One bit of spoiling here: this did look to end with a legit injury to Santino, who took some time moving out of the ring, and medical staff (as opposed to the patented men in black polo shirts) helped him limp backstage.

Finally for Raw, CM Punk v. Randy Orton. And Punk, as always, makes everything brilliant just by virtue of being there, but this was another great match between the two. At its conclusion, we got a guest appearance from the rest of the Nexus, and some more fantastic work from Punk.

Incidentally, remember what Miz said on commentary last week about girls and kids cheering for John Cena, and everybody else (i.e., men, I suppose) booing him? Same division here. "Ran-dy Or-ton!" got chanted in high voices, followed immediately by more manly "C-M Punk!" chants.

After the show, we got a bonus match: Punk and Miz forming the best comedy tag-team pairing in history against Cena and Orton. Unsurprisingly, the faces won this, and then spent a very pleasing amount of time shaking hands and taking photos with the crowd...very sweet to see.

Cena even brandished a Union Flag at one point: cheesy, but a good call.

Were you at the Raw show? If so, post your comments and thoughts below!