The invasion staged by the WWE SmackDown roster on the RAW brand this past Monday night was one of the most memorable segments on WWE television in quite some time.
Following AJ Styles being loaned out to RAW for the TLC pay per view event, as well as RAW the following night, Shane McMahon was at RAW to interact with G.M. Kurt Angle. All of the pleasantries were soon revealed to be part of a bigger plan, however, as McMahon brought the rest of the SmackDown roster through the crowd as a panicked Angle left the ringside area.
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This lead to McMahon’s now infamous #UnderSiege comment, as the SmackDown roster (heels and faces alike) set forth up the ramp and to the backstage area. They destroyed everyone in their path, and it was an amazing way for the RAW show to end.
We are now learning that the footage we saw of the SmackDown stars attacking the RAW stars backstage wasn’t actually the final television shots at Monday’s RAW. In fact, they were among the first shots filmed by the television crew.
The Road to #SurvivorSeries in underway… and #RAW was #UnderSiege last night! #SDLive pic.twitter.com/tQue9vIlBo
— WWE (@WWE) October 25, 2017
According to a report from PWInsider, the backstage attacks were filmed early in the day on Monday. Those in charge reportedly directed the SmackDown stars to be as authentic and as real as possible during the shoot. In other words, they were told to work “tight” and almost as if the fights were a shoot. Vince McMahon reportedly wanted the angle to look as physical as possible.
More: RAW and SmackDown Stars React To Invasion
The filming got so serious that they reportedly had to re-shoot one of the fight sequences because one of the SmackDown stars threw a punch that was deemed by producers to not look real enough for the angle. It supposedly looked too much like a “worked” punch thrown regularly in the ring and not like a shoot punch, so they filmed the sequence again.
What’s even more amazing about these shoot-style fight scenes being filmed early on Monday is the fact that the RAW roster then had to go out and wrestle afterwards. There’s no doubt that many of them would have been left feeling a bit sore after being through all of that earlier in the day!
