Thanks to Aaron Waymire for this:
I attended Raw tonight from the Broome County Arena in Binghamton, NY. I sat in the 6th row along the entrance way. Just a few notes about what I saw:
Heat results:
* Maria is the guest ring announcer. Wow she’s beautiful.
Super Crazy and Psychosis defeated TNT.
Good opener. TNT reminded people of the Smoking Guns with their entrance attire. Super Crazy gets the win with a small package.
Val Venis defeated Simon Dean
Val wins with the Money Shot.
Tajiri defeated Kid Kash
Good to see the ECW guys wrestling. Good back and forth match. Tajiri hit a roundhouse kick for the win.
Tag Team championship match:
Hurricane and Rosey w/Stacy defeated the Hearthrobs
Always great to see Stacy, as she looked fine as usual. Nothing big from this match you wouldn’t already expect. Hurricane hit a splash off the top of Rosey for the W.
Other live notes:
* Before any matches started, the crowd seemed to be in a battle of how could say “Whoo!” the loudest.
* To waste time after the Heat taping, John Cena’s “Bad, Bad Man” was shown, t-shirts were fired into the crowd, and JR and King made their entrances.
* Being so close to the Titan Tron, many of us were waiting for the pyro to start the show. Austin’s arrival meant no pyro, but it was well worth it.
* Triple H wasn’t kidding when he said, “Damn it’s hot in here!” We were ROASTING for the most part. Take a look at the last segment when Flair, HHH, and Angle had sweat all over their shirts. It was that hot.
* The mic wasn’t easy to understand. When Lita gave her interview, it was hard to understand all she was saying. As usual, plenty of “You screwed Matt!” chants.
* Kurt Angle was a nice surprise. I think people expected someone big when the pick wasn’t until the very end and HHH and Flair were in the ring. Angle definitely got a huge pop. The interaction between HHH and Angle was great stuff. Seeing HBK was also a great surprise, which got just as big a pop as when Angle first appeared.
* From what I could tell, Raw was a legit sellout. Granted it’s not the biggest place in the world (as I’m sure you could tell), but we love our wrestling. Only a few scattered seats along the edges of the Titan Tron were open. Other than that, the seats were all full.
After Raw went off the air:
* Eric Bischoff came out and said that HHH will wrestle Batista in a Street Fight. Both went to the back to change.
* Bischoff stayed in the ring and said he had a wedding gift for Edge and Lita. They came out, only to have the gift turn out to be Kane.
Edge vs. Kane
It’s hard to say who won considering that a winner was never actually announced. Lita came in at one point and gave Kane a low blow, but the ref never bothered to DQ Edge. Edge left the ring and Kane did his pyro in the ring. Edge then rushed back in, only to get chokeslammed as Kane walked out smiling.
Street Fight for the World Title: Batista defeated HHH
A pretty good match. I think at this point, the fans were waiting to get out of the heat and into some fresh air. But I have to give Binghamton credit, I’ll say about 95% of the people stayed through till the very end. Batista won with a spinebuster on a chair.
Overall, a great night which left people happy. Seeing Raw live is always worth the experience. Just pray the buidling you go to isn’t half as hot as The Arena was! On a side note, I went to the bar at the Holiday Inn where the wrestlers were staying after the show. When I walked in, Ric Flair was eating a salad and Eric Bischoff was 5 seats down as well. From what I saw, they never said a word to each other, much less make eye contact. Guess that’s not too surprising. People were respectful of their space. Ted Dibiase walked in a little while later as well.
