Alex S., the statistics and predictions guy, went to the RAW is WAR taping in Binghamton, NY. Although this is a WCW page, we thought it would be neat to give everyone a WWF arena report from a guy who's generally a WCW fan.

We, the five of us, arrived in the middle of the second dark match, Taka Michinoku vs. Papi Chulo. We were sitting in the 7th row on the floor right in front of the camera. We were seated right in front of about ten guys that all had on these shirts that said "Munch This" with an arrow pointed down and on the back of the shirts they said "Don't Bite, Suck". They informed me that Droz defeated Tiger Ali Singh in a dark match. Taka won his match and recieved a huge pop. The third dark match featured the NME vs. two jobbers. We had a fairly large jobber chant going during this match. After this they played Welcome to the Jungle and the anounced the announcers: JR, Cornette, KK and Michael Cole and the Shotgun tapings started.

Shotgun tapings:
Mark Henry came out to some good heat and he challenged anyone in the crowd or the back to a tug of war. He then said he wanted Vader and Vader's music played and the Mastedon came out to a fairly good pop with chants of Vader. He promptly lost and attacked Henry and gave Henry a Vader Bomb. Many people were standing and screaming for Vader. Pretty good for Shotgun. It got a little quiet and I yelled "J.R." and pointed and he looked over and waved.

Too Much vs. Bradshaw and Terry Funk: Bradshaw pinned Scott Taylor and Bradshaw got a pretty good pop from the crowd. Christopher got some fairly good heat.

Godfather vs. Runnels: Boring match with some small Papa Shango chants. The Godfather won.

The parade of human oddities came out with Luna, Golga, Kurrgan, some lady with huge breasts, Paul Silva and the Jackyl. The lady had a tee shirt on that said "Smells Like Ratings". All of us in my party thought she had balloons or stuffing until she took off her shirt and revealed a bikini and they were stuffed with saline. WOW, we almost passed out. I think this was part of the Shotgun taping, so watch!!! Oh, yeah, the match...The Headbangers came out to a good pop and defeated Golga and Kurrgan, I think I was busy watching that chick standing on the announcers table.

The Brawl for All contests were taped for RAW, I think, next. Scorpio defeated 8-Ball, there were many boring chants during this match.

"Dr. Death" Steve Williams defeated Quebecer Pierre easily. This match was more interesting to the crowd because of the beating that Pierre took.

They then announced The King and he came out to do commentary for RAW.

The fireworks display started and it was extremely loud and we all held up our signs that included: "Bret Hart Screwed Himself", "DDT Digest.com", "Scoops Army Binghamton Brigade", "Hogan + Rodman + Bischoff=3 some" and some others I can't remember. The arena felt like it was shaking at this time and we were all pumped up and all ready starting to lose our voices.

Vince came out and recapped what happened bewteen the Undertaker and Kane "last week". Vince tells the Taker he has to face Mankind and Kane later tonight. He tells the Taker to go to Hell and the Taker chokeslams him and Brisco and Patterson. There was a small "Patterson's Gay" chant during this.

HHH and Chyna come out to the 3rd largest pop of the night and HHH does his Buffer impersonation. "Binghamton, NY are you ready...For the thousands in the Attendance, the millions watching around the world, and one fat ring announcer in a black hat". (JR) "Let's get ready to Suck it"

European title match: D-Lo Brown vs. Champion HHH: The Nation def. got the best heel heat of the night. There were a good amount of B-Lo and Rocky Sucks chants during this match with the ref's back turned, the Rock hits the Rockbottom on HHH and D-Lo pins HHH to become the new champ.

The show the Nation celebrating on the Titanron and they interview HHH and DX w/out the Road Dog and HHH tells Ross thats a bunch of BullSh*t and D-Lo won't leave with the belt tonight.

I think this is where there were about 10 people that started a "Goldberg" chant and the whole arena started a "Goldberg Sux" chant and then an "Austin" chant...This is definitiely not WCW country or Goldberg country and many people yelled only marks like Goldberg.

They show what Kyoto does to Val Venis on the Titantron from last night, oops I mean last week and Kaientai, Yamaguchi San, and his wife Kyoto come down to the ring. Yamaguchi San tells Kyoto he's going to punish her.They get in the ring and he makes her kneel down in front of him. He's about to hit her with a paddle when Val Venis comes down for the save. Venis carries her away to a fairly good pop.

Chainz vs. Animal: Animal comes out alone and gets the tar beat out of him and Hawk makes the save right when Paul Ellering is about to run over Animal with the Titan bike. The exhaust from those bikes were terrible and the smell lingered for awhile afterward. There was a fairly good pop for Animal and there also was a good "LOD" chant going.

Double J vs. Blackman: Double J came out with Tennessee Lee and Southern Justice and Blackman brings out Severn and Shamrock. Blackman wins. Nothing really exciting.

After the match Michael Cole said the Taker has left the Arena.

Stone Cold comes out to the 2nd largest pop of the night. Tells Jim Ross "you've got some bad breath." Then says "if anyone deserves to be screwed, it's Vince McMahon," which brings out Vince. This led to some people yelling to Vince that "Patterson's screwed you". Vince says that since the Taker left, Stone Cold must face Kane and Mankind tonight, otherwise he will strip him of the title and give it to the Taker. Austin says "Hell, I quit", throws the title down, and is about to leave through the crowd when Vince says "you don't have the guts". Austin: "You silly little bastard. I will never give you the satisfaction of taking this son of a bitch from me." Says he will face the tag champs later that night.

Owen Hart vs. Faarooq: Owen came out and got the best heel heat of the night there were chants of Nugget, Roadsign and Aardvark. In the middle of the match Owen stopped the match and got on the mike and said "Dammit, I'm not a nugget" Owen wins and Shamrock chases him into the crowd.

Mero and Jackie came out. Jackie called out Sable and she came wearing what looked like a maternity dress. They trade insults and Jackie rips off the dress and Sable got a huge ovation as she had on just some black lingerie. While Jackie was yelling at Sable, Edge came from somewhere and Front-face-slammed Mero and Jackie couldn't figure out what happened.

The WAR ZONE starts with HBK coming out to do commentary and he gets the largest pop of the night with the whole arena chanting "HBK".

I-C TITLE: X-Pac vs Champion Rocky Maivia: Before this match, another guy and I were telling Tim and Timmy to Tim White (the Ref)...he heard us but ignored us so we were yelling at him to lose some weight. Brawl between the Nation and DX prior to the match. This match was one of the best I have ever seen and probably is one of the best matches on RAW ever.
Many Rocky Sucks chants during this one. Many near falls that had the crowd thinking X-Pac had won. The ref gets knocked out and HHH gives the pedigree to the Crock and Chyna wakes up the ref and while the ref is about to count to three another ref (the bald guy w/ brown hair, if you know his name email me Alex S.) comes in and pulls Tim White out and DQ's X-Pac.
After this match, DX went nuts in the ring, and convinced a wicked hot girl in the audience to lift up her shirt, which she did twice. They showed her on the Titantron and it might be on TV blacked out of course. She was a hot and had a very nice rack. Oh yeah X-Pac went over to the commentators table and he and Shawn hugged, which got a great pop from the crowd.

Main Event time: SCSA vs. Mankind and Kane. Austin got a great pop. During the match, the Taker comes out with a chair and stands in Austin's corner. Kane and Mankind win by DQ when Undertaker hits Kane with the chair. It looked like he tried to hit Austin but he ducked. So Austin picked up the chair and decked the Undertaker and Mankind (I think) and they show all three of them lying in the ring down as Austin leaves. The Taker gets up and punches Mankind out and chokeslammed Kane.

The ring announcer was not the Fink...if you know his name email me: Alex S.

Then HBK leaves to his music.

All in all, this was one of the bests RAW's ever. I read this somewhere on the net:

"I just got back from the RAW tapings. Let me tell you--I have been to events at Madison Square Garden, the Nassau Coliseum, the Providence Civic Center, the Worcester Centrum, and SummerSlam last year at the Meadowlands, and I have NEVER heard an arena as loud as the Broome County Arena was tonight. "

This is an extreme compliment to myself and my town, thank you. Yes, we were very loud and rowdy. Please watch this week for me as I am sitting 7 rows back putting up the "DDT Digest" sign mainly.

Nitro better put up a very good show against this next week because they lost the ratings this past week again and this show was superb.

Later,
Alex S.