Thanks to Mike Rickard and Dave Martin of Buffalo NY for these:
The arena was about 90% or more full. The only vacant areas were the standard tarped sections. Even the seats almost behind the TitanTron were full!
They didn’t specify what matches were Heat or not, so here’s the dark matches/Heat:
-Opened with Hassan video (bad choice to play in Buffalo- we’re the home of the Lackawanna 6). Hassan over jobber Jim Steele with a camel clutch. I was watching the holds, etc, Hassan has a great ring style, sells the moves good and his camel clutch really looked painful. If they build him slow and good, he’ll go ever great, but drop the Arab gimmick: Plus this guy is built…he’s going to give Batista a run for the money in the body dept. The girls behind us were all about his body. (They gave a great running commentary all night long) The crowd was 50/50 with him.
-Viscera over a local jobber.
-Tajiri over Steven Richards. The crowd was into this match. Both guys did great
-Val Venis over jobber from Toronto. Val was WAY over with the crowd
-Heat Main event: Randy Orton over Tyson Tomko. Ok, so who told Tomko he was in the same league with RKO? Randy won and wowed the crowd.
-T-Shirt guy kept screwing up and his gun wouldn’t go off most of the night.
-Lillian came out to a huge pop as well as JR & The King
-When the ECW DVD was announced, the crowd went crazy. Buffalo was a huge ECW town. The merchandise table was selling tons of these.
-The Diva segment was the bathroom break for most of the arena
-Batista was over huge. The crowd was really into him in his match with Jericho
-When HHH wasn’t in the main event, a lot of people left the arena. After the main event, a lot more people left thinking it was over, the pause was way to long.
-After the camera’s stopped, Randy told HHH that the battle royal began right in Buffalo tonight. Everyone came down to the ring. Batista and Flair (Whoo chants all night long) got out of the ring. The crowd was yelling for Eugene to grab the belt and he was grabbing everyone at ringside pants belt. HHH went for the pedigree, but Randy blocked it into an RKO. HHH got up, gave the crowd the finger and Randy did it again. HHH stumbled up the ramp (really bad acting). Randy posed in the ring and shook hands with ringside fans
Biggest Pops of the night:
-The Steel cage before the show even started
-Randy Orton every time he came out
-Batista (yes I said Batista)
-Benoit
-Val Venis
-ECW DVD
-Biggest Heat
-Tomko/Snitsky: with you suck and you can’t wrestle chants (the crowd was serious)
-Edge with boring (he is so not over)
-Hussan with the video the second time it played
-The t-shirt guy and his gun that didn’t work half the time
-Simon
So when can Buffalo ever get a PPV?
Nice size crowd. Upper deck and area behind Titantron closed off. Estimate 8,000 people in attendance.
Sunday Night Heat:
Started with replay of Hassan deli footage.
Debut of Hassan vs. local wrestler Cody Steele (from Neo Spirit Pro Wrestling). Hassan defeated Steele by submission using the Camel Clutch. Hassan got major heat.
Viscera destroyed a jobber and won by pinfall with “the Visceral” (Baldo Bomb).
Tajiri pinned Steven Richards
Val Venis pinned a jobber.
Chris Benoit video
Randy Orton pinned Tyson Tomko
There may have been one additional match but I lost my scorecard.
