The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Monday Night RAW - December 15 1997
- Taped from Durham, New Hampshire.
- HOUR #1!
- Your hosts are Jim Ross, Kevin Kelly and Michael Cole.
Undertaker kicks things off with a special interview with Cole. So Undertaker is #1 contender, just like that, and he's wrestling Shawn at the Royal Rumble in a casket match. He notes that last time it took 10 guys to shove him into a casket (thanks for reminding us of that atrocity) and there's only two guys in D-X, so odds aren't on their side. However, Kane heads out and Paul Bearer once again plays the dead parents card (geez, what a dick), leading Kane to bitchslap his brother. Undertaker still won't fight him, however, and walks away.
Jerry Lawler v. Taka Michinoku
Taka grabs a headlock and Lawler tosses him off in response. JR actually plugs a UFC PPV (Ultimate Japan), which is something that would never happen in a million years now. Lawler does some more Memphis stalling and Taka sends him to the floor with a series of kicks, then follows with a springboard plancha. Back in, Jerry throws his own dropkick (his first of the 90s, notes JR), but Taka gets his own and it's a dropkick stalemate. Taka dropkicks him into the corner, but misses a moonsault and Lawler takes over with a suplex and chinlock. He tosses Taka and gets the piledriver back in the ring, but the fistdrop misses and the Michinoku Driver finishes at 5:40, although Brian Christopher runs in for the DQ before the pin. This was kind of needlessly long, which is something you don't often hear about Russo shows. *1/2
The Rock and the Nation head out, and Rock is so clearly the star of the show now that it's not even funny. He declares himself the People's Champion, totally ignoring Faarooq and his demands for attention. He ORDERS Steve Austin to come out and give him the belt back, so Austin joins us for some trash talk (Rock's silent comebacks are a great character touch) and Rock gives him one hour to return the belt. Or else.
Road Dogg v. Dude Love
First use of "Oh you didn't know?" although it's Billy Gunn who says it. They slug it out in the corner and Dude wins that one, then takes Dogg down with a headlock. And then Jim Ross dubs them the New Age Outlaws, and there you go. Pretty funny bit with Billy on commentary, as Dogg calls him over and Billy, very polite, goes "Oh, I believe he wants me for something, excuse me for a moment" before beating up Dude on the floor. Back in, Dogg with the Worm splash for two and a dropkick into the corner. Dogg shucks and jives, but runs into the Mandible Claw and they head to the floor as a result. Dude goes a little crazy and starts to turn into Mankind, as they head back in the ring for the running knee in the corner. Dude sets up Sweet Shin Music and finishes at 4:33. ** The battle continues up the ramp, as the Outlaws pound away and try to toss him off the stage, but Dude fights them off. Finally they toss a referee at him, and that's enough to send him flying through a table below. The Outlaws go check on him, make sure he's OK, and then beat him up again.
Mark Henry v. The Brooklyn Brawler
This is apparently Mark's RAW debut. He's still a babyface rookie at this point, which is weird. Henry tosses Brawler around and gets a backbreaker out of the corner, then throws knees into the back. Elbow and bearhug finish at 1:49.
- HOUR #2!
- Hosted by Jim Ross & Jim Cornette
Vince McMahon, who is all about the fan safety, calls out Owen Hart for "endangering" fans by crawling over them on the way to the ring. So Owen heads out via the crowd and notes that his family did what they had to do, so he'll do what he has to do: Stay here and kick Shawn's ass. He doesn't care about some "stupid piece of leather with tin on it", this is PERSONAL. Apparently Shawn and Bret care more about the stupid piece of leather with tin on it. Vince brings out the cops to escort Owen out so no one gets endangered. God forbid. Unfortunately, all the character rehabilitation for Owen went completely to waste because the point was always to feed him to HHH. What I don't get is why they didn't put the Euro title on him right away, which would have given him his revenge on Shawn and then set up the title feud against HHH.
The Sultan v. Tom Brandi
Really? How long did Solofa Fatu last in this stupid gimmick? Brandi gets some token jobber offense, but puts his head down and gets piledriven for two. Brandi slugs back, but runs into a knee that gets two. Sultan with a lazy superkick for two. Brandi comes back with a neckbreaker and goes after Iron Sheik, which leads to Sultan hitting his manager by mistake and Brandi getting the fluke rollup for the pin at 3:45. Marc Mero beats the shit out of Brandi afterwards just so we know that Brandi really is a jobber. This has gotta be it for the Sultan, right? He's not quite fat enough for Rikishi yet, but I recall him being fairly small at the start of that gimmick. 1/4*
The Rock returns with the ultimatum for Austin, but Steve's off at a bridge somewhere in the state. He chucks Rock's pager and I-C title into the river, which you'd think would have been a good point to introduce the new design. Stealing his pager (and Rock's shocked reaction) is such a great touch.
- And then we watch the entire segment again after the commercial.
And now more weirdness, as Vince McMahon formally introduces the Attitude era, talking about how they take influences from all sorts of entertainment forms, because wrestling fans are tired of having their intelligence insulted!
Excuse me for a second…
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
OK, I'm good now.
Steve Blackman v. Jose
Hey, a Boriqua AND Steve Blackman, it's like ratings gold in a bottle. Blackman gets a backdrop and half-crab, but Jose makes the ropes. Blackman with a bicycle kick and german suplex to finish at 1:34. 1/2*
- Meanwhile, D-X decides who gets to deal with Owen Hart the same way they make all their major decisions: Rock paper scissors. HHH wins and thus gets the honors.
Shawn Michaels & HHH v. The Legion of Doom
Shawn starts with Animal and gets overpowered, then gets pinballed in the corner before tagging out to HHH. D-X does some quick double-teaming on Animal, but Shawn hot dogs and gets clotheslined by Hawk outside. Shawn tries to crawl away, but HHH talks him into returning. Shawn is going way over the top and acting like a complete clown here. So it's over to HHH and he gets headlocked by Hawk, but Shawn gets the cheapshot and HHH USES THE KNEE to take over. D-X double-teams in the corner and Shawn is being a ridiculous ham, obviously not giving a shit here. We take a break and return with Shawn holding a facelock on Hawk, but he powers out of it. Hot tag Animal, but the Outlaws head out and chloroform Hawk for the DQ at 7:37, and the beatdown is on. D-X gets rid of Animal and Billy shaves Hawk's Mohawk off. And Animal goes through a table. You'd think this would lead to the Outlaws joining D-X, but it took another four months for that to happen.
This is such a weirdly entertaining show now because I don't find myself actively enjoying a lot of it outside of Rock/Austin and D-X, and yet it just FLIES by. Some real good stuff here, though, and more to come during the build to Wrestlemania.
Tags: D-Generation X, RAW, Shawn Michaels, SmarK Rants, Steve Austin, The Rock, WWE
If I could nitpick, WWE actually has promoted a recent UFC PPV. Specifically, the one where Brock ended up winning the title. The ads for the PPV were plastered all over WWE’s website, from banners to entire backgrounds on the main page.
WWE and UFC had some sort of deal with that. WWE allowed for some Brock Lesnar WWE footage air on UFC promos. They must have reached a business arrangement.
With regards to The Undertaker/Kane, and the refusing to fight one’s brother. Since they are recycling storylines do you think they will recycle the ultimate act of betrayal?
Will Matt Hardy have to dig up his mother’s grave and burn it to get Jeff to fight him at Wrestlemania?
Close. Have you read Smackdown spoilers?
I know Fatu first showed up on Heat around mid to late 1999. He was a heel, and just had the thong. Then a few months later, right before the year 2000 kicked in . . . he teamed up with Too Cool (who were kind of heels themselves) and that’s when they came up with the dancing gimmick and the stinkface and stuff.
So I’ll guess Sultan vanishes between now and Wrestlemania 14.
Are you going to do Nitro, Scott, or is watching Bret Hart get buried for a million dollars a year too much for you?
Say what you will, I still respect Hulk Hogan. I still respect Bret Hart. However, I think with hindsight (although he doesn’t believe it) Bret been better off somehow taking a paycut and jobbing to Shawn.
I mean what did Bret do in WCW, before Karma finally ended his career in the form of Goldberg? His obsession over the screwjob costed him his marriage (although his wife was a nutjob anyways). Then again he was knocking her up every friggin year, and cheated on her to boot. Although, she was kind of crazy too.
Regardless, I still feel sorry for Bret. Maybe in his own way, he took the business too seriously – but I think deep down its all he ever had.
The ironic thing about the SS97 Screwjob (especially with the UT/Shawn Michaels feud that followed) is that they should/could have done the angle on the SS PPV where Hart ends up “crippling” Michaels pre-match and use that to set up Hart Vs Undertaker, with ‘Taker winning the belt and serving as a transition champion, dropping the belt to Michaels at the 1998 Royal Rumble, to set up Austin/Michaels at the 1998 WM.
Hart leaves WWE without the belt, WWE has Bret leave the company at the hands of the UT (which lets them somewhat negate WCW rubbing their signing of Bret into their faces), Michaels still gets to transition the belt to Austin, and the Kane/UT feud gets furthered via the notion of Kane interferring in the RR match, allowing Shawn to win the belt?
That said, was Vince really THAT beholden to Shawn’s ego and Shawn’s out-and-out hatred for Bret, that Vince would not let Bret lose the belt to someone like UT and save him years of headache as a result?
this is from the dave meltzer report from back in the day, where bret himself was the source:
“McMahon then asked Hart to drop the title on 11/8 at the house show in Detroit. Hart again refused, feeling the way everything had been built up, he wanted the match with Michaels, which in the wake of all the insider publicity was building up a life of its own like no match in the recent history of wrestling, to not come off as anti-climatic and for that to happen he needed to go into Montreal as champion”
i don’t think that shawn would have cared too much about where, when and against whom he would have won the title.
WHAT?
What was worse; the Sultan or Makin’ a Difference Fatu?
Yeah the show flew by for me because I fast-forwarded through all the matches except Foley’s and the main event. It was still entertaining and all, but yikes that card is ugly. Nitro this week blew it away: Malenko/Finlay, Eddie/Ultimo Dragon, a great cruiserweight six-man, Hall/Jericho, and so on and so forth.
Oh and that Bret guy showed up too. At least they had the decency to edit out the MEGA ULTRA HORRIBLE entrance music that he started with. I think it was used just that one time before it was changed by his next appearance at Starrcade.
“How long did Solofa Fatu last in this stupid gimmick?
Until 1/4/98 according to History of the WWE
You can really see the WWF hitting their stride now with Raw, the pacing of the shows and pushing the right guys…although it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that Rocky and Austin around this time should be pushed to the moon.
Just an fyi, Road Dogg had done the ‘you didn’t know’ bit before on Raw and had been coming out yapping on the mic. Billy Gunn doing it was just so weird and terrible. And it is incredibly obvious from the ending that the Outlaws were always going to join DX and I’m surprised they didn’t much sooner than after WrestleMania 14. Not that it mattered in the long run.
Last thing…Tom Brandi got a huge pop for a jobber beating another jobber. And Marc Mero running in with the ballshot made me laugh out loud…that was a classic heel move. Not only does he blindside the guy from behind, he hits him in the balls from behind. ***** for that move alone…all dick heels should do that.
Whatever happened to Taka Michinoku? For a while there the WWE was giving him a nice push, even had Sunny slobbering (ahem) over him during ring introductions, but IIRC he got hurt and never really got his spot back.
Totally disagree with the sentiment that Nitro killed RAW this week. Nitro had a lot of matches that no one really cared about, while RAW was busy building characters that were generating legitimate excitement (Austin, Rocky, DX, NOA, Undertaker/Kane, hell, even Owen freaking Hart was getting over to some degree).