The SmarK 24/7 Rant for The Monday Night Wars , December 9 1996 (RAW Edition)

Reviews, Shows, TV Shows

Monday Night RAW

– Taped from wherever.

– Your hosts are Vince & Jerry.

Sid v. Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Although Sid was World champion and HHH was I-C champion at this point, neither belt is on the line here. I never liked Hunter’s original WWF theme, and his character was 100% cooler when he switched to the Beethoven entrance instead of the generic stuff. Sid presses him to start after a cheapshot, but Hunter evades the big boot, so Sid dumps him. On the floor, HHH eats railing, and back in it’s powerbomb city. Hunter is pretty much done and he takes a walk (or, more accurately, a crawl) and gets counted out. And that’s it. DUD Total squash for Sid.

Goldust v. Bart Gunn

Goldust tosses, well, gold dust in Bart’s eyes to start and drops him on the top rope, then tosses him. This was apparently during the breakup of the Smoking Gunns, which I barely even remember. They brawl on the floor and Bart meets the stairs, and Goldust suplexes him back into the ring. Gunn comes back with a rollup for two, but gets slugged down again. Goldust gets two. We hit the chinlock while Billy Gunn cuts a promo on Bart from backstage. In the long run, Bart got the better end of that breakup, although Billy probably made more money off the New Age Outlaws for a while. Goldust misses an elbow, but Bart misses a charge and we take a break. Back with Bart getting a crossbody for two, which sets up a bulldog for two. Bart goes up and misses a body press, and Goldust clips him to finish. Nothing of note here. *1/4

– The ridiculous Karate Fighters tournament finally looks to be wrapping up, but no, it’s just the preview of the Lawler-Sable finals. Well, you wouldn’t want to give away a money match like that on a taped show!

Justin Hawk Bradshaw & Uncle Zebekiah v. “Double J” Jesse Jammes

Jammes attacks both to start and backdrops Bradshaw, and fights off a double-team attempt by the Texans. He gets rid of Zebekiah and legdrops Bradshaw for two. They slug it out, but JJ gets caught in the heel corner and double-teamed. Zebekiah comes in, but takes a kick and tags out again. Bradshaw comes in with a backdrop suplex and drops an elbow off the second rope for two, but Zebekiah comes in again and gets cradled as a result. Bradshaw saves and comes back in. Jammes fights them off again, but walks into a sideslam that gets two for Bradshaw. It annoys me when JR says that people have “unlimited potential”. Everyone’s potential is unlimited, that’s why it’s POTENTIAL. Talent and charisma, on the other hand, have definite limits. Bradshaw goes for the Clothesline From Hell, but Jammes reverses to the pumphandle, and Zebekiah tries to come in with the branding iron. Shockingly, Jammes ducks, and Bradshaw takes it instead, giving Jammes the win at 5:46. *1/2 The Jesse Jammes experiment was an abysmal failure. Bradshaw turns on Zebekiah afterwards and brands him, although he was still about 2 years away from doing anything really notable.

– Bret Hart joins us for the hard sell of the match against Sid coming up at In Your House: It’s Time. When Sid snaps, they call him psycho, but when Bret snaps, they’ll call him WWF champion. That doesn’t even cover the half of it.

Mankind v. Undertaker

This is No Holds Barred, presumably the most dangerous of their long series, according to Vince, I guess because each man has some hold that normally would be barred which they can now do. Taker quickly goes old school and chokeslams Mankind, but Executioner runs in and draws Taker away before he can finish. We take a break and return with Taker tossing Mankind into the railing and hammering on him, then stomping the claw hand on the stairs to take that away from him. He drops the stairs on the hand for good measure, although the camera angle is too close to preserve the illusion of damage, and they head back in with Taker working over the hand. Mankind clips him and stomps him down, then puts him out with a Cactus clothesline and sends him into the stairs. With the knee now hurt, they do a crazy spot with Undertaker’s knee on a chair and Mankind dropping the elbow off the apron onto it. Back in, Mankind goes to follow up, but Taker boots him out of the ring and then uses his legs to shove him into the railing. They brawl on the floor, and Mankind gets slammed on the table, and we take another break. Back with Undertaker’s knee in trouble again in the ring, as Mankind counters the chokeslam with a drop toehold, and he grabs a chair. He charges with it and gets it back in the face as a result, but evades the tombstone and gets the Mandible Claw. UT escapes with a bearhug, and sets up the fastest tombstone I’ve ever seen from him, which is of course enough to finish at 9:50. Quite a nice little violent brawl. *** Of course, the Executioner attacks and puts Undertaker down with the Asiatic Spike. Really, if they’re going to be calling it that, why not just admit it’s Terry Gordy? The match with Undertaker was pretty much the end of his WWF run anyway.

RAW was on the fourth week of a taping cycle and everyone looked like they were running on fumes, whereas Nitro was fast-paced and focused as ever, so the win easily goes to Nitro this time around. But best match of the week goes to RAW, with Undertaker-Mankind edging out DDP-Jarrett, if that makes them feel better.

Next time: The fallout from It’s Time on RAW, and more Hogan-Piper on Nitro.