The SmarK Rant for Monday Night RAW – 04.24.95

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The SmarK Rant for Monday Night RAW – 04.24.95

Live from Omaha, NB

Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Jerry Lawler, who is now joining him “as always” so he’s the permanent host now.  For those who like to trace the bizarre paths of history, this show starts the unlikely rise to power of you-know-who.

The Smoking Gunns v. Barry Horowitz & The Brooklyn Brawler

Gunn dominates both jobbers with hiptosses and the Gunns work on Lombardi’s arm in their corner for a bit, then suddenly finish with the Sidewinder at 2:15.  Well that was out of nowhere.

Meanwhile, Bam Bam is sporting a black eye, and he’s going to take it out on Diesel.

Bertha Faye v. La Pantera Serena

Bertha has now been retooled into the weird neon-styled love interest of Wippleman instead of the Awesome Kong-like asskicker.  In the Observer at the time, Meltzer notes that the idea was blatantly ripped off from another promotion, but doesn’t specify where it comes from.  Bertha overpowers Serena and sidesteps a bodypress in one of the ugliest spots I’ve seen in a while.  Three legdrops and an avalanche set up the powerbomb and a press slam to finish at 4:00.  Long and pretty terrible squash as they just blew every simple thing they did, and the whole storyline was the absolute worst instincts of Vince McMahon on display.

In Your House Report, with Todd.  Nothing new of note here.

WWF World title:  Diesel v. Bam Bam Bigelow

The storyline here is that Bigelow wants to prove himself, so he challenges Diesel on his own to a title match.  They have a shoving match in the corner and Diesel pounds him down for two, then drops an elbow for two.  He works the arm, but Bigelow slams him to take over.  Diesel comes back with a clothesline for two and Bigelow bails, suckering Diesel out for a shot to the post.  That gets two and we hit the chinlock and take a break.  Back with Diesel escaping and making the comeback, but Bam Bam cuts him off and tries a suplex.  Diesel reverses that for two, but Bigelow gets his own for two.  Holy god this match is terrible.  Tatanka wanders out to ringside, apparently stunned that a World title match on TV could be this shitty and needing eyewitness verification, while Bigelow chokes away on the ropes.  Both guys look slow and clumsy and tired.  And we take ANOTHER BREAK.  Who booked Kevin Nash to go 20:00?  Back with Diesel making another comeback, but Tatanka trips up Bigelow by “mistake” and the Poochiebomb finishes at 18:53.  Apparently they were just back from a tour of Germany almost that day and were pretty jetlagged.  But FUCK ME this was bad.  *  And after the match, Dibiase finally fires him, and the Million Dollar beatdown commences.  Sid is now wearing blue tights for some reason, which totally ruins his look.  And then he nearly drops Bigelow on his head with a powerbomb, until Diesel makes the save because the powerbomb was so bad that even HE was offended by it.  The storyline is fine, but the execution is god-awful and we all know how badly Bigelow ended up.

Aldo Montoya v. The Black Phantom

Wait, this show isn’t done yet?  Wasn’t 20 minutes of Kevin Nash wrestling enough?  The Phantom bails and Montoya hits him with a dive and works on the arm in the ring.  The Phantom takes over with a slam for two, but Montoya makes the comeback with his…uh…Portuguese martial arts?  Bulldog or something finishes at 3:00.  Yeah, fight from underneath the BLACK PHANTOM, that’ll get you over.

Meanwhile, some new Lord Steven Regal ripoff gets ready to debut.  Never heard of the goof.  Hunter something or other.  Like this guy will ever amount to anything.

Next week:  Sid v. Razor Ramon!  It couldn’t possibly be any worse than this show was.  Most of these are just boring but this was actively awful for the entire thing.  But then if you had told me that the one random cameo from a castoff WCW guy here would end up changing the business forever, I certainly wouldn’t have believed you.  So this one has some history going for it, at the very least.