The SmarK Rant for Monday Night RAW – 06.19.95
Back into the breach I go.
Taped from Struthers, OH
Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Jerry Lawler
Undertaker v. Mike McReynolds
This guy looks like a shorter Stevie Richards without the muscle definition, and Undertaker destroys him with a chokeslam and tombstone at 1:00, before the smoke from his entrance even clears. Well you’d have to think Undertaker’s going pretty far in the King of the Ring tournament now, right?
Meanwhile, Man Mountain Rock is still really broken up over his guitar. It really tied the room together, man!
Adam Bomb v. Bill Payne
Apropos that Vince is hyping the Special Olympics during these shows, given the booking at the time. Bomb shrugs off Payne’s attack and beats on him in the corner, then follows with a sideslam as Vince notes that Razor Ramon probably won’t be at King of the Ring after all. That is honestly one of the few times I can recall where they didn’t just advertise the guy and then switch off before the show. Bomb finishes with the flying clothesline at 2:00, still without even a feud or storyline.
King of the Ring Report with Todd. They continue to focus on Jerry Lawler’s feet as the big drawing card here. And this is the go-home show!
Tatanka & Sid v. The Headshrinkers
Tatanka immediately makes the mistake of trying to hit Fatu in the head, and that goes badly for him. He comes back with his own stereotype power, the Native American chops, and tosses Fatu. Sadly, the chops cannot defeat the samoan skull much like the immovable force meeting the unstoppable object or something. I’m not 100% clear on the science here. Over to Sid, who beats on both savages like cutting through the Gordian knot with scissors (***) See, just like in the RAW scripts that were leaked, I left in a pause for everyone to pop for that one. I SAID, GO GET YOUR SQUEEGEE, SID. So we take a break and return with more excitement of Sid beating on Fatu, and Tatanka cuts off the tag before missing an elbow. Now, finally, hot tag Sionne, the man who epitomizes excitement and hot tags. Powerslam gets two. Hotshot gets two. Piledriver gets two and it’s BONZO GONZO, allowing Sid to powerbomb Fatu in the chaos. But rather than pin him, he ties him in the ropes and then powerbombs Sionne on the floor for Tatanka to pin at 11:00. Given they were main eventing the PPV coming up later that week, you’d think the proper booking would be for the heels to completely destroy the midcard goof tag team and thus actually look like a threat, instead of going back and forth with them and selling for dancin’ Fatu before squeezing out a win behind the ref’s back. *
Meanwhile, Jerry Lawler takes us on a tour of his dungeon and describes all the awful things he’s gonna do to Bret Hart. I will say that out of all the guys phoning in the buildup for this shitty PPV (some literally like Diesel) Lawler was the one who was 100% committed to getting the deal over and trying to draw money.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley v. Buck Quartermaine
I feel like this should have been a tag team. Hunter would be an 18th century dandy and Quartermaine could dress like Indiana Jones and be the manly 18th century adventurer and it would be like a wacky buddy cop movie. Helmsley with a backbreaker and he finishes with the Pedigree at 2:30.
Shawn Michaels v. Gus Kantarrakis
I actually had to look up the results of this show to figure out how to spell that jobber’s name. That’s far more work than this show warrants. Shawn clowns around with him and sits in the front row in a funny spot, then tosses him and suplexes him on the floor, then puts him down with a superkick out there. Back in, the crowd wants one more time, so he obliges with another superkick to finish at 4:15. Clearly, Shawn was 17 levels above everyone else in the promotion at this point, on a rocket to the World title and the only guy who the crowd was truly invested in. Frankly I’m shocked they didn’t manage to lose him to WCW at this point given the other decisions being made.
Next week: Jeff Jarrett v. Savio Vega for the IC title in another match to gum up the lineage! Also, King of the Ring 95 happens. Just accept it.
