The SmarK Rant for Monday Night RAW – 08.21.95
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This past week on Superstars: Kama beats the shit out of the weird goth follower of the Undertaker as that storyline gets written off in one fell swoop.
Taped from Worcestershire Sauce, MA.
Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Jerry Lawler.
Men on a Mission v. Roy Raymond & Joe Hancock
Why are MOM doing a tag team squash the week before Mabel gets a title shot? Mabel beats on Hancock and puts him down with a tree slam, and Mo gets the world’s worst press slam on him. Mabel piledrives him but the other jobber valiantly comes in and gets beat up as well. Mo drops a Sags-level flying elbow for two, and then picks him up so that Mabel can finish with the belly to belly at 3:00. Mabel calls out the Allied Powers for some bizarre reason, even though they had already broken up by that point.
Meanwhile, Dean Douglas gives Mabel a grade of “NC” for “New champion”. This gimmick is death.
1-2-3 Kid v. Brooklyn Brawler
Hilarity from Vince as he bashes the last Tyson fight and promises “No ripoffs on our PPVs!” Sure, just like the September In Your House, where they guaranteed a title change in the main event and then weaselled out of it. Brawler pounds away for a bit, but Kid finishes with spinkick and sideroll at 1:00. And then we get Stridex humor on the replay. Thankfully Kid’s heel turn was coming quickly.
Undertaker v. Tatanka
Taker is understandably irked at the Corporation and he calmly beats on Tatanka for a couple of minutes before getting slammed. Papoose to Go and Tatanka has no followup for it, lamely slugging away on the mat and then choking him down. Tatanka goes to a chinlock and that goes on for a while to say the least. Taker fights out and makes the comeback, but we take a break. Back with Tatanka slugging away again and hitting a clothesline, but Taker puts him out of his misery with a chokeslam and tombstone at 8:43.
Summerslam Insider with Todd! Kama v. Undertaker is now a casket match, because Kama beat up that goth guy, so, you know, CASKET MATCH. Also, the British Bulldog is having trouble finding Lex Luger. Because, you know, he had quit two weeks earlier and all.
Tee Vee Trivia! So basically it’s the usual insecure WWF segment, as they do a fake game show where they point out that they have “award winning broadcast journalists” and featured the return of William Shatner in 1995. At least these days they have REAL stuff to crow about. This was kind of the precursor to Billionaire Ted.
Jean Pierre LaFitte v. Scott Taylor
Taylor quickly gets a flying bodypress, but tries a rana and gets dropped and LaFitte stomps him down. Middle rope elbowdrop and backbreaker set up the Cannonball to finish at 3:00.
Diesel is out for his pre-Summerslam interview, but Bulldog interrupts because he’s unable to find Lex Luger due to medical emergency in Atlanta (ie, having about $100,000 a year surgically removed from his wallet), but Bulldog still really wants to accept MOM’s challenge tonight. So it’s Diesel & Bulldog v. MOM next!
Diesel & British Bulldog v. Men on a Mission
Diesel starts with Mo and pounds him down in the corner, and it’s over to Bulldog, who promptly turns on Big D for the no contest at 2:00. This was actually the first time that Bulldog was a heel and he immediately does a fine job of it, and even shaves off his greasy long hair as a part of the turn. Sadly the eventual blowoff was so bad that it single-handedly caused Vince McMahon to change the direction of the company, but this was really well done.
Next week: Nothing, it’s tennis.
The week after: Nothing, still tennis. But some other show debuts.
The week after THAT: Sid v. Shawn Michaels! That’ll teach WCW who the boss of Monday night is.
