WWF Monday Night Raw Results
September 23, 1996
Hershey, Pennsylvania (Hersheypark Arena)
Commentary: Kevin Kelly, Jim Ross, and Jerry “The King” Lawler
Results by: Mike Tedesco of Wrestleview.com
“The World Wrestling Federation: for over fifty years, the revolutionary force in sports entertainment.” The WWF video leads us into the show.
Video: Last night at In Your House: Mind Games, we saw what looked like Razor Ramon and Diesel beating up Savio Vega backstage. Jim Ross says, “I told you so!”
Video: The Raw video plays.
Mr. Perfect is in the ring. Kevin Kelly, Jim Ross, and Jerry “The King” Lawler welcome us to the show. In the middle of the aisle is a tombstone advertising the Buried Alive Match on Sunday, October 20, between Mankind and The Undertaker.
Pat Patterson, the first-ever Intercontinental Champion, is in the ring in a referee shirt. Patterson will referee tonight’s match to determine the new Intercontinental Champion.
Mr. Perfect will be on commentary for the match.
WWF Intercontinental Championship Tournament
Final Match
Faarooq w/ Sunny vs. “Wildman” Marc Mero w/ Sable
Referee: Pat Patterson
Faarooq and “Wildman” Marc Mero immediately begin going at it. Faarooq punches him to the corner and kicks him. Faarooq clubs his spine and sends him into the ropes, but Mero hits a head-scissor takeover, followed by a roll-up for a one-count. Mero blocks a kick, and Faarooq wipes him out with an enzuigiri. Faarooq punches Mero and absorbs some kicks. Faarooq sends him to the opposite corner and charges, but Mero moves. Mero hits an arm drag before kicking and punching him back. Mero then connects with a clothesline over the top rope. Mero immediately follows up with a somersault plancha. Sunny is shocked.
Mero gets Faarooq in the ring and goes to the top rope. Mero spins around and hits a moonsault block for a two-count. Mero punches Faarooq and charges, but Faarooq hits a back body drop over the top rope. Sable checks on Mero at the ringside. Faarooq pulls Mero onto the apron and clubs his chest before hitting a shoulder tackle, knocking Mero into the metal barricade.
Phone Call: Ahmed Johnson joins the broadcast via phone call. Kevin Kelly asks how he is feeling. Johnson says he’s feeling better and will be back before you know it. Johnson says Mero has to get tougher to beat Faarooq. Jerry “The King” Lawler says he heard that Johnson needed a kidney transplant and got one from Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Johnson is furious and says that wasn’t funny. Johnson will take Lawler out upon his return.
Faarooq gets Mero in the ring and hits a snap powerslam for a near fall. Faarooq puts Mero on his shoulders and climbs to the second rope. Faarooq hits an avalanche Samoan Drop before taking a few moments to look around and covers. 1… 2… Mero kicks out. Faarooq applies a rear chin lock before choking him on the bottom rope. Faarooq gets in Pat Patterson’s face. Sunny chokes Mero until Sable runs over. Patterson ejects Sunny from the ringside!
-Commercial Break-
Back from the break, Faarooq sets up for a Dominator, but Mero counters into a backslide pin for a near fall. Faarooq immediately runs him over with a clothesline. Faarooq picks up a near fall. Faarooq goes back to the rear chin lock. Mero fights up and elbows out before hitting the ropes, but Faarooq knees him in the ribs to take him down. Faarooq sends him into the ropes, but Mero comes back with a sunset flip for a two-count. Faarooq kicks him in the ribs and applies a rear chin lock. Someone holds up a sign that says, “We love rest holds.” Yeah, right. Faarooq soon sends him into the ropes, but Mero ducks a clothesline and hits a flying clothesline.
Mero goes for an elbow drop, but Faarooq moves. Faarooq quickly slams Mero down and heads to the top rope. Mero hits the ropes to crotch Faarooq up there. Mero punches away at Faarooq before climbing to the top rope for a super hurricanrana! Mero crawls over and covers for a near fall. Mero sends Faarooq into the ropes. Faarooq ducks a clothesline, and they (sort of) take each other out with a double clothesline.
Sunny returns to the ringside area, so Sable gets in her face. The crowd starts to go wild. Sunny climbs to the apron, so Sable pulls her down and slaps her in the face. Faarooq grabs Sunny’s loaded purse as Pat Patterson deals with the catfight at ringside. Mero hits Faarooq and steals the purse from him before smashing him in the face with it! Mero positions the unconscious Faarooq near the corner and goes to the top rope. Mero hits the Wild Thing (Shooting Star Press) and covers! 1… 2… 3!
Winner by Pinfall and new WWF Intercontinental Champion: “Wildman” Marc Mero
Sunny retrieves her purse and pulls out the brick from inside before hiding it under the ring.
Mr. Perfect and Jim Ross get into the ring as “Wildman” Marc Mero celebrates with his newly won WWF Intercontinental Championship, his first title in the WWF, as well as Sable. Ross congratulates Mero on winning the title. Mero gives all glory and honor to his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Mero thanks all the fans. Mero thanks his inspiration, motivation, and his best friend, his partner in life in and out of the ring, his lover, Sable. This is as much hers as it is his. Mero and Sable embrace in the ring. Mero has one more special thank you to Mr. Perfect. They shake hands and hug.
Ross asks, “What about me?” Mero says that Ross is a great guy. Mero and Sable celebrate with the WWF Intercontinental Championship.
Mike’s Thoughts: After debuting with the WWF at WrestleMania XII, this run has been filled with some hits and quite a few misses, but they’re going with “Wildman” Marc Mero in a big way by having him win the vacant WWF Intercontinental Championship. Mero looked good in the match. The addition of the Shooting Star Press to his arsenal certainly turns up the wow factor for him. Faarooq was fine in this. I’m surprised they didn’t go with him winning the title, but I guess they figured everyone would be thinking that’s the logical move, so they went with the swerve. Ahmed Johnson is still going to be out for quite a while, and the tradition of the Intercontinental Championship demands (at this time, at least) a champion who can go. Watching Faarooq since he debuted, he’s not going to deliver many exciting matches.
The finish served to protect Faarooq and give him an out (as well as, hopefully, end the Sunny partnership), but it is one final controversial finish in a tournament full of them. Mero didn’t win one match clean. In the First Round, he beat “Stone Cold” Steve Austin by disqualification after Austin hit the referee. In the Semifinal match, he hit Owen Hart with Hart’s cast to beat him. Now, he beats Faarooq with a loaded purse to the skull. Though it ended well, it was not a great tournament, but this company has never really been known for their stellar record of clean finishes.
Another interesting note from this match is that Mr. Perfect is apparently a face now. I guess it started when he began stealing Hunter Hearst Helmsley’s valets, but it wasn’t clear. As randomly as his heel run began with him helping Diesel beat up Shawn Michaels in April, then how strange and unexplained it was when he was involved in the title match at King of the Ring, it’s just over and forgotten about. Now he’s such a good guy that he helped coach Mero to win this. Whatever.
Backstage Segment
We are outside a dressing room labeled “Razor” and “Diesel.”
Replay: On July 23, 1995, at In Your House, The Roadie accidentally grabbed Jeff Jarrett’s leg, allowing Shawn Michaels to hit Jarrett with Sweet Chin Music to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship. Jerry “The King” Lawler criticizes The Roadie for costing Jarrett the title.
We then see a video of Jeff Jarrett singing “With My Baby Tonight.” Tonight, they’ll expose Jeff Jarrett.
The WWF Fall Schedule is displayed.
-Commercial Break-
Locker Room Interview
Dok Hendrix is in the locker room and is ready to interview the new WWF Intercontinental Champion, “Wildman” Marc Mero. Mero is surrounded by a number of WWF Superstars. Sable is by Mero’s side. Hendrix says it’s going crazy in there.
Video: Vince McMahon narrates a video of Jeff Jarrett singing “With My Baby Tonight.” Tonight, on Monday Night Raw, Jeff Jarrett will be exposed. McMahon says Jarrett is nothing more than the country music version of Milli Vanilli. Jarrett is revealed to have been lip syncing his song. On July 23, Jarrett walked out on the WWF. Next week on Raw, the man who really sang “With My Baby Tonight” will be on the show. The Real “Double J” will be on Raw next week.
Mike’s Thoughts: This was beyond stupid. Jeff Jarrett is heading to WCW, so they wanted to trash him a bit. Jarrett’s gimmick in the WWF was a little insufferable. I can’t say it fills me with excitement to see it continue on with someone new taking his gimmick next week. Hey, speaking of taking gimmicks, aren’t we already doing an angle like that on this show?!
Replay: Last night at In Your House: Mind Games, Clarence Mason visited Jim Cornette, who was recovering from his loss to José Lothario, and got him to inadvertently sign over Owen Hart and The British Bulldog to his services.
Clarence Mason joins the commentary team. Mason says he didn’t hold a gun to Jim Cornette’s head.
Non-Title Tag Team Match
The Bodydonnas (Skip and Zip) vs. WWF Tag Team Champions The British Bulldog and Owen Hart w/ Clarence Mason
Referee: Mike Chioda
Owen Hart starts against Zip. Hart rolls through an arm wrench and applies a side headlock. Zip whips him off, but Hart fires back with a shoulder tackle. Hart hits the ropes, so Zip leapfrogs him. Hart puts the brakes on and hits a drop toehold before applying a front facelock. Zip twists out and applies a hammerlock. Hart elbows Zip in the face and punches him to the corner. Hart sends Zip to the corner, but Zip fires back with a roll-up for a two-count.
There’s a commotion in the crowd, and Taz from Extreme Championship Wrestling jumps the barricade. Taz holds up a sign that says, “Sabu fears Taz.” Bill Alfonso is with Taz, blowing his whistle. Jim Ross shouts that he wrestles in a bingo hall as we abruptly go to commercials.
-Commercial Break-
Back from the break, Skip is applying a hammerlock to The British Bulldog. The crowd chants, “We want Taz.” Bulldog fights up and punches Skip before hitting a scoop slam. Hart tags in, but Skip trips him before wrenching his arm. Hart sends Skip into the ropes and hits a back elbow. Skip comes back with a head-scissor takeover, followed by an arm drag. Skip wrenches Hart’s arm, but Hart backs him to his corner. Bulldog tags in and sends Skip to the corner. Bulldog goes for a military press, but Skip fights out and rolls him up for a two-count. Skip goes to the second rope for a diving crossbody block, but Bulldog moves.
Backstage Segment: Jim Cornette is seething backstage. Clarence Mason owes him an apology. Cornette thought he was signing a piece of paper for Mason to represent him to sue José Lothario for assault and battery. Instead, Mason hornswoggled him out of a tag team. Cornette says Mason is a crook. Cornette will get him disbarred, disarmed, dismembered, and any “dis” he can. He’ll get his revenge on Lothario because next week on Raw, he and Vader will battle Shawn Michaels and Lothario in a Tag Team Match. He’ll get even with Lothario, and Vader will beat Michaels. Then, Cornette is calling anybody he can to get even with Mason.
As this is going on, Hart tags in and hits a belly-to-belly suplex on Skip. Hart goes to the top rope for a splash, but Skip gets his knees up. Zip tags in and takes it to Hart and Bulldog. Zip hits Bulldog with a back elbow before sending Hart into the ropes for a back body drop. Zip hits Skip with a back body drop over the top rope onto Bulldog. Zip bounces Hart off the top turnbuckle before hitting a sit-out gutwrench suplex. Skip tags in, and The Bodydonnas hit a Rocket Launcher for a near fall. Hart reverses a whip on Skip, and Bulldog knees him in the spine. Hart drops Skip with a spinning heel kick and applies the Sharpshooter for the win.
Winners by Submission: WWF Tag Team Champions The British Bulldog and Owen Hart
Mike’s Thoughts: There’s simply no way that Chris Candido, known here as Skip, was close to ready to return to action after fracturing vertebrae in his neck in August, yet here he is taking bumps a month and a half later. I have to say, he and Zip looked good in this, but The Bodydonnas was a beyond-dead gimmick where the best part of the act, Sunny, left them for dead months ago.
This is the final appearance of The Bodydonnas. Zip, better known as Tom Prichard, the brother of WWF creative team member Bruce Prichard, aka Brother Love, would go on to be a prolific trainer for the company, responsible for training future stars such as The Rock, Kurt Angle, and Mark Henry. As for Skip, with Candido’s regular WWF run ending here, this feels like the right time to look at what happened.
Let’s stop by the History Corner.
History Corner: The End of Chris Candido’s WWF Run
With this being the final appearance of The Bodydonnas, this is essentially the end of Chris Candido’s run as a regular WWF performer. He’ll appear once more on this side of the series in June 1997, and he’ll do a stint in WCW toward the end of the Monday Night War, but as far as his actual WWF run goes, this is pretty much it.
That is a shame because Candido was a lot better than this run ever really allowed him to show. He was still young, but he had already been around wrestling for years and had a reputation as a very talented worker. The problem was that the Skip character had a ceiling almost from the beginning. The Bodydonnas gimmick fit the New Generation era perfectly, for better and worse, but it also made Candido feel like a cartoon fitness instructor instead of someone the company could seriously build around.
The act did have visibility, mostly because of Sunny. Tammy Sytch became one of the most pushed personalities in the company in 1996, and her presence helped get The Bodydonnas attention they probably would not have received otherwise. At the same time, she quickly became the star of the act. Candido was talented, but Sunny was the one the WWF wanted to showcase. Once the team lost her and the tag division continued to fall apart, there was not much left for Skip to do.
The Bodydonnas did win the WWF Tag Team Championship earlier in the year, but that says more about the state of the division than anything else. The tag titles were bouncing around a division filled with fake cowboys, hog farmers, fitness gurus, and makeshift teams. Candido and Tom Prichard worked hard, but there was only so much they could do with the material.
Candido would go on to have a more interesting run in ECW, where he could wrestle more like himself and less like a WWF gimmick. Later, he would resurface in TNA and seemed to be finding another chapter before his sudden death in 2005. His story carries a lot of sadness, and it is hard to look back on this WWF run without thinking about how much more he had to offer not just the WWF but professional wrestling as a whole.
Chris Candido was better than the Skip gimmick. He was better than the Bodydonnas. He was certainly better than the tag division he was stuck in during this period. For WWF fans in 1996, he probably felt like just another goofy New Generation character disappearing from television. Looking back now, it feels more like a talented wrestler leaving a company that never really figured out what it had.
Anyway, back to the show.
Photos: Highlights are shown from the main event of last night’s In Your House: Mind Games.
At the next In Your House: Buried Alive, Sycho Sid will battle Vader. We’ll also see The Undertaker battle Mankind in a Buried Alive Match.
Video: The Undertaker is walking in a graveyard. The wounds he suffered at SummerSlam have just begun to heal. There is one scar that he will carry for all of eternity. It is the scar of betrayal. Undertaker growls, “Paul Bearer… Mankind… you witnessed who truly is the master of the mind game. And Mankind, I have condemned you to eternal damnation. Mankind, I am going to bury you alive, and you will never Rest… in… Peace.” An iconic shot of The Undertaker shows his eyes rolled back.
The headstone for the Buried Alive match is shown in the middle of the aisle. This is the first unsanctioned match in WWF history. Call Ticketmaster to get your tickets in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Backstage Segment
Dok Hendrix is outside the locker room of Razor Ramon and Diesel. Hendrix wants to interview Ramon about facing Savio Vega next week on Raw. Hendrix opens the door, but they slam it on him. We never see Ramon’s or Diesel’s face.
Jim Ross says that interview is out of Hendrix’s league because that’s his interview. He will talk to them live tonight. Ross guarantees they’ll be there live.
PlayStation Slam of the Week: Last night at WWF In Your House: Mind Games, WWF Champion Shawn Michaels and Mankind crashed through a table at ringside from the second turnbuckle.
-Commercial Break-
Video: Next week on Raw, WWF Champion Shawn Michaels teams with José Lothario to battle Vader and Jim Cornette.
Jim Ross mentions that Razor Ramon will also face Savio Vega next week. Ross mentions we’ll talk to Ramon and Diesel live in a few moments.
“Stone Cold” Steve Austin is on commentary for this next match. Jerry “The King” Lawler mentions that his art is on the cover of a comedy magazine. Austin wants to make something clear. Because of the censors, he can’t use the word he wants to use, so he’ll use one that rhymes with it. Austin “spits” on the life, career, and family of Bret “Hitman” Hart. If his parents practiced safe sex some thirty years ago, he wouldn’t have to deal with him now.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley heads to the ring with another beautiful valet.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. The Stalker
Referee: Jack Doan
The bell rings, and Helmsley quickly puts himself through the ropes to keep The Stalker back. They soon lock up, and Stalker hits him with an arm drag. Stalker wrenches the arm and elbows him several times. Stalker lifts him with the arm and slams him down. Stalker goes back to the arm, but Helmsley backs him into the corner. The Stalker punches him down and wrenches the arm once again. The Stalker applies a hammerlock and body slams Helmsley onto his arm. Jim Ross identifies The Stalker as Barry Windham, so I’ll refer to him as that from here on out. Windham sends Helmsley into the corner and hits a back body drop. Windham wrenches the arm and kicks him in the ribs. Helmsley fires back with some knees to the midsection before throwing him out of the ring. Helmsley goes to the ringside area, and Windham punches him in the midsection before bouncing his face off the ring steps. Windham pulls him up to the apron and punches him down.
Mr. Perfect comes out to observe what’s going on. Windham sends Helmsley to the corner and charges, but Helmsley moves. Helmsley sees Mr. Perfect and shouts at him. Windham lifts Helmsley with one arm and walks with him before hitting a back suplex.
-Commercial Break-
Video: The WWF Superstar Line is open 24 hours a day. Call 1-900-737-4WWF. On Option 6, find out why Diesel and Razor Ramon attacked Savio Vega last night at Mind Games. Only $1.49 per minute!
Back from the break, Windham is taking it to Helmsley at ringside. Windham gets Helmsley in the ring, but Helmsley wrenches his eyes. Mr. Perfect is still in the aisle watching this match. Helmsley punches away at Windham. During the commercial break, The Stalker hit a DDT for a near fall. Back to live action, Helmsley takes Windham down and drops a knee for a two-count. Helmsley applies a rear chin lock. Windham fights up and whips him off, but Helmsley avoids an attack and applies a sleeper hold. The Stalker gets out with a jawbreaker.
Austin wonders why Barry Windham has all this paint on his face. Everyone knows who he is. Austin wonders if he’s embarrassed. Windham dropkicks Helmsley down before putting him in the corner. Windham whips him hard into the opposite corner. Helmsley rolls up the turnbuckles before coming down and eating a clothesline. Windham drops a leg. Kevin Kelly exclaims, “This is over!” Austin says, “No, it ain’t.” Windham covers, and it isn’t over. It only gets a one-count. Helmsley fights up from a rear chin lock and hits a back suplex. Windham punches Helmsley and hits a big vertical suplex.
Mr. Perfect saunters down to the ringside area and talks with Helmsley’s valet. Helmsley hits Windham with a facebuster. Mr. Perfect is escorting the valet away. Another valet is being stolen by Perfect. Helmsley climbs the turnbuckles to yell at Perfect. Windham crotches him on the top rope and repositions him. The Stalker hits the superplex for the win.
Winner by Pinfall: The Stalker
Mike’s Thoughts: This was not a good match. Barry Windham looked asleep on his feet in this. No passion or intensity whatsoever. We’re getting closer to the end of Hunter Hearst Helmsley’s punishment train because they’re clearly doing something with him and Mr. Perfect, but losing to The Stalker had to sting.
Jim Ross quickly gets in the ring and gets the crowd going by saying he’s going to be bringing Razor Ramon and “Big Daddy Cool” Diesel out to the ring. It’s that time.
Video: Mankind and Paul Bearer are in a cemetery. Bearer says it was The Undertaker’s fault that Mankind lost the WWF Championship last night. What was he doing in the casket that belongs to them? They still have the power of his urn. Mankind grabs the urn and cradles it. Mankind says the events of last night are squirming like maggots around his diseased mind because he can’t figure out how Undertaker got there. The Undertaker will come to view last night as his gravest mistake because he took something that was destiny and made it personal. Bearer identifies the plot where The Undertaker wants to bury Mankind alive. Mankind says The Undertaker took something that was his. Now he has no choice but to take something of The Undertaker’s: his last breath. Mankind will make it his. Have a nice day!
Back to the ring, Jim Ross is asking if we can finally get this going. Ross is told that the broadcast must cut to commercials, upsetting him.
-Commercial Break-
Jim Ross makes good on his promise
Jim Ross is still in the ring. Before he was so rudely interrupted by a commercial break, he’s going to conduct this interview right now. In a couple of moments, he’s going to bring “Big Daddy Cool” Diesel and Razor Ramon out here.
Before he does, he’d like to beg their indulgence for a minute or so to say something he’s wanted to say for a long time. When he’s through telling them, many will question his loyalty to the World Wrestling Federation. Ross wants to clear it up and say he has no loyalty to the World Wrestling Federation. He only has loyalty to Good Ol’ JR. That gets a positive reaction from the crowd. In 1993, he left a great job in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League to join the recognized leader of sports entertainment, the WWF. Ross came here to be the primary play-by-play man of the WWF. No one will disagree that he’s the best play-by-play man in the whole damn business. The crowd cheers.
Ross shows up for his first day of work at WrestleMania IX in Las Vegas, Nevada, and they give him a sheet to wear. They said it would be a toga and that he’d look good in it. Ross shouts, “I leave the National Football League for a toga. It’s crap!” Then he goes to the first King of the Ring in Dayton, Ohio. If you listen to the broadcast, he carried it from the ringside. Did you ever wonder where JR went? The egotistical owner of the World Wrestling Federation, Vince McMahon, couldn’t stand the competition. So, JR disappeared.
On Super Bowl Sunday in 1994, he woke up with an affliction called Bell’s Palsy. The entire left side of his face looked like he had a stroke. Do you think he likes that he can’t open his left eye all the way because he got sick? Ross wants to explain how warm-hearted Mr. McMahon is. Ross says, “Mr. McMahon called me into his office on February the Eleventh, 1994, and he fired my ass!” So, he gets back in his car and is driving to his home in “that overpriced hellhole, Connecticut,” and he has to figure out how to tell his wife and two little girls that daddy just got fired. Remember when McMahon got indicted, and they needed someone to do Raw? They brought JR back only to let him go again.
Finally, they rehired him for 50 cents on the dollar to work in the front office. Do you think all these guys leaving the WWF was an accident? Ross says, “Hell no, it’s not! You think all these guys coming here was an accident? Absolutely not. I’ve been very busy. And right now, I want to bring back one of your favorites. He’s ‘The Bad Guy’ Razor Ramon.”
Razor Ramon’s music hits, and he walks out to the arena to a big ovation. The ovation is quickly subdued when people realize that Razor Ramon is not being portrayed by Scott Hall. Ross jubilantly shouts, “How do you like that, WWF? How do you like Razor Ramon? How do you like that, McMahon?” Ramon poses in the ring. Ross asks how it feels to be back in the WWF. Ramon says, “Take a look at The Bad Guy.” Savio Vega hits the ring and attacks Ramon, hitting him with a back body drop as the show comes to an end.
Mike’s Thoughts: Good god, it’s even worse than I thought. I remember being nine years old and totally pumped to see Razor Ramon and Diesel only for this to happen. After weeks of Jim Ross teasing that Razor Ramon and Diesel were coming back to the WWF, this is the payoff: two completely different people playing the Razor and Diesel characters because the WWF owned the names. And the craziest part is they didn’t even pay off the full promise. Diesel wasn’t even shown!
This is such an all-time bad idea that it almost feels impossible to believe they went through with it. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were not just guys playing characters. They were the characters. Razor Ramon worked because Hall made it work. Diesel worked because Nash made it work. The idea that you could simply plug two new wrestlers into those roles and have the audience accept it was a fundamental misunderstanding of why those acts got over in the first place.
It also makes the WWF look so pathetically desperate. WCW had Hall and Nash on Nitro as part of the hottest angle in wrestling, so the WWF’s response was to present discount versions of the same characters and act like it was some kind of clever technicality. It wasn’t clever. It was embarrassing. Everyone knew the real Razor Ramon and Diesel were in WCW, and this just made the WWF look like a company trying to win a legal argument on television instead of creating something people actually wanted to see. And you thought Billionaire Ted was the worst they could come up with…
To make matters worse, the angle is being tied to Jim Ross, who is now being positioned as someone going rogue against the company. Ross is a tremendous announcer, and he deserved better than being attached to one of the most infamous creative misfires of this entire period. That said, he did cut one hell of a promo before Fake Razor killed the crowd.
We’ll see where it goes, but as a first impression, this is brutal.
Quick Match Results
— “Wildman” Marc Mero def. Faarooq in the Final Match of the WWF Intercontinental Championship Tournament to win the vacant WWF Intercontinental Championship
— WWF Tag Team Champions The British Bulldog and Owen Hart def. The Bodydonnas (Skip and Zip) in a Non-Title Tag Team Match
— The Stalker def. Hunter Hearst Helmsley
Mike’s Wrap-Up: What We Learned from Raw
This was a newsworthy, historically stupid episode of Raw. “Wildman” Marc Mero is the new Intercontinental Champion, The Bodydonnas are finished, and Fake Razor Ramon has officially arrived. That is a lot of history for one hour of television. Unfortunately, most of it says more about where the WWF is struggling than where it is succeeding.
Mero winning the Intercontinental Championship was probably the right call. Faarooq still feels more like someone for Ahmed Johnson to eventually come back and fight than someone who should carry the workhorse title, while Mero at least brings athleticism and some excitement to the role. The Shooting Star Press gives him something unique, and Sable’s presence clearly helps the presentation. The problem is that the tournament did him no favors. Mero did not win a single match cleanly on the way to the title, so while the end result is fine, the path to get there was a mess.
The tag division is also being reset. Owen Hart and The British Bulldog already feel like a major upgrade as champions, but the division is thin.
Then there is the Jim Ross/Fake Razor Ramon angle. Good grief. Ross cut a hell of a promo, and some of his real-life frustration gave the segment a lot more edge than most WWF interviews had at the time. The problem is the payoff. After weeks of teasing that Razor Ramon and Diesel were coming back, the WWF finally revealed a fake Razor Ramon, did not even reveal Fake Diesel, and somehow expected this to work. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were on Nitro in the hottest angle in wrestling. Everyone knew that. Presenting replacement versions of their old WWF characters made the company look so bad and so desperate.
That desperation is interesting when you look at what was happening behind the scenes. According to the Wrestling Observer, Titan Sports changed the top of its organizational chart around this time. Vince McMahon moved from CEO to Chairman of the Board, Linda McMahon and Neville Meyer became co-CEOs, and the position of President was dropped. Meyer was new to wrestling and had a background in other forms of entertainment, with his role reportedly tied to the company’s expansion. In truth, he was brought in to be a killer and reorganize everything. That is an interesting corporate note because the WWF is clearly trying to think bigger as a business, even as the television product is struggling at present.
The frustrating thing is that the WWF does have pieces. Mero as Intercontinental Champion could work. Owen Hart and The British Bulldog as Tag Team Champions is a good move. Steve Austin’s momentum is building. Mankind and The Undertaker are heading toward Buried Alive. Bret Hart’s return is still hanging over everything. There are things here. But then the company turns around and gives us Fake Razor Ramon, the Real Double J (a rebrand of the Jeff Jarrett gimmick), and a television product that keeps feeling like it is reacting to WCW instead of building its own identity.
WCW wins again, making it thirteen straight weeks for Nitro. After all the promoting of Razor and Diesel showing up, this is one of the WWF’s worst ratings. Raw had some important developments, but the horrific debut of Ramon is going to be all that will be remembered. The WWF needed buzz, but this is the wrong kind of buzz. It was one of the clearest examples yet of a company trying to win the way by technicality instead of creativity.
WWF Raw (USA Network, live): 2.04 (Record: 16-29)
WCW Nitro (TNT, live): 3.42 (Record: 29-16)
Winner: WCW Nitro (13-week streak)
Email – mike@wrestleview.com
X – @MikeTedescoWV
In Your House 10 | Last week’s Raw | Last week’s Nitro
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Part of Wrestleview’s Monday Night War: 30 Years Later series, with weekly Raw and Nitro recaps every Thursday.