Art's Raw reviews return!

On Sunday, August 7th, my first Raw review in six years comes to WrestleCrap. 

Check WrestleCrap every other Sunday for a new review. And of course, I will continue to post a new induction every other Thursday.

Raw #204 - April 7th, 1997

Mankind’s flash-paper fireball attack on the Undertaker from last week is this week’s cold opening, complete with dramatic music and slow motion. Tonight, Vince says that Shawn Michaels is going to “get a load off his chest.” Whose load it is remains unclear. Owen Hart and the British Bulldog come to the ring with their respective flags to wrestle a non-title tag team match. Owen Hart grabs the mic and praises his brother Bret for filling his family with love, then calls the audience, “haters”, years before the word would be run into the ground by social media.

Raw #203 - March 31st, 1997

Raw (is War) opens without its Marilyn Manson intro while “Thorn in Your Eye” plays throughout the arena. I guess Manson and his record company didn’t appreciate all the free publicity Vince was giving him! Tonight, The British Bulldog defends the European title for the first time, facing the man he beat to win the title, Owen Hart. Hart dropkicks his tag team partner as he tries to enter the ring. A flying body press fails to put Bulldog away in the opening seconds, so Hart delivers a blatant kick to the groin in full view of the referee. The match continues anyway between the two “brother-in-laws”, as Vince repeatedly calls them. After some back-and-forth, Owen hits a piledriver right before the break.

Raw #202 - March 24th, 1997

The Raw after Wrestlemania 13 opens with a long pan across the front row. Jim Ross informs us that Mankind is the number-one contender to The Undertaker’s WWF title, even though astute viewers who stayed awake during last night’s pay-per-view would know that Mankind got counted out in the tag team match. The Headbangers, who won an unannounced and terrible four-way tag team elimination match last night, get their promised title shot against Davey Boy (who has two titles) and Owen (who has two Slammys… and a title). The tag team champions after this match will face The Road Warriors at the next In Your House.

Raw #201 - March 17th, 1997

The last Raw (is War) before Wrestlemania is live from Syracuse, home to the nine thugs who aren’t responsible for Shawn Michaels forfeiting his title (this time). The Legion of Doom enters for the opening match while Vince welcomes us to “The Warzone” for “Monday Night Raw” before reminding us that “Raw is War.” That’s a lot of TV show titles to fit in a single sentence. Crush and Savio face off with the LOD, with both Faarooq and Ahmed banned from ringside. LOD starts fighting NOD outside the ring before the bell, kicking off several minutes of chaotic brawling among all four men. While the referee tries to establish order, Ahmed cuts a promo on the split screen about how in the Chicago Street Fight, we might see something we might not want to see. He doesn’t specifically mention his butt cheeks, but that’s what we’re all thinking. Faarooq responds with an inset promo of his own that he delivers in “Ebonics” so that Ahmed can understand. Through the magic of split-screen, we also see the finish to the Ahmed-Faarooq match at MSG last night, which ended when the NOD interfered to break up a pin.

Raw #200 - March 10th, 1997

The first episode of “Raw is War” (and the 201st episode of Raw, sort of) gets off to a less-than-auspicious start as the in-arena noise is audible during the opening seconds of the intro, allowing the viewers at home to hear Howard Finkel instruct the live crowd to make noise. A new intro sequence plays to the strains of Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People,” used without permission. Thus begins Raw is War, one of the strangest titles for a wrestling program in history. You didn’t see Nitro re-naming itself Nitro is Awesome, now did you? Or Nitro is Ortin? The WWF’s flagship program would retain this self-referential title up to and including the September 10th, 2001 edition.

Raw #199 - March 3rd, 1997

Vince McMahon recounts the division of Berlin in tonight’s cold opening. Trying to play up the historical significance of tonight’s Raw (number 200, by the way, although the Network doesn't count Thursday Raw Thursday), he says that, as the eyes of the world were on Berlin during the fall of the Berlin Wall, so too will the eyes of the world be on Berlin tonight for the pre-taped episode of Raw. The difference, of course, is that significantly fewer eyes will be watching tonight’s episode than were watching the re-unification of East and West Berlin. Hell, significantly fewer eyes will be watching tonight’s episode than were watching last week’s episode. Tonight concludes the European title tournament, which has played out on the house shows in Germany for the past week or so. Tag team partners Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith wrestle for the coveted new title that was just announced two weeks ago and whose significance and purpose have still yet to be explained.

Raw #198: February 24th, 1997

Despite featuring an ECW “invasion,” this episode of Raw is more of a throwback to the first Raws of 1993. Not only does it take place in the Manhattan Center, but, like those early Raws, it doesn’t feature many of the top stars of the company, who, in this case, are touring Germany. That might explain why tonight is heavily packed with outside wrestlers best known from other wrestling organizations, much like the first Monday night edition of TNA Impact years later. Jerry Lawler calls tonight’s program as the blackest day in WWF history, referring either to the influx of ECW wrestlers or the many African-American fans sitting directly behind him. ECW, Vince explains, stands for “Extreme, ladies and gentleman,” killing off the company’s cool factor much earlier than the 2006 re-launch on Sci-Fi.

Raw #"197" - February 17th, 1997

Sycho Sid’s music plays to open the live show in Nashville. He challenges new champion Bret Hart, who last night won the company’s first multi-man match (although every elimination was by throwing an opponent over the top rope, so it might as well have been a battle royal). The Undertaker, says announcers Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler (no Vince tonight), is scheduled to challenge the winner of this match at Wrestlemania. Before the Hart-Sid match can begin though, Steve Austin rushes in and brawls with both men before being taken away by a what JR calls a “bevy” of officials. Odd choice of words, considering that “bevy” is usually used to describe a group of beauties. I suppose Rene Goulet is pretty cute. Sid gets hurt in the mayhem, suffering perhaps the second-worst leg injury he’ll ever endure. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!” he says, perhaps auditioning for the role of Florida Evans in Good Times: The Movie. The match gets postponed until later in the night — so much for the WWF never pulling a bait-and-switch.

Raw #196b - February 13th, 1997

Tonight’s episode is one of the most infamous in Raw history, in which Shawn Michaels will forfeit his WWF title live in the ring and give an incredibly confusing farewell speech. I guess they didn’t have enough footage from the last four or five times he forfeited a title to cobble together a video package explaining it all. This comes one episode after the announcers guaranteed that Shawn vs. Sid would take place and that Shawn doesn’t make promises he can’t keep. You’ve got to wonder what they were thinking, since it’s pretty easy to rattle off a list of promises Shawn hasn’t kept, like staying within the allotted time for his Wrestlemania X ladder match or wrestling Sid at Summerslam ’95 or dropping the title to Vader.

Raw #196 - February 3rd, 1997

It’s a special “Royal Rumble” Raw! Contrary to what last week’s promotion implied, this episode will not feature the Royal Rumble match aside from a few clips here and there, but it is the first two-hour Raw in history! And it kinda looks like crap!

Raw #195 - January 27th, 1997

Ahmed Johnson, who this past Saturday was betrayed by Savio Vega, opens up Raw. Thanks to an editing error, an off-camera Vince McMahon introduces footage of the Madison Square Garden event but gets talked over by none other than Vince McMahon, who now appears on camera to introduce tonight’s show and the Spanish announce team. Only then does the MSG footage air. With Crush and Savio Vega representing Hawaii and Puerto Rico, respectively, all Faarooq needs is Nation members from the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Guam.

Raw #194 - January 20th, 1997

It’s the night after the Royal Rumble, and Bret Hart interrupts the proceedings, storming to the ring to cut a promo instead of wrestle to open the show. It’s a harbinger of how Raw will operate for the next two decades, except for the fact that Bret repeatedly refers to the “championship belt.” He addresses Vince McMahon as if he, rather than Federation President Gorilla Monsoon, runs the show, airing his grievances about being repeatedly screwed, first by Shawn Michaels in December, and again by Stone Cold at the Royal Rumble, which he would have won had the referees seen Austin get eliminated. Instead, Austin won last night, and Bret Hart unceremoniously quits tonight, hopping the guard rail to a mixture of boos and “We Want Bret” chants.

Raw #193 - January 13th, 1997

This week’s Raw may be taped, but Shawn Michaels is live from San Antonio, where he signs autographs for fans such as Double J Jesse Jammes, his future DX colleague (and by “future,” I mean 2012’s “Raw 1000” episode, the first time the two were in the stable at the same time). Bret Hart’s chances of winning this Sunday’s Royal Rumble just dropped drastically after Steve Austin Pillmanized his ankle on Superstars. Speaking of agony, the Honky Tonk Man is on commentary with Vince, filling in for his cousin Jerry Lawler, who teams with HHH against Goldust and Marc Mero.

Raw #192 - January 6th, 1997

Tonight’s Raw is rated TV PG. Therefore, it must suck. Tonight’s topics include whether Bret Hart is the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be (which will be debated by Hart and Vader) and Marlena’s breasts, which she flashed at the Sultan on the premiere of Shotgun Saturday Night. Shocking, I know. I had forgotten The Sultan was even in the WWF.

Figure Friday: Ahmed Johnson

Ahmed Johnson is famed for his unintelligible promos, massive weight gain, and frequent in-ring wedgies, but you can add one more accolade to that list. Ahmed was the subject of one of the most unrealistic action figures ever created.

This is Ahmed Johnson: