Raw #131 - October 16th, 1995

Welcome to a very eventful Raw, where not only does Bret Hart face Isaac Yankem in Raw's first-ever cage match, but USWA tag team champions PG-13 take on WWF tag champs, The Smoking Gunns. First, though, Hunter Hearst Helmsley faces Doink in the last Raw match by the clown. Not Triple H; the one in the face paint. Vince McMahon also mentions that Mabel and Dean have both been fined $7,500 for interfering in last week's match, the former causing an injury that will keep the Dead Man off In Your House.

Hunter and Doink lock up, leading Helmsley to complain about the garish makeup rubbing off on his chest. He's going to have to get used to that if he's going to sleep with Stephanie every night. The clown grabs Hunter by the nose, back when it was permissible to make fun of his nose. Doink continues his buffoonery, only to get clotheslined by Helmsley. Speaking of acting like a fool and getting beaten up, Shawn Michaels recently fell victim to a beating outside a Syracuse night club, which Lawler finds quite amusing. Helmsley, who faces Fatu at In Your House, gains the advantage on Doink until the clown scores a series of near-falls. An attempted cross-body misses Hunter, allowing the blue-blood to put his opponent's head between his legs and then grab his arms and slam his face down into the mat in a move he calls the Pedigree. Thank you Wikipedia for that description.

Backstage, Barry Horowitz tries to assimilate Hakushi into American culture, educating him on American baseball. Hakushi, however, refuses to recognize Babe Ruth as the all-time home run leader, citing Hank Aaron.

PG-13 arrives to Men on a Mission's music while dressed as Dr. Seuss characters. As the Smoking Gunns enter, Gorilla Monsoon picks Yokozuna as Mabel's new opponent for In Your House in a rare heel vs. heel match. Rare because it usually sucks, but rare nonetheless. This, says Monsoon, will be the two behemoths' first match with each other, despite having wrestled each other on Coliseum Home Video. Meanwhile, PG-13 start making fools of themselves, colliding with one another in what is Not Exactly A Special Maneuver. JC Ice cartwheels right into a Bart Gunn clothesline, felling him faster than Butterbean felled Bart Gunn. JC, however, soon lands on his feet to counter a Billy Gunn hip toss for the match's second Maneuver. Billy then gets tripped, then knocked out of the ring by JC Ice's Macho Man-style knee to the back, letting him be double-teamed.

PG-13, who give up about a hundred pounds and a foot and a half to the Gunns, are in control after the commercial until one of the USWA champs gets caught and slingshot by Billy into his partner on the apron. The Gunns will be on America Online this week to talk to all the "hackers" out there. Bart downs Wolfie D with a Nice Maneuver (#3 - dropkick), setting him up for a Devastating Maneuver (#4 - Sidewinder). JC tries to run in to break up the pin, but he trips on the ropes and falls flat on his face. The Gunns defend their titles this Sunday against The Kid and Razor Ramon.

Ahmed Johnson gives a short, moderately intelligible promo about your mother making minimum wage but still taking you to a WWF event. At this point, he doesn't seem to have been given an official last name, having wrestled a dark match as "Ahmed Williams."

Dean Douglas, who last week attacked Shawn Michaels outside the ring (and not a Syracuse night club), faces Joe Dorgan. Vince announces that Michaels was attacked by "some ten thugs" (the tentative number before the WWF settled on nine). Shawn talks on the phone and vows to be at In Your House as Dean wins via The Final Exam (a fisherman's suplex) in a match that was completely ignored by the announcers.

Dok Hendrix shills WWF's new hideous merchandise, apparently having replaced Barry Dadinsky. If you buy the shirt for twenty 1995 dollars, you will also get a "classic" (read: overstocked) WWF video tape. As officials set up the cage, Lawler panics about his shark cage being attached to the rafters, fearing a nosebleed from the height. Goldust cuts a promo on his In Your House opponent Marty Jannetty, calling him a "pretty boy." Goldust clearly has unusual tastes.

Bret Hart and Isaac Yankem get locked into the cage for their match, where Lawler, the self-proclaimed "key to victory," must not interfere, lest he be locked into a shark cage and suspended above the ring. Hart soon hits a Devastating Maneuver (#5 - inverted atomic drop), followed up by a clothesline. Bret soon attempts escape, but gets pulled down by Yankem. Isaac, too, gets caught scaling the playground equipment, as does Bret once again. After beating down the dentist some more, Bret asks Tim White to unlock the cage door, but his key doesn't work. Jerry then reveals that he has the original lock, having replaced it with another one earlier that night.

After the break, Bret slams Yankem off the turnbuckles for a Maneuver (#6). He then applies his Patented Maneuver (#7 - sharpshooter), although there are no submissions in this match. Bret then climbs the cage, but Lawler climbs the cage and punches him off. This draws to ringside Gorilla Monsoon. As the Federaion President argues with The King, Bret forces Lawler off the cage. He is then stuffed behind bars, giving him a glimpse of his fate in an alternate universe where his accuser hadn't recanted. Yankem chokes Bret with his boot while Lawler screams cowardlily. Spell check says that isn't a word, but how else do you make, "cowardly" an adverb. Bret counters a piledriver attempt with a Nice Maneuver (#8 - back body drop). As feared, Lawler gets a nosebleed, although it is actually self-induced, with King fiddling with his deviated septum to induce bleeding. It's a good thing his nosebleed isn't actually caused by altitude otherwise it would mean that Lawler would start bleeding every time he climbed a staircase, as he is only about 20 feet above the floor.

After the break, we return to the bloodiest WWF cage match in years (referring to King's nosebleed), where both competitors try to escape to no avail. With the Hitman on the mat, Lawler drops a key (to victory) down to Isaac, but the dentist is too slow to unlock the key, allowing Bret to stop him and throw away the key. After an elbow smash, Bret ascends the cage wall and climbs down, proving his dominance over the big man by being better at running away.

When Raw returns from break, Lawler is panicking in the cage while Vince feigns technical difficulties. Be sure to order In Your House this Sunday, although two of the scheduled matches will be changed and the main event will be so bad that Diesel would drop the title the next month, rather than in 1997 (as per the alleged 3-year title reign proposed by Vince).

Final tally:

8 Maneuvers (Year total: 188)