Raw #165 - June 24th, 1996

It’s the night after King of the Ring, and the new king Hunter Hearst Helmsley is in action in the opening contest! Just kidding. Steve Austin won the crown, but Hunter is facing Ahmed Johnson, who last night overcame multiple acts of sexual molestation by Goldust to win the Intercontinental Title, becoming the first black singles champion in WWF history.

Raw #164 - June 17th, 1996

Vince opens tonight’s Raw with a suggestion to the viewer to “expect the unexpected.” The opening match is Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega, wrestling on television for the fifth time in three months, not including Beware of Dog 1. Very unexpected indeed.

Raw #163 - June 10th, 1996

Yokozuna wrestles his third-to-last televised match, facing former tag team partner Owen Hart in a King of the Ring match-up. Last year, Yoko fell victim to the awesome power of Savio Vega to be eliminated from the tournament. How will he fare against Owen? Jerry Lawler also shows off the portrait of the Ultimate Warrior he painted to patch things up with the man from the Parts Unknown. The picture is impressive, especially since he must have painted it in less than two hours at the announce table, since that’s how long ago in real time that he and Warrior’s feud started.

Raw #162 - June 3rd, 1996

Bob Holly is in the ring when Raw begins. The likes of Holly and Aldo Montoya have really benefitted from the Monday Night War; now that Raw has eliminated non-contracted jobbers from its matches for the sake of competitiveness, the lowest tier “Superstars” get a chance to shine and count the lights every Monday night. Vince McMahon announces that Ahmed Johnson will be challenging Goldust for the Intercontinental Title at King of the Ring after last week’s “mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

Raw #161 - May 27th, 1996

Goldust is in the ring at the outset of the show, and Vince speculates that the arena will “shake, rattle, and roll” when “The Man They Call The Ultimate Warrior” enters. Vince has just confused Warrior with both the Honky Tonk Man and Vader. Warrior does enter to pyro, but no hip-shaking. Goldust stays out of the ring, afraid of the Warrior, so Warrior slowly stalks him.

Raw #160 - May 20th, 1996

Last night was an eventful house show at Madison Square Garden. The big news on Raw is that the Bodydonnas lost the tag team titles to the Godwinns. The bigger news, not mentioned on Raw, is that four members of the Clique gave a public farewell at the end of the show, leading to Hunter Hearst Helmsley’s burial over the next few months.

Raw #159 - May 13th, 1996

The WWF has just finished its tour of the Middle East, and Ahmed Johnson made history just yesterday as the winner of the first-ever Kuwait Cup, or, as Sgt. Slaughter would call it, the 19th Province of Iraq Cup. How will Ahmed deal with the jet-lag of crossing 9 time zones on a 21+ hour flight from Kuwait City to Sioux City? Just kidding! This episode was taped two weeks earlier, before the Kuwait Cup tournament even took place. As an amusing side note, i just discovered that the initials for Sioux City’s airport are SUX. After a brief and barely intelligible promo where he appears to say “Jeff Jarrett’s retarded” (actually, he says, “Jeff Jarrett’s guitar didn’t stop me”), Ahmed is interrupted by an obviously dubbed-in Jerry Lawler. Sunny then helps him prep for the match by rubbing oil on his chest, but Ahmed rebuffs her advances, saying that he was taught to take the trash out, not in. “He dissed her, McMahon!” says an outraged King. Ahmed takes on Zip of Sunny’s Bodydonnas.

Raw #158 - May 6th, 1996

Tonight’s episode opens with a memorial for Ray “Crippler” Stevens, Pat Patterson’s long-time partner (of the tag team variety). As for the other kid of partner, an anonymous woman claiming to have been seduced by Shawn Michaels will speak out tonight.

Raw #157 - April 29th, 1996

Tonight’s Raw is all about SEX! Whom did Shawn Michaels proposition last night? Sable? Marlena? Sunny (once again)? Nope, try Diana Smith! Shawn certainly did. Mankind has his third match on Raw, this time against Bart Gunn, who is in the midst of the Smoking Gunns Awareness campaign to remind everyone that they still exist despite brother Billy’s horseback injury.