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.