Raw #166 - July 1st, 1996

Shawn Michaels, “the greatest sports-entertainer in the world today,” opens tonight’s Raw, walking down the aisle with his “Kliq Cam.” How is the view from the Kliq Cam being shown in real time if this is a live broadcast? Maybe I just answered my own question. Speaking of questions, tonight, HBK faces former Rockers partner Marty Jannetty to determine which one was the “Marty Jannetty” of their team.

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 #107 - April 17th, 1995

Raw starts off with a clip from yesterday's Action Zone, where Ted DiBiase announced his new, re-structured and re-organized Million Dollar Corporation, which looks exacly the same as his old Corporation, except without Nikolai Volkoff. Still, they at least have Sid as their newest member, and he will make a big difference in the form of the Corporation's first pay-per-view victory of 1995... but not till September.

Raw #101 - March 6th, 1995

Shawn Michaels and the British Bulldog open tonight's show. HBK does his stripper routine while Sid looks on in jeans and no shirt. Ahem. Vince continues to insist that the British Bulldog is the rightful winner of the Royal Rumble, despite being thrown over the tope rope fair and square. Cornette makes a series of valid points about Shawn Michaels never having been eliminated and both Michaels and Smith being in the Rumble for the same amount of time, to which Vince responds that Bulldog is the rightful winner because he was "robbed." That's called begging the question, Vince. It's one thing for Gorilla Monsoon to always defend the faces even when they're wrong, because he's only working with the material he was given, but for the actual booker of the company to do such transparently weak shilling for the good guys is just embarrassing. Speaking of shilling, he also urges viewers to buy the Royal Rumble on Coliseum Home Video to see for themselves.

Raw #93 - January 2nd, 1995

The first faces we see on Raw in 1995 are those of the as-of-yet unnamed Roadie and Jeff Jarrett, who promises to sing in public for the first time tonight. Shawn Michaels is back on commentary along with Gorilla Monsoon, who is filling for Vince. McMahon may be "under the weather," but Gorilla and Shawn are in front of a green screen. Ted DiBiase's music plays over the two announcers as The Million Dollar Man accompanies Bam Bam Bigelow and Tatanka for their match against the soon-to-be Allied Powers. Monsoon wonders if there will be gold coming to the Million Dollar Corporation, and there most certainly will, as long as you count Paul Bearer's urn as gold.

Two lesser-known Royal Rumble moments

As we count down the hours to the 25th anniversary edition of the Royal Rumble (yes, WWE, it is the 26th edition but the first one was 25 years ago. That's how anniversaries work.), it's important to look back at some of the forgotten gems of the 30-man battle royal. Well, maybe it's not so important, but I have the footage, so here we go....

Raw #78 - September 19th, 1994

The cold opening for the September 19th episode of Raw centers around Tatanka, who fooled us all by having sold out to Ted DiBiase all along. The exact purpose of this deception will never be explained, but he certainly fooled a lot of people, and that's all that matters! Vince McMahon would later take the lessons learned from this angle and incorporate them into the Corporate Ministry angle, revealing himself to be the Higher Power so that he could fool Stone Cold Steve Austin at great personal expense.

Raw #76 - August 15th, 1994

In the cold opening this week, we see clips from last week's episode, where Tatanka caught Luger with a fistful of dollars, then found him backstage in Ted DiBiase's dressing room. In an important development to this riveting angle, Tatanka is now calling Luger a "turncoat" to add some variety to his accusations of selling out. Somehow, at a time when 6'6'' Brian Lee is dressing up as and (very poorly) imitating  the Undertaker, this Luger-Tatanka-sellout angle is the stupidest storyline of the summer.

Raw #73 - July 25th, 1994

We open Raw with a recap of Lex Luger's rumored sellout to the Million Dollar Man. this past weekend, Lex showed up on the Heartbreak Hotel when introduced by DiBiase. Tatanka then came out to shame the American Original, but Lex Luger denied signing with DiBiase. "He's either telling the truth, or he's lying!" says Macho with deep insight. Frankly, this whole mystery is rather silly. If Lex did sell out to DiBiase, then eventually he'll start coming out to the Million Dollar Man's music, teaming up with Ted's clients, and being escorted to the ring by DiBiase. Then we'll know. And if he did sell out, what's he denying it for? Eventually it's going to become really obvious.

Raw #70 - July 4th, 1994

It's a Fourth of July edition of Monday Night Raw! On this day last year, Lex Luger turned face and bodyslammed Yokozuna, and look how far that has gotten him in the past year! Why, he almost made it to the King of the Ring. Raw kicks off with a battle between two King of the Ring entrants who lost in the first round, Tatanka and Jeff Jarrett. Hopefully this match will end better than that other match between two King of the Ring entrants who lost in the first round, Bam Bam vs. Mabel, which Mabel won by countout last week.

Raw #69 - June 27th, 1994

Jerry Lawler's garbage can attack on Duke "The Dumpster" Droese is the subject of tonight's cold opening. Monsoon calls Lawler's use of a trash can as a weapon, "the unthinkable." The unthinkable would later happen hundreds of times in the Attitude Era to kill time during hardcore matches. The Dumpster says that it's one thing to jump him from behind, but it's another thing to hit him with his own trash can. You tell 'im, Duke! Lawler cuts his own studio promo justifying his attack on Droese, citing The Dumpster's dumping of trash on the King, but he is told by an off-camera voice (which one subscriber pointed out is Shane McMahon) that he is supposed to apologize. Lawler says he would rather be fined or suspended than apologize before eventually offering an insincere "I apologize," which he swears he'll never say again. This is one feud that's destined to be settled at Summerslam! No, just kidding. This is Duke "The Dumpster" Droese we're talking about.

Raw #68 - June 20th, 1994

Tonight, Raw begins with a brief recap, featuring stills and sound bites, of last night's King of the Ring pay-per-view. If you haven't already read my massive recap of the event that inspired this blog in the first place, do so now. I'll wait here. Anyway, Diesel defeated Bret Hart last night by disqualification after interference by Jim Neidhart, but Hart retained the WWF title. Later, Neidhart helped Owen win the King of the Ring tournament.

Raw #64 - May 23rd, 1994

After his face-stealing victory over Yokozuna last week in sumo competition, Earthquake looks to win a berth in the King of the Ring tournament... or does he? Our announcers wonder where exactly Earthquake has gone, since he is not at the arena tonight. He was Banzai-dropped by Yokozuna at a house show in Anaheim, which is used to explain his absence. What a strange run for Earthquake; he returns to the WWF ring, squashes Adam Bomb at Wrestlemania, goes undefeated, beats the former champion, then is gone from the Federation for the next four years. Owen Hart comes to the ring to face a mystery opponent on this first-ever Raw in Youngstown, Ohio. Vince, however, calls it "Struthers, OH," which is about five miles away from Youngstown. Somebody is wrong here.

Raw #63 - May 16th, 1994

Welcome everyone to Mon-day-Night-Raw! Tonight is the sumo match between Earthquake and Yokozuna, the only such match the promotion would put on for 11 years. Bam Bam Bigelow takes on Thurman Plugg (his friends call him "Sparky") in a King of the Ring qualifying match.

Raw #59 - April 18th, 1994

Monday Night Raw comes at you taped from the Utica Memorial Auditorium. The show opens with a replay of Jerry Lawler's mishap from last week, perhaps in an effort to promote a new "Bloopers, Bleeps, and Blunders" tape from Coliseum Video, which Macho Man references. This week's King's Court features the WWF's female wrestler, Alundra Blayze, who sits atop the Federation's one-person women's division. Also, Bret Hart faces off against Kwang in a thankfully non-title match, which leads Savage to suggest that he himself get a title shot.