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 #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 #"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 #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.

Raw #186 - November 25th, 1996

Bret Hart wrestles on Raw for the first time in months to face Owen Hart, who is accompanied by the man he will beat out for the Best Bow Tie Slammy, Clarence Mason. Owen still has the “King of Harts” playing card lighting during his entrance. Those transparencies they put over the lights can’t come cheat, so you’re darn right they’re gonna get their money’s worth.

Raw #184 - November 11th, 1996

The last Raw before Survivor Series kicks off with Bulldog and Owen Hart defending their tag team titles against Sid and Shawn Michaels. Last year at Survivor Series, Michaels, Sid, and Bulldog were all on the same team in the Wild Card match, with Owen on the opposing side. Vince recaps the problems brewing between Sid and Michaels, as well as their feud with the tag team champions, while managing to say, “melee” once and “from there” three times.

Raw #182 - October 28th, 1996

Tonight’s Raw opens with the return of Double J (by which I mean The Roadie), who enters to “With My Baby Tonight,” perhaps the most inappropriate wrestling entrance theme until X-Factor’s theme by Uncle Kracker. His opponent is Salvatore Sincere. And, this episode was taped a week ago. Take that, Nitro!

Raw #181 - October 21st, 1996

Sid opens the show to take on Owen Hart, who is still one half of the tag team champions. Sid, who earned a title shot last night by defeating Vader, looks to get his mitts on the Slammy Award-winner on this month’s live episode of Raw. More important, however, is the return of Vince McMahon to the RAW commentary desk. How many times will he say, “maneuver”? It’s hard to say, but he’s already said, “individual” twice in the first five minutes.

Raw #177 - September 23rd, 1996

Tonight’s show opens with a still photo from last night’s In Your House pay-per-view showing “Razor” and “Diesel” attacking Savio Vega. This no doubt intrigues any fans who don’t have access to the TNT network and can’t check out Nitro to see that Kevin Nash and Scott Hall are live on WCW TV and definitely aren’t going to be on this episode of Raw. Kevin Kelly says what a great night Mind Games was and says this Raw will be even better (meaning anyone who paid for last night’s event probably wasted their money).

Raw #176 - September 16th, 1996

Jake Roberts opens this taped broadcast by chasing Jerry Lawler out of the broadcast position. If Lawler still had his headset, he’d be making a Jake the Snake joke about “chasers” right about now. His opponent is the debuting Sultan, who enters to the Iron Sheik’s old music along with Sheiky Baby himself and Bob Backlund.

Raw #173 - August 19th, 1996

Raw is live the night after Summerslam, with Kevin Kelly making his Raw announcing debut. Another guest at the announcers’ table is Jim Ross, as it takes two announcers to replace Vince McMahon. It looks like no maneuvers tonight. The British Bulldog faces his own Camp Cornette partner Owen Hart in the first round of the Intercontinental Title tournament.

Raw #172 - August 12th, 1996

Tonight’s Raw begins with the winning combination of a Vince McMahon voiceover and — AHHHH! Surgery footage! McMahon explains that Ahmed’s original kidney injury suffered at the hands (or feet) of Faarooq was aggravated during the battle royal in which he was somehow allowed to compete, then again by Faarooq in his post-match attack on Johnson, despite Assad not hitting Ahmed in the kidney that time. The surgery, supposedly performed last week some time after the battle royal, stopped the bleeding, but should the bleeding return, Ahmed might need to have his kidney removed.

Raw #170 - July 29th, 1996

Vince announces in the intro to tonight’s show that the “intruder” last week has “temporarily sidelined” Ahmed Johnson with a ruptured kidney. How temporary is “temporarily”? Two weeks in kayfabe time, but about four months in real time, as Ahmed had already wrestled a match scheduled for next week before finding out his kidney had been ruptured.

Raw #167 - July 8th, 1996

Tonight’s top story: The Ultimate Warrior has been suspended! After no-showing multiple live events, Gorilla Monsoon has suspended Warrior indefinitely until he posts a bond. However, Warrior will be wrestling tonight as advertised because Monsoon is such a fan-friendly President. And also because his match was filmed two weeks ago.