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 #201 - March 17th, 1997

The last Raw (is War) before Wrestlemania is live from Syracuse, home to the nine thugs who aren’t responsible for Shawn Michaels forfeiting his title (this time). The Legion of Doom enters for the opening match while Vince welcomes us to “The Warzone” for “Monday Night Raw” before reminding us that “Raw is War.” That’s a lot of TV show titles to fit in a single sentence. Crush and Savio face off with the LOD, with both Faarooq and Ahmed banned from ringside. LOD starts fighting NOD outside the ring before the bell, kicking off several minutes of chaotic brawling among all four men. While the referee tries to establish order, Ahmed cuts a promo on the split screen about how in the Chicago Street Fight, we might see something we might not want to see. He doesn’t specifically mention his butt cheeks, but that’s what we’re all thinking. Faarooq responds with an inset promo of his own that he delivers in “Ebonics” so that Ahmed can understand. Through the magic of split-screen, we also see the finish to the Ahmed-Faarooq match at MSG last night, which ended when the NOD interfered to break up a pin.

Raw #200 - March 10th, 1997

The first episode of “Raw is War” (and the 201st episode of Raw, sort of) gets off to a less-than-auspicious start as the in-arena noise is audible during the opening seconds of the intro, allowing the viewers at home to hear Howard Finkel instruct the live crowd to make noise. A new intro sequence plays to the strains of Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People,” used without permission. Thus begins Raw is War, one of the strangest titles for a wrestling program in history. You didn’t see Nitro re-naming itself Nitro is Awesome, now did you? Or Nitro is Ortin? The WWF’s flagship program would retain this self-referential title up to and including the September 10th, 2001 edition.

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 #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 #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 #191 - December 30th, 1996

It’s the last Raw of 1996, and Bret Hart will go “face-to-face” with Shawn Michaels, who calls himself “the World Wrestling Federation’s favorite degenerate.” The opening match sees Faarooq team up with an “unlikely” partner, according to Vince, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. What’s so unlikely about the black nationalist teaming up with a white Texan with a shaved head? They are set to take on Savio Vega and Jesse Jammes in an effort to sneak in one last Savio/Austin match in 1996. Also notable is that this episode is live, breaking an eight-month streak of one live Raw per month.

Raw #188 - December 9th, 1996

Warning: the following blog post contains action of a graphic nature. Reader discretion is advised. But not really. Tonight’s bloodless, taped episode of Raw opens with an unnecessary warning in hopes of luring fans away from Nitro on TNT. Sid, whom Vince touts as leading the WWF into a new era and who JR agrees will be a major force in the WWF for a long time (rather than leaving before next summer’s end) faces fellow champion Hunter Hearst Helmsley, whom he beats up in the aisle.

Raw #185 - November 18th, 1996

Steve Austin arrives on Raw to face Mankind in a “tough man contest.” Originally, Vader was pencilled in as Stone Cold’s opponent, but he was injured by the 700-pound (“I would suggest,” says McMahon) Yokozuna the night before at Survivor Series with a uranage. The shoulder injury is said to only sideline Vader for a few days, but that’s enough time to keep him off television all month thanks to the compact taping schedule.

Raw #175 - September 9th, 1996

The Intercontinental tournament’s first round wraps up this week as Faarooq takes on Savio Vega. We open the broadcast with Jerry Lawler freaking out over Sunny’s entrance. “What a pair!” says Lawler, supposedly referring to the “pair” of Faarooq and Sunny. JR calls Sunny a “Jezebel” who needs a “trip to the woodshed.” It’s only the second Raw to feature both JR and Jerry Lawler on commentary, and they are in complete agreement, both wanting to see Sunny get spanked.

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 #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 #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 #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 #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 #153 - April 1st, 1996

It’s the night after the Wrestlemania XII, and all through the house, not a creature is stirring, except to flip back and forth between Raw, Nitro, and the NCAA basketball finals. And what better way to kick things off than Bob “Spark Plugg” Holly, whose music plays at the beginning of the show! A new wrestler named, “Mankind” enters the ring to ominous music. Vince is taking a chance by letting Mick Foley debut under this name, rather than “Mason the Mutilator.”