Week Four: WWF Monday Night Raw – September 25, 1995
Welcome back to Monday Night Rewind, a Pops & Botches-flavored look back at the Monday Night Wars, through the lens of someone who didn’t really live through them. Previously on Raw, it was time for the In Your House pay-per-view, where we had the blowoffs to multiple feuds, the beginnings of a promising new one, and one giant middle finger to the audience.
This week, we follow up on exactly none of that, except the bad one. Spoiler alert: it’s not about to stop being the bad one.
BOTCH: Misfired Gunns
Let’s just go ahead and rip the band-aid off at the top. In a pre-taped vignette, looking like the worst 90’s sitcom, Jim Cornette and his lawyer successfully convince acting WWF President Gorilla Monsoon that last night’s referee was wrong to award Diesel and Shawn Michaels the Tag Team Championships. Because, you know, the guy that got pinned wasn’t in the fucking match. The belts will be returned to Owen Hart and Yokozuna, but the Two Dudes with Attitude will receive a rematch at a later date.
Plot twist, though! Mr. Monsoon, being an impartial authority figure with no vindictive tendencies whatsoever, arbitrarily makes tonight’s match between the Smoking Gunns and the newly restored champions for the belts. As you can see at the top of this section, things don’t go in Owen and Yokozuna’s favor.
In a recurring theme for tonight (more on that later), an angle is teased and then immediately taken out back and shot. It’s one thing to scrap the plan for a show earlier in the day, even an hour before curtain, but the way this played out seemed like they were making it up as they filmed. The future rematch has nothing at stake but pride, something which no one involved seems too worried about. The Gunns avenge their WrestleMania loss, but with no build and barely any mention of it. Finally, Gorilla just looks like a dick, flexing his power on Cornette just because he can.
Outside of the wrestling in the match itself, no one comes out of this looking good.
POP: The Wrestling in the Match Itself
Setting aside the infuriating circumstances surrounding it, the match is baller. The Smoking Gunns continue to impress from the first Monday Night Wartime edition of Raw, tearing it up with agile, lightning quick offense. Owen is in there basically wrestling for two, which is an impressive feat, but also a pretty big downer.
As I mentioned in the In Your House write-up, Yokozuna was in exceptionally bad shape at this point. He was trending upward in his weight and could scarcely step into the ring without getting winded. The grimaces as he tries to catch his breath are frankly disheartening to watch at times. Credit where it’s due, however, he still manages to do what needs to be done.
The ending is especially well agented, as the Gunns finally use the heels’ constant double teaming to their favor. Yokozuna breaks up a pin attempt, so Billy knocks him into the corner. As he comes back out, the Gunns absolutely launch Owen into him, giving us this top tier flop from Owen. Bart rolls out of the way of another break-up attempt, leaving Owen on the receiving end of Yokozuna’s splash. One dropkick later to send Yokozuna out of the ring, and that’s all she wrote.
QUICK SIDE POP: Vince McMahon, Comedy Genius
I think the Gunns bring out the best in Vince, because this is the second time he’s made me laugh out loud with a random one-liner during one of their matches. In the first episode, he namedropped his French cut tailor, “JC Pen-yay,” and here he absolutely deadpans this line about attorneys (having recently been mired in the steroid trial). Just impeccable.
BOTCH: Lightning Round of Inconsequentiality
The rest of the show ranges from passable to baffling, and by the end of the episode, none of it matters. It legitimately makes more sense to just rattle them off one by one, rather than dedicating entire sections of the report to each.
The opening match is Marty Janetty, née Rocker, taking on Skip of the Bodydonnas. It’s unique to the early-to-mid-90’s WWF midcard in that the winner wasn’t really predictable from the beginning. The wrestling is fine, Sunny is fine, and there’s a neat tease partway through where Dead Douglas comes out to the entrance area to take notes. Why is he there? Who is he examining? What is he planning? Don’t worry about it because it doesn’t matter.
Immediately following the tag team match, Dok Hendrix plugs Gorilla Monsoon (pictured above) for the scoop on the next In Your Hose card. Undertaker is fighting King Mabel, Diesel is fighting the British Bulldog, and, most importantly to our theme tonight, Shawn Michaels is fighting Dean Douglas. Why in the name of Bea Arthur do you send Douglas out to scout the guys in the ring earlier if you know he’s already booked for a championship feud? Bonus points, there’s not even a reason for it! At least Bulldog cheated Diesel out of a victory a while back to give their match some history.
Closing out the show is Davey Boy himself taking on the Undertaker. Early Undertaker definitely has a mystique about him that makes it clear why he lasted for so long. Fighting with his hair shrouding his face most of the time is a cool layer of creepy for the zombie man in the purple gloves. Just like the opener, the wrestling is perfectly cromulent, but commentary spend too much time talking about Bulldog’s contendership being on the line for the outcome to really be in question.
Sure enough, the match ends when Mabel attacks the Undertaker, drawing the disqualification. Shawn Michaels and Diesel eventually make the rescue (probably would have helped to show up before the beatdown started there, champs), which in turn draws out Yokozuna and Owen Hart. As the heels start closing in, though, we get…
A LAST SECOND POP: Lubed Up and Ready to Go!
In come the new tag champs, STILL SOAPED UP FROM THE SHOWER and completely barefooted! Hot damn, look at that cowboy shit. The heels have no choice but to flee in the face of this complete lack of fucks to give, and I don’t blame them.
Afterwards, Undertaker continues the unparalleled character work of his early career. He slowly staggers towards the other men still in the ring, until ever so subtly, Paul Bearer puts his hands up to beg Taker off. There is a sudden and distinct shift in the big man’s body language, and his hand goes out for the appreciative shake. Despite being weakened by the apparent loss of his urn (shout out to Vince for the lightning quick recap on that), the Undertaker is still ready to throw down with anyone he sees until his handler reins him in. Great work from a master of the craft.
So, despite how furious I was with the middle of the show, the ending managed to salvage it a little. It still wasn’t a great episode overall, but I wouldn’t have been as ready to give up on WWF entirely if I’d been watching live. I’m curious to see if most Raws after pay-per-views in this era are so middling. Next week, we finally get the payoff for the 1-2-3 Kid being the dippiest dipshit in the history of shitty dips. I hope Razor launches him to the fucking moon.
Also next week, Monday Night Rewind has finally caught both of the shows up to each other! This means that coverage will now rotate from one to the other with each installment. Nitro coverage can be found here, our Discord server can be found here, and hopefully you’ll be found right here again for the next chapter of the Monday Night Rewind! Thanks for reading!
