Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw is War: We talked about Canadian Stampede, an incredible pay-per-view with a legendary crowd. Then I had to write up Backlash and Extreme Rules on Mondays with a Memorial Day holiday between them and somehow lost three weeks of vintage Raws.
If you haven’t seen this episode, you can watch it on WWE Network here. Check out all the episodes you may have missed at the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War and Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw tag pages. Follow along with the competition here.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for July 7, 1997.
Worst: The Raw Girls
To preemptively combat the spectacular debut of WCW’s Nitro Girls, Raw put together their own dance troupe featuring one (1) person of color who could actually dance and a bunch of untrained white girls. Because commercial breaks need boners, guys.
Here’s a clip from their first routine:
Wait, sorry, I just checked Wikipedia and it turns out Extreme Expose didn’t debut until 2007, meaning WWE thought the Nitro Girls plus TEN YEARS was a good idea. Also, if you’d like to feel old, Extreme Expose debuted 10 years ago. And Kelly Kelly was only 10 years old when the Nitro Girls debuted.
Best: Bret Hart, Canadian Hero
If you’d like to see what’s probably the best pure babyface promo of the 1990s, WWF division — Dusty Rhodes has number one seed overall — watch Bret Hart’s post-Canadian Stampede address to Edmonton. Oh man. Dude’s wearing an Edmonton Oilers sweater, gets his entire family to do the same, and goes to great lengths to explain that he’s not necessarily anti-American, he’s just very very pro-Canada. Here’s some stuff that is in no way relevant to America in 2017: Bret says Canadians take care of the sick and the old, have gun control, don’t shoot each other in the street and aren’t riddled with racial prejudice. The capper: “Thank you for still letting me be your hero.”
So after setting all of that up, he and his family stand in the ring in Canada to lead Canada in O CANADA. Owen is like, emphatically waving a Slammy Award around while everyone gets patriotically wistful. AND THEN STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN SHOWS UP, ATTACKS THEM ALL WITH A STEEL CHAIR AND FLEES.
It’s crazy to say, but I’m not sure anyone ever truly understood the United States like Vince Russo in 1997. What would make an American guy madder than someone from another country saying they like being from that country? Bret could’ve given a blind child sight in the middle of the ring and American fans would’ve cheered Austin for attacking him FROM BEHIND, DURING A NATIONAL ANTHEM. And they did. A lot. It’s such a brave and accurate decision to portray Canadians as Lawful Evil and Americans as Chaotic Neutral.
Worst: When You Can’t Admit You’re Wrong
During the introductions for this week’s first match, Tony Chimel pronounces Taka Michinoku as “Taka Michinoku.” If you watched (or read about) Canadian Stampede, you know the announce team spent the entire match calling him Taka “Midgi-no-go.” Chimel says it correctly, Vince responds with a sassy, “WELL THAT’S CLOSE,” and then everyone launches back into TAGGAMIDGINOGO. Just like at Canadian Stampede, he’ll be taking on Degray Sah-SOOkay.
To make matters worse, both Jerry Lawler and Brian Christopher are on color commentary during the match, which means rampant casual heel racism and pig-squealing vocals. You really don’t need to hear Brian Christopher screaming through his nose about how he can hit a spaceman plancha in his sleep. You really don’t.
Best: The Space Flying Tiger Drop On USA Network
While the Raw rematch might not be as engaging as the first, it’s certainly more dangerous. About two minutes into the match, Sasuke MURDERS Taka with a dive over the ropes. A couple minutes later Taka tries to return the favor, slips on the jump and ends up slingshotting himself backwards with no control into Sasuke’s sternum.
Then, after Sasuke has more or less saved Taka’s life, Taka bails on catching him during the North American television debut of Sasuke’s signature move, the Space Flying Tiger Drop:
Still, that’s a Space Flying Tiger Drop on Raw. I can’t hate it. Sah-sooky wins with Thunder Fire Bomb, going up 2-0 on Taka. Then never appearing on WWE television again.
Why? Well, the WWF entered into a working agreement with Michinoku Pro that was supposed to lead to Sasuke, the promotion’s founder, winning the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship. But then Sasuke told Japanese media that he’d only defend the title in Japan if he won it and wouldn’t drop the title on WWF TV, so WWF was like, “wait, what,” and put the belt on Taka. They fired Sasuke and ended the working agreement with Michi Pro, although hey, we still got a pretty pretty pretty racist version of Kai En Tai out of it. So … hooray?
Worst: The Light Heavyweight Division Without Sasuke
Didn’t get enough of Brian Christopher and Jerry Lawler’s slur-based commentary? Later in the episode we get the WWF approved version of Light Heavyweight Wrestling, featuring guys who don’t know how to do anything more complicated than a drop toe-hold trying to do complex roll-ups and failing miserably. All while Lawler runs down Scott Putski with every “Polack” joke he knows. Christopher wins while everyone with eyeballs and a functioning brain tries to figure out why they’d put this and a Michinoku Pro-style light heavyweight match on the show card.
The (only) highlight is Sunny introducing Christopher’s opponent Eric Shelley as, “representing the entire country of Canada.” I don’t see an Oilers jersey, bro. A quick Google search for Eric reveals, “did you mean ALEX Shelley?” And if you click “no, I meant Eric,” the only result is the word, “really?”
Worst: “Cheer The White People!” – WWF
Again, Vince Russo really understands America.
Here’s a quick recap: Faarooq wanted to create a black militant separatist group, so he enlisted the help of Savio Vega (a Puerto Rican guy) and Crush (a white guy). After roughly 60,000 consecutive disqualification run-ins on Ahmed Johnson, the group splintered, and Faarooq fired everyone. So now there are three ostensibly heel factions born from the Nation of Domination:
- The New Nation, now actually featuring black guys who get booed
- Los Boricuas, featuring exclusively Puerto Rican guys who get booed
- The Disciples of Apocalypse, featuring a group of exclusively white dudes including two actual Neo-Nazis that get WILDLY CHEERED
This week’s Savio Vega vs. Crush showdown ends a few minutes in when the Gangz go to Warz, and Canada goes apeshit for the white guys. The ensuing brawl features Ron and Don Harris holding a guy named “Jesus” over their heads like they’re going to crucify him and throwing him face-first into a motorcycle. There is some deep cultural symbolism happening here and I’m not sure I’m theologically educated enough to identify it.
Also the wrestling is terrible.
Best/Worst: The Tag Team Tournament Finals
Every image from a 1997 WWF tag team match is just ten guys standing at ringside in a fussy blur.
Anyway, if you were wondering where the Nation of Domination was at during that Outsiders-esque rumble, they’ve made it to the finals of the tag team tournament to name new number one contenders to Stone Cold Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels Question Mark’s Tag Team Championship. Their opponents: Bulldog and Owen. In Canada. After the Bret Hart hero speech and an attack from Stone Cold Steve Austin. So yeah, the Nation is boned.
It’s a wonderful, bizarre little match, too, with Owen and Bulldog — perhaps the most purely heel team of the era — working SUPER BABYFACE for the Edmonton crowd. They eat it up, too, and then the bad part of even prime Vince Russo rears its head: the match ends when both teams brawl on the floor (natch) and Owen slides in to beat the count. To win a tag team tournament by count-out. Brutal.
After the match, Mankind shows up in his Austin 3:16 shirt and insists that next week, Owen and Bulldog would face Austin and himself. And he’s telling the truth, but he’s also lying.
Best: The Two-Man Power Trip
Long before they became Tag Team Champions and one-half of what I still consider the best match in the history of Monday Night Raw, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Hunter Hearst Helmsley were former Kings of the Ring on the cusp of greatness who were just kinda kicking ass and waiting for the pieces to fall into place. Austin got his with the Hart Foundation feud, and pretty soon Shawn MIchaels decides he wants to point to his dick for a living and the Rock joins the Nation of Domination and H gets made.
This match isn’t the best one-on-one they’d ever have — that honor goes to the Three Stages of Hell match at No Way Out 2001 — but it’s competitive, and you get the feeling both guys should be doing something better. It ends with Mankind showing up to take a chair shot for Austin, and Austin kicking and whamming and stunnering for the victory. After the match, Austin says that he may not like Mankind, but he respects him, and will go to war with him anytime.
And then he beats the shit out of him and tells him he’s worthless, because DON’T TRUST ANYBODY. Chaotic neutral, I’m telling you.
Worst: Putting Your Mouth Where Your Money Is
Oh, and in one of the most unfortunate promises ever made on WWF TV, Stone Cold Steve Austin challenges Owen Hart to a match for the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam, swearing that if he doesn’t beat Owen for the belt, he’ll kiss his bare ass in the middle of the ring. I wish he’d added “unless I get paralyzed or something” to the end of it.
Best: This Time Traveler
Hey, who gave 11-year old Seth Rollins those seats?
Worst: Our Scars Remind Us That The Past Is A Work
The Undertaker isn’t around for this episode, but Paul Bearer pops in briefly to remind us that (1) the Undertaker is a murderer, (2) Undertaker’s little brother Kane is alive, and (3) Kane’s burn scars are so bad he can’t even go into sunlight. We know now that two of these things are lies. Undertaker is definitely an ATTEMPTED murderer, but I don’t think he’s ever actually gotten to murder anyone. He hung the Big Bossman, but Bossman was fine. He appeared to murder Paul in the Concrete Crypt, but they ret-conned that so Paul survived. He tried to embalm Steve Austin once, but failed. So maybe he wants to be a murderer, but he’s bad at it? WWF doesn’t work on Lucha Underground rules; winning casket matches and buried alive matches doesn’t mean that person’s now dead.
He might’ve killed Muhammad Hassan, not sure on that one.
Worst: Another “Pile Of Guys” Match
The Savio/Crush match ended in a pile of guys brawling and so did the Hart Foundation/Nation of Domination match. The opening performance of O Canada ended in a pile of guys. So of course the main event of Goldust vs. Bret Hart (which should be a dream match, if we’re being honest) ends in a pile of guys. The entire Hart Foundation shows up, and so do all of Goldust’s partners from Canadian Stampede. Bret just sort of wins the match out of nowhere by countering a sunset flip into a pin, and then … that’s the show. No brawl, no nothing. Weird. There are so many piles!
Next Week:
- the Raw debut of Yoshihiro Tajiri, long before anyone knew who he was
- the Raw debut of THE PATRIOT, who seems less Patriotic when you realized he waited until after Canadian Stampede to debut
- the Raw debut of the Third Face Of Foley
See you in like a month, because WWE won’t stop making pay-per-views every weekend!
