Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw is War: Can Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold Steve Austin coexist? No. But also yes, as they’re able to defeat the British Bulldog and Owen Hart for the WWF Tag Team Championship. But now that they’re tag champs, can they coexist? Probably not! But also yes!
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 vintage Best and Worst of WWF Raw is War for June 2, 1997.
Worst: Sid Is Back, And The Undertaker Can’t Stop Demonically Fucking Up
This week’s episode begins with the Undertaker addressing the Gothic elephant in the room; he hates Paul Bearer’s guts and feels bad that he’s going to betray all the Creatures Of The Night, but yes, he’s siding with Paw Bear once more to “protect those he loves.” That Sara, always causing problems. He’s interrupted by Paw Bear himself, whose wounds are now basically medical sideburns and whose message is, “you are literally my pet, I didn’t give you permission to come out here and cut a promo, now I’m gonna aggressively POINT at you like only an upset, overweight southern preacher could.”
Paul’s plan for the Undertaker is to challenge everyone on the roster, one-by-one, and destroy them. Once they’re all defeated — even like, Bob Holly, PG-13 and Mini Vader — Paul will be the “ruler of the world.” Brother Paw might as well have said “Beetlejuice” three times, because the phrase “ruler of the world” conjures the missing SYCHO SID.
You see, way back in April, Sid was supposed to face Mankind in the main-event of Raw but shoot no-showed, claiming back problems. Everything’s good now, though, and he’s back forever, until July. But yeah, Sid challenges Undertaker for the WWF Championship, and Undertaker accepts. Tonight’s main event is going to be a rematch from WrestleMania 13, which will be … not great, Bob.
But hey Paw, look on the bright side. Once Sid is destroyed, you can move on to having the Undertaker crush Aaron Ferguson.
Undertaker’s not sure how to handle being a gapsy mortician’s pocket monster, so he’s lashing out at everyone. He’s supposed to face Faarooq at King of the Ring, so he’s got that on his mind. That ends up ruining the first match of the night — Faarooq vs. pro wrestling Muk Ahmed Johnson — with a run-in.
The Nation of Domination is doing their normal “distract the referee, have five guys interfere, then if our guy has more than one wrestling move done to him consecutively we all hit the ring and cause a DQ” thing, which brings out Taker. We’re apparently no longer calling disqualifications at all now, as the entire Nation is outside the ring punching Undertaker and Ahmed in the face while referee Tim White just kinda stands there waving his hand at them. In the melee, Undertaker accidentally Irish whips Faarooq into Ahmed, knocking Ahmed into the stairs. Faarooq’s able to roll Ahmed back into the ring and score the pin, because all the refs went to a John Finegan seminar after Cold Day in Hell. Hey Ahmed, if you’d put some of those elbow pads on your arms instead of loading them all up your leg, maybe you could’ve softened that blow.
Anyway, Ahmed tries to have words with Undertaker after the match and gets chokeslammed for his troubles. This is pretty dumb of Taker, because (1) it was clearly an accident, and (2) if you’re heading into a title match against the leader of the Nation of Domination and the Nation is a pack of like 12 guys who cheat all the time, it might be a good idea to be friends with the John Henry motherfucker obsessed with hitting them with lumber. Just saying.
So, having read about the opening segment and the Ahmed/Faarooq match, how do you think Sid/Undertaker ends up? Any guesses?
Yep.
If you thought Sid was going to look strong after no-showing Raw and taking a couple of months off, watch him get his ass kicked and get cleanly pinned by Undertaker in about four minutes. It took Undertaker 20 to beat him at WrestleMania, but now Sid’s just a super tall, soaking-wet Leif Cassidy. With Brady Bunch hair. And Michael Rooker’s face.
After the match, the Nation of Domination runs in and beats them both down. Sid tries to help out but gets overwhelmed, because we aren’t gonna let Sid save ANY face tonight. Not that he really deserves it. He’s on that “Ultimate Warrior return” borrowed time right now.
King of the Ring is the next show, and we’ve got to make Faarooq look as strong as possible before they have a terrible match and poor Ron Simmons gets sent back to the undercard with zero (0) of his objections addressed. No time for an honest conversation about race, Ron, we need to move Undertaker into a feud with a burn victim who ironically can control fire for some reason!
Best: The Greatest Out-Of-Context GIF Ever
This week’s Sunny Super Soaker Seek & Soak Mission brings the storyline full circle. The past two weeks have seen her seek and soak Jim Cornette and the Honky Tonk Man, so they’re looking for revenge. They enlist the help of Sunny’s other recent enemies, the Head Bangers — upset because they didn’t get the mark photo in bed they were promised when they bought the VIP meet-and-greet package — to stand around opposite corners and Super Soak her when she passes by.
What results is, as promised, the greatest out-of-context GIF ever created. Behold, the masterful ruse:
Honky’s “ta da” at the end keeps cracking me up.
The trap is sprung, but Sunny is Neo at water guns so she utilizes Super Soaker’s MDS (multi-directional system) technology to soak everyone at once. Think of it like the cross joint from Pineapple Express. This confirms what we were all thinking; wetter is better.
(I don’t know what that means.)
Worst: Bret Hart Is Injured Again, Suddenly
Last week’s Raw ended with Stone Cold Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels winning the Tag Team Championship, and then Austin leaving Michaels to get beaten up by almost the entire Hart Foundation so he could sneak up the ramp and punch Bret in the leg. This week, Bret uses the re-injured leg as an excuse to bow out of the proposed (and previously agreed-to) Hart vs. Michaels match at King of the Ring. He’d boasted that he could beat Michaels in under 10 minutes and even agreed to have the Hart Foundation handcuffed to the ring posts, but now all of that’s off. We promise it has nothing to do with a drunk Shawn Michaels accusing Bret Hart of extramarital affairs on live television a few weeks ago.
The pay-per-view is in a few days, so this week’s Hart Foundation content is mostly them standing in the ring going, “sorry, everything’s different now,” and pretending that’s part of some master plan. Hart vs. Michaels and Austin vs. Pillman were supposed to be on the card, but here Pillman’s like, “hey Austin, how about you face SHAWN MICHAELS, and I’ll wrestle you later!” Austin says sure, then says he’ll kick Pillman’s ass later, and Pillman acts super scared about it, like he didn’t literally just propose fighting Austin later. So now the tag champs who can’t coexist but can are wrestling, and the match is announced before (1) they lose the belts, or (2) the end of this episode, where they lose a match because they can’t stop punching each other.
Later in the episode, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels lose a match because they can’t stop punching each other.
The match is supposed to be STONEHEART vs. the Legion of Doom, a match that was weirdly set up last week before Michaels and Austin actually won the tag titles. If Vince Russo said he’s ABC’s, he’d say “B-A-C.” And then he’d throw in a couple of numbers, because you weren’t expecting it.
The Hart Foundation shows up to watch the match from the ramp, which ends up distracting Michaels. That leaves Austin all alone to fight two Road Warriors, so at some point he rolls out of the ring, grabs Michaels by the hair and tries to throw him back in. Michaels responds to this with punching, and the referee I guess calls a No Contest. But here’s what I want to know: can Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin coexist?
Best: Owen Will Not Lose To Race Car Guy Twice
Two weeks ago, Intercontinental Champion Owen Hart put over Bob “Car Part” Holly in a non-title match Holly’s hometown of Mobile, AL. That sets up an Intercontinental Championship match between the two this week. Pay no attention to the fact that between the upset and the title match, WWF booked Holly to lose clean to brand new D’Lo Brown.
The rematch is only a few minutes long, but it’s Owen Hart, so it’s worth watching. The only times Owen isn’t worth watching is when he’s in those late-90s tag matches where the writers can’t process four wrestlers doing things at the same time, so they overbook it and have everyone cheat while the referee transcends space and time to miss it. Owen counters a hurricanrana into a powerbomb and locks on the Sharpshooter for a quick win. Sorry every show isn’t in Mobile, Bob!
Worst: Forgetting The Feud
Goldust has been feuding with Triple H for a while now, dating back to Chyna’s debut when she choked out Marlena. That led to a thing where Marlena threw powder in Chyna’s eyes. Hunter moved on from that to enter (and then re-enter) the King of the Ring tournament. Last week, Goldust got an f-bomb dropped on him by Jerry Lawler, was told that everyone in Atlanta “had a shot” at his 3-year old daughter, then lost. This week, Lawler’s moved on to a thing with Mankind for some reason, and Goldust and Marlena are back to feuding with Chyna and H. Sure?
And don’t get me wrong, I like the idea that wrestlers can have beef with multiple other wrestlers simultaneously, because that’s how life works. But WWF life rarely works that way, and it almost always feels like a complete stop-and-start if booking plans change. It’s why wrestlers who hated each other for months are suddenly teaming up when one of them turns face. Or why all heels get along. It’s just easier for creative to take things one engagement at a time, because a layered approach to competition would, I don’t know, require the show being written before Monday afternoon.
Goldust manages to get a roll-up win after Marlena distracts Chyna, and Helmsley accidentally jumping-knees her off the apron. Oh, also, Goldust is challenging for the European Championship next week. OKAY WHAT ARE WE DOING, GUYS.
Best: King of the Deathmatch
The highlight of the week is part three of the Jim Ross sit-down with Mankind. We’re finally to the part where he becomes Cactus Jack, and we get an extensive look at his history of hardcore matches in Japan, including the King of the Deathmatch tournament. This includes tons of great, gory photos, footage of him being slammed into beds of nails and backdropped onto explosives, and the emotional-but-also-funny story of him getting bumped up to first class for looking like a murder victim on a flight and having the woman next to him sit in coach just to get away from him. It’s perfect, and I don’t think WWE’s ever done as succinct a job at telling you who a person is and why we should cheer for him. We know Foley’s story now, but going back and watching these, they’re still riveting, and they make you want to cheer for the guy all over again.
Mankind actually has a match this week, too: a King of the Ring first-rounder against Savio Vega. We’ve got two stories going here:
1. The Nation of Domination is about to get split apart and restocked with better characters and wrestlers, so Crush and Savio Vega are about to go. Here, Crush accidentally “heart punches” Vega in the face while trying to cheat to help him, giving Mankind the win. After the match, they continue heart punching each other about the head and neck because WWF just figured out that the black militant separatist group would probably be more effective without a Puerto Rican guy and a bunch of white dudes in it. Note: they would forget this again later, but at least they picked a good batch that time.
2. Mankind’s winning the match and will move on to face Jerry Lawler in the second round at King of the Ring Proper, so Lawler suddenly hates him and thinks he’s a freak. Mankind overhears this when he’s outside the ring and pulls Lawler over the announce table by his collar. My only regret is that they didn’t do Mankind vs. Lawler in a deathmatch at the pay-per-view.
And that’s it for this week. King of the Ring is the next show, so we’ve only got six days left before Hunter Hearst Helmsley stops being the punished Kliq guy who always loses and becomes a rising star that spends … well, the next 20 years rising. Pretty sure that dude’s still rising.
