Previously on the vintage Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: Ahmed Johnson betrayed … somebody? Vince McMahon? By turning his back on the Undertaker and joining the Nation of Domination. Also on the show, The New Blackjacks promised to pound their opponents until they couldn’t walk, and Stone Cold Steve Austin said Mankind had a “nice, big, fat ass.” So, an extremely sexy episode all around.
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 June 23, 1997.
Worst: Ahmed Johnson Executes The Worst Heel Turn In History
At the end of last week’s War Zone, Ahmed Johnson showed his true colors — I’m assuming bright red was one of them — by turning on the Undertaker and joining the Nation of Domination. This week’s show opens with the New Nation showing up and explaining that Ahmed joining them is like Malcolm X teaming up with Martin Luther King Jr., which is a great comparison because this is exactly like that. Kama Mustafa says Ahmed is going to bring the WWF Championship to the Nation, and Ahmed says he doesn’t respect the Undertaker because he’s a slave to Paul Bearer, and … well, you get it.
Before I move on, I want to point out that Ahmed Johnson has been a heel for exactly one (1) segment, which is not yet over.
Okay, so before the Nation can finish their interview, they’re interrupted by motorcycle noises and a familiar face (covered in henna tattoos): Crush.
Crush shows up alongside the “Disciples of Apocalypse,” a gang of giant white bikers featuring “Chainz,” aka former fake Undertaker Brian Lee, and twins “Skull” and “8-Ball,” aka Ron and Don Harris. They declare that black people are not “brothers” as much as MOTORCYCLE PALS are, and a fight breaks out.
The most important thing to note here is that the Nation of Domination are heels, and the Disciples of Apocalypse get cheered. To type it without much commentary, the World Wrestling Federation got a wrestling audience to cheer for a group of white guys showing up, telling black people they aren’t important, then beating up the black people. And this might not be that big of a deal in a pro wrestling context if the popular white guy group didn’t feature two guys with Nazi tattoos who have proudly worn SS t-shirts during wrestling matches.
To make the cringe even worse, part of the fight involves one of DOA trying to drag Ahmed Johnson to the ground and him trying to counter with a judo throw. I don’t know if the words “Ahmed Johnson judo throw attempt” made you laugh as much as me, but it made me laugh pretty hard. Ahmed’s new Nation gear doesn’t have as many knee pads, so he blows out his knee trying to do this and is out for a year after having been heel for 3/4 of one segment.
To recap:
- Ahmed Johnson turning heel is like Martin Luther King
- The crowd wants to see Nazis beat up black guys
- Ahmed Johnson ruined the biggest push of his career trying to be a bad-ass and having the shoot athletic prowess of a panda cub
- D’Lo Brown now gets Ahmed’s spot in tonight’s main, which is supposed to be Undertaker and Vader vs. Faarooq and Ahmed to set up Ahmed vs. Undertaker for the WWF Championship at Canadian Stampede
- Ahmed spends the main sitting in the back watching on a monitor with the body language of a kid who got picked last in dodgeball
- Vader gets another WWF title match nobody thinks he will win, and then he doesn’t
- Ahmed returns in August, and the Nation immediately turns on him
LOL Savio Vega
Later in the episode, Savio Vega tries to recreate Crush’s White Supremacy Magic by confronting the Nation in the locker room. They beat him up and whip him with a belt until the camera cuts away and Vince is like, “that was gratuitous.” Don’t worry, Latin audience; your demographic will soon be represented by what would happen if the Villanos took off their masks and tried to be Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas.
Best: UFC Is Definitely In Trouble
This week’s opening match is Ken Shamrock versus the only guy brave enough to step into the ring with this green of a Ken Shamrock, Billy Gunn. On commentary is former UFC Superfight Champion and multiple-time tournament winner Dan ‘The Beast’ Severn. This is notable for two reasons:
1. Vince McMahon can’t say “Severn.” It’s always, “Sever-in.” THE VENNERN DAN SEVERRIN LADIES AND JENNAMIN.
2. Severn’s commentary is HILARIOUS. At first you can’t hear anything because he’s so demure and the headset doesn’t work, and once you CAN hear him, it’s even better. Vince McMahon goes on about how the UFC is “as of late falling on hard times to a certain extent,” which is maybe the ultimate Vince statement because it buries the competition AND takes 15 words to say something that should take 5. Vince sneezes and it comes out, “quite frankly ACHOO, so to speak.” Severn keeps explaining how much more dangerous pro wrestling is than mixed-martial arts, because, for example, when you get to the edge of the mat in UFC there’s a cage wall, but wrestling has ropes, which means you could easily FALL FROM THE APRON TO THE FLOOR AND GET SERIOUSLY INJURED AND YOUR CAREER COULD BE OVER.
They go on to explain that nobody ever gets hurt in UFC, which is DEFINITELY true, and how in the 75 years of the no holds barred contest, no one has ever died in a fight. I guess they aren’t counting Zeus at the end of No Holds Barred. Vince notes that boxing can’t say that, and neither can pro wrestling. So by transitioning into wrestling, Ken Shamrock is putting his life on the line. Amazing.
Is Marc Mero Jealous Of Sable? Find Out In The Latest Issue Of WWF Magazine
I wish the article had just said, “yes.”
We’ve entered that period in Johnny B. Getting Divorced’s career where the girlfriend character gets more popular than the wrestler, so the only story you can tell is “the wrestler is MAD that people think he’s got a hot girlfriend and wants to STOP THEM.” I’ve never understood that. Like, Mike Knox is dating an exhibitionist. Why is he upset that the exhibitionist is exhibiting, and making people say, “man, I wish I was Mike Knox?” You’re the Wildman Marc Mero, man, what do you want people to like you for, your boxing shorts?
Note: we’ve also entered the period where Vince’s crush on Shawn Michaels has transferred over to Sable, and he can’t stop describing how hot she is in “strip club flyer” quality vocab. “I’ve got to tell you … she’s blonde, she’s BUXOM, and she is BEAUTIFUL!” Coming to the stage, the sultry Sable!
Worst: The Badwinns
A couple of months ago on an episode of Shotgun Saturday Night, the Legion Of Doom broke Henry O. Godwinn’s neck with a Doomsday Device. Now, Henry is back and hillbillier than ever, trading in the square dancing and shirts under overalls look for NO dancing and NO shirt under his overalls. They’re OVERNOTHINGS. He and his sow-fucking brother are focused on getting revenge for an injury that was mostly caused by an undesirable height-to-fatness ratio.
The two teams face off in a round-one match in the number one contender tag title tournament, and it’s about as good as you’d expect a 1997 LOD vs. haphazardly refocused Killbilly Jim affair would be. The highlight is definitely Phineas climbing the ropes in overalls that are soaking wet but only from the pecs to the navel (on the front and the back, strangely) and jumping into a clothesline that knocks off his … invisible hat, I guess?
Nailed it.
The Legion of Doom wins with a flying clothesline on Henry that’s supposed to knock him backwards over a crouching Animal, but they misjudge the distance so Henry ends up back-cracking himself on Animal while he’s on all fours. I swear, you could ask the Road Warriors and Henry Godwinn to do an Irish whip and you’d get a confused-ass Hawk holding a severed arm.
After the match, the Godwinns attack Hawk and Animal with their deadly EMPTY BUCKETS, and the Hart Foundation hits the ring to beat them up as well. More quality build for the Canadian Stampede 10-man tag, which is the silver lining of basically anything happening in the mid-card.
Worst: Mick Foley’s Poor Face
Mankind shows up to his match with the British Bulldog wearing an Austin 3:16 shirt because he wants to be Stone Cold Steve Austin’s partner, which is super funny. Austin calls into the show to say he doesn’t give a shit about Mankind, and also drops a weird story where he gives a shout-out to his brother for getting stepped on by a bull, then explains he doesn’t care about his brother’s life, he just doesn’t want him to die before he gets back the 30 bucks he owes him. Is that why they call it the “Broken Skull” ranch?
Anyway, this match ends in the most retroactively horrible way a Mankind match can: with an extremely muscular man who doesn’t not care about brain damage swinging a chair as hard as he can into Mick Foley’s fucking face, twice. Then, because he hasn’t made that “Al Snow doesn’t sell chairs” joke yet, Mankind no-sells both chairshots and locks in a surprise mandible claw for the victory. Sure! On the one hand, it’s cool to see Mankind as this impossibly indestructible guy who can take insane amounts of punishment and keep going. On the other … good Lord, y’all, if you’re gonna have someone recover from two chair shots, maybe do the dumb “poke in the gut/flat to the back” combo.
Best/Worst: Down Goes Anvil
One of WWF’s favorite bits is when an unpopular wrestler calls out a sports celebrity, the celebrity gets in the ring and hits a move to make them look like a chump, and then a pull-apart happens. It was a big part of the Rock n’ Wrestling era, found its perfect form in the Lawrence Taylor/Bam Bam Bigelow rivalry and eventually climaxed in the Stone Cold Steve Austin/Mike Tyson confrontation. They still do it today, whether it’s letting Floyd Mayweather break Big Show’s nose, or letting Stephen Amell jump off the top rope. They also did it several other times to less mainstream sports coverage fanfare, including this Raw’s legendary confrontation between Jim Neidhart and boxer Tommy Hearns.
So, the bit here is that Hearns is nicknamed “The Hitman,” so Bret Hart obviously says there’s only ONE Hitman. He threatens and challenges him until Hearns get into the ring for a physical confrontation, and while Bret’s taking off his jacket, Hearns suckerpunches Anvil. Watch:
As you can see, Bret backs off, security gives Hearns the bum’s rush, and that’s it. The crowd chants U-S-A while Jim Ross is like, “HERE’S YOUR SPORTSCENTER MOMENT!” And SportsCenter is somewhere like, “Jim Neidhart, really?”
Best: Triple (H) Threat
This week’s final Hart Foundation appearance is the first ever (televised) triple threat match on Raw, featuring Owen Hart defending the Intercontinental Championship against Goldust and Hunter Hearst Helmsley. To make the match more important, the first Intercontinental Champion, Pat Patterson, is the special guest referee. Before the match, Owen gets in Patterson and Gorilla Monsoon’s faces about how Goldust and Helmsley get valets at ringside, so Brian Pillman should be able to come down to the ring with him. Monsoon is like, “that’s fine,” and Owen argues with him about it until he’s convinced himself he changed Monsoon’s mind, which is an A+ dickhead little brother move.
The match itself is a lot of fun, too, mostly because it’s an early example of a triple threat and doesn’t rely on that thing they do now (in real life and, unfortunately, in the video games) where one guy gets thrown to the outside and camps so it’s mostly one-on-one. And then they like, slide into the ring near the end to hit a Tower of Doom or whatever. I wish Styles/Daniels/Joe had influenced modern WWE triple threat matches more than Benoit/Jericho/Angle did.
The match is hurt, however, but some bad booking. Goldust appears to win the match (and the championship) a few minutes in, but Owen gets his foot on the rope. Monsoon wanders out and restarts it, which kinda takes the wind out of it and telegraphs the finish. Pillman ends up coming in handy, too, as he’s able to hold Goldust back as Owen gets the pin on Helmsley. Monsoon doesn’t come out and restart the match again because reasons.
Best: Actually Kind Of Extreme
This week’s best match (for me, 20 years later) is Flash Funk vs. THE HOMICIDAL, SUICIDAL, GENOCIDAL Sabu. As you may recall, Sabu’s Nitro appearance involved him putting Alex Wright through two tables — one for Wright, one for Wright’s massive schlong — and his Raw appearances featured him either (1) jumping off the set onto a bunch of people for no reason, off-screen, or (2) jumping off the top rope onto nobody and putting himself through a table, in the background, for no reason.
Sabu vs. Flash Funk is kinda baller because unlike a lot of the ECW appearances on Raw, this one actually kinda-sorta tries to recreate the ebb and flow of an ECW match. What that means is that instead of chinlocks and dropkicks, these guys are backflipping off shit through shit ONTO shit and like, springboarding into everything. Watch it, you’ll see what I mean.
It also features another classic Sabu boner — in the Fred Merkle sense, not Alex Wright — as Sabu tries to put Funk through a table, but fails. So he tries to put him through the table again. And fails again.
Love it. LOVE YOU, BU. After the first two attempts, Sabu goes to the top rope and springboards off with a dreaded SIT HARD TO BREAK THE TABLE attack, causing one of the table legs to give way. It doesn’t “break” the table necessarily but it makes the noise, so the announce team sells it like it worked. The best part is that Heyman has spent most of the match talking about how Eric Bischoff and Public Enemy stole the “breaking tables” bit from Sabu, who very clearly could not break a table this week if he drove over it with a tank.
Sabu celebrates his victory by angrily wandering into the crowd and throwing chairs in disappointment.
Best: Too Cool Explodes
This week’s attempt at a light-heavyweight division features future tag team partners Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor going one-on-one, long before they’d bond over a mutual friendship with a large-assed Samoan Michael Jackson proxy in a diaper. Also before they started dating, if you’re up on your history of Bad But Shockingly Lovable Tag Team Ideas.
The match is basically happening so Jerry Lawler can join commentary and refute Paul Heyman’s claim that Brian Christopher is his kid. Ross will be like, “answer yes or no, is Brian Christopher your son,” and Lawler will respond with, “let me tell you this, how can you believe Paul E. Dangerously?” It’s kind of a master class in redirection. I wonder if Donald Trump made Kellyanne Conway watch tapes of Lawler. Note: In my headcanon, Kellyanne got really into 1997 WWF and has lots of really intense opinions about D’Lo Brown.
Christopher wins with a guillotine leg drop, which rivals Taylor’s Flyin’ Brian memorial “fall off the top rope instead of jumping” springboard clothesline as the most cruiserweight thing in the contest. It’s better than the goddamn Godwinns, at least.
Worst: Quick, Call An Audible At Vader’s Expense!
The “oh shit, Ahmed blew out a flipper, what do we do” main event fix is The Undertaker and Vader versus Faarooq and D’Lo Brown — hi, Kellyanne — with an emphasis on making Vader look as stupid and as helpless as possible. Backstage before the match, Paul Bearer yells at Undertaker until Taker goozles him. Vader runs in from off-screen to help, so Taker casually stiff arms him and gently holds him by the neck. Vader sells this way too hard, dropping down to one knee until Taker lets go. So, you know, he’s already a formidable opponent.
During the match, Undertaker decides he still hates Vader and punches him in the face once, allowing Faarooq to hit a clothesline and PIN VADER. Vader tries to get revenge on Taker afterward, so Taker boots him in the face and Tombstones him. So, Undertaker’s next championship opponent is a guy he can (1) subdue with one hand, while not even looking at him, (2) defeat with one punch, and (3) humiliate if he tries to fight back. I honestly feel like “Brian Christopher defeated Scott Taylor, so now Brian Christopher will face the Undertaker at Canadian Stampede” would’ve been a bigger threat to the championship.
Next Week: Paul Bearer punishes the Undertaker by revealing his secret, and the world of demonic corporate middle-management is never the same. ?
