Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw: Goldust wrestled The Stalker. Oh, also, Stone Cold Steve Austin broke into Brian Pillman’s home and almost got shot to death with a handgun. Probably should’ve opened with that.
Click here to watch this week’s episode on WWE Network. Please scroll through for the Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw for Nov. 11, 1996.
Worst: How Can Sid And Shawn Michaels Co-Exist (When They Haven’t For The Past Three Weeks)
If you’ve been too preoccupied by the cool, hyperviolent redneck breaking peoples’ ankles, getting into gun battles and threatening to literally murder WWF legends on television, here’s a recap of the Heavyweight Championship storyline involving Shawn Michaels and Sid.
Shawn Michaels is the WWF Champion. He seems like a colossal dickhead and is almost impossible to like. He’s got a championship defense coming up at Survivor Series against his good friend Sycho Sid, who is so crazy he spells “psycho” like that. Sid is just like Shawn, only twice the size and with about 1/4 the brain power. They’re supposed to be pals, but even the slightest misunderstanding causes them to go nose-to-nose and shove each other around like gamma irradiated 5-year-olds without televisions, VCRs or any available witnesses to clear things up for them.
They’ve spent the last month beating up The British Bulldog and Owen Hart, and accidentally brushing into one another to cause fights. The recap video (expertly narrated by Vince McMahon) tries to recap four weeks of story, and every week is, “we thought they were gonna fight but they didn’t, but then they almost did, but they DIDN’T!!” It’s like listening to Ralph Wiggum talk about Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner making babies in the closet. That theme continues this week, wherein Sid and Shawn are forced to co-exist (gasp) in a tag team match against, you guessed it, Owen Hart and The British Bulldog.
The match is actually pretty good. Shawn and Sid are a perfect team because Shawn is great at taking a relentless beating, and Sid is great at 30-second bursts of semi-believable offense. The finish is exactly what you’d expect, though, with Shawn trying to hit Bulldog with Sweet Chin Music and whoooops, accidentally kicking Sid in the face. Well, he sorta kicks the air over Sid’s shoulder because they set up this choreographed scenario that could never physically happen by chance, but let’s go with it. It causes such a kerfuffle that Sid and Shawn have to be escorted to the back by security and quarantined away from one another in separate dressing rooms. HOW WILL THEY BE ABLE TO CO-EXIST DURING A MATCH AGAINST EACH OTHER AT SURVIVOR SERIES?
Best: The King Buries Barbra Streisand
In more pressing news, here’s a picture of poor Terry Gordy trying to remember why he’s dressed like an executioner and why there are thousands of people sitting around looking at him.
The second match of the show is Mankind vs. Freddie Joe Floyd — guess how that one turns out — with two major Ice Burns. The first is for Barbra Streisand, who joins Mission: Impossible on Jerry “The King” Lawler’s list of things he’s gonna inexplicably bury the sh*t out of on Raw. He baits McMahon into a conversation about how she was on Oprah and has a new movie out called The Mirror Has Two Faces. Jerry’s review? “When she looks in the mirror, her reflection throws up!” Deep shade thrown at Babs on the wrestling show. Up The Sandbox? More like Down The Slide, am I right folks
Worst: The Undertaker, Master Of Spooky Arts And Crafts
The second Ice Burn is delivered to Paul Bearer via the disembodied voice of the Buried Dead Undertaker, featuring … well, an upside down Paul Bearer scarecrow lowered from the arena ceiling in a shark cage.
Paul acts terrified of it, but seriously, it looks like one of those scarecrows you make to put on your porch on Halloween when you live in the suburbs and don’t have access to hay, so it’s just pillowcases with faces drawn on them, stuffed with dirty clothes. Put some overalls on it and it makes an unconvincing human being. Undertaker has dressed it in a tuxedo or whatever and drawn a Paul Bearer face on it, and I am so in love with the idea of the goddamn Undertaker rummaging through his laundry to make threatening effigies. “Oh man, Paw Bear will never rest in peace when he sees THIS!” stuff stuff stuff
Mankind should’ve retaliated by crapping in a bag and lighting it on fire on the stage.
Best: Rocky Maivia Hopes He’ll Make His Family Proud
Here’s a picture of The Rock and Kevin Kelly, long before one would call the other an “ugly hermaphrodite” and make them do entire backstage interviews with their finger up their nose.
In an interview before his upcoming debut at Survivor Series, greenhorn Rocky Maivia, one turtleneck and fannypack from mid-’90s infamy, tells the future Hermie that in five years, he wants to be able to look back and know he gave 110% and did everything he could to make his family proud. He doesn’t reach “biggest star in Hollywood and consensus most beloved living man” status until a few years after that, but … yeah, I think he ended up doing okay. As long as his family got to the part where he told Bill Clinton’s mistress how big his dick is, he’s fine. That’s when it started getting good.
Kevin Kelly shared a similar sentiment, saying he hopes that in 20 years he is exactly the same, like someone froze him in a block of sadness and forgot to thaw him.
Worst: Ugh Stop Pushing Sable
As always, the most important part of the episode is the Karate Fighters tournament match. It is extremely important to me to know which WWF personality was able to stand still and work an action figure’s Hungry Hungry Hippos apparatus until it made someone else’s action figure break. This week, Sable faces Dok Hendrix. It’s like watching Foghorn Leghorn play Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots against Jocelyn Wildenstein. Sable wins, because of course she does.
Note: Dok Hendrix loves to cyber.
Best: Stone Cold Threatens Bret Hart With A Doorknob
Finally, our main-event this week is a 2-minute Stone Cold Steve Austin squash of Bob Holly stretched out to 10 minutes.
If you’re wondering what happened with the whole “Brian Pillman pulled a gun on Austin for breaking into his house and there were EXPLOSIONS” thing, they do their best to sweep it under the rug, lest the Unwelcome Characters at USA Network come down on them again. Early in the show, Vince says they apologize for what transpired last week, and Austin buts in with (and I’m paraphrasing) I AIN’T APOLOGIZING TO NOBODY. That’s it. I was really hoping Austin would show up with a gaping head wound or something to sell the angle, but whatever.
Bret Hart is supposedly in attendance this week, but he’s very clearly in a closet in his home or something and watching nothing via satellite. Either that, or Bret Hart watches Raw like I do: stone-faced and silent. He watches the Austin/Holly match and Austin threatens to go find him and put the fear of God in him here and now instead of waiting for Survivor Series, but he reconsiders. Instead, he finds the outside of Hart’s “room” backstage, jiggles the handle a few times and shouts threats through the door. It’s … not Austin’s most iconic moment, and I’m surprised he didn’t burst through to find a Bret Hart scarecrow made out of tied-up bed sheets stuffed with crumpled up newspaper.
Next Week: Survivor Series, and a TV match that makes everybody go, “oh sweet, let’s do that.”
