Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw: Vader got another clean pinfall victory over WWF Champion Shawn Michaels, but it doesn’t matter. “Razor Ramon” and “Diesel” are here, as well as a “real” Double J, and Jim Ross is very, very into it. That’s … pretty much it. If you’re going through hell, keep going.
Click here to watch this week’s episode on WWE Network. After that, please enjoy the Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw for October 7, 1996.
Worst: Fake Diesel Is As Good As Advertised
This week we open Raw — we open it — with Fake Diesel. He’s wrestling “The Wildman” Marc Mero. It’s like the opening to Fallout 4, but with our expectations.
What’s sad is that poor Glenn Jacobs is doing his best, and appears to be in the best shape of his life. He’s just forced to cosplay the abandoned husk of Kevin Nash, which wasn’t even that great when it had an actual, living Kevin Nash inside it. Mero is riding high off the Intercontinental title tournament, but he’s got nowhere to go and nothing to do. He just kinda badly planchas until Fake Razor Ramon gets a picture-in-picture interview where he blatantly says, “I’m going to come to the ring and end the match via disqualification now.” I’m paraphrasing, but it’s impossible to transcribe him. It’s like someone shot Scott Hall with elephant tranquilizers and threw him in the deep end of a swimming pool.
Meanwhile, Jim Ross is still trying to justify the angle with constant insistence that doing faux versions of previously existing Superstars is good for business because it fills the WWF with “big, young athletes.” He is SO INTO Diesel and Razor Ramon as athletes. He’s basically booking “Dan & Dave” as the Outsiders. OH, I almost forgot the best part: JR says that Razor and Diesel aren’t “outsiders” … if anything, they’re insiders, and this is an insider attack. So weird that that never caught on. They could’ve waited a few years and added Russell Crowe to the team.
Worst: Bye Felicia Gunn
The hopeless, desolate wasteland of 1996 Raws without Stone Cold Steve Austin in sight continues with THE SMOKING GUNNS VS. THE NEW ROCKERS. I have no idea what they’re doing. “No, Steve, it’s fine, stay back here. We have to let these cowboys nobody likes wrestle Al Snow for 15 minutes.”
The story here is that Sunny has ditched the Gunns because they’re no longer WWF Tag Team Champions and Bart is fine with it, but Billy wants her back. She literally phones in an interview about it during the match, and listening to her aimlessly yell about things in Sunny Cadence is better than what’s happening in the ring. Both teams are heel, but not heel enough for it to matter, and eventually the Gunns cheat and hit a Sidewinder to win. Sunny should’ve just put the tag belts on a pair of mannequins and worked a Kim Cattrall gimmick.
Now that Billy’s about to give up the cowboy life and The Road Dogg has appeared as a precious country music baby, the Gotham-esque “waiting around for the good stuff to start happening” begins.
Worst: Let’s Get To Know The “Real” Double J
If you haven’t been following along, former WWF Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett is about to debut on Nitro. In response to that, WWF decided to unearth an angle from 15 years ago where Jarrett wanted to be a country singer, but actually had his vocals recorded by his roadie, The Roadie. Nobody cared then and nobody cares here, but they devote like three weeks of hype and video packages to the reveal that pro wrestler Jeff Jarrett really didn’t sing that one song nobody assumed he sung, and this watery-eyed stoner in Grand Ole Opry clothes is okay at singing. Sure!
The “Real Double J” Jesse James throws Jarrett under the bus, challenges him to a bunch of matches and scenarios he’ll never get an answer for because they aren’t on the same show, and sings snippets of ‘With My Baby Tonight.’ I think the WWF really overestimated how people felt about that song. They treat it like it was some national treasure that won Grammys and sh*t. They call him the “Milli Vanilli” of the World Wrestling Federation, but at least those guys were popular musicians. If there was even one old lady clutching her pearls at Jeff Jarrett’s ruse, I’ll eat my shoe.
Worst: The Undertaker And Mankind Are Wasting A Lot Of Time And Dirt
Undertaker: “Mankind! At Buried Alive in the Buried Alive match, I will BURY YOU ALIVE!”
Mankind: “whee whee whee”
Undertaker: “To illustrate, I have spent several weeks in my wrestling gear digging this grave. I’m gonna BURY YOU IN THIS GRAVE!”
Mankind: “Undertaker! At Buried Alive in the Buried Alive match I will bury YOU alive! Look at this grave I’M digging!”
Undertaker: “THIS IS EXTREMELY HARD WORK”
WWF: “hey guys so um, we aren’t going to use either of these graves, we’re gonna put a ‘grave’ on the set so people in the arena can see it”
Undertaker: “I thought we agreed this would take place at the graveyard near my house”
WWF: “no sorry that just doesn’t make any sense”
Mankind: “whee whee whee”
Undertaker: “…”
WWF: “sorry, have fun at your terrible match”
Vampiro: “Hey brother this gives me a great idea” /calls Sting
Worst: The Sultan Vs. Aldo Montoya Will Pull Us Out Of This Rut!
Imagine Rusev vs. Heath Slater if Rusev dressed up like a character from Aladdin and Slater accidentally fell into a pile of laundry and got somebody’s underpants stuck to his face. That’s The Sultan vs. Aldo Montoya.
Worst: Good Lord, Let’s Just Take It Home
Whew.
Anyway, this week’s main event is Sid vs. Goldust, and you know how what happens when you attach “Sid” to anything.
Before the match, Vader and Jim Cornette cut a totally reasonable promo asking why Vader has to wrestle Sid to get a WWF Championship shot when he’s pinned the WWF Champion on two non-consecutive occasions, and also technically beat him a couple of times on pay-per-view. There isn’t really an answer besides, “I dunno, but wrestle Sid,” and that’s where we are. According to WWF logic, Vader would have to beat Michaels nearly half a dozen times to build to a match against a different guy who wants a title shot but hasn’t done ANYTHING, which he would then lose, and the second guy would not only get the shot but win the title.
The actual match is one of the most frustrated and disjointed things you’ll ever see. Goldust beats up Sid for a few minutes before the commercial. They go to commercial, and when they come back, Jim Ross starts to say something about how Sid needs to build momentum. Before he’s even done with the sentence and the feed has faded all the way back in, Sid is chokeslamming Goldust and completely no-selling everything that came before the break. A powerbomb later and Sid wins.
If that wasn’t enough, Vader decides to Put Asses In Seats with sneak attack on Sid. He beats him up and Vader Bombs him, hitting it so flush and hard that he kinda rocks back and forth on Sid’s chest like a fat baby. It’s awesome. Sid sells this by STANDING UP, BEING TOTALLY FINE AND HITTING A CHOKESLAM. Even newborn babies watching this turned to their parents and were like, “this is all bullsh*t, right?”
Next week, things get better. Either that or the show gets canceled and set on fire, one or the other.
