Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: Sgt. Slaughter was named the new commissioner of the World Wrestling Federation, the Faarooq whipped Ahmed Johnson out of the Nation of Domination, and Shawn Michaels is openly bragging about how wrestling’s fake but he’s the best at it and won’t let them make him lose to anyone. 1997 in the house!
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 August 11, 1997. The most important Raw ever.
Best: The Insurance Policy
Two of the most important events of the Attitude Era happen in the same damn episode.
The first one involves Shawn Michaels, seen above reacting to a “Shawn is gay” chant that would’ve sent Rowdy Roddy Piper spiraling into existential crisis. Shawn is a week into a being a full-on heel again, so he’s turned the indoor sunglasses wearing and sarcastic gum chewing up to eleven.
Sgt. Slaughter shows up to force Shawn to face Mankind later tonight, so Shawn goes full “degenerate” for the first time, standing on his tip-toes to get in Slaughter’s face and wiping off spit every time Sarge hits a hard consonant. He’s like Dennis the Menace, if Dennis couldn’t stop chopping crotch at Mr. Wilson.
Michaels ultimately agrees to be in the match, because he’s got an “insurance policy.” Yep.
Throughout the show, Raw cameras interview Bixoli, Mississippi, fans about who they think will win the main event. It’s a nice collection of kids with hilarious southern accents, women having a camera on them for the first time in their lives, and extremely confident dudes with mouths straight out of the The Big Book of British Smiles. This guy was my favorite. He looks like a Beastie Boy’s skeleton and thinks Shawn Michaels is “like a piece of crap.”
If you ever read those Twitter scrolls on WWE shows and wonder how those people could be real, watch any of these old fan interviews. Put a camera on wrestling fans and reasonably I’d say 90% of them just throw their hands up and “woo,” give the number one at the camera, or say the first catchphrase or wrestling fact they can think of. Who will win, Shawn Michaels or Mankind? “SHAWN MICHAELS BECAUSE HE’S THE HEARTBREAK KID AND SWEET CHIN MUSIC!” I want to see a reality show where WWE lets a fan book the shows for a night, and it’s just creative sitting in a circle hastily scribbling notes while a guy in a Roman Reigns shirt yells “JOHN CENA SUCKS YOU CAN’T SEE ME, YEAH WOO” and does the hand in his face.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ynsmm
In the main event, Shawn and Mankind follow up one of the best matches of the decade with one of the best, most retroactively important and cripplingly underrated matches in Raw history.
If you’ve never seen it, take a minute to watch it. It’s great. It features borderline comedic giant garbage can spots, a backdrop onto a table covered in monitors and equipment you absolutely should not be backdropping someone onto, and this great flying elbow from the apron made greater by the camera only catching half of it:
Just as the announce team is openly wondering where Shawn’s “insurance policy” is and whether or not he’s decided he could handle things on his own, a rich guy and his boydbuilder girlfriend show up and start hanging out at ringside.
The best part is that Helmsley and Chyna already hate Mankind, so nobody’s sure if they’re out here as the insurance policy or just to get revenge on Mick. They don’t make much of a difference, either, until the finish. Jim Ross starts screaming, LOOK AT THE RAMP, LOOK AT THE RAMP.
On the ramp:
Ravishing Rick Rude is back. If you’re a modern fan and not totally familiar with Rick Rude’s work, first of all, get familiar with Rick Rude’s work you fucking philistine. Second of all, here’s what you need to know: God made the concept of pure masculinity in all its highs and lows into one extremely jacked man with a mustache and granted it two powers. One, he was very good at airbrushing. Two, if he kissed you, you fainted. He was so good at his job he made me feel sexually unsure about myself when I was six years old. I didn’t even know what sex was, but I was like, “welp, I’m not good enough!” He was so easy to hate because he was so much better at MAN than literally everyone else.
With the insurance policy complete, the plan springs into action. Chyna gets on the apron to distract the referee. Helmsley distracts Mankind, and Rude goddamn murders him with a steel chair to the face. Michaels wins, and a new generation’s about to take over the company. Again.
Best: ???
After the match, The Undertaker’s dong interrupts things and the Dead Man shows up to even the odds. That causes Paul Bearer to once again show up on the TitanTron and scream about how Kane’s coming and Taker’s gonna “burn in Hell.” To illustrate this, he turns the lights red again and, for the first time, this happens:
This Raw is so good that the first appearance of Kane’s Hellfire and Brimstone is the third most important happening. Hell, the formation of D-Generation X isn’t even the most important. What is, you ask?
This GIF Of Hawk Spanking A Steel Drum That I’m Not Going To Contextualize
Best: Just Kidding, It’s Rocky Maivia Turning Heel
You wouldn’t think a “Chainz” match would involve one of the most important moments of the era, but here we are.
During the match, referee Jack Doan gets grazed by someone’s shoulder and goes into anaphylactic shock. Chainz appears to have the match won with an unbelievably terrible running elbow drop, but there’s no one to count. Out of the crowd bounds “blue chipper” Rocky Maivia in a vertically striped shirt that accidentally makes him look like a referee. We haven’t seen Rocky for a while due to his aborted Prince Iaukea push that was so bad it had fans chanting for his death.
Rocky — called “The Rock” by Jim Ross for the first time — acts like he’s trying to help the referee, then lays out Chainz with a Rock Bottom. Faarooq gets the win, and after the match, Rocky officially joins the Nation of Domination. Next week, “The Rock” delivers his first heel promo, and a star is born. All the guy needed to go from a black hole of charisma to The Most Electrifying Man In Entertainment is the ability to say “fuck you” to the people telling him to die.
Triple H joins D-Generation X and The Rock joins the Nation of Domination in the same episode. From here on, their careers are indelibly linked until today, when those “Rock and Ronda Rousey vs. Triple H and Stephanie McMahon” rumors are about to kick in again heading into a WrestleMania. Triple H vs. The Rock is forever, and it was fate.
So now, back to this GIF of Hawk spanking an oil drum, which I unfortunately have to contextualize.
Worst: The Country Whippin’ Match
The Legion of Doom are locked in this feud with the Godwinns, because I guess someone at WWE was like, “people love the Road Warriors, right? What if we make them fight a couple of pissed-off Confederate farmers for six months?”
The feud continues on this episode with a “Country Whippin’ Match,” which is more or less a battle royal where to eliminate your opponent, you have to whip them to the floor. I don’t know. They don’t know either, because the Legion of Doom wins the match by knocking the Godwinns to the floor with a bucket. C’mon, they had a lot to put together for this episode, they don’t have time to explain why a whip’s a bucket.
Worst: The New Kids On The Blecch
This week’s attempt at a Light Heavyweight division is mostly about picture-in-picture of Brian Pillman in the locker room, stomping around in his underpants upset that Sgt. Slaughter’s making him wrestle in a dress again. He ends up wrestling in (and losing) a depressing match with Flash Funk via roll-up thanks to Goldust. It’s an awful shame that the last couple of months of Brian Pillman’s career and life were him trying to wrestle through debilitating injuries while everyone made fun of him.
Anyway, the light heavyweight match you see happening in the much, much smaller picture is Scott Putski versus Tony Williams. Williams is the guy in the cow print panties the announce team calls “checkered.” Putski is the one who looks like somebody tried to stuff the Ultimate Warrior into a sausage casing.
Fun note: Tony Williams is here because he used to be Brian Christopher’s tag team partner in the USWA, when they were “The New Kids,” a New Kids on the Block-themed team in zebra pants. If that sounds like the most 1980s wrestler possible, it gets better … when Williams turned heel, he went from being the most ’80s guy in history to the most ’90s guy in history, putting on a compression shirt and a chain, gelling up his Caesar cut and calling himself, I shit you not, KID WIKKED. Watch that promo. It’s like Buff Bagwell had a baby with TNA Original AJ Styles.
Putski wins the match by standing upright for three minutes without falling over, and everyone telling him he did a good job.
Best/Worst: Patriot Games
With Stone Cold Steve Austin on the shelf, the America vs. Canada beef that was the best part of so many Raws this year has lots a little of its shine. Now instead of Austin, we’re asked to put our fandom behind The Patriot. Patriot isn’t a bad wrestler, really, but going from this weirdly identifiable, noble hillbilly serial killer we’ve warmed to over years thanks to great promos and amazing matches to a guy dressed like the American flag we’ve only known for a couple of weeks was a pretty big leap to expect us to make.
Patriot and Ken Shamrock team up to get a win over Owen Hart and the British Bulldog by turning their own cheating against them. Bret Hart shows up to distract Shamrock, Owen tries to sneak a chair into the ring, and The Patriot uses his peripheral xenophobia to slam Owen onto it.
After the match, Patriot tries to cut a promo about how Bret Hart’s not unbeatable, so Bret attacks him from behind and kicks his ass. The Patriot comes back out after that to interrupt a Sable promo — a Sable “walking?” A Sable something — to cut another promo about Bret. Bret’s response? Send the entire Hart Foundation out to kick his ass again. When they’re done putting the boots to him, they drape him in the Canadian flag like he’s dead. Although I guess Canadians put “boats” to you, not “boots.”
A hell of a show, overall. Next week, the upswing in chaotic quality continues with The Rock’s first great promo, Brian Pillman taking the Goldust angle too far, D-X teaming up for the first time and more. And then Raw misses two weeks due to the U.S. Open. Whoops!
