WWE Raw: The Best And Worst Of 7/21/1997

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw is War: We met the living American flag known as The Patriot, got a million-dollar clue from WWF almost-personality Wink Collins, and Mick Foley became an imaginary hippie Shawn Michaels from his childhood to help Stone Cold Steve Austin retain the WWF Tag Team Championship.

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.

Siren Emoji: If you want us to keep doing retro reports, share them around! And be sure to drop down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of these shows. We’re heading into SummerSlam 1997, and we’re gonna need all the help we can get to get through that one.

And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for July 21, 1997.

Before We Begin

A few shows ago, the International Incident® between the United States and Canada went nuclear as we held a Canadian Stampede, followed that up with an attack during ‘O Canada’ on Canadian soil and then went to TEXAS for the least Canadian Raw possible. Now we’re immediately back at the Metro Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to make sure the US VS. THEM fires are stoked as thoroughly as possible.

Almost the entire show is dedicated to the Hart Foundation vs. America beef, what Canadians think of the Hart Foundation and the United States, and all the U.S. vs. Canada build for SummerSlam, so let’s first knock out the non-Hart-related stuff.

Worst: Paul Bearer’s Face Looks Like Dough

And you thought they put the ghost make-up on him to make him look SCARIER.

Last week, Paul Bear declared that this week he’d bring proof that the Undertaker’s brother Kane is still alive. Instead of, you know, bringing Kane to the show — rest your door hinges easy for now — Paw Bear brings half of a Grim Reaper statue as the proof. He swears that no matter where the Undertaker is now, he’s in possession of the other half of the statue. Because as you know, if you have something a dead person once owned, that person cannot be dead. Especially if you made it clear you lived in their house with them when they were kids.

Anyway, Jim Ross is like, “come on, this is bullshit, where’s Kane,” and the pizza dough-themed Dick Tracy villain that is Paul Bearer is like, “DON’T GO THERE! DON’T GO THERE!” It’s a lot of nothing, because I’m not sure they know what they want Kane to be yet, and because none of this involves pissing off Canadians.

Worst: Speaking Of Pissing Off Canadians

Watching WWE try to figure out what kind of light heavyweight wrestling a generation likes is hilarious. Right now they’re stuck on the idea that all we want to see is what was on the indies in 2006. PAC, Austin Aries, Dragon Gate guys. In the mid-2000s, they thought we wanted to see what was on the indies in 1996. Juventud Guerrera, Little Guido, Kid Kash. In 1997, with access to Michinoku Pro and AAA but no idea what to do with either of them, WWF built a light heavyweight division out of these 1985 Brad Armstrong-looking motherfuckers with mullets wearing trunks and sparkly jackets who throw weak dropkicks that look like they require tons of effort.

Look at this guy. This is “Bryan Walsh,” which I’m 99% sure was originally a Beverly Hills 90210 character that got Mandela Effected out of our timeline. He wrestles Brian Christopher, because of course he does. They try to get him heat by saying he’s “originally from Canada” and giving him tiny Canadian flags to wave, then immediately undermine him with, “now residing in Rhode Island.” The crowd turns on him before the match even begins.

I’m excited for what WWE tries to do with Cruiserweights in 2025, when a Kushida in his 40s trades backflips with a version of Will Ospreay that’s been told to “slow it down” while a crowd sits in silence.

Worst: WWF’s Tag Team Situation Isn’t Any Better Than WCW’s

Over in the Best and Worst of Nitro, one of our favorite running gags slash honest observations is that the tag team division is on a hamster wheel. The Outsiders are Tag Team Champions, the Steiners are clearly the team that should be defeating them, but something always happens to keep the Steiners from getting a fair shot. And even the unfair shots only happen every six months or so, so most of the year is this endless circle-jerk of “number one contender” matches that go nowhere, usually at the expense of Members of Harlem Heat.

On Raw, the situation’s not any better. WWF booked Stone Cold Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to be a randomly assembled team of singles stars who hate each other, but (in WWE’s eyes forever) singles stars are better than tag teams always and can easily win. Usually one good singles star can beat the top tag team by himself. It’s a horrible decision but nobody who matters cares. Then Shawn and Bret got into it backstage and Shawn threatened to walk, so the titles got half-vacated and Austin had to find a partner to “defend” and/or “win” them after an entire number one contender tag team tournament. The winners of that tournament were just the old champs. Austin managed to win with help from Mick Foley, aka another singles star. Now Austin begrudgingly accepts him, but doesn’t like him.

This week, despite the fact that we just finished a number one contender tournament, WWF books three teams who did not make it to the finals in a triple threat to name new number one contenders. The Headbangers, the New Blackjacks and the Godwinns. The Godwinns hit Bradshaw in the head with a bucket when the referee’s not looking (pictured) to secure a championship match. That sets up next week’s match with the Godwinns WINNING … by count-out. Which accomplishes nothing. And then Stone Cold Steve Austin breaks his neck before they can drop the titles, so the Godwinns AND the Headbangers get thrown into another four-way elimination match for the belts.

If you’re wondering how the New Age Outlaws got so over so quickly, it’s mostly because they weren’t any of these teams.

And The Aptly Named, Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Episode

The WWF just realized there’s money to be made in heels that hate America. SO HERE ARE ALL THE HEELS THAT HATE AMERICA.

Returning to Raw next week are The Truth Commission, who are exactly like the Hart Foundation except you don’t know who any of them are, none of them are any good at wrestling and WWE rarely goes to South Africa.

They’re mostly coming back so there’s another white team involved in the “gang warz” and it’ll look less like the Disciples of Apocalypse are getting cheered by wrestling fans in 1997 for not being black or Puerto Rican.

Also appearing soon and not for very long is BRAKKUS. Billed as “The German Superman,” he’s a former International German Bodybuilding Championships winner who wrestles a couple of matches, gets his ass beat by Savio Vega in the Brawl For All and just kinda disappears. Oh, and he’s named after the German bodybuilder bad guy from Best of the Best 2. Maybe he should’ve tried a Wayne Newton gimmick.

I prefer my German pro wrestlers to be beautiful tripods, thank you very much.

Best: Okay, Time To Talk Canada Vs. USA

Throughout the episode, we hear thoughts from Canada’s best and brightest about why they think the Hart Foundation are the best wrestlers in the world, and how much they hate the United States. WWE does a great job of finding people in face-paint who are like, five minutes free of an ice fishing hole to ask. The answers are exclusively, “YA KNOW THE UNITED STATES DERE SUCKS DONTCHA KNOW AND CANADA IS THE BEST THERE IS THE BEST THERE WAS AND THE BEST THERE EVER WILL BE.” Wrestling fans outside of wrestling venues can only communicate in catchphrases and screaming. And if you put a camera on them, they have to tell you that whatever they’re doing is number one!

The announced main event for Raw is a six-man tag team flag match, which is one of those matches that works better on paper than in reality. There’s a lot of downtime in a pro wrestling match that allows for free movement, chances are one of the six people involved could climb to the top rope and reach up slightly to pull down a flag without a lot of effort. Especially when they spend most of the match just like, walking around stomping.

So there are flags set up on the corners for the entire show, in case you forgot why we’re all here. POOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.

Up first is Ken Shamrock vs. Vader, in a reprise of their brutal classic from In Your House: A Cold Day In Hell. Some time has passed and Shamrock’s gotten better at understanding that wrestling isn’t real, so this plays more like a good wrestling match than as a dangerous one-sided shoot-fight. Like when Chris Penn took on Brakus in Best of the Best 2.

Shamrock takes his first singles loss in WWE here when Vader distracts the referee and allows the British Bulldog to sneak up behind Ken, powerslam him on the metal ramp and get him counted out. The fans love it. I’m starting to wonder if the Vince Russo “shades of grey” thing has always been bullshit, and WWE’s true interpretation of how babyfaces and heels act was falsely molded by this weird period where “IT’S FINE HE’S ON OUR SIDE” was the entire hook.

Best/Worst: Everyone Is Terrible

The Hart Foundation has agreed to face any three Americans in a flag match. Stone Cold Steve Austin is of course the first person to volunteer for Team America (f?ck yeah). A little later in the episode, Shawn Michaels dances out and offers himself up as man #2. You assume that the trios team is going to be a combination of the last two Tag Team Champions: Austin, Michaels and Dude Love.

Unfortunately, Michaels spends the entirety of his time in the ring making Canada as mad at him as possible. He talks about how he got Canadian army men as a present as children and they call came in surrender poses, and tells wonderful jokes like, “Why doesn’t the US fall into the ocean? Because Canada sucks!” This degenerate act really needs a rich guy and a muscular bodybuilder for it to work. Much like the story for Best of the Best 2.

That’s not actually [crowd cheering], it’s the Canadian crowd chanting “faggot” at Shawn. Because wrestling fans were super into chanting that for some reason this week. Way to be the heroes, Canada.

Shawn’s final announcement is that he’s going to be the special guest referee for Bret Hart’s championship match against The Undertaker at SummerSlam. You can imagine how that goes over. The hook is that if Bret loses, he’s never allowed to wrestle in the United States again. Now his arch-rival is refereeing the match. They add the stipulation that if Shawn doesn’t call the match down the middle, Shawn will no longer be able to wrestle in the United States either. So it’d just be Bret and Shawn wrestling each other in Canada forever. Not sure they’ve ever telegraphed a finish this hard before.

Best: The Moment Mr. McMahon Is Born

In a moment of booking that’s either brilliant or insane, The Patriot gets his in-ring debut in front of an anti-American Canadian crowd that’s just been riled up by Shawn Michaels. And then we ignore the entire match because the Hart Foundation shows up to get in Vince McMahon’s face about letting Shawn Michaels be the special guest referee. Bret gets SO in his face and SO aggro about the decision that he knocks Vince’s headset off, and a (more or less) hockey fight ensues.

Up until now, Vince McMahon has been a mild-mannered play-by-play man who only really gets winks and nods in his direction when it comes to discussing his actual role with the company. And while the Montreal Screwjob and the “Bret screwed Bret” promo are the official beginning of “Mr. McMahon” as an evil heel overlord, this headset slap might be the actual moment of contact that creates him.

Watch the difference in Vince’s face before and after the slap. He just morphs right into Mr. McMahon. He even does the weird defensive hiss-face he starts doing all the time a few years later.

Glorious. The Patriot shows up to help Vince, the Hart Foundation beats HIM up, and that leads to The Patriot getting his first WWE victory by technicality on a Canadian show thanks to a bunch of Canadians kicking his ass. Symbolism! … Symbolism?

Worst: Shawn Michaels Keeps Finding Reasons To Not Wrestle

The next match is Goldust vs. Faarooq, which gets summarily ignored by the announce team as they launch into Very Concerned Voices about what’s just happened. It ends with one of the worst delayed DQ calls ever as the referee is supposed to be getting distracted by Marlena but won’t stop looking directly at the outside interference. He doesn’t call a DQ until Faarooq hits his finish and goes for a pin. Great job!

In the middle of the match, we get word that (gasp) Shawn Michaels has been attacked in the back and will no longer be able to compete in the flag match.

Shawn uses The Lord’s name in vain, saying Vince is running a “God damn zoo,” and when Vince says he’s doing the best he can, Shawn says “you ain’t doin’ SHIT.” Vince will throw hands at Bret Hart and manipulate him out of the company, but Shawn can shove him and cuss him out and he just takes it.

Eh: The Flag Match

Stone Cold Steve Austin and Dude Love are forced to fight the Hart Foundation 3-on-2 for a while until The Undertaker shows up to even the odds. I think the strangest thing I’m going to type in this column of Best of the Best 2 goofs and Bryan Walsh jokes is that in 1997, a main event match pitting Bret Hart, Owen Hart and the British Bulldog against The Undertaker, Mick Foley and pre-injury Stone Cold Steve Austin in front of a crazy Canadian crowd … isn’t that great.

It’s just a by-the-numbers thing that doesn’t really say or accomplish much. It’s all the crowd. It’s Canadian Stampede with the volume turned down and nobody working that hard. It’s almost entirely disconnected from the “flag match” stipulation, and actually grabbing the flag and winning the match doesn’t become important until the finish. Bret and Undertaker climb to pull down their flags at the same time, Brian Pillman shows up to provide a cheap 4-on-3 advantage and Bret wins. And … that’s it.

Really the only highlight is the post-match response from Austin, and JR’s straightforward call of, “Austin is PISSED!”

One of the most important hooks of Austin’s character that often gets overlooked and straight-up ignored in top level characters today is that he gave a shit about winning and losing. He was a single-minded psychopath, sure, but he proved things he said and “backed it up” by actually winning matches and championships. He made sense as a pro wrestler. He wanted pro wrestling goals. He didn’t just want to beat Bret up, he wanted to beat him up and also beat him in a match to further his career and prove shit to people. These days guys like Roman Reigns just don’t really care about winning or losing, they just want to “win fights” for some reason and have their music played. It ignores the very important fact that WWE’s supposed to be a professional fighting circuit, and that these people are here to fight and win things. They don’t want to just be champions because it’s expected.

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