Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: D-Generation X finally got their TitanTron video and entrance theme, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock started beefing, and in the most important development of the week, Ahmed Johnson “took” a TKO.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for November 17, 1997.
Best: Slide Into Her DMs Like
Last week’s episode was nigh-unwatchable aside from Stone Cold Steve Austin V The Rock: Dawn Of Justice, so Raw makes the smart move of opening this week’s show with them. It’s the Orson Welles “peak too early” booking style. You never get another Citizen Kane, really, but hey, at least you got the one.
Austin shows up to tell The Rock he sucks again and challenges him to come to the ring and fight. He gets the entire Nation minus The Rock, and doesn’t think it’s weird that the only one who actually gets in the ring is D’Lo Brown. While Austin’s busy hilariously mudhole-stomping D’Lo, Rock sprints through the ring, powerslides through it like he’s Tony Jaa doing the splits under a moving truck, and scoops the Intercontinental Championship.
Later in the night, a self-crowned IC Champ takes on Dude Love, and Austin interrupts by barrelling to the ring and handing out Stone Cold Stunners to anyone that moves. Instead of walking into one himself and backflipping into the sun like Team Rocket blasting off, Rock tucks the belt under his arm like a football and bails. For the first time in a while, Austin can’t solve a problem by kicking the problem’s ass.
Here’s what was so great about the first version of this rivalry: we’d seen Austin face the self-righteous icons like Bret Hart, go up against bloodthirsty guys who want to end his career to prove a point like Owen, and even go toe-to-toe with deranged attempted murderers like Brian Pillman, but we’d never seen him go up against someone smarter than him. So the joy here is in seeing Austin get played like a fiddle by the Nation — who has spent the last year manipulating Ahmed Johnson into oblivion, so they know how to handle southern wildcard babyfaces better than anyone — and seeing Austin forced to adapt by a peer, not just an established part of a machine he can rage against.
*chef kiss*
Worst: Come On, Rude Boy
If you read this week’s corresponding Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro, you know that D-Generation X founding member Rick Rude reacted to the Montreal Screwjob by appearing on the next night’s live Raw, sticking around to tape this week’s taped Raw, and jumping ship to a live Nitro the next week, putting himself on both Monday night wrestling shows at the same time.
With this week’s Survivor Series content centered on Vince McMahon, D-X is stuck in this weird, empty feud with authority nobody really asked for to set up a Triple H vs. Sgt. Slaughter match a few weeks from now. I mean, I get what they’re going for. Shawn Michaels has all the heat in the world on him, so if they want to keep D-X as the WWF nWo, they’ve gotta get the less abrasive one on some tweener shit. Four people beating up one old man and stripping off his clothes would be a massively heel act if (1) it wasn’t 1997, (2) wrestling morality wasn’t decided by coolness and popularity, and if (3) the World Wrestling Federation wasn’t already in the middle of training its audience that the people in charge are awful and need to get their asses kicked.
SO! Speaking of that …
Best: Whom Screwed Whom
Here’s Vince McMahon explaining why it is actually BRET HART who is the ball-licker.
What worked so well about this interview segment at the time is that Vince had never really been a “character,” so to speak, so we were conditioned to believe that what he was saying was “real,” or at least his actual perspective and opinion. As that, this interview is INFURIATING. Especially if you loved Bret Hart, or WCW, or anything other than a homogenized corporate byline.
In retrospect, it’s the birth of Mr. McMahon, the character. This is absolutely an in-character interview, whether you believe the Screwjob was a “work” or whatever or not, and every infuriating thing about it is a purposeful decision. Mr. McMahon is built on this foundation of being a delusional, self-centered, self-aggrandizing scumbag, and for the first time in WWE history, doing “what’s best for business” trumped doing what’s kind, or what’s encouraging, or what’s supportive, or what’s compassionate. It’s the basis for every single story like this that came after it, including the ones we’re currently living through. If you read this column three years from now, chances are they’re still doing a GM Hates The Talent story.
Man, Vince’s little black eye while he sits under a gigantic promo photo of Bret Hart and passive-aggressively wishes him well is the “Brock Lesnar shoves a one-legged kid with a broken leg down a flight of stairs” of heel promos.
Worst: And Now, Our Second Black Eye Angle Of The Week
Marc Mero shows up for an absolute barn-burner against … Jerry Lawler? Really?
Yeah, so Sable walks Mero to the ring in a pair of dark sunglasses, and even though she wears sunglasses literally every time we see her, the announce team explains she’s wearing them this week because she’s been KICKED IN THE FACE BY “HER HORSE.” You know where this is going.
When Sable reveals her eye, everyone including the announce team starts doing that, “well, they said she got kicked by a horse, but I dunno,” and even the slowest fan in the audience puts two and two together. Between this and the Chaz beats Marianna story a couple of years later, WWF creative had a weird fixation on valets getting punched in the eye. Butterbean is in the crowd again this week, and he does some very stern head shaking to continue the Butterbeef and give us our sign of the week:
Yeah, screw you, Mearal!
That’s Everything Important This Week, As They’re Still Not Sure What To Do Between Now And The Royal Rumble
hey that sounds familiar
Anyway, here’s everything else that happened on this week’s show.
Sunny is the special guest referee for a minis trios match, so I took this screenshot that looks like she’s giving birth to them.
The match itself is Max Mini, Mini Taurus and Mini Nova and El Torito, Tarantula and Batallion. Batallion always made me laugh, because he looks like a G.I. Joe version of Super Calo. But yeah, they do some Fun Ref Goofs with Sunny for a few minutes until the lights go out, and That’s Gotta Be Kane shows up. Yes, my first thought was, “did I forgot Kane versus six minis, because I feel like I would’ve remembered that.”
As it turns out, the minis just hide until they’re saved by, oh, let’s say, the Headbangers.
Kane ends up no-selling a JVC Kaboom Box™ to the dome and beats up Mosh and Thrasher by himself, and that’s the segment. I want to know what the booking conversation was for this, and what kind of weed Vince Russo was smoking where he was like, “there’s gonna be six midgets, and they’re gonna get fresh with the girl ref, and then KANE’S gonna show up and try to set them on fire, and then the HEADBANGERS are gonna come out and hit him in the face with a big boombox, which is something metal heads carry around I think, but then Kane’s gonna win anyway, and the minis and Sunny are just gonna disappear, and then we’re gonna GO TO COMMERCIAL, and then PYRO AND BALLYHOO-”
I think it was a strand called, “Nobody Tells Me When My Ideas Are Bad.”
The New Age Outlaws are supposed to wrestle Los Boricuas, but instead just go into their locker room and steal their clothes. Savio and Miguel are so enraged that they run up the ramp and attack them, and pretty soon the rest of the Boricuas show up and the match gets thrown out. Between this and last week’s non-fight with Steve Blackman, I’m starting to wonder if The Fed even remembers Los Boricuas are wrestlers.
I mean, at least the Truth Commission and the Disciples of Apocalypse didn’t also run out and fight in a pile. We’re still about five months from Road Dogg and Billy Gunn figuring out they should also gets some backup instead of putting on Henry Godwinn’s underpants or whatever and running out to lose 4-on-2 fights.
This week’s round one Light Heavyweight Championship tournament match between Canada’s Own Eric Shelley and Scott Taylor, who is not Jerry Lynn, is so boring they try to improve it by talking to Jeff Jarrett on the phone. Imagine if you tuned into Raw and they were like, “here’s 10 minutes of Tony Nese vs. Sin Cara doing nothing but dropkicks and chinlocks, and we’re gonna spend 8 of it talking to Jason Jordan on speakerphone.”
Scott Taylor wins and moves on to round two of not being Taka Michinoku or Brian Christopher.
Finally this week, what’s supposed to be Vader vs. Goldust ends up being the fifth fuck finish out of six matches when Goldust hits Vader in the top of the head with a hammer, for some reason. To recap, Mero/Lawler ends with Sable causing a DQ, Outlaws/Boricuas doesn’t happen, minis tag ends with unrelated Kane interference, Rock/Dude Love ends with the Nation and Austin running in, and then this. The only match on the entire show with a finish is SCOTT TAYLOR VS. ERIC SHELLEY.
I’ve got to give it a little love, though, because Vader’s selling of a hammer to the head is maybe his most believable selling ever. He just instantly goes down in a heap, weakly grabs at his head and quivers. I feel like that’s how more people should sell getting kicked in the nuts. If someone boots you between the legs you don’t grab your crotch with both hands, bend your knees slightly and make a big “oh no” face before slowly falling over. If somebody gives you a straight-up boxing uppercut to the junk, you’re going down, and if you aren’t vomiting everywhere you’re at least gonna be bordering on shock.
And that’s how this week’s Raw report ends. With me explaining what happens when you get kicked in the nuts. Thanks, everyone!
Next Week:
Jim Neidhart and Harvey Wippleman join D-Generation X — neither of those is a joke — Shawn Michaels has a confrontation with “Bret Hart,” and Jeff Jarrett decides to ditch the suspenders are start wrestling in gear that makes him look like he’s on Lucha Underground representing an ancient Aztec tribe. Plus, we find out who Goldust’s first friend on FetLife was.
(Check out our must-listen McMahonsplaining podcast with WWE superstar Braun Strowman. Subscribe on iTunes or Google.)
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