*calls mom*
Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: Everyone had a black eye, Vince McMahon had important information on the identity of the man who Screwed Bret, and Rick Rude appeared on tape while also popping up on the week’s live Nitro. So, you know, not much happened.
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.
Hey, you! 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 on the road to In Your House: D-Generation X, which I believe comes just before In Your House: Disciples Of Apocalypse.
And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for November 24, 1997.
Worst: Welcome To The Most Reactionary, Offended Raw Of The Year
Survivor Series happened. The next night’s Raw was live, so neither the WWF nor WCW really knew what was going to happen. They taped the next week’s Raw that same night, meaning they’d have to make two weeks of post-Survivor Series shows within 24 hours of the event and look like they didn’t know what was going on, while Nitro could, say, scoop up Rick Rude and do an updated live show.
The reason I recapped all of that is because this is the first live Raw since the night after Survivor Series, and the World Wrestling Federation has had two whole weeks to stew over the programming gap and plan their response to WCW’s flag waving and promises of Bret Hart. What that means is that this Raw is extremely offended, and features three (3) separate D-Generation X segments about how they totally don’t care what happened and how everyone else is stupid. Four if you count Sgt. Slaughter threatening to kill himself, but we’ll get to that.
The show opens with former manager and [checks notes] future Women’s Champion Harvey Wippleman cosplaying as Rick Rude, doing Rude’s entrance shtick, and getting pie-faced to the ground by Shawn Michaels. Rick Rude’s spot was an easy one to fill, you see, and D-X doesn’t care. That’s followed by like 10 minutes of Shawn saying he “takes advantage of live airtime,” which we were just told was a pie-faceable offense.
He also notes that Bret Hart is actually still under contract with the World Wrestling Federation until November 30, and promises to have an in-ring confrontation with him later in the night. If your response to that was, “let me guess, he does some bad photoshops of Bret on the TitanTron and has fake Conan O’Brien lips make Bret say Shawn’s the best,” congratulations, you grew up watching wrestling in the 2000s. If your response was, “he dresses up a midget like Bret Hart, doesn’t he,” WELCOME TO THE 1990S.
Welcome to infamous segment #2, in which a little person in a nightmarish, Michael Myers-esque Bret Hart masque of pink death comes to the ring as “Bret Hart” to reenact what happened at Survivor Series. They put him in the Sharpshooter, make him say Shawn MIchaels is great over and over, then slap a “WCW” sign on his butt.
NOBODY IS UPSET AT ALL, THEY’RE ACTUALLY LAUGHING, THIS IS A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT, heh
If you were a Bret Hart fan when this happened, chances are this is the maddest you ever got at wrestling. It’s incredibly effective as a heel move in that it makes you want to see the entire group get torched to the ground, and a little less when you realize (1) it can’t go anywhere, because Bret is actually gone, and (2) it ends with a member of the Hart Foundation showing up to stand up for Bret only to get duped into joining D-X like a moron.
No, really.
This is the show where Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart joins D-Generation X. Seriously.
Anvil shows up promising to “kick butt,” and Michaels just kinda talks him out of it. He rationalizes that Bret’s at home, Owen’s at home upset, the British Bulldog is having “fake” knee surgery — something Shawn says he knows all about, pew pew shooting pew pew — so Jim should take advantage of a “one night only opportunity” and join them. And Jim DOES, because DOT DOT DOT QUESTION MARK QUESTION MARK QUESTION MARK.
In fact, Anvil accompanies them to the ring for Shawn’s match with Vader at the end of the night and helps Shawn win. Then, as they’re celebrating, Shawn and Hunter kick the shit out of him. Because OF COURSE THEY DID, because ON WHAT PLANET DOES JIM NEIDHART JOIN D-X TWO WEEKS AFTER THE MONTREAL SCREWJOB AND THINK THEY’RE HIS TRUE PALS.
Also, congratulations to Jim Neidhart’s bullshit here for making him the worst ever member of D-Generation X behind Hornswoggle, The Great Khail and Harvey Wippleman.
Best: Sgt. Slaughter Loses His Mind
what
In response to all of these D-X goofs (and being Pedigreed out of his shirt last week), Commissioner Slaughter devolves into Sgt. Slaughter and cuts a promo asking Triple H if he’s ever killed anybody with his bare hands, played Russian roulette, or watched his friend get exploded by a landmine. There’s something wonderfully cartoonish about it, especially since the only military service WWF fans ever saw the Sarge give was (1) for the benefit of the Iraq army, or (2) on a cartoon show where army guys fight a snake army with lasers.
Actually the best part is Michael Cole, who still can’t differentiate war reporting with calling pro wrestling and acts like Sarge’s announcement that he’ll be using the Cobra Clutch is a tweet about how he’s gonna nuke North Korea.
But yeah, I really wish the Boot Camp Match at In Your House had paid off Sarge’s threats about stabbing Triple H in his guts with a bayonet instead of the 18 minutes of old man punching we got.
Best: GoldenEye
If you’re wondering how Vader could lose a match to Shawn Michaels via Jim Neidhart in two and a half minutes instead of, you know, being Big Van Goddamn Vader, it’s because Goldust (and Goldust’s new FetLife connection, Luna Vachon) Two-Faced him.
The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust gets wheeled out by a “nurse” early in the show to reveal that he’s an “invalid,” and that his injury which started out as a sore wrist turned into a broken arm, which then turned into him being crippled and in a wheelchair. Sure! Part of what makes this version of Goldust so great is that it’s brutal and unfortunate to watch, and he’s so legitimately, weirdly uncomfortable to experience that you want to boo him so he’ll stop being in front of you.
Vader shows up to wrist-punch him in the ear or whatever, causing the nurse to unmask as Luna and throw alcohol in his eyes. That leads to Vader spending the rest of the night with a maxi-pad on his face, and leaves him susceptible to secret ringside beatdowns from Raw’s most desperate Hart Adjace.
Worst: The Almost D-X Is Doing Well, Too
In fact, this already heavily D-X-friendly episode also happens to be the one where the New Age Outlaws pin the Legion of Doom to become WWF Tag Team Champions. And the one where they get their entrance theme. Things are turning out nicely for this one little pod of guys!
This is pretty awful, as you’d expect. The Legion of Doom are so over the hill they’ve fallen off the side of the hill and rolled down into a ditch, and the crowd’s starting to figure that out. The Outlaws are the dirt worst in the ring, which never really changes, and they’re still figuring out how connecting with the crowd works without screaming “shut up” and dropping f-bombs on everyone. They get about 6 1/2 minutes, which feels like 30, before Road Dogg stops a Doomsday Device with a steel chair to the back of Animal and Billy Gunn rolls him up for three.
The good news is that the Outlaws winning the Tag Team Championship legitimizes them as a team and gives them the foundation they’d need to really connect and become important characters on the show. The bad news is that we’ve got a lot of bad wrestling to get through before we get there.
Best: Kane Saves Us From The Worst Match Of All Time
If you’ve spent the past year reading our vintage Best and Worst columns, what’s the worst 1997 WCW vs. 1997 WWF match you could imagine? Or that you could imagine ME imagining, I guess? If your answer was, “Jeff Jarrett vs. Crush,” first you’re heartless for thinking that into existence, but second YOU’RE CORRECT.
This is supposed to be Jeff Jarrett’s “wrestling debut” and the debut the awful “JJ” gear that looks like he bought it at a Santa Fe gift shop. And it’s supposed to be against Crush, and also the world’s supposed to open up and swallow me whole. But hey, thank goodness for two small miracles:
- Jarrett won’t “play ball” unless Vince McMahon does and give him a plush dressing room, because his new character is like a Tennessee upper-middle-class Raven, meaning he won’t actually be wrestling
- Kane attacks Crush in the ring, Tombstoning and “injuring” him out of the company
Up next, Hacksaw Jim Duggan takes on Ahmed Johnson. Duggan pulls a roll of tape out of his underwear and tries to cheat to win, but Ahmed pulls an extra knee-pad out of HIS underwear and blocks it. And then I’m guessing he collapses with two broken arms?
Worst: Gang Wares
In somehow less interesting Gang Warz news, In Your House WWF Championship challenger Ken Shamrock gets a strong win over Savio Vega. After the match he gets threatened by the newest member of Los Boricuas, the Soup Nazi (pictured).
Worst: The Light Heavyweight Tournament Isn’t Getting Any Better
what are you pointing at, Jerry
To put the Light Heavyweight Championship tournament into perspective, they show Brian Christopher and Jerry Lawler walk to the ring for like 30 seconds, then cut away to the tournament bracket so we miss Christopher’s opponent, “Flanagan,” diving over the ropes onto him. We cut back to the action in time to see Flanagan roll Christopher back into the ring. A few seconds later Flanagan goes after Lawler, leading to Christopher diving over the top rope and sunset flip powerbombing him off the apron to the floor. The camera also misses that. So really, if you’re going by what the camera’s watching, Brian Christopher defeated Flanagan with some vague jumping.
Note: “Flanagan” is of course Flash Flanagan, eventually known as the dreaded KOBAIN from NWA TNA’s weekly pay-per-views. This is his only Raw appearance, but he DOES get to lose several more times on Shotgun Saturday Night.
Best: Beeper 3:16
Once again saving the show by having absolutely nothing to do with D-Generation X or the Hart Foundation is the Rock vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin feud. Last week, The Rock slid into Austin’s DMs and stole Austin’s Intercontinental Championship. This week, Rock shows up with the belt and the Nation to assure us that he’s the real champion, and that Austin is a piece of trash, and that [eyebrow].
He’s interrupted, however, by a flashing ROCKY SUCKS message on the TitanTron that gets everyone chanting. As it turns out, Stone Cold Steve Austin has invaded the production truck. Austin warns The Rock that when Rocky’s pager flashes “3:16,” it’s his ass. First of all, aw, beepers. Second of all, The Rock is a black turtleneck away from his most popular 90s fashion choice, rocking a denim shirt with jeans and a big-ass fanny pack. Gotta keep the IC title somewhere, as The Rock never figured out he could like, snap the belts around his waist and wear them. Like belts.
Austin provides one more mystery: is his production truck invasion live, or “Memorex?” It’s at that point we see Austin sneak into the ring behind Rock, and are blessed with one of the greatest reactions to pro wrestling bullshit ever:
That’s still so fantastic. The Rock’s ability to go from “handsome adult” to “surprised Michelle Tanner” in a snap is one of his most underrated qualities, and a big reason people thought/think he’s so funny. He’s never been afraid to look like a total fool, which is how we got moments like this, matches like him losing to The Hurricane, or, I’m assuming, that time he set his name on fire with a flamethrower at WrestleMania.
This feud is such a godsend for the show. It was the clearest message that if the WWF wanted to catch up to WCW, they’d have to more or less kill the past and put their real faith in some new talent. Sure with there was still a WCW around to make them do that these days.
Next Week
Teenage Brandon attends his first-ever live Raw in Roanoke, VA, in time to see Goldust crawl around in a metal bikini and ball gag, watch Jim Neidhart get spray-painted like he’s Ray Traylor feuding with the nWo, and be like five rows away from where Stone Cold Steve Austin drives his truck into the arena for the first time.
(Check out our must-listen McMahonsplaining podcast with wrestling star Deonna Purrazzo. Subscribe on iTunes or Google.)
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