Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: Shawn Michaels won the European Championship at One Night Only, Stone Cold Steve Austin gave Vince McMahon the Stone Cold Stunner for the first time, and Freddie Blassie used a hologram to trick Sable into playing laser tag with Howard Finkle. No, that last one’s not a Lucha Underground joke.
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. We’re on the same week again, finally!
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for September 29, 1997.
Best: Rick Rude Tells Vince McMahon What’s About To Happen To His Face On National Television
Raw opens with Vince McMahon interviewing D-Generation X — not their actual name yet, as they tried to name themselves the “Triple Threat,” complete with ECW Triple Threat hand gesture — to bring out Sgt. Slaughter and set up Triple H vs. The Undertaker as the main event. It’s pretty funny that the go-home for Shawn vs. Taker in Hell in a Cell was Triple H losing to Undertaker, and then the end of the 4-part Undertaker vs. DX epic WrestleMania story was Shawn losing to set up Triple H vs. Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell.
Anyway, the most notable bit here is Vince going in on Rick Rude being the “insurance policy” again, a concept he just can’t wrap his head around, and Rude promises that if Vince doesn’t open up his wallet and pay Rude now, he’s going to “pay later.” That comes up about a month and a half later, when Vince doesn’t figure out Rude’s contract extension fast enough so Rude jumps ship to a live Nitro on the same night he appears on a taped Raw. He told you, man, maybe you should’ve listened instead of staring off into space like that.
Everybody Fights!
Here we see a young Baron Corbin holding up a Sgt. Slaughter sign on Raw.
Welcome to this week’s edition of Everybody Fights, the recap lightning round where we lump together all instances of 1997 WWF’s favorite booking trope, “end the match by sending out a bunch of people to fight in a big pile.”
Up first we have the ending to Vader vs. The British Bulldog, with the Hart Foundation running down to attack Vader so he wins the match before he can hit the Vader Bomb and win the match. You know how it goes. They beat him down 4-on-1 with Canadian flags, which of course brings out Flag Disrespect Correspondent The Patriot to make the save. Like most patriotic saves, he completely blows it, gets beaten down 4-on-1 himself, and ends the segment having the Canadian flag draped over him like he’s a dead body. Lots of that going on tonight.
Up next is Faarooq vs. Ahmed Johnson. As a refresher, Faarooq debuted in July of ’96 by attacking Ahmed Johnson in what was supposed to set up a match between the two for the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam. Ahmed got injured in the attack and the match couldn’t happen. But eventually he comes back and fights the Nation of Domination for several months, then suddenly gives up and joins them. In his first attempt at being a heel, he injures himself again and has to leave. When he returns, the Nation immediately turns on him. When he returns to get revenge, in his first attempt at being a face again, he touches the announce table wrong, putting a nail through his hand and “destroying tendons and ligaments” to the point that he’s got no feeling in his hand. Things are going well for Ahmed Johnson.
On this episode, Ahmed faces Faarooq and uses his numb mummy hand to punch him over and over, because he is a Ring General. He ends up losing the match because he starts hitting Faarooq with the ring steps in the most dangerous way you’ve ever seen, and when the referee steps in, Ahmed shoves him down. He’s like Stone Cold Steve Austin, you see, if none of Austin’s motivations made no sense, you couldn’t understand him when he talked, and he had no idea how to wrestle.
This triggers Everybody Fights featuring the Nation of Domination, Ahmed and his dead Vampire Hunter D hand, Ken Shamrock, and the Legion of Doom. For added THREAT-LULZ, Hawk puts on Faarooq’s hat.
We turned Rocky Maivia heel a few weeks ago, guys, can we get to the part where all the Nation segments are about him?
Before I recap this, look at that picture. Can you tell who ANY of those people are?
This, believe it or not, is The Headbangers defending the WWF Tag Team Championship against Jose and “Hose-B” (™ Jerry Lawler) of Los Boricuas. He actually uses that joke as they’re walking to the ring, and Vince lets out a big “ha HA!” from his belly like it’s legitimately the first time he’s ever heard it. If you don’t recognize any Boricuas in that photo, it’s because this is the week they changed their aesthetic from white jeans and white tank tops and fedoras to Day One Ish.
The Godwinns do a run in to attack Los Boricuas and keep them from winning the Tag Team Championship, because they want to face the Headbangers for the belts at Badd Blood. You know you’re a great team when the other teams in the division are cheating to get a title match with YOU and not the third and fourth members of Los Boricuas.
Best: Steve Austin Is Still Going Crazy
This is the episode where Owen Hart debuts his legendary “Owen 3:16/I just broke your neck” t-shirt, which joins the original Monday Night Jericho shirt on the list of tees of late-90s mid-carders I desperately wished there’d been a WWE Shop Dot Com around to buy on. Remember when you had to like, go to a live show to get a t-shirt? And then you had to just pick from whatever was there? Say what you want about us losing all rights and privacy and falling under the ever-gazing eye of Big Brother, but at least I can buy an Ascension t-shirt in the middle of the night and get it 2-day shipped to me if I want.
Earlier in the show, Vince confronts Stone Cold about what’s been going on, and tells him that he can either get fired or bring in a doctor’s note saying he won’t hold the World Wrestling Federation responsible if he tries to wrestle again and ends up paralyzed. Modern fans may recognize this as the Seth Rollins hold harmless agreement, which joins Big Show’s “iron clad contract” in the pantheon of HR jargon WWE turned into a pay-per-view match synopsis and beat us to death with. Austin’s response is, quite frankly, to tell Vince to blow it out his ass.
In the tradition of BISCHOFF SMELLS TURNER’S ASS, Vince ends the interview perfectly framed by a fan’s sign:
Then Owen shows up wearing a HEY AUSTIN GO FUCK YOURSELF tee, and Vince is like, HOW COULD YOU WEAR THAT KNOWING THAT MANIAC IS IN THE BUILDING? Owen’s got a swat team with him for protection, you see, so he’s not scared. He’s confident he’ll defeat Faarooq for the Intercontinental Championship at Badd Blood and says he’ll never show compassion and let his guard down like he did with Steve Austin at SummerSlam again, but fails to do a pre-segment roll call of the swat team, because Stone Cold Steve Austin is one of them. Owen catches a stunner, Austin escapes through the crowd, and the rest of the swat team is unable to get through the impenetrable wall of “some wrestling fans” to catch him.
In response to this, Sgt. Slaughter says that Austin will be at Badd Blood to present the Intercontinental Championship to the new champion in a special post-match ceremony. Jim Ross turns into Brandon Stroud for a minute and goes MENTAL, screaming about how Sarge is asking for trouble and is a blind, ass-backwards moron for setting this up. It’s so thorough and awesome and correct that the usually tackily-verbose Jerry Lawler is like, “jeez, tell us how you really feel.”
Worst: Brian Pillman’s Final Appearance
Brian Pillman was a 2-time Light Heavyweight Champion and a 3-time Tag Team Champion, a former Rookie Of The Year who helped popularize junior heavyweight wrestling in the United States alongside Jushin Thunder Liger and pave the way for lucha libre stars like Rey Mysterio Jr. to flourish in the U.S. He was in a five-star rated War Games match. His storyline in WCW with Kevin Sullivan changed the face of the wrestling business, for better or worse, mangling kayfabe and setting the stage for the New World Order and the Attitude Era. He pulled a gun on Stone Cold Steve Austin, helped make the Hart Foundation the most hated group in the United States, and was without a doubt one of the most controversial, influential professional wrestlers of the 1990s.
His final appearance is this fake sex tape where he makes puns about how he’s sexually assaulting a guy’s wife per a wrestling match stipulation. He dies from arteriosclerotic heart disease at age 35 about six hours before Badd Blood starts.
[heavy sigh]
Anyway, looking back on this now, it’s weird to see how they were setting up the big swerve. They announced last week that Goldust and Marlena were planning to renew their vows (on Raw, for some reason) once her 30 days with Pillman were over. That’s a red flag. They also have Pillman tease that he’s bringing “lewd Polaroids” of Marlena at Badd Blood, with Lawler giddily yelling, “I SAW IT” about it, and demands Goldust be handcuffed to the ring post during the Pillman/Dude Love match. There’s also a weird hotline commercial during this episode where they’re like, “call to see if Goldust thinks Marlena might be enjoying her time with Brian Pillman.”
As we’ve said a few times in these columns, the idea was that Marlena and Pillman were supposed to have been in on it since the beginning, so Marlena agreeing to the match, helping Pillman win and going along with the stipulation instead of, you know, not, were part of the plan. It’s the only way any of this is redeemed or makes sense. The “vow renewal” segment was obviously when they were gonna pull the trigger, as seen by like half of the weddings WWE has done. Instead, Pillman dies. And while “it messed up a wrestling storyline” is the least important part about that IMAGINABLE, they were still left with an absolute mess as a result of it.
Goldust wrestles the Sultan on Raw with half his face painted like a skull, which would be cool if not for literally everything else, including having to watch the Sultan wrestle for five minutes.
Everybody Fights! (Reprise)
During the Undertaker’s entrance, Bret Hart and the British Bulldog run out and attack him. While they’re doing this, Vader and The Patriot return from their Canadian graves to attack THEM. And while this is happening, Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hearst Helmsley jog over and attack the Undertaker again.
I’m honestly surprised that Kane didn’t debut here, with him and Paul Bearer running out in street clothes to just aimlessly battle royal fight everybody.
As The Halliburton Turns
wait, what
Helmsley vs. Undertaker doesn’t last long. As Taker’s about to win with a chokeslam and the Tombstone, Rick Rude shows up and attacks him from behind with a metal briefcase. If we needed a dark harbinger that Jeff Jarrett was about to return, here it is. They should’ve had Mongo McMichael join D-Generation X, and dress Pepe the Chihuahua in little football jerseys that told people to suck his dick.
A several-on-one melee ensues, again, ending in Sweet Chin Music and Cobra Kai dojo graduate Shawn Michaels putting The Undertaker in a body bag. YEAHHHHH!
In an amazing and also kind of super funny visual, the Undertaker proves he’s hefty hefty hefty and not wimpy wimpy wimpy by doing the Undertaker sit-up IN the bag, unzipping himself and beating the shit out of everyone.
He chases Michaels up the stage, and Shawn can’t escape because the gorilla position is now full of smoke and red lighting. Was Kane back there? Did Paul Bearer set up a spooky thing to scare the Undertaker and then call it off because someone else tried to kill him?
I don’t know the answer, but I can share this shot of the show’s great final image: Shawn Michaels climbing the TitanTron to get away from the Undertaker.
In six days he’d try the same thing, and it’d set forth 20 years of people falling from halfway up a box cage.
Next Week:
The first-ever Hell in a Cell match happens, the Devil’s Favorite Middle-Management Demon Mayor debuts, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels go into shoot overdrive because we’re almost to Survivor Series, and more.
