Raw History: Episode 141 and Reliving Nitro: Episode 18

Raw History
Episode #141
January 1st, 1996 | Bob Carpenter Center in Newark, Delaware

For some reason, this Raw episode has never found its way to the WWE Network. Instead, I found a pretty bad quality version of it online and am using that. I apologize if anything is missing from this version.

IT’S THE RAW BOWL! There’s a band, cheerleaders and a trophy goes to the winner of the Raw Bowl match. This seemed to be Vince’s answer to the NCAA Bowl Games that usually take place on New Year’s Day. Vince and Lawler are on commentary as always. Lawler is sporting a Browns jersey like a total loser.

Raw Bowl
1-2-3 Kid and Sycho Sid w/ Ted Dibiase vs. Owen Hart and Yokozuna w/ Jim Cornette and Mr. Fuji vs. WWF Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon and Savio Vega vs. WWF Tag Team Champions The Smoking Gunns
There is so much to poke fun at here. Everyone is in practice jerseys. Yokozuna is wearing number 641, while Savio Vega sports “Uno” on his jersey and Kid has 1-2-3. During his entrance, Razor gets another gift from Goldust’s usher but beats him up and runs him off. Goldust watches the match from the entrance. Each team gets one timeout and it is being done under elimination rules. The ring is green to look like a field and Earl Hebner is actually dressed like a referee from the NFL. Since you can tag anyone, the Smoking Gunns end up against each other early. They do one or two moves before tagging Owen and Yokozuna. They hype it up but Owen just takes a shoulder block and tags Savio. There is some good action as we get a lot of quick tagging in and out. Sid comes in and Bart Gunn wisely backs away. When they wrestle, Bart surprisingly is able to slam him. Vince plugs the “Huckster” and the “Nacho Man”. Oh goodness. A commercial break comes and Savio is taking a beating, including the enziguri of death. Vince is just spraying football references all over the match. Savio gets the hot tag to Razor who calls for the Razor’s Edge on 1-2-3 Kid, only for Kid to call a timeout. A pissed off Razor does it anyway and Hebner throws a flag. Dibiase distracts him as Sid attacks Razor and Kid pins him to eliminate them at 9:43. Savio did call for timeout but it was missed. With them out, Bart takes the heat and a hot tag comes to Billy. He hits everything in sight, including Jim Cornette. Yokozuna makes the mistake of Banzai Dropping Owen, allowing Billy to eliminate him at 14:02. Again, Yokozuna seemed to be calling a timeout that was missed by the official. I wonder if that did that on purpose to parody the bad refs in the NFL. Sid beats the hell out of the Gunns while Lawler flirts with the Raw Bowl girl at ringside. Razor comes back out and gets involved as he knocks Kid off the top, allowing the Gunns to hit Sid with a cross body and score the victory.

Winners: The Smoking Gunns in 18:31
Some really ridiculous stuff here and the football references were way over the top. Still, it was at least somewhat entertaining. **½

HALFTIME REPORT ~ Dok Hendrix is running it and does this as a two minute drill, instead of the overly long NFL halftime shows. He plugs Diesel vs. Mabel tonight. He then hypes the Royal Rumble, which already has the rumble itself, Jarrett vs. Ahmed and Bret vs. Undertaker all set so far.

To fill time, they show the Arkansas Hog Pen match from the most recent In Your House between Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Henry Godwin in its entirety. I won’t recap it here since I did a review of that show a while back.

Diesel vs. King Mabel w/ Sir Mo
Mabel is still getting king treatment as he is carried out. Diesel attacks from behind, hits a big boot and defeats Mabel.

Winner: Diesel in 0:08
Oh. So this is the official end of Mabel’s push I guess.

Diesel also hits a Jackknife on Mo for good measure. Jerry Lawler tries to get a word with Diesel, who instead just takes Raw Bowl girl and leaves with her.

Backstage, the Brooklyn Brawler brings a Lombardi trophy out for the Smoking Gunns for winning the Raw Bowl. It’s a cheap trophy with his face on it (Steve Lombardi, get it?). They beat him up and run him off.

The big news is here! The first eleven names for the Royal Rumble have been announced. Diesel, Owen Hart, British Bulldog, Dork Funk Jr. (why?), Savio Vega, Bam Bam Bigelow, Barry Horowitz, King Mabel, Yokozuna, the returning Tatanka (goddammit) and the debut of THE MAN THEY CALL VADER! I love Vader so I’m all for this. It includes a video package of Vader working out

WRASSLIN WAR ROOM ~ This is the WWF’s horrible parody segments of Ted Turner, Macho Man and Hulk Hogan. Vince Russo appears as one of the executives. The gist of this is that Savage and Hogan are old and can’t do the moves that the new WWF generation can do. Funny enough, the first three WWF guys featured would all end up in WCW.

WCW Starrcade 1995 Results
I’d like to point out that this show got an awful buyrate of 0.36.

Jushin Thunder Liger def. Chris Benoit
Koji Kanemoto def. Alex Wright
Lex Luger def. Masahiro Chono
Johnny B. Badd def. Masa Saito
Shinjiro Otani def. Eddie Guerrero
Randy Savage def. Hiroyoshi Tenzan
Sting def. Kensuke Sasaki (WCW wins the World Cup of Wrestling 4-3)
Ric Flair def. Lex Luger and Sting in a triangle match
WCW World Heavyweight Championship: Ric Flair def. Randy Savage (c) to win his 12th World Title

Reliving Nitro
Episode #18
January 1st, 1996 | The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia

It’s the first Nitro of 1996!

Arn Anderson vs. Randy Savage
Raw started with lots of football talk, while WCW is giving us Arn vs. Savage. An angry Savage charges the ring and gets pounded on. It makes sense since Arn cost Savage the title at Starrcade. They brawl outside and once back in, Savage hits a big double axe handle for two. Now, it’s Arn Anderson so we get some great limb work as he delivers a single arm DDT to Savage’s bad arm. Arn removes the elbow tape and continues to work it. He just picks Savage apart for the next few minutes. Arn pulls out the foreign object from Starrcade but Savage gets it and lays him out with it behind the referee’s back. He gets the 1-2-3.

Winner: Randy Savage in 7:55
Solid little opener here. An Anderson’s work on the arm was top notch, though Savage’s selling left something to be desired. The finish made sense but felt rather sudden. **½

Brian Pillman and Chris Benoit rush out to contest the finish, but it doesn’t change.

Chris Benoit vs. Lord Steven Regal w/ Jeeves
During Regal’s entrance, Bischoff shits all over the Raw Bowl and announces that the Smoking Gunns win it. Benoit starts with some vicious headbutts. Commentary points out Hank Aaron being in the front row, which causes Mongo to cream himself. Regal works a great cravat. None of the commentators know what to call it. They trade suplexes of the German and butterfly variety, getting Regal a near fall. Benoit looks for a back superplex but Regal elbows away, so Benoit goes with the electric chair drop instead. Benoit misses a diving headbutt so Regal capitalizes and tries a tombstone. It gets countered and Benoit hits one of his own. Regal roll outside for a breather and Benoit flies out after him. Regal avoids it and Benoit goes splat. He rolls Benoit in and scores the pinfall.

Winner: Lord Steven Regal in 5:42
Similar to the last match, the Horseman makes a mistake and it costs him. This was short but never missed a beat and featured some really good, hard hitting stuff. ***

Mean Gene is in the ring and possibly blames the loss on Benoit boozing. Brian Pillman scolds his fellow Horsemen for starting 0-2 after Ric Flair won the World Title at Starrcade. Benoit defends himself by saying his record as a Horseman is great. He calls Regal lucky, so Pillman turns his attention to Arn. Arn says that their job is to keep the title on Ric but they have to spend too much time putting out Pillman’s fires. Kevin Sullivan and the Zodiac walk out looking for a fight. Jimmy Hart and the Giant hold them back to keep things from boiling over.

Lex Luger and Sting vs. The Super Assassins w/ Col. Robert Parker
Okay, so this feels outdated even for 1996. The Super Assassins are actually the Powers of Pain, though they only lasted a short time in WCW. As the match begins, Sgt. Craig Pittman comes up to the commentary booth and asks Mongo to manage him. Wow, he really is desperate. Mongo declines and reminds Pittman that he’s a sergeant and he needs to just go out and kick some damn ass. Meanwhile, the masked duo are working over Sting, who is much better suited to take a beating. Commentary continues to play the whole “IS LUGER TRUSTWORHTY?” angle. That’s seriously been the bulk of Nitro so far. Luger gets the hot tag, which the crowd responds well to, and he wins it with the Torture Rack while Sting gets the other assassin in the Scorpion Death Lock.

Winners: Lex Luger and Sting in 5:49
This was mostly a squash. It did the job and the crowd was hot for Luger and Sting despite the disappointing storyline. *½

Mean Gene is back to interview Jimmy Hart and the Giant. Jimmy says that he wants to work with the Horsemen to destroy Hulkamania. Giant then yells a ton in the microphone and most of it is too hard to understand.

WCW World Heavyweight Championship
Ric Flair (c) vs. Hulk Hogan
Crowd is hot for this. We get a lot of Hogan overpowering Flair and no selling everything. He lays into Flair in the corner but runs into a back elbow. While a lot of fans are hot for Hogan, there is a clear Flair contingent in a few sections. They fight outside and Hogan is again the one kicking the ass. Inside, Flair starts going after the leg and drops a knee right on it. Bischoff tries to talk about a cheap shot, but calls it a cheap shart, which is great. Flair locks in the Figure Four but Hogan reverses it. Hogan sells a suplex like it gives him a seizure. However, he kicks out and HULKS UP! Jimmy Hart shows up and distracts the referee. Arn Anderson sneaks in and hits Hogan with the foreign object from earlier. Hogan pops right back up and takes out Arn. He then picks up the object, which the referee sees and disqualifies him for some stupid reason.

Winner via disqualification: Ric Flair in 7:54
Paint by numbers Hogan/Flair match. They did most of their typical stuff while having the advantage of a hot crowd. Nothing special. **¼

The Four Horsemen all come in, but Hogan kicks their asses and has them lined up with the foreign object. They cower like he has a gun or something. The Giant comes in with a chair but Randy Savage gets it from him and stops anything from happening. After a commercial break, the former Mega Powers issue a challenge to Flair and Anderson next week. They also tease a secret weapon. Hogan also throws in a Toy Story quote for good measure.

Raw Rating: 2.6
Nitro Rating: 2.5

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Raw: Most of the show was devoted to a relatively fun but super overdone Raw Bowl match. I also enjoyed the quick Diesel squash as it signals the end for Mabel and adds to Diesel’s greatness in this era. However, I hate them showing a match from the recent PPV and the Ted Turner stuff sucked hard. 4.0

Nitro: A solid episode of Nitro here. While we still got some of the tired formulaic stuff like the constant stream of Sting/Luger tension and a lot of Mean Gene, most of the matches were at the very least enjoyable. They advanced most angles well and I love that we got to see a Benoit/Regal match. More of that please. 6.0