Week 7
RAW: 10/16/95
Grand Rapids, MI
I’m just going to point out that this is Week 4 of the tapings at Grand Rapids. This is also the go home show for the In Your House PPV.
Isaac Yankem, Jerry Lawler and Bret Hart all cut promos with dental puns about tonight’s Steel Cage match.
We now have the “new” RAW theme. Unfortunately it’s bland and it sucks.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Doink the Clown
I had no idea Doink made it this long into 1995.
Apparently Mabel was fined $7,500 for what he did to The Undertaker last week. Gorilla Monsoon is announcing a replacement for Undertaker at In Your House later tonight.
Doink grabbing HHH’s nose is a bit funny.
Doink somehow makes himself dizzy and HHH takes him down.
HHH pins Doink. Pedigree wins. Match was decent I suppose, but not exactly the hot opener to keep people from switching to Nitro.
Barry Horowitz tries to teach Hakushi American concepts like baseball. What a waste of Hakushi.
Monsoon selects Yokozuna to face Mabel. Oh boy.
WWF Tag Team Championship
The Smokin’ Gunns© vs. PG-13
I don’t know if PG-13 was supposed to be taken seriously, but JC Ice pretty much makes an ass out of himself here.
Lawler actually adds some psychology into this match, saying PG-13 are purposely acting stupid to take advantage of the Gunns being overconfident…and then that’s what happens!
Billy Gunn pins Wolfie D to retain the titles. PG-13 got some offense in, but ultimately this was a squash. You know considering the Tag Team Division consisted of the Gunns, the Godwinns, The New Rockers and the Bodydonnas for the next year PG-13 getting a shot might have been a good idea. Ah well.
Bertha Faye vs. Alundra Blayze next week for the Women’s title.
Random British Bulldog interview that happened at a house show. The Bulldog doesn’t feel respected. And he’s gonna beat Diesel for the title.
Ahmed Johnson interview. He takes about how his mom made minimum wage to let him go to school and such. Hard to understand.
Dean Douglas vs. Joe Morgan
We’re still doing the jobber thing eh? Clearly Vince didn’t have anything left on this taping.
Notably, the Shawn Michaels getting beat up by 10 men in Syracuse deal took place the weekend before this RAW. Surprisingly Lawler says it was because HBK mouthed off at a nightclub (closer to the truth). HBK guarantees he’ll be at In Your House…although we all know how that went.
Dean Douglas wins by pin. Fisherman’s Suplex wins it.
Vince and Lawler run down the upcoming In Your House card.
Goldust promo on Marty Jannetty. It’s short, yet somehow a lot better than the Ahmed one we got earlier.
Now a Paul Bearer promo. He’s worried Taker will never look the same again and never be the same again, but he’s coming back soon and he’s going to crush Mabel and Yokozuna’s soul.
Steel Cage Match
Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem
There’s also a smaller cage at ringside that Jerry Lawler must enter if he interferes in the match.
Yankem takes some big bumps off the top rope when tryng to climb the cage. This has been pretty slow, but at least Yankem’s trying.
Apparently Lawler switched the locks on the cage door, and when Bret tries to escape the ref can’t unlock the door.
Bret locks Yankem in the Sharpshoter then tries to climb out, but Lawler knocks him back in. Lawler gets locked in the small cage as a result. The cage also rises and Lawler’s apparently afraid of heights.
Bret Hart seems to be going at half speed here. A few times now he’s fallen and messed up straddling himself on the top rope.
Lawler gets a nosebleed and starts crying. He’s stealing the show here.
Bret Hart wins in 19:50. Bret gets a bulldog and a top rope forearm before escaping. This went way too long and was pretty boring. Yankem tried for sure, but he just wasn’t any good yet. Bret seemed to be going at half speed. And there’s a reason for that.
So apparently this show was just a leftover of whatever unused bits that was filmed for the tapings. Despite this being the go home show for the PPV we got a pretty horrible show. HHH vs. Doink? Dean Douglas vs. a jobber? It was written that Bret vs. DDS wasn’t even going to air on RAW, but it had to after the WWF realized it needed to fill the 4th taping.
Last week the WWF gave us a really hot match and post-match beatdown that at least helped sell the PPV. But this week? Nothing. At least for Bret he would be reinserted into the title picture after finishing off Yankem here.
The WWF had given us some solid shows since this Monday Night War began, but this was easily the worst one so far. And to no one’s surprise no one bought the PPV either.
The rating held though, so at least the WWF had that going for them.
TV Rating: 2.6 (0.0)
Grade: C
Nitro: 10/16/95
Albany, GA
WCW clearly wins the opening video package war now.
Bobby Heenan makes fun of Steve McMichael’s dog and even that’s funny. The Brian is truly a genius.
On WCW Pro Sting agreed to be Ric Flair’s partner for Nitro and Halloween Havoc. Sting warns Flair that if he crosses him Flair is dead.
Heenan really hypes up Sting teaming with Flair, telling us that it hasn’t happened since 1990.
Television Championship
Diamond Dallas Page© vs. Johnny B. Badd
Page beats Badd down with the title belt and gets DQed. No match here. Page is hilarious though, pinning Badd and then using the Badd Blaster when he counts his own three.
Chris Benoit vs. Eddy Guerrero
This is Benoit’s WCW debut (after he appeared last week).
Great headscissors sequence from Benoit. Fast paced action so far.
Eddy goes flying and takes out Benoit on the floor!
Guerrero sends Benoit into the post…then Guerrero runs and slams into the post himself. That looked so real…
Springboard Tornado DDT from Guerrero!
Crazy hurricanrana sequence from Guerrero! Great stuff here all around.
Benoit with a stiff as hell powerbomb! Wow! Fans gasped after that one.
Chris Benoit pins Eddy Guerrero in 8:45. Dragon suplex wins it. Awesome match that not only show cased Benoit, but also made Guerrero look great too. Great action.
Apparently WCW is creating a Cruiserweight Division. That would be awesome for the next couple of years for sure.
Mean Gene tries to sell the hotline. Someone from the WWF was fired! It was Bill Watts. He also teases information about a wrestler getting beat up by a fan. He’s referring to HBK there.
Taskmaster and The Giant are on their way down.
Promo is all about Sullivan being evil and Hogan having an evil side too. Sullivan has to say the word evil about 20 times. It’s still hard to take the whole Monster Truck deal seriously.
Disco Inferno is out dancing again.
Meng vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan
Duggan falls down for no reason to move out of the way of an elbow drop.
Meng wins in 2:00. The spike makes Duggan give up. Only two minutes, but it was pretty bad anyway. Just a win to give Meng as he prepares to face Lex Luger in a couple weeks at Halloween Havoc.
A black clad Hulk Hogan cuts a promo on the Giant and how he’s evil too. He mentions too that Hulkamania makes promotors cry because it’s bigger than the whole promotion. Another shot at Vince I guess? He actually says he’s going to bury the Giant next toAndre as well. Ugh.
Sting and Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson and Flyin’ Brian
Sting doesn’t come out and Flair goes at it alone.
Flair does pretty well nonetheless as he chops everything that moves.
Pillman and Anderson finally get the upperhand…and here comes Sting!
Sting gets tagged in and goes crazy on Pillman and Anderson. Crowd is going wild for the Stinger too.
Sting and Flair win by countout. Sting tosses Anderson and he doesn’t make it back. Of course, this was a really good set up for Halloween Havoc which I won’t spoil here. Really fun main event even if it had a bad finish. Sting looked like the biggest star in the business here. Sting tells Flair he has a lot of guts fighting his former brother in Anderson and Flair calls Sting the best. Man this angle is awesome.
It had some dull spots, but this was a really fun show just for the main event and Benoit vs. Guerrero.
TV Rating: 2.2 (-0.4)
Grade: B+
Weekly Review
It’s easy this week. RAW was a poor show at a bad time. Jobber matches and poorly taped shows aren’t going to cut it in the Monday Night War era. Nitro gave us a hot Benoit vs. Guerrero match and a fun main event with Sting and Flair teaming up. It’s a testament to how deep WCW’s roster was here that we got a great show despite no Randy Savage or Lex Luger.
The ratings told a different story as RAW won the week. I assume this was because we did get a really good show last week and people cared about Bret Hart. Curious to see what we get next week rating wise from RAW. WCW still needs time to establish their brand, and it’s not like they’re getting killed on the ratings front or anything. But show quality wise, WCW won the week easily.
TV Ratings Score: 3-1-2 RAW
Grade Score: 2-2-2