From The Vault
THE MONDAY NIGHT WARS
RAW VS. NITRO
SEPTEMBER 11, 1995
So, I decided to cheat bit. Instead of going through every single god awful wrestling show from 1993 to 1995, I skipped directly to September 11, 1995, to start one of the big arcs of this marathon. Yes, we’re going to analyze the Monday Night Wars from episode to episode.
The first section of this article will be RAW #125, and the second section will feature Nitro #2. Why not #1? Well, for some reason, there wasn’t an episode of RAW concurrent to the first episode of Nitro, so I guess we’ll have to do with this. So, strap in your seatbelts, it’s time for a bumpy ride through every single event and plotline of the Monday Night Wars.
MONDAY NIGHT RAW #125
STATE OF AFFAIRS
WWF CHAMPION: DIESEL
INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPION: SHAWN MICHAELS
WWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS: OWEN HART & YOKOZUNA
To start the show, we get a recap of Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam ’95, which leads into the HBK vs. Sid announcement. Also, Razor Ramon vs. a newly heel turned British Bulldog. Hey, actual matches, that’s new! We get a weird intro that seems to have parts of The Rock’s heel titantron in it with the most generic song ever written by man in the background. Our commentators are Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler, and our opening match is Razor Ramon vs. British Bulldog.
We get a recap of Dean Douglas getting pimp smacked by Razor at SummerSlam, which for some reason happened. Yup, everyone is free to be a dick to you as long as you were a dick to them first – wrestling rules. So, some background on this match – the British Bulldog turned heel by caving in Diesel’s skull and Razor Ramon is fresh off his ladder match with HBK at SummerSlam.
Hey, I’ll take weak connections over jobber matches any day. Razor throws a toothpick at Jim Cornette. Depending on where that hit that could pierce his eyeball or cause mild annoyance. Razor, your strategy is sort of failing here. Jerry Lawler does a callback to SummerSlam ’92, which just amazes me that anyone actually remembers something that happened over a year ago.
Bulldog also does his egregiously delayed suplex, which is always entertaining. Man, Razor sure is recovering fast for someone who supposedly was just in a grueling ladder match 24 hours ago. No, I’m not implying anything at all, why do you ask? Alright, I’ll be fair, this is actually a pretty alright match so far. Bulldog goes for the running slam and for some reason goes to the top rope. Obviously, this fails, since he gets chucked off by a hulked up Razor. He also does his fallaway slam, which is pretty much perfectly sold by Bulldog.
We get a ref bump, Razor hits the Razor’s Edge and chicanery takes place, that chicanery being in the form of Dean Douglas. The 1-2-3 Kid interferes to make the save and promptly gets his shit kicked in. Wow, what a failure. The running slam is also interrupted by Kid, who accidentally splashes Razor and causes a disqualification.
We get a post-match beatdown and an interview with Razor and Kid. If I were Razor I’d be pretty pissed considering Kid completely blew everything sky high. Vince carefully avoids calling Kid a dumbass, and we get some conflict between Razor and Kid to end the segment, which sets up a Kid vs. Razor match for next week on RAW. Basically, Kid complains about Razor treating him like a kid, which leads Razor to treat him like a kid and then accept the challenge. Man, what a dick. We get a video package for Camp Cornette vs. Men on a Mission for next week’s RAW. Up next, we get a jobber match with the Smoking Gunns.
Our resident goons for tonight are Rad Radford and the Brooklyn Brawler. The jobbers actually get decent looking offense, but it doesn’t really matter since they’re jobbers. Brawler and Radford horrifically botch a simple spot shortly before the end, which is probably the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen. A vignette for Goldust plays to establish his character as…uh…er. I think he’s…supposed to be a…film critic?
Yeah, I never really got it. He talks shit about Undertaker of all people and just generally acts weird. Isaac D. Yankem comes out to the ring to his horribly obnoxious dental drill theme song for a jobber match against Scotty 2 Hotty in an awful color vomit singlet.
Also, why does a dentist have shitty teeth? I mean, yeah, the implication is he’s a bad dentist, but if you went to the dentist and he had teeth rotting out of his skull would you trust him? Jerry Lawler shit talks peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while Yankem drills the jobber (pun almost definitely intended) with a DDT.
A promo package for In Your House that could probably give people seizures really tells us nothing. We have a Triple Header match with Diesel and HBK putting their titles against the line against Owen and Yokozuna who are…also putting their titles on the line.
Yeah, it’s weird.
Basically, if one of the faces gets pinned, their title goes to the heel that pinned them. That’s needlessly complicated, but okay. We also get Bret Hart vs. Pierre from the Quebecers, who’s turned into a pirate, Razor Ramon vs. Dean Douglas and Bam Bam Bigelow vs. British Bulldog. Wow, great to see a pay-per-view full of RAW filler matches.
Our main event, HBK vs. Sid for the Intercontinental title, starts with some guy talking about how you can buy an HBK hat and shades package for 25 bucks. Huh. Interesting. At this point, Shawn is pretty close to his prime, so this shouldn’t be too bad…but then again, it is Sid. Vince tries really hard to sell Shawn as a face at ringside, which is weird because he’s pretty much already over as it stands, and we’re not even in the “crowd cheers for every face no matter who they are” era anymore. The match starts with some good old ‘Sid is an idiot’ spots, which leads to him getting knocked out of the ring and a lot of stalling. Michaels skins the cat, caves Sid’s chest cavity in with a dropkick and immediately gets locked in a headlock.
Man, you can really tell the difference in style between complete dick backstage politician HBK of the 90s and reformed locker room leader HBK of the mid to late 2000s. He even wrestles like an unlikable douchebag, it’s really quite incredible. Michaels flips over the top rope, gets soccer punted in the stomach and falls to the outside of the ring, which leads to Ted DiBiase kicking him on the outside.
Oh yeah, Ted DiBiase is here, I forgot to mention that. Now, if Sid wasn’t stupid, he would drag Michaels back into the ring, because you can’t lose the title via countout. Fortunately it doesn’t matter since Shawn is stupid and goes back into the ring anyway.
After the commercial break, Sid kips up, chokeslams Michaels and sets up the powerbomb. Obviously, this fails, and Michaels hits a back body drop to counter. We get more of Sid being an idiot and getting reversed in the most embarrassing ways possible, which is basically the entire point of Shawn Michaels comebacks. At the end of the comeback, Shawn hits a triple Sweet Chin Music to end the match.
Wow, it actually took three superkicks to put him down. Yup, they sure are trying to protect this talentless hack at the expense of the future of the business. We get a commercial for In Your House where the WWF roster invades some dude’s house, followed by a pointless interview with Diesel and HBK to end the show.
MONDAY NITRO #2
STATE OF AFFAIRS
WCW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION: HULK HOGAN
WCW UNITED STATES CHAMPION: STING
WCW TELEVISION CHAMPION: THE RENEGADE
WCW WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS: BUNKHOUSE BUCK & DICK SLATER
After dissecting this week’s pretty admittedly decent RAW, let’s see how Nitro stacks up in their first concurrent run. Our commentators are Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan and Steve “Mongo” McMichael. We immediately spoil the end of RAW’s main event (yes, they did do this more than once) and get a recap of Lex Luger and Hulk Hogan yelling at each other from the debut episode of Nitro.
Yup, we’re really going to get a feud with Hulk Hogan and the guy who was supposed to be a replacement for him.
Our first match is Sabu vs. Alex Wright, which is essentially an excuse to show off Sabu. The only thing I remember about Sabu, not being a regular ECW watcher, was that he was completely insane. Which…I think was most of the point of his character, actually.
You’ll notice a common problem with tonight’s episode of Nitro, which starts with this match. Sabu flips over the top rope and misses his chair vault, flying right into the barricade. Alex Wright does some pretty nice looking dropkicks, but it sort of ruins the flow of the match when he keeps hitting them. Repeatedly. He also flips over the top rope to the outside.
Yeah, this spot happens all the time on early Nitro episodes, and I really don’t know why. It’s supposed to be an amazing spot, but we’ve gotten two of them in this opening filler match alone. Sabu does a thing off the top rope that I’m not really knowledgeable enough to call, which wins him the match.
Yup, this is the recurring problem with this episode of Nitro…this match had no flow whatsoever. In fact, Sabu is still beating him up on the outside as we speak. It’s like watching a match from a wrestling video game. After the match, Sabu dives neck-first into Wright, putting him through a table. In response, Nick Patrick reverses the decision and disqualifies him post-match. Uh…are you allowed to do that?
Up next, we get an interview with Ric Flair, where he complains about Arn Anderson staying in his hotel room while Ric Flair went limousine riding or something. Lex Luger of all people interrupts this to say…nothing. That was completely fucking pointless. He literally only came out here to say “Ric, you are too much” and then left. Thanks, Lex.
Up next we get a match between barely repackaged IRS and Sting. Yup, he’s now “V.K. Wallstreet”. We spoil the main event of RAW again while Sting makes his egregiously long entrance. We get the announcement that Big Van Vader has been kicked off of Team Hogan at Fall Brawl while Sting smacks IRS in the face repeatedly.
The commentators constantly talk shit about him from being from the WWF, while we also talk shit about WWF, calling it the “bush leagues”. Wow, Eric Bischoff really is a cocky son of a bitch, huh? I mean, for a guy making the same mistakes the WWF did, he’s pretty condescending.
Also, Steve McMichael constantly calls it “The WCW”, which annoys the piss out of me every time it’s said. What? Oh, yeah, there’s a match going on. Sting is still murdering IRS, so it’s not like it really matters. The Stinger Splash and a flying crossbody ends the match. Yeah, again, that really had no flow whatsoever.
Except this time instead of random spot monkey spots it was IRS getting his face rearranged for 5 minutes straight. I guess if you really hate IRS you could watch that match for some kicks, but otherwise skip it. We get Scott Norton vs. Randy Savage, which is another ‘Randy Savage vs. someone literally everybody hates’ squash match. I don’t even really know why everyone hates Scott Norton.
I guess he beat up the commentators or something? I dunno, it’s been a while since I watched the first episode of Nitro. Norton attacks Savage before the bell and almost immediately gets countered and double axe handled off the top rope. Man, how is it that axe handles never look any good?
Savage immediately jumps into a bear hug, which for some reason Norton only holds for like 2 seconds. Dude, you could have won the match. He hits a sort of shoddy looking powerbomb on Savage to follow up, which gets him a near fall. Good god, this guy is awful.
Seriously, this has only been going on for like 5 minutes and it’s just completely abysmal. Why is Savage only going up against plugs? He can have incredible matches and instead he’s sitting on Nitro in front of a dead crowd facing a talentless hack. Eventually, Savage finally counters it, but just as the match is starting to get decent the Dungeon of Doom interrupts. Savage hits an elbow and pins the scrub for the win. Good god, what the hell was that nonsense? We get some pointless dissension in the Dungeon of Doom after like 5 people failed to stop one dude from winning a match. What’s with the failed interference this week?
We immediately transition to the main event, which is Hulk Hogan vs. Lex Luger for the WCW title. Yup, there’s no way this won’t be shit. I’ve never particularly liked Hulk Hogan and Lex Luger is just the living, breathing picture of mediocrity, so I can only hope this is mercifully short. We get some pointless chain wrestling to establish the fallacy that either of these two have any talent whatsoever and Luger bully shoves Hogan a few times.
Seriously, if you want to make a Hulk Hogan vs. Lex Luger match at all entertaining, chain wrestling is not the way to go. I’m not joking when I say that for 95% of this match absolutely dick all happens. It’s the most boring match imaginable. Eventually, Luger locks in the torture rack and for some reason releases it. The cover gets a near fall, and we get a hulk up and legdrop for the win. Oh, but wait, the Dungeon of Doom interferes to make it a disqualification!
Wow, how incredibly insulting.
To end the show, Lex Luger joins Team Hogan. Great.
THE RUNDOWN
Okay, so let me relay my two experiences tonight. Monday Night RAW was actually above average. Razor Ramon vs. British Bulldog was fairly enjoyable, Michaels vs. Sid was alright when Michaels had the offense, and the jobber matches were actually inoffensive for once. The commentary team of Jerry Lawler and Vince McMahon actually shockingly worked, and I’d overall recommend giving the show a watch if you have the WWE Network.
On the other hand…Nitro. Guys, I’ve gotta be honest here, I can tolerate things that are bad for entertaining reasons. When things are bad for entertaining reasons, you have a lot to say about them. This episode of Nitro was so hard to write up because it was just so…ungodly boring. None of the matches went over 7 minutes. Five minutes after watching the show, I’ve already mostly forgotten it.
I’m not even joking when I say this had to have taken about 20 sittings to write up because I would immediately think of about a hundred more things that I could be doing that would be more fun than watching it. It was terrible. Which is disappointing, because as far as I remember Nitro #1 was actually really good.
It’s an incredible disappointment, but the first point has to go to RAW. Sorry, Nitro, try not to be so unfathomably boring next time around.
WWF 1 – WCW 0
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