PWPNation.com Presents
FROM THE VAULT
A six man tag match. That’s…pretty much it. All this RAW has to offer is a single six man tag match. Somehow I don’t see this going well.
YOKOZUNA, OWEN HART & BRITISH BULLDOG vs. DIESEL, SHAWN MICHAELS & UNDERTAKER
The show starts out with Camp Cornette already in the ring because apparently we needed to save some time for the riveting action later. You’ll see what I mean. Either way, the show is pretty much destined to pale in comparison to Nitro, so let’s just move on.
Also, Vince makes a really big deal about how this is the special Columbus Day edition of RAW because apparently that matters. It’s not like this is a special show or anything. We get a vignette of HBK trying to pretend that he’s not a complete twat, Diesel trying to pretend that he has any talent whatsoever and Undertaker trying to pretend that he has some sort of unshakable alliance with the two. Yeah, I don’t know what it was with the WWF back then, but the faces and heels might as well be two giant stables. Everyone is in cahoots with each other no matter what makes sense.
Either way, we hype HBK vs. Dean Douglas for the next In Your House and for some reason Diesel comes out last, to a umch smaller pop than Michaels. Which is understandable because HBK has any wrestling ability whatsoever, unlike Nash.
We start off the match with some good old chain wrasslin’, which ends in a complete burial for Camp Cornette. They pretty much get destroyed by the faces for a while while Vince screams incoherently. For whatever reason they decide they need to replay that entire sequence while Diesel beats down Bulldog. For some reason, Undertaker attacks him on the outside and nobody gets disqualified or even punished for it. Taker drags Yoko around the ring for a while, hits Old School and gets Samoan dropped.
We get constant shots of Jim Cornette mugging on the outside, a few sit-up spots and a pointless Waylon Mercy interference, which leads up to a rock bottom on Shawn from Yoko that actually looked pretty nice. Yoko tags in Owen (the most uselessly booked of the three) who proceeds to almost immediately tag in Bulldog for the “double arms into the solar plexus area”, as Vince calls it.
We get a bench press slam from Bulldog, which is always a pretty cool spot, and we get another shot of Cornette mugging. Taker and Diesel distract the ref while HBK gets triple teamed in the corner because every tag match to ever be booked has to have the same spot sequence.
We get a weird little spot where Owen grabs Bulldog’s hand for leverage during an abdominal stretch and the ref just soccer punts it off the rope. Also, Dean Douglas comes out to the ring for another pointless fake interference. Owen and Yoko do the wishbone spot which always makes me cringe. Some more generic face-in-peril leads to a delayed suplex and a near fall.
Jerry Lawler rambles about something or other, which Vince completely ignores. We get a rest hold, a DEVASTATING MANEUVER and a few near falls, because for some reason they’re deciding to prolong this match as long as possible. They also smash cut to commercial break right as Owen jumps off the top rope, which is always nice, and we get the stupid double hot tag spot because of course we do. Why is Undertaker even in this match?
Owen hits Diesel in the back as he runs the rope, Undertaker breaks up the pin and Yoko runs in to hit a legdrop, which gives Bulldog the cover. After the match we get an unorganized beatdown that’s way too long with Mabel and Dean Douglas.
So yeah, this match was pretty much just an angle. Essentially, we just got an excuse to try (and fail) to get heat for the heels. I’m glad they gave all three of these feuds all of about ten minutes combined to flourish. We get a replay of last Monday’s Bret vs. Pierre match and, because they desperately needed to fill time for some reason, we get a FULL REPLAY of Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem from SummerSlam.
No, I’m not even joking, they literally show the entire match. This is pretty much an excuse to sell next week’s steel cage match with Bret vs. Yankem (not exactly up to Arn vs. Flair standards) and to mention that Lawler will be locked in a cage if he interferes.
FATU vs. SKIP
We get some more replays, a mention of Fatu’s stupid gimmick and a commercial for the WWF World Tour. Skip leapfrogs over Fatu and does some jumping jacks, apparently just to waste some time. Like an idiot, he tries to bash Fatu’s head into the turnbuckle, and Sunny does the interference.
Fatu looks for a second like he’s going to fall for the interference and then hits “what a nice maneuver that was” (a punch) to fake Candido out. Of course, it doesn’t matter because he proceeds to spear the ringpost and gets back suplexed for his troubles.
Because there’s a manager the camera constantly cuts to her mugging, as is standard. Skip hits some headbutts on Fatu, which prompts Vince to just straight call him an idiot.
Monday Night RAW providing you unbiased commentary! Either way, this match is painfully dull. Skip tries to hit a diving headbutt on Fatu, which he completely no-sells because…because Samoan, I guess?
He tries to go to the top rope, gets successfully distracted by Sunny and smashed into the ring post. Skip tries to hit a superplex, bitchslaps Fatu a few times and continues to look like a complete idiot as he loses. This is how to build a successful talent, folks – have them lose in the stupidest possible ways constantly.
We get a pointless Doc Hendrix spot in the back where he teases going into HBK and Diesel’s locker room and doesn’t actually end up doing it so the whole segment was pointless.
We get a Bulldog interview in the back to end the awful, terrible show. Maybe instead of filming this complete waste of time and effort they should have just skipped a week and put on something nice next week.
