It’s time for another look at Monday Night Raws from 1996, and these next few build toward the 10th Survivor Series pay-per-view. And let me tell you, compared to the previous batches of shows I’ve looked at, business is picking up.
“Stone Cold” Steve Austin is finally getting the spotlight and time he deserves, and Bret Hart is back. Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Mankind are taking the next steps in their careers to become cornerstones of the company and Sycho Sid is on a mission to end the boyhood dream of Shawn Michaels.
So let’s jump right in and look at some more editions of Monday Night Raw.
October 21, 1996
This is the Raw following Buried Alive, and it features the return of Bret Hart and the Intercontinental Championship in the main event.
We start out with our favorite psychopath named Sid facing off with Owen Hart. They have a short little match where Hart has most of the offense and at some point Sid decides he’s done selling and hits a chokeslam on Owen.
He sets up the powerbomb and British Bulldog runs in for the DQ. The two beat on Sid for a little bit, (even if Sid can’t really sell well) and Shawn Michaels comes out for the save.
Of course, Sid gets hot because he’s a macho crazy person that doesn’t need any help. Sound familiar? These two are on a collision course for Survivor Series, and they don’t trust each other.
Next up is The Godwins taking on The Smoking Gunns. The Gunns are in the middle of a breakup, because Bart wants to wrestle, and Billy wants to stare at Sunny.
Because of Billy’s lust, the Gunns lose the match and The Godwins rack up another win on Raw. Lord help me.
The show perks up a bit when we get a clip from Livewire where Austin is going crazy. He’s been trapped “in a damn green room” and cuts a promo on how he went to Calgary and beat up all the Harts. It’s all a lie, but his delivery is fantastic and a lot of fun to listen to. Things like these are evidence of why Livewire should be on the Network.
We then finally get the return of Bret Hart, who is interviewed in the ring by Jim Ross. He had been gone since his contract ended at WrestleMania 12, and there were serious doubts about if he would come back to the WWF.
While I’m sure all the office guys and Vince McMahon knew the decision beforehand, most fans who were in the know were probably very concerned about it.
Bret talks about how he spent his time off, and specifically mentions the fact that WCW offered him a big money contract, and were very nice about it (this probably set Vince off) but he was going to stay in the WWF forever. To that last line, McMahon gives out a great “YEAH, ALL RIGHT!”
He then says that his sights are set on Shawn Michaels and the WWF Championship, and will accept the challenge of “one of the best wrestlers in the world today,” and face Stone Cold at Survivor Series.
This was a really solid promo that jumpstarted many of the moving parts that would get the WWF out of the rut they were currently in. This feud makes Stone Cold a star, it makes Shawn Michaels embrace his prickly nature which leads to DX being formed. Good stuff.
We then get our main event, which was supposed to be Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs Mr. Perfect, but due to a pre-match attack backstage by Helmsley, Perfect can’t compete. Gorilla Monsoon is out and keeping Perfect from wrestling. Out comes Marc Mero to defend the legends honor, and challenges Hunter to a match.
Of course, Helmsley won’t fight for nothing, and pressures him to put his Intercontinental Championship on the line. Perfect tells him to as well, and Mero agrees.
The two have a nice little match and then everything goes off the rails. The referee and Mero are down. Triple H is up and has a steel chair, ready to wallop Mero. Perfect gets in his way and takes the chair, and as Mero gets up, he’s clobbered right in the head.
Following this betrayal, Hunter pedigrees the Wildman and wins his first title in the WWF. A pretty good match with a swerve that was executed well, but made no sense. Why did they have to go through the injury ruse to team up together? Regardless, it doesn’t matter since Perfect will be heading to WCW in a month or so.
Overall, this was a good raw, with historical moments that lead to the Attitude Era, and a good main event that starts the ascension of Triple H.
Rating: 3 out of 5
October 28, 2018
This episode of Raw keeps ramping up the intensity, and builds to one of the most controversial segments in WWF history, and continues the Austin-Bret Hart feud.
But, we start with the debut of “The Real Double J” Jesse James, who is called Jeff Jarrett accidentally by Vince on commentary. He wrestles Salvatore Sincere (whose gimmick is so thin I couldn’t tell you what it is) in a nothing match. James wins with the pumphandle slam to the sound of crickets.
We then get a real mat classic with Crush taking on Aldo Montoya. This will get the WWF out of their business slump for sure. Crush wins in about three minutes with the heart punch, but the highlight is JR being as bored with this guy as I am.
He spends the whole match taking shots at Vince on a litany of topics, including undervaluing JR’s abilities as a commentator, and some of his booking decisions. It at least gives me a reason to keep the TV on during a Crush match.
Next, we get the first round of the Karate Fighters tournament. It’s blatant product placement by the WWF and it features odd combinations of WWF personalities battling with these weird toys that are like Rock Em’ Sock Em’ Robots with legs. They’re connected to a pole, and you just mash a button like a video game to get them to “attack.” Whichever one gets knocked off the podium first is the loser.
Todd Pettengill and Jerry Lawler host the tournament and treat it like the most serious thing ever. It’s fun to watch and our first match is Mr. Perfect vs Phineas Godwinn.
Perfect wins by telling P.I.G. that Dolly Parton is behind him. He turns around and Perfect wins. He proceeds to talk Phineas down and calls him a dumb hillbilly. It’s goofy stuff, but is much more entertaining than a Crush match or anything featuring Jesse James.
Also, throughout the show we see hype videos for the Survivor Series pay-per-view, which are interrupted by Stone Cold, who had just broken Brian Pillman’s ankle the previous day on WWF Superstars for bringing up Bret’s nickname in Austin’s promo.
The show is leading to an interview with Bret Hart live in his home, while Austin is doing an interview in the studio. He sees a problem with this, and takes it upon himself to make everyone in the backs’ jobs much harder.
He takes every chance he can get to smack talk Bret, and threatened him. When he gets cut off or technical difficulties arise, he sees it as a conspiracy. He’s a guy that is hungry to be at the top, and will do anything to get there.
Meanwhile, Bret is interviewed sitting at home, petting his cats, and talks about how he’s not worried about Austin. He’s faced some of the best wrestlers in the business and come out on top. It’s a great dichotomy that puts this feud to the next level.
Later in the interview, Vince plugs that next week Kevin Kelly will interview Pillman in his Cincinnati home. Austin then says he’ll be there too to finish the job, as a tease for next week. In the end, he gets mad and assaults a production guy and gets arrested for the first (of many) times.
These interviews are great, and are only the beginning of what Stone Cold would become. His presence leaps out from anything else going on during the show as raw and real, and it helps you connect with him and maybe begrudgingly, root for him.
Elsewhere on this show was the continuation of the breakup of The Smoking Gunns. Billy faces Freddie Joe Floyd in a match, where he’s once again distracted by Sunny, who’s doing commentary. Billy wins, but Bart comes over to tussle with him.
Both guys are fighting over Sunny, an attractive woman that uses her looks to manage wrestlers to the top. She manipulates them to get herself moved up, and is really only interested in having winners and champions on her resume.
But these guys don’t realize that, and have no real character traits to get invested in, so you just want to sit on your hands and hope this breakup meets a quick merciless end. It’s a good idea in theory, but the execution is lacking.
The main event is Shawn Michaels facing The British Bulldog. They have a decent match, but in what has become a pattern in Michaels’ matches, Owen interferes for the DQ and Sycho Sid evens the odds.
It’s a typical finish that happens too often today, where the wrestlers are “protected” by a shmoz finish that really hurts everyone involved. Think of every Seth Rollins 2014-15 match as examples.
This match also continues the Sid and Shawn are buddies (?) storyline. They give an uneasy fist bump to each other, but it will only get worse from here.
Overall a Raw where all the bad stuff was canceled out by some good wrestling and promo segments.
Rating: 3 out of 5
November 4, 1996
This Raw is notable for featuring a controversial segment that almost got the show kicked off the air due to its disturbing content. It also included other feuds progressing toward the Survivor Series pay-per-view.
Sprinkled throughout this show were interview segments with Kevin Kelly and Brian Pillman in his Cincinnati home. Tensions are high, since Stone Cold made his intentions clear of storming the interview and beating Pillman up.
Pillman has friends guarding the house, and makes clear that should Austin break through, he has a pistol ready to go. He makes it clear that “Austin 3:16 won’t be able to stand up to ‘Pillman 9 millimeter gun.’” I don’t know if adding gun to the end of that was necessary. He looks completely unhinged, and the announcers treat the reveal like a huge deal.
And it was. Something crazy like this had real gravity in the 90s and had never been seen in wrestling, where usually the biggest threat to a wrestler was getting struck by the ring bell or a steel chair.
This brought an aspect of realism into the show that didn’t sit well with many viewers, and helped blur the line between real and fake. Just wait a year and stuff like this will be the norm.
Plus we get Austin taking out Pillman’s buddies by throwing toy cars at them and attempting to drown them in kiddie pools. It is the funniest thing you can see in 1996 WWF.
Then Austin breaks the basement door with a tire iron, and makes his way to Pillman’s living room. He promptly points the gun at Austin, and starts screaming. Then his wife starts screaming. And Kevin Kelly starts screaming. Cut to static and fade to black.
The show then ends with Austin coming back, and Pillman’s friends blocking the shot, while Pillman curses and says “Let him go, I’m going to kill that son of a b****!” and “You don’t know who you’re f****** with!” Really heavy stuff for 96.
Keep in mind, this happens in chunks throughout the broadcast. So right after the gun is pointed at Austin the first time, they cut to the next round of the Karate Fighters tournament. It’s such a contrast, and only makes the gun segments stand out more.
This show is worth a watch for the gun segments alone, but what else happened?
The opening match was Goldust vs The Stalker (who’s a babyface?) which is pretty boring and ends with a brawl between every member of the survivor series team. We see the Rock make his Raw debut by making a poor attempt at a crossbody.
Also going on is the return of the recently buried Undertaker. It is announced he’ll be facing Mankind at Survivor Series with Paul Bearer locked above the ring in a shark cage.
They show footage from a live event where Paul Bearer and Co. are interviewed and interrupted by Taker’s booming voice and a threatening doll of Bearer inside a cage lowered to the ring.
Then we see the next round of the illustrious Karate Fighters tournament, where Sycho Sid beats Marlena in a battle of worked toy shoots (poor choice of words).
The following match is The Sultan crushing fan favorite Alex “The Pug” Porteau. I really thought “The Pug” was gonna pull out a victory. Next.
After this is a debate between Shawn Michaels and Sid where they take little pot shots at each other. It’s nothing bad, but nothing really good, until Jim Cornette, Vader, Owen Hart and The British Bulldog storm the ring and brawl with the two.
The glorious WWF podium is destroyed in the process, and Owen hits Sid in the back with a chair. Michaels gets the upper hand and takes the same chair and clears the ring. Sid sees Michaels with the chair and thinks he hit him.
Before any violence can happen, zebras separate the two and it’s announced that Owen and Bulldog will defend their titles against Shawn and Sid. Will they coexist and win the titles? Probably not.
And then we get our main event: Fake Razor vs Marc Mero. The match goes on for seven long minutes that consist of JR yelling about how good Fake Razor is, and Vince and King freaking out about Pillman and Austin. They don’t even care about this snoozer of a match. Imposter Razor wins in the end.
Then the show ends with the aforementioned segment of Pillman pointing the gun and cursing. Raw goes off the air without any resolution.
Overall, this show sucked aside from the gun angle. The funniest part is due to the angry phone calls and backlash from the USA Network, the best part of this show won’t be mentioned for months, in fear of Raw being canceled.
Rating: 2 out of 5
November 11, 1996
This is the go-home show to Survivor Series, where all the last major pushes to big matches happen, and another match in the Karate Fighters tournament.
The opener is Michaels and Sid facing Owen and Bulldog for the WWF Tag Team Championships. I wonder how this will end up, with two rivals (one’s name is Sycho spelled wrong for Pete’s sake) having to put their issues aside to fight for a title they don’t really want? Surely there will be no miscommunications.
They actually have a good match, where right when Michaels is about to hit Sweet Chin Music on Bulldog, he gets out of the way and Sid gets caught in the crossfire. The Harts retain.
Sid and Michaels fight each other for a moment before security breaks it up and sends them to separate locker rooms. Later in the night they both cut promos about their match in six days.
The second match is a real barn burner, Mankind destroying Freddie Joe Floyd. The Executioner is with Bearer and the Kind man and looks completely lost. Nothing compelling here.
Next up is Kevin Kelly interviewing Rocky Maivia before his debut in the Survivor Series. Maivia talks about his hopes and aspirations to give wrestling all his effort and to make his family proud and live up to his lineage. It’s a nice little interview, made funnier when you remember where these two will be a few years down the line.
After this, we get a first-round match in the Karate Fighters tournament, with Doc Hendrix (aka Michael Hayes) facing Sable. Sable doesn’t really talk and Hendrix is annoying. Sable wins and Hendrix acts like the plastic fighting hurt him…
Our main event is “Stone Cold” Steve Austin fighting Bob “Not Yet Hardcore” Holly in a ten-minute match. It’s pretty boring and the main reason for the length is so we can see Bret Hart watching and scouting Austin’s style in a fake locker room. Austin wins, and decides to go find Hart and break into the room, which is locked. So the best thing he can manage is yelling through the keyhole at him. It’s pretty funny, but not Austin’s best work. That’ll come on Sunday.
This was a decent Raw, nothing major really happened, but nothing offensive happened either. An ok go-home show for Survivor Series. I’ll add a point since I didn’t have to see The Sultan, Crush or The Godwinns.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Overall, this batch of Raws was much better than the past few months worth. We got great promos with Bret Hart, Austin and the Pillman angle. Fake Diesel and Fake Razor don’t take center stage, and all the matches are built well.
Thankfully, the shows keep getting better, because they start focusing on the right people. Check back next Monday for my review of Survivor Series 1996, which is a much more pivotal show than you may remember. Thanks for reading!
Henry Wolski
Executive Editor