late October Raw from 1997

[Guest DeputyHawk]

Was flipping through my old raw notes from 1997, and had nothing to do so thought I’d share the love from five years ago this very week. No match ratings, as it’s just observations culled from notes made at the time with a bit of historical perspective thrown in. If you like you like, if you don’t you don’t, but all comments welcome and open for discussion.

 

Not sure if I should post this in Smarks Krew or Old School, but I’ll try here cause it’s not really a rant, more a reminiscence.

 

WWF Raw (Oct 27th, 1997)

 

1—The Nation Of Domination accuse The Hart Foundation of spraying their dressing room with racial slurs last week. Egged on by Degeneration X, Faarooq attacks World champion Bret Hart. Bret wasn’t happy about the racism storyline at all, but this was at the height of the ’Gang Warz’ faction action, and two weeks later Montreal had happened and he was gone, so his disapproval was pretty much irrelevant to pretty much everyone.

 

2—Hunter Hearst Helmsley beat Goldust. Goldust was in temporary limbo, his feud with Brian Pillman having been cut somewhat short by Pillman dying three weeks earlier. Aside from the obvious tragedy, it was actually a pretty good angle too, with Pillman’s X-Files videos of him doing Marlena pretty damn controversial at the time. Hey, at least she was living. I miss Russo, at least his shit was occasionally funny.

 

3—Jim Cornette makes a public announcement to tell us that Hulk Hogan & Roddy Piper are rubbish. Fair enough. I think WCW’s Halloween Havoc ‘Age In The Cage’ had either just happened or was just about to happen, no doubt urinating from a vast height on any buy-rates Vince was garnering at the time, so I guess he thought he’d stamp his feet a bit.

 

4—Ahmed Johnson beat Intercontinental champion Owen Hart by DQ when Steve Austin ran in. Austin was under a no-compete clause which lasted between SummerSlam (where Owen fucked up his neck) & Survivor Series (where Austin came back to whoop Owen’s BUTT, as much as someone who could barely move could do any whooping). From what I can make out, StoneCold wanted pretty much nothing to do with Owen after completing their little story-arc, and all things considered you can hardly blame him.

 

5—Mankind challenged Kane to a match at Survivor Series to avenge the recently debuted Big Red Machine kicking the shit out of his good buddy Dude Love. Commissioner Slaughter forbade the bout, pointing out to a disbelieving Mankind and he and the Dude were in fact the same person and therefore Mankind was also on the injured list. Mankind was having none of it, and put Slaughter in the Mandible Claw. That Three Faces Of Foley stuff was absolute gold. I miss Mick.

 

6—World champion Bret Hart vs. Ken Shamrock was a no-contest when a big brawl kicked off between The Hart Foundation and Degeneration X. Both factions were heels, as were The Nation Of Domination who were also involved, so who the fans were supposed to be behind is somewhat of a mystery. Russo was pushing the whole shades of grey thing at the time though, so hey. I don’t remember exactly but I imagine Kenny stood in the middle of the whole commotion looking bamboozled and dripping blood from his mouth while everyone ignored him. Bret says that come Survivor Series this thing between him and Shawn will finish for good. And indeed it would.

 

7—The New Age Outlaws (who had only been tagging for a fortnight and had yet to acquire either a group name or heat) beat The New Blackjacks following some interference from The Godwinns and The Headbangers. Boy, the tag team scene was really bitching in late 97, huh? Okay, it’s been said before but a good thing about Russo was that he at least tried to give everyone on the card some sort of angle or gimmick to identify them. Let us not forget that two weeks prior to this, one of the most over tag teams in the history of the sport were dying a slow and painful death as ‘Double J’ Jesse Jammes and Rockabilly, the latter under the management of the Honky Tonk Man. Russo took them under his wing and made them superstars. It took a little while, but they got there. I think the man has been unfairly demonised and he brought a lot to the table. Much of it shit, admittedly, but at least he broke new ground instead of just recycling old crap. Anyway…

 

8—Promo time. Paul Bearer tells former protégé Mankind that he is but a pebble on new protégé Kane’s path of destruction, then Shawn Michaels requests a man-on-man meeting with Bret Hart after which he moons the camera. I’m not sure I like the implications of that one, and what was it with Shawn always showing us his ass?

 

9—Marvellous Marc Mero beat Flash Funk. Mero had just returned from knee surgery which had kept him out of action for most of the year, and which effectively ruined his career cause gone were his high-flying ways and shooting star presses, and in was his golden gloves amateur boxing champion gimmick. Yeah, it was as enthralling as it sounds, but at least it began the Sable push. Wait, I say it like it was a good thing. I guess without Sable, there would be no Stacy Keibler today, which would be a bad thing. So it all balances out in the end.

 

10—Jeff Jarrett continued the Jim Cornette tradition of telling us all how shit WCW is. He had just made the jump and was raging against how Eric Bischoff never treated him like the star he was, and how he was going to rule the WWF. It was a pretty intriguing angle, Jarrett refusing to fight his return match against anyone other than a headliner. It went on for weeks until he finally agreed to take on The Undertaker at In Your House 19, who promptly squashed him, making Jarrett look like an utter ass as well as the midcarder 4-life that he undoubtedly was. I never did understand where they were going with this one.

 

11—Tag Team champions Legion Of Doom beat Los Boricuas despite the New Age Outlaws poking their noses in. LOD had lost it by this point. They were hugely over when they returned earlier in the year, but they waited far too long to give them the belts and by the time they did, the crowd had ceased to care. Road Dogg & Badd Ass would controversially be given the belts within the next month.

 

12—The show closes with Ahmed Johnson telling Steve Austin to stay out of his business, in relation to screwing up his Intercontinental title shot against Owen Hart earlier. I don’t recall this issue ever going anywhere, and I don’t know why they played it up as it just deflected attention away from Austin getting his revenge on Owen at the upcoming PPV for putting him on the shelf for three months with his neck injury. They could well have had something planned for IYH19, but Ahmed got hurt and changed his allegiences so much that it was all but impossible to depend on him to see anything through to its natural conclusion.

 

Phew. That took slightly longer than I was imagining, but there you have it. Five years ago on Raw this month. It had its good points and it had its bad, but most importantly there was no corpse fucking and I always find that makes or breaks a show’s overall je ne sais quoi. It must have been a pretty weird time for the WWF, with Bret on his way out the door and being funny about dropping the belt, and the true extent of Austin’s injuries as yet unknown. Anyway, I have rambled enough. If anyone enjoyed the nostalgia, I’ll do it again next week cause it was pretty good fun reliving the memories.

 

Cheers,

DH

[Guest papacita]

The show closes with Ahmed Johnson telling Steve Austin to stay out of his business, in relation to screwing up his Intercontinental title shot against Owen Hart earlier. I don’t recall this issue ever going anywhere, and I don’t know why they played it up as it just deflected attention away from Austin getting his revenge on Owen at the upcoming PPV for putting him on the shelf for three months with his neck injury.

Actually, the Ahmed/Austin thing was a major part of the next week's show. I think it started off with Ahmed interupting Austin's promo and challenging him to a match, but before it could happen, Kane took out Ahmed. Austin then went back to feuding with the Harts, and that was about it.

[Guest DeputyHawk]

indeed you are correct. seems it was just a little mini-feud between ppv's with two faces. shades of grey rule. also, to ammend another mistake - with austin facing ahmed the following raw, i guess the owen hart survivor series wasn't his big return match, although i certainly remember it being billed as such. ah well.

[Guest papacita]

Well they never actually had a match, so Survivor Series was his first match since SummerSlam.

[Guest buffybeast]

Good job, Deputy. I liked your review. I remember this so well, like it was yesterday.

[Guest Incandenza]

I don’t remember exactly but I imagine Kenny stood in the middle of the whole commotion looking bamboozled and dripping blood from his mouth while everyone ignored him.

 

It's funny cuz it's most likely true.

[Guest treble charged]

Wasn't that the last time Bret was on Raw, too? If it was two weeks before Survivor Series, I remember that on the last Raw before that show, Bret was 'at home in Calgary, watching on TSN' (or something like that).

[Guest imajackoff?]

Well they never actually had a match, so Survivor Series was his first match since SummerSlam.

Yeah, I remember Austin having a series of scheduled matches that never happened during that stretch between Summerslam and Survivor Series. The other one I recall off the top of my head was supposed to be against Kane. It this happened today, people would be bitching about such bait and switch tactics. I think it was the best thing to do with the situation they had. Austin was unable to perform, but was the most over person on the planet. During this time, he had the "it" that no current WWF worker has. You could'nt turn the channel when he was on screen.

[Guest papacita]

Well they never actually had a match, so Survivor Series was his first match since SummerSlam.

Yeah, I remember Austin having a series of scheduled matches that never happened during that stretch between Summerslam and Survivor Series. The other one I recall off the top of my head was supposed to be against Kane. It this happened today, people would be bitching about such bait and switch tactics. I think it was the best thing to do with the situation they had. Austin was unable to perform, but was the most over person on the planet. During this time, he had the "it" that no current WWF worker has. You could'nt turn the channel when he was on screen.

Actually, the Kane match you're thinking of was right before WM14...I think it was the night that Tyson joined DX. Kane had challenged Austin to a match the week before, and when Austin was coming out for the match, he saw HHH on the stage, went after him and got Superkicked by HBK. Then Paul Bearer went off about Kane having "One Tombstone left" since Austin was taken out, and then the Undertaker came out...and some crap happened afterwards that I vaguely remember.

[Guest dreamer420]

Boy, the tag team scene was really bitching in late 97, huh?

the new age outlaws are the only reason the tag belts survived during that time.

[Guest imajackoff?]

Actually, the Kane match you're thinking of was right before WM14...I think it was the night that Tyson joined DX. Kane had challenged Austin to a match the week before, and when Austin was coming out for the match, he saw HHH on the stage, went after him and got Superkicked by HBK. Then Paul Bearer went off about Kane having "One Tombstone left" since Austin was taken out, and then the Undertaker came out...and some crap happened afterwards that I vaguely remember.

 

:::light bulb goes off:::

 

dag, you're right. I stand corrected.