I've been watching some WWF 1996 stuff...

[JoeDirt 0]

Recently picked up a bunch of RAWs from 1996 that I have never seen, and here are some thoughts:

 

Good stuff:

 

Bret/HBK buildup: While the mutual babyface thing can be somewhat sickening at times, I liked the video promos they did to build up to WM12. Bret's were better by far, as he was great at playing the subtle heel who didn't want to lose his spot to Shawn, talking about how he realized Shawn had a lot of momentum on his side and how even Bret's son loved Shawn, but Bret wasn't ready to lose his title yet. Good stuff leading into the Ironman match.

 

Goldust: Early Goldust was pretty good. Some of the stuff he does here makes you really uneasy at times. His promo with Piper leading to their Mania match was surprisingly good, with Piper asking "what's your major malfunction, fruitcake?" and Goldust getting on his knees (!) and crawling around Piper doing usual Goldust stuff. Goldust then smacks Piper, who drills him back, and says that he's going to make a man out of him. Some good stuff here with Goldust, maybe ahead of its time by a year or so.

 

Diesel's last days: I was interested at how in the buildup to Diesel/Shawn at the April IYH, how Diesel did a promo threatening to not only destroy Shawn, but to "settle some business" with Vince at ringside. It seemed like an early nod to the "smart" fans who knew Diesel was leaving. Diesel as a heelish tweener was so much better than his lame babyface run. To me, this is almost the precursor that showed you the fans were willing to get behind a character like they would with Austin not too long after that.

 

Several good matches: Bret vs. Tatanka, Bret vs. HHH, HBK vs. HHH, HBK vs. 123 Kid, Mero vs. 123 Kid, and Austin vs. Mero are all good solid wrestling matches that get a fair amount of time on RAW.

 

HBK vs. Jannetty: I've never even heard of this match, but they face each other on the 7/1/96 episode of RAW in a non-title match that is really solid and what you'd expect from the two. Some really good nearfalls at the end of the match. I never had even heard of the match.

 

Development of the Austin character: From his great interview to debut as the Ringmaster, to his look at Ted Dibiase when Dibiase says he'll leave forever if Austin loses to Savio in the strap match, to his post-KOTR victory stuff, watching Austin develop into what he became is cool to see.

 

HBK/Bulldog/Diana interview: This was surprisingly really good, with Shawn telling Diana not to flatter herself, getting slapped, and then telling Davey that he knows who wears the pants in the family. Big brawl to close out a good segment.

 

Bad stuff:

 

So many lame gimmicks: Aldo Montoya. The Bodydonnas. Cloudy. Techno Team 2000. "Make a Difference" Fatu. The Godwins. The list goes on and on.

 

Marc Mero: Don't get me wrong, the guy puts on great matches...but again, his gimmick here is so lame you can see why he wouldn't get cheered. I don't know why Vince thought Mero would get cheered for no other reason than having a hot woman next to him.

 

Ultimate Warrior: His match with Isaac Yankem is just atrocious. It's funny how they showed clips of him beating Randy Savage at WM7 prior to his return. But yeah, Warrior wasn't too good here, but at least he didn't stick around long.

 

Billionaire Ted skits: While funny for the first few times, these got old, mean, nasty, and malicious very quickly, and I could see them completely backfiriing on Vince. At the end, they were just horrible.

 

Undertaker: It is clear here in early 1996 that Undertaker was in need of some freshening up of his character. No matter how lame you think the stuff with Kane was in 1997, you have to admit that it did wonders for Taker's career.

 

Shawn as babyface champ: His post WM-interview just doesn't work. Maybe it's because it's just weird to hear him talking about how "Bret Hart, to me you'll ALWAYS be a champion." and give a sappy babyface promo. Again, his character became SO much better in late 1996/and post losing his smile when he got the heelish edge. Whether Russo deserves the credit for that, I don't know.

 

Tag team division: What a dud. The Godwins, Bodydonnas, Smoking Gunns, New Rockers...teams that none of the fans give a shit about, or have a reason to give a shit about. The Godwins are supposed to be cheered...why? Again, another time when gimmicks are supposed to be cheered or booed just for the hell of it, and not for anything deeper than that.

 

Well, that's it for now, thanks for reading my rambling thoughts.

[Jericholic82 0]

I agree on all counts.

 

I enjoyed WWF in 96 despite the hot nWo angle on nitro.

 

 

I liked how when Nash was doing commentary during Shawns match with Jerry Lawler on the earl april 96 raw (i have it on tape)

 

NAsh wore a hbk shirt and mr perfect asked him why

 

he replied "I'm part of the Kliq isnt everybody?"

 

also as they showed the clip of him turning on shawn at msg

 

"He turned to me and says Ive got a few vertebrea out, you mind putting them back in for me? he turns around I whack him and all of a sudden I'm the bad guy?"

[Precious Roy 0]

HBK vs. Jannetty: I've never even heard of this match, but they face each other on the 7/1/96 episode of RAW in a non-title match that is really solid and what you'd expect from the two. Some really good nearfalls at the end of the match. I never had even heard of the match.

 

If I remember correctly he had a pretty good match with Al "Leif Cassidy" Snow around the same time.

[Guest LooneyTune]

They had a match a week or two before Wrestlemania XII. Nothing memorable, but for 1996, it was one of the better TV matches at the time.

[Guest Loss]

The Michaels/Snow aired on 03/25/96 on RAW and is very good to be so short.

 

I think JoeDirt pretty much hit the nail on the head on everything he said here. I think Shawn as champion could have really worked, considering how rabid the fans were for him in '95, but after the Syracuse angle, they turned him into a babykisser and male fans grew to hate him because WWE pushed him as a threatening sex symbol in some ways. It's always been my theory that male fans didn't want to bring their girlfriends to see him, so they stopped coming to the shows. Shawn found the perfect role for himself in late 1997 in DeGeneration X and honestly, I saw more raw hatred for him at that time than I've ever seen for any heel in that company. Fans pelted him with garbage in Europe, they chanted for his death at Badd Blood and he caused a well-documented riot at a house show here in Little Rock back in December of '97. It's a shame that he was so broken down by the time his character was where it needed to be.

 

The WWF had all the ingredients they needed to compete with WCW in 1996, but they were still struggling to find their own identity, and once they sorted through that in 1997, they were red-hot in 1998. For every good title match on top, there was too much 80s-ish cartoonishp crap in the midcard. Compare that to WCW at the time, who didn't have the same quality on top, but had a midcard of the best junior heavyweights in the world who often outperformed the WWF main eventers.

[reign 0]

I am in agreement...there seems to be a little bit of 96' nostalgia goin around this place right now...I used to most of 96 and 97's PPvs...the originals straight from WWF....I wish I still had them as those were great to watch knowing what would be happening in a year or so later.. it will be cool once 24/7 gets there..how'd you get all those Raw's again?

[JoeDirt 0]

I am in agreement...there seems to be a little bit of 96' nostalgia goin around this place right now...I used to most of 96 and 97's PPvs...the originals straight from WWF....I wish I still had them as those were great to watch knowing what would be happening in a year or so later.. it will be cool once 24/7 gets there..how'd you get all those Raw's again?

I got a good deal buying a bunch of them off Ebay. I'm always looking to buy old WWF and WCW TV.

[JoeDirt 0]

I forgot to mention the angle where as a part of the Bulldog/HBK feud, they had a "wife of a former WWF superstar" talking anonymously about how she had an affair with Shawn and how he was the best she'd ever had, but then he dumped her and her husband was distracted when he wrestled Shawn and Shawn got the win. It was just so cheesy it made me laugh, and I had never seen it before.

[Guest Dale Earnhardt]

I am in agreement...there seems to be a little bit of 96' nostalgia goin around this place right now...I used to most of 96 and 97's PPvs...the originals straight from WWF....I wish I still had them as those were great to watch knowing what would be happening in a year or so later.. it will be cool once 24/7 gets there..how'd you get all those Raw's again?

I got a good deal buying a bunch of them off Ebay. I'm always looking to buy old WWF and WCW TV.

You'd have a hard time finding any of them cheap as well. Mind Games 1996 is one of the rarest WWF tapes and at least check (which hasn't been in a couple of years) was going for over a hundred dollars. Though, since Shawn's DVD and the Shawn/Mankind match being widely available, that figure might be down.

[JoeDirt 0]

I am in agreement...there seems to be a little bit of 96' nostalgia goin around this place right now...I used to most of 96 and 97's PPvs...the originals straight from WWF....I wish I still had them as those were great to watch knowing what would be happening in a year or so later.. it will be cool once 24/7 gets there..how'd you get all those Raw's again?

I got a good deal buying a bunch of them off Ebay. I'm always looking to buy old WWF and WCW TV.

You'd have a hard time finding any of them cheap as well. Mind Games 1996 is one of the rarest WWF tapes and at least check (which hasn't been in a couple of years) was going for over a hundred dollars. Though, since Shawn's DVD and the Shawn/Mankind match being widely available, that figure might be down.

It's hard to get master copies, yes, but bootlegged copies of rare shows are still pretty cheap.

[Guest Dale Earnhardt]

I am in agreement...there seems to be a little bit of 96' nostalgia goin around this place right now...I used to most of 96 and 97's PPvs...the originals straight from WWF....I wish I still had them as those were great to watch knowing what would be happening in a year or so later.. it will be cool once 24/7 gets there..how'd you get all those Raw's again?

I got a good deal buying a bunch of them off Ebay. I'm always looking to buy old WWF and WCW TV.

You'd have a hard time finding any of them cheap as well. Mind Games 1996 is one of the rarest WWF tapes and at least check (which hasn't been in a couple of years) was going for over a hundred dollars. Though, since Shawn's DVD and the Shawn/Mankind match being widely available, that figure might be down.

It's hard to get master copies, yes, but bootlegged copies of rare shows are still pretty cheap.

I would also imagine that even getting the show itself would be pretty simple and free (IE through the use of file sharing programs) but since, I don't use those programs and I assume that further discussion of such issues are probably against site rules, I won't continue this discussion.

 

Nonetheless, if anyone has anything with the scratch logo in it, I'd imagine that it'd go for a pretty penny right?

[Guest Fook]

One good thing from 96 no one mentioned is the Undertaker/Mankind feud. Foley's character was really put over strong in his first few months and their matches were great brawls.

 

I don't know why Vince thought Mero would get cheered for no other reason than having a hot woman next to him.

 

Vince STILL thinks that. Witness anyone paired with Stacy or Torrie in the last couple of years.

[JoeDirt 0]

For the first time, I got to watch Bret's comeback interview the night after Buried Alive. It's really interesting.

 

Bret talks flat out about how WCW gave him a great offer for a ton of money to come to them and how he thought it over for a long time before deciding to stay in the WWF. The camera cuts to Vince a few times as Bret talks, looking nervous, and then when Bret announces he's staying Vince claps and says "All RIGHT!"

 

Bret admits clean defeat at WM12 to Shawn, but says there's something about Shawn that bugs him and he'll beat him the next time around. He then says that at the Survivor Series he's accepted the challenge of the "best wrestler in the WWF today" Steve Austin.

 

Up to this point, had Vince been acknowledged as the "boss" in the WWF or just an announcer? Was that stuff with him a play to smart fans?

 

Was the stuff Bret said a shoot on Shawn, a start of a build towards WM13, or a little of both?

 

And why did Bret call a heel like Austin the best wrestler in the WWF? Heart felt feelings, something he was supposed to say, or something else?

[Guest Fook]

Up to this point, had Vince been acknowledged as the "boss" in the WWF or just an announcer? Was that stuff with him a play to smart fans?

 

Was the stuff Bret said a shoot on Shawn, a start of a build towards WM13, or a little of both?

 

And why did Bret call a heel like Austin the best wrestler in the WWF? Heart felt feelings, something he was supposed to say, or something else?

Vince was slowly letting the curtain fall to reveal he was really the guy in charge. Things such as JR's heel commentary during this period and Bret going over to Vince after Austin won the 97 Rumble and saying "What are you going to do about that?" are good examples of this.

 

As for Bret saying Austin was the best, at that point, Austin was on a roll and was perceived as an upper card heel after winning the KOTR. Plus, there's always the reasoning that you shouldn't trash your opponent because if you beat him: big deal, you just beat a loser. And if he beats you, well then you weren't good enough to defeat a loser.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

The thing I liked about WWF in '96 and '97 is it seemed like they were actually trying to do new things and you couldn't tell exactly which direction the company was going. Don't get me wrong, '98 was a great year, but after that it seemed like WWF fell into just being repetitive and formulaic, and they really haven't gotten out of that yet, IMO.

[Jericholic82 0]

well JR had said in heel turn interview that vince mcmahon fired him twice-thats pretty conclusive that hes the boss lol but he still tried to make it look like gorilla monsoon was the "president"

[Jericholic82 0]

as for shawn in 96 I sorta agree---though I was a huge HBK mark at the time and didnt really notice Shawn being made into a lame kissup babyface. so I was shocked when MSG booed him at survivor series.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

On the HBK DVD, all of Diesel's promos from before IYH:GFBE are directed at Vince McMahon.

[BUTT 0]

Personally, I think that the most interesting this about Hart's comeback interview is that when they show all the heels watching backstage on a monitor, The Rock is standing there with them, despite the fact that he hadn't debuted yet.