Monday Night Raw - June 26th 1995

• After a Vince-narrated recap of the Jerry Lawler and Bret Hart match at King of the Ring, he reveals that Lawler won’t be joining him on commentary tonight. Instead it's the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels who dances to the ring in a mesh tanktop. The girls have been screaming for him since his debut in 1988 but there’s no denying he looks way better with a bit of facial hair and growing out his mullet at long last. 

• In the opening match, the Black Phantom and Jason Arnt provide the opposition to Billy and Bart, the Smoking Gunns. It’s an easy victory for the Gunns.
• In a pre-recorded segment, Jerry Lawler has had to come to the dentist for help in getting the stench out of his mouth after having both Bret and his own feet stuffed into his mouth at King of the Ring. From inside the dentist’s office, we can hear a drill and some poor victim screaming. Isaac Yankem, D.D.S was a wrestler before he became a dentist, so we’ll be seeing him soon as he helps Lawler get revenge on Bret. More on him later, of course.

• Skip of the Bodydonnas faces Scott Taylor. Sunny cuts a little prematch promo which Vince and Shawn talk over. She is gorgeous and the company already knew she was the star of this duo based on the way the camera stays on her during their entrance and the match itself. Skip impresses with a diving splash from the top rope all the way to the outside, which is a wild move for 1995. Skip - real name Chris Candido - was a great wrestler. A hurricanrana off the top rope and a funny pin where he did push-ups during it gives Skip the victory. 

• As Todd Pettengill recaps the events of the King of the Ring he gives us some big news; the main event of In Your House 2 is already set. Diesel and Sid for the WWF Championship, this time in a Lumberjack match.

• Man Mountain Rock gives us a long electric guitar solo - I actually can’t tell if he’s really playing or not but I suspect not, he’s very good at pretending! - and then battles a jobber. MMR is feuding with Mr. Bob Backlund who has parlayed his running for President into a war on “kids these days and their rock and/or roll music”. MMR wins this with his Whammy Bar submission.
• King Mabel is carried to the ring on a throne by four (I assume very strong) men for his match with a jobber. Mo stands at ringside and screams things like “bow to the King” at him. Vince spends the match talking about Mabel and Mo’s assault on Razor Ramon and Savio Vega after the finals. Razor’s injured ribs were made even worse by the new King of the Ring. This is an obvious victory for Mabel.

• Waylon Mercy cuts a sinister promo about how all the WWF superstars will suffer at his hands when he steps in the ring next week.

• In the main event, Jeff Jarrett defends the Intercontinental Championship against Savio Vega. Vince says that this weekend we’ll finally find out if Double J can actually sing when his music video debuts on Superstars. Hopefully more on that later - I want to see it. There’s a little drama at ringside as when the Roadie tries to get involved, Shawn Michaels grabs his dreadlocks to hold him back and then has a good laugh at how upset he is by it. After a commercial break, the match continues with Jeff working over Savio in the ring and Roadie keeping his distance from the commentary desk. Savio fights back and actually has the match and the title won with a roll up but Roadie breaks it up right in front of the referee, ending the match via disqualification. Jeff retains the title but he loses the match and he and Roadie’s attempt to beat up Savio is cut short by Shawn Michaels who rushes the ring and helps him fight them off too. The show ends after a final commercial break with Vince trying to hype up next week’s show while a shirtless Shawn Michaels dances on the table. Jeff Jarrett and The Roadie come back out to confront him but the show ends before we find out what Jeff had to say! 

Monday Night Raw - July 3rd 1995

• I don’t have to wait long to find out what happened after the show ended last week as the next episode starts with Vince hyping up tonight’s main event (Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Sid) and recapping the interaction between Michaels and Jarrett last week and promising that we’ll get to see what we missed later tonight. Good. 
• Jerry Lawler is back on commentary (holding a bottle of mouthwash) and is excited about tonight’s debut of Waylon Mercy (confirming he’s a heel) and promises to introduce us to his dentist Isaac Yankem D.D.S tonight as well. There’s certainty a lot happening these days. Is any of it good? That’s for you to decide. Ridiculously McMahon and Lawler are still claiming he has bad breath from getting Bret’s foot briefly in his mouth two weeks ago.
• The opening match is the returning 1-2-3 Kid vs. Mike Bell. The Kid out-wrestles Bell and wins with a roll up.
• In the In Your House report, Todd has a bunch of card announcements for us. Sid and Diesel are being allowed to pick the 20 lumberjacks for their WWF title match and Todd lists the first 10 - Sid picked heels, Diesel picked babyfaces, as you’d expect. During the report, Todd also shows us the footage of Double J and Shawn Michaels from last week. Jeff challenged Shawn to a match who accepted and, while wearing Jeff’s title belt, dropped both him and the Roadie with a pair of superkicks.  I’ll pepper the other card announcements through the next couple of shows but the other big match added tonight was a WWF Tag Team Championship match with the Allied Powers finally getting their crack at the gold.

• As promised last week, Jeff Jarrett’s first music video debuted over the weekend and thankfully it is shown on Raw too. Here it is for you to enjoy; With My Baby Tonight! It’s actually pretty good. I’m not sure WHEN the reveal happens but I’ll spoil it now - Jeff is lip syncing, that’s actually Roadie singing.

• Bob “Sparkplugg” Holly faces the Brooklyn Brawler. Holly wins with a crossbody off the top rope.
• They recap the “big” match from Superstars where Henry O. Godwin - who drank from his slop bucket before the match - faced Adam Bomb and battled to a double count out. Godwin then dumped the contents of his slop bucket all over Bomb’s head. Gross. That leads to H.O.G’s match on Raw against Barry Horowitz. The fans chant for Barry who is one of the more recognisable jobbers from this era, and Vince has even given him a bit of a storyline commenting on how he’s never won a match. Henry wins this with the Slop Drop reverse DDT. 

• Sid enters for his match with Bam Bam Bigelow and to everyone’s surprise, Henry Godwin is still hanging out at ringside. Ted Dibiase shoots him a look and gestures for him to just hang out and wait as H.O.G smirks. When Bam Bam enters, Godwin goes to confront him on the entrance ramp and it turns into a furious brawl. It seems that the Million Dollar Man has paid off H.O.G to help him out tonight. He’s taken to the back and Bigelow heads to the ring for his match with Sid but is clearly shaken up and thrown off his game. This is a big, physical back and forth match. When Bam Bam takes over with a big slam he’s distracted by Ted Dibiase so that Sid can nail him from behind and slow the match down. His attempt for a powerbomb is blocked and Henry Godwin runs back down to shove Bigelow off the top rope when he tries for the diving headbutt. That’s enough to put him down for the three - Sid wins, thanks to the hog farmer who was clearly paid off by Dibiase. Sid spikes the big man with a (messy) powerbomb after the match for good measure. 

• Waylon Mercy makes his debut against Jeff Hardy. He is a sinister southern gentlemen who makes sure to shake hands with his opponent, people at ringside and the referee before the match. Waylon shows no mercy (pun intended, it just wasn’t very good) and hits a brainbuster, followed by locking in a sleeper hold for the submission victory when Jeff passes out. Waylon shakes the referee’s hand again after the match as Vince calls him a conman. I honestly have no idea what his gimmick is supposed to be.
• In another pre-recorded video from his “dentist’s” office, Jerry Lawler introduces us to Isaac Yankem D.D.S. He rants at some poor kid in the waiting room and hammers home that he used to be a wrestler who likes to make his opponents “open wide” and says that he’s going to take care of Bret Hart for him. He also calls Hakushi and Shinja bumbling fools and blames them for costing him the match at King of the Ring. That’s the start of a face turn for Hakushi. Yankem is played by Glen Jacobs who we’ll see plenty more over the New Gen period. I probably don’t need to tell you what his greatest and most well known gimmick was but just in case - it’s Kane. I’ll get the chance to talk about him a lot more at Summerslam.

Monday Night Raw - July 10th 1995

• Tonight’s main event is the Allied Powers in action against the odd-ball team of Tatanka and Henry Godwin. That match was originally announced as Tatanka and King Kong Bundy but Bundy was swapped out for Henry who is now in the employ of Ted Dibiase as a sort of hired gun. Weirdly he hasn’t officially joined the Million Dollar Corporation but I think that’s because if he did they’d have to do the whole “change how he dresses because he has money now” gimmick and Vince wants to keep him as a farmer.

• The Roadie battles a jobber. This is the first time they’ve given him some shine but that’s because he has his own singles match at In Your House against the 1-2-3 Kid. They were feuding a bit around Wrestlemania but I guess it went on the back burner because of the Kid’s neck injury and this is them tying up the loose end. Roadie wins and this leads to the first 15 mins of this show being ALL about Double J. Vince shows a couple of the original Jarrett debut videos from 1994 with him trying to kick off his music career and then the full music video from last week. In addition to wrestling Shawn Michaels for the title at In Your House (in Nashville, Jeff’s hometown) he’ll also perform With My Baby Tonight live. 

• Savio Vega faces Mike Curry. Vince is a BIG fan and heaps praise and love on Savio, the “Caribbean legend” and talks a lot about how huge his following is in the latin world. That is true to be fair, he was a big star in Puerto Rico prior to being signed by the WWF. He wins with a roll up too, just like the Kid did in the opener. Weird.
• Vince McMahon interviews Ted Dibiase and Sycho Sid in the ring. Vince has been implying that Sid is a coward and bully. He beats people up but runs away whenever confronted by someone his own size. Dibiase does all the talking initially promising that Sid will be the next champion and then shows off what his money can buy, requesting all of his handpicked lumberjacks come out. Basically every heel on the roster comes to the ring and surrounds it (including King Mabel and newcomers Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Skip) and Dibiase says that Diesel will have no place to run or hide from Sid, who looks serious but bored as his manager speaks. The fans start to chant for Diesel and that's when Sid speaks up - he is the master and the ruler of the world. 

• During the show, Vince mentions that following the King of the Ring PPV they received a lot of letters from fans with their opinions on the show. He doesn’t mention what the feedback was but thanks fans for their passion. He’s talking about the hugely negative reaction most fans had to the show, which was true. Also of note, he mentioned that WWF President Jack Tunney has retired and so there will be a new (on screen) President soon. 
• In a huge upset victory, Barry Horowitz got his first ever victory on the Action Zone! Vince has mentioned a few times lately that he’s never won a match, serving as a jobber for years. He won his first ever WWF match, beating Skip of the Bodydonnas with a surprise roll up. Sunny was shocked and screamed and screeched about it afterwards. That leads to a match between Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Matt Hardy. Vince does a good job of comparing Matt to Horowitz and making you believe maybe we’ll see another upset here. He also compares HHH to Hugh Grant of all people. He continues to strut around the ring, nose in the air and after a curtsey and avoiding a moonsault finishes him off with the Pedigree. I looked brutal too. 

• In this week’s In Your House Report, Todd adds another couple of matches to the card. Razor Ramon and Savio Vega look for revenge for the attack at the King of the Ring by Mo and Mabel and Bam Bam Bigelow faces Henry O. Godwin. Are you excited about either?

• In the main event, Lex Lugar and the British Bulldog take on Tatanka and H.O.G. It’s a back and forth match with them isolating and working over Lugar  until he makes the hot tag to Bulldog. He picks up the win for his team with a running powerslam on Tatanka. Full momentum for In Your House and their Tag Team title match.
• In the final segment of the show, Jerry Lawler is back at his dentist’s office. This time he’s sitting in on someone else’s appointment and when the kid says that Bret Hart is one of his favourites, Yankem starts to drill painfully at their teeth with glee. They are really hammering home this whole evil dentist gimmick.

Monday Night Raw - July 17th 1995

• Tonight’s main event is Shawn Michaels vs. IRS. The show opens with comments by both. They don’t say anything of note - more tax puns.
• In the opener, the WWF Tag Team Champions Owen Hart and Yokozuna have an exhibition match against two jobbers who at least do have matching gear so look like a real tag team. Owen wins it for his team with the Sharpshooter.
• Todd hosts the final In Your House report and runs down the entire card. The only thing of note this week is that Mo is now Sir Mo. I’m not sure when Mabel knighted him. 
• Jean Pierre Lafitte faces a jobber whose name I didn’t catch. The evil pirate wins with the big flipping senton off the top rope.
• Fatu of the Headshrinkers had ditched Sionne, Afa and Captain Lou and has a new gimmick. He’s returning to his roots and wants to show us all that anyone can make a difference. Be true to yourself etc. Inspirational.

• After another replay of the With my Baby Tonight music video, Double J’s In Your House opponent Shawn Michaels takes on the crooked tax man. Michaels really shows what he can do, bouncing the bigger opponent around and moving with lightning speed into dropkicks. He really is very good, even against bigger, slower opponents. IRS slows things down and works on Shawn’s back. HBK rallies and out of nowhere, puts Irwin down with the superkick to win the match. This is one of the better IRS matches (thanks to Shawn Michaels) which is a shame as this is his final WWF appearance before leaving for WCW. IRS had been a mainstay since the late 80s so his leaving should be a big deal but it just…isn’t. I won’t miss him. Michaels makes a girl’s dreams come true planting a kiss on her as he leaves. I haven’t mentioned it but Barry Didinsky giving us a hard sell for some merch is now a weekly feature. This week it’s all Shawn Michaels’ gear and HBK kisses the girl modelling his t-shirt a kiss too as he walks past. 

• For the fourth week in a row, Jerry Lawler’s big gross dentist tortures a patient while King gleefully giggles about how he can’t wait to see him do the same to Bret Hart. This is the kind of silly pantomime rubbish that people mock when they talk about the New Generation of the WWF. It's the fun kind of silly if you don’t take it too seriously, but an evil dentist with bad teeth is NOT who should be feuding with Bret Hart. 
• Kama squashes Billy Mack. Dibiase is having a busy night - this is the second match in a row he’s been at ringside for. The fans chant “rest in peace” at Kama so at least someone remembers that he’s feuding with the Undertaker. 
• In the final segment of the show, Vince McMahon interviews the WWF Champion Diesel in the ring. He’s going to unveil his own lumberjacks to counteract the Million Dollar corporation’s. Lawler talks over both Vince and Diesel more than once so I didn’t hear anything he said at the start of the promo. He brings out his own lumberjacks - all the babyfaces including Fatu and one half of Tekno Team 2000, who debuted last month. Diesel walks around the ring and asks some of them what they’d do if Sid came out of the ring. They all say variations of “I’ll beat him up”. Sid comes out to confront Diesel and stops on the entrance ramp but, after a commercial break all of his own lumberjacks have come down to surround the ring too. With 30 lumberjacks at ringside, Sid heads down to the ring and Vince screams for them to get face to face and “have some guts!” Sid gets close but, on the advice of the Million Dollar Man, backs down.