Monday Night Raw - September 11th 1995

• Raw kicks off with a new look! There’s a new signature at the start of the show and after a recap of Summerslam 1995’s ladder match and promotion for tonight’s two big main events there’s a new Raw intro too! You might recognise some of the shots of fans running to chain link fences and the like from the DX titantron video. Raw is pre-taped, denoted by Vince and Lawler being in front of a green screen. That allows me to bring up my first WCW trivia - Eric Bischoff on commentary delighted in giving away the results of Monday Night Raw on his Live Nitro so that fans would have no reason to watch. One of the most famous audio clips of him doing exactly that “Shawn beats the big guy in the main event with three superkicks” is in fact referring to this very episode of Raw (spoilers).

• British Bulldog has a new haircut for his serious, main event heel run. He faces Razor Ramon in the opener which is a big match! We only have two weeks until the next PPV so Vince wastes no time promoting In Your House 3 - Razor has a match with Dean Douglas and Bulldog has a match with Bam Bam Bigelow. This is a fun big man, power match. The referee is knocked down just as Razor spikes Bulldog with a Razor’s Edge. He has a really hard time lifting the big man, struggling but managing it. Dean Douglas runs down to the ring and dives off the top rope onto a prone Razor. The 1-2-3 Kid runs down to help his buddy and Douglas beats him up easily too before running off. The Bulldog recovers and drills Razor with a running powerslam so the 1-2-3 Kid tries to even the odds and do what Douglas did, jumping off the top rope. He misses and lands on Razor! The referee saw that and calls for the bell - the official decision is that Razor loses via disqualification, with some botched interference by the 1-2-3 Kid who was just trying to help. Razor and the Kid are beaten up a bit and then, after a commercial break, Vince McMahon is in the ring to interview them both. Jerry Lawler had me tearing my hair out, talking relentlessly over all three of them. SHUT UP! Vince recaps everything we’d just seen, as well as Douglas and Razor’s run-in at Summerslam and Ramon costing the 1-2-3 Kid a match against Douglas at the weekend. The Kid takes issue with Vince’s phrasing and says that he DIDN’T cost Razor this match, but Razor DID cost him the match. He’s sick of being treated like a little kid and challenges Razor to a match next week. 

• More trivia, mentioned by Vince on commentary. This was the first episode of Raw to be broadcast on Sky Sports in the UK. That’s important to me because Sky Sports is where I watched Raw every week for decades. 
• The Smoking Gunns easily defeat the jobber team of Rad Radford and The Brooklyn Brawler with the sidewinder. Speaking of the tag team division, the champions Yokozuna and Owen Hart face Men on a Mission next week. That’s a weird heel vs heel match but our “fan friendly president” Gorilla Monsoon made the match because he thought fans would want to see it. Fair enough really.
• Goldust has another pre-recorded promo. For long time fans this is a lot more familiar. He speaks in his creepy breathy manor, throwing out movie quotes and in this case talking about creatures of the night and a man in black and purple - he’s targeting The Undertaker apparently. 

• Dr. Isaac Yankem D.D.S faces Scott Taylor. Yankem seems to have dyed his hair already - in his introduction videos with Lawler it was VERY blonde but now it’s brown or even kind of ginger in the right light. That’s Glen Jacob’s natural hair colour. He wins with a DDT.
• In Your House Report! Todd Pettengill runs down the card - in addition to the two matches I mentioned earlier, Bret Hart will face Jean Pierre Lafitte (who stole his jacket and some of his sunglasses, damn dirty pirate) and in a legit huge main event signed by Gorilla Monsoon, all three championships will be on the line in a single match! I’ll talk more about the rules at the show itself but it’s fairly self explanatory if you take a minute to think about it - Diesel and Shawn Michaels vs. Yokozuna and Owen Hart.

• In the main event, Sycho Sid challenges for the Intercontinental Championship. HBK is sure to be sore after the epic ladder match at Summerslam (it was a very good match). Backstage before the match, Michaels says that tonight he’s going to close the book on his past with a win over Sid. Sid looks scary intense as Michaels dances to the ring. He brutalises the champion inside the ring and out as Shawn sells the beating he took in the ladder match. Sid looks good here, nipping up to his feet and spiking Shawn with a one-armed chokeslam. I’ve said it before but even though Sid isn’t a good wrestler, I do really enjoy him. Michaels comes back with a back drop, a diving crossbody and - exactly like Eric Bischoff promised - uses three superkicks to put down the big man and retain his title in a decent match. Sid just hops out of the ring and leaves without really selling but Michaels nips up onto his feet to dance and celebrate and doesn’t sell either so I’ll forgive it. Shawn danced and removed bits and pieces of his ring gear basically playing stripper as the girls in the crowd went nuts. Fun stuff.

• At the end of Raw after a quick interview with Shawn Michaels and Diesel (they’re two dudes with attitudes, Diesel calls them two chaps who’ll have all the straps) and Shawn explaining that he’s on a mission to right all the wrongs in his life (making up with Diesel, avenging his loss in the first ladder match, getting the IC belt back, beating Sid) there’s a weird trailer for next week’s Raw. They usually hid that Raw was pre-taped but here they show clips from next week’s two main events (Razor vs. The Kid and M.O.M vs. Owen and Yoko) narrated by Dok Hendrix. 

Monday Night Raw - September 21st 1995

• I do like the new WWF signature at the top of the show, but I don’t like the new Monday Night Raw intro. Janky country music was never my style.Also yes that date is correct - this episode was aired on a Thursday.
• We kick off with the 1-2-3 Kid vs. Razor Ramon - a battle of friends, both feeling disrespected. The Kid is aggressive, attacking Razor as soon as he enters the ring and lighting him up with heel kicks but he’s overpowered and thrown around by the Bad Guy. Vince speculates that Razor is holding back because of their friendship. The referee is knocked down when they go off the ropes and the Kid knocks his head, falling out of the ring too. Dean Douglas takes advantage, running down and splashing Razor and running off like a thief in the night. The 1-2-3 Kid has no idea what happened and gets back in the ring and covers Ramon to win this match. He has no idea he didn’t win fairly. Backstage, Dean Douglas has already changed into his ring gear and gives the Kid a D for Dumb, and Razor an E for elevate, which is what he’ll do to him at In Your House. I have no idea why he’d changed into his ring gear but it gives away that the segment was taped at a totally different time than the run-in he just did. A little later in the show, Razor replies and calls Douglas a book worm and says he’ll be the one getting taken to school at In Your House. He doesn’t say much.

• Kama and Tatanka (who I thought we’d seen the last of honestly, he’s definitely been faded into the background lately) take on Bob Holly and Savio Vega. At the weekend, Henry Godwin continued his feud with the Million Dollar Corporation by slopping Ted Dibiase again. Kama and Tatanka win when the Supreme Fight Machine counters a top rope crossbody into a sloppy powerslam, drilling Holly right on the top of his head. That was nasty. 
• Jean Pierre Lafitte beats up a jobber with a big fluffy mullet, winning with a flipping senton splash off the top rope. During the match, Bret Hart called in from on-set as he filmed his appearance on TV show Lonesome Dove (it was a cowboy thing) and said that the jacket Lafitte stole from him was made by his mother and means a lot to him. That’s a bit cringe, Bret.

• In the main event its an all-heel affair. King Mabel and Sir Mo vs. Owen Hart and Yokozuna. There’s no mention of Owen and Yoko’s Tag Team Championships being on the line here because they have to save their gold for the PPV main event. The match begins with the 600lbs+ Yokozuna and the 500lbs+ Mabel getting face to face and that right there is why this match was booked - Vince was always convinced that fans loved the sheer spectacle of big man vs. big man matches. He was often right. Owen is the default babyface here because he’s the smallest but also by far the most talented. Mabel and Mo work him over in their corner. The match all breaks down and after a swift leg drop from Yokozuna on Mo, Owen Hart picks up the win for his team. King Mabel walks out on his partner, disappointed with the loss.

• At the end of the show, after pre-recorded comments by Diesel and Shawn Michaels (they don’t say much), Jim Cornette is interviewed in the ring by Vince McMahon who speaks on behalf of the Tag Team Champions. He says that one of them will be a double champion and points out that Michaels and Big Daddy Cool have turned on each other before and will again - if one of them is forced to pick between protecting his own title or protecting his friend, which will they pick? He’s confident they’ll both be selfish and turn on each other. Jerry Lawler’s official prediction is that Yokozuna will become a three time WWF Champion defeating Diesel.