Monday Night Raw - January 2nd 1995

• The first Raw of the New Year kicks off with Double J hyping up that tonight his singing career finally kicks off. There are many representatives here from the music business to finally hear him sing. There’s still been no formal introduction to his Roadie, but he does speak his first words “Ain’t He Great?”

• Gorilla Monsoon is on commentary; Vince McMahon is unwell apparently. Shawn Michaels is still on colour for the show. Later in the show, he is given his name by Shawn Michaels while he’s at ringside setting up the mic stand and doing sound checks for Jeff.
• The opening match is the big tag team match which was set up last week. Bam Bam Bigelow and Tatanka from the Million Dollar Corporation (that’s the groups official name now) vs. Lex Lugar and Davey-Boy Smith, The British Bulldog. Lugar enters first and goes right at his opponents, starting the match two on one before Bulldog is even out there. He hustles to the ring to even the odds. I commented last week that Bulldog and Lugar make a good looking tag team, thickly muscled with their red,white and blue tights. Lugar is too much for Bigelow but a double team gives the Million Dollar lads the advantage. He’s worked over for a while until making the hot tag to Bully and he motors through both. He has the match won with a powerslam on Tatanka but Dibiase pulls him out of the ring. The four men then fight and brawl on the outside until finally being counted out. The match ends via a double countout but the fighting continues as many referees try to split them all up and stop the fight.

• During the Royal Rumble Report, Todd Pettengill runs down the five match card and hammers home that Pamela Anderson will be there. No actual new information here, but Todd does provide an update on Raw - the four men in the opening tag team match are unsatisfied with the double countout so we might not have seen the last of them tonight. Shawn Michaels says that whoever wins the Royal Rumble match will have Pamela Anderson on their arm when they go to Wrestlemania. That’s legit and not just him claiming he’s going to pull her at the PPV. 
• Duke “The Dumpster” Droese faces Mike Bell. Its a squash win for the garbage man.
• In this week’s Tag Team Championship tournament update, The Headshrinkers defeated Owen Hart and Jim Neidhart via disqualificaton when Owen was caught using a boot as a weapon. That leads neatly into Owen Hart being the guest on this week’s King’s Court. Owen is still carrying around the pink and black towel from Survivor Series as his trophy from screwing over Bret Hart. He delights in costing Bret the WWF Championship and says he has a huge announcement of his own to make - Bret was the Tag Team Champion, Intercontinental Champion and WWF Champion but unlike him, Owen is going to win all three of those Championships but will never lose any of them because he’s not a quitter and a loser, like Bret. He’s going to retire as the WWF Champion, undefeated. 

• In big hype for next weeks Raw which is being pushed as the 2nd anniversary show, Owen Hart will challenge Razor Ramon for the Intercontinental title and Harvey Whippleman will battle Howard Finkle in a Tuxedo match. 
• Jeff Jarrett struts to the ring for his match with Buck Quartermain. The Roadie does a mic check and prepares the stand for “the world’s greatest singer, the world’s greatest entertainer and the world’s greatest wrestler” to show us his singing skills. He decides to wrestle first and stops to pose and strut after every single move he hits, finishing with the Figure Four for a submission victory. After a commercial break, Double J grabs an electric guitar and gets very precious about the microphone position and keeps shouting mic check, and then demanding it be changed. He’s finally, finally about to sing but then can’t get the lighting right and there’s feedback on the mic so he gives up and storms off in a fury. Gorilla Monsoon suggests that maybe Razor Ramon caused all of these problems to ruin the performance. 

• After a final commercial break, we rejoin the show with the tag team rematch already in progress - Bam Bam and Lugar are back in the ring with Lex being worked over. The way this is presented is that this was a totally new match which started during the commercial break but the way its edited makes it clear that this was all filmed earlier in the night right after the original double count out and was split up. The finish comes out of no where after a hot tag to Bulldog. There’s some miscommunication between Tatanka and Bam Bam, crashing into each other and that’s somehow enough for Bulldog to pin Tatanka. The show ends with the US and UK beefcakes celebrating in the ring while Ted Dibiase reads the riot act to Tatanka and Bam Bam for the loss. They blame each other for the loss - this doesn’t bode well for their Tag Team title tournament future. 

Monday Night Raw - January 9th 1995

• For fans of behind the scenes, at this same TV taping before the cameras were turned on, Bret Hart beat Owen Hart and Diesel retained the WWF Championship over Bob Backlund. So these fans had seen some big matches already before Raw began.
• The big selling point tonight? William Shatner is here! Big wrestling fan? No, he’s here to promote Tech War which was also on the USA Network. Michaels continues to start almost every sentence with “I’ve got news for ya…” which is getting on my nerves, despite how much I like him.

• The opening match is Owen Hart challenging for the Intercontinental title. He poses with the belt before the match and champion Razor rocks him with punches to start the match properly. This is really good and Owen actually dominates and after a long back and forth, gets Razor turned over into the Sharpshooter. Bret Hart makes his first in-person appearance since Survivor Series, running to the ring and attacking Owen to cost him a title just like he did to Bret. Owen wins by disqualification so doesn’t win the title. Jeff Jarrett and The Roadie pounce, rushing down to attack Razor too but Bret and the Bad Guy clear all the heels out of the ring and have the last laugh tonight. Razor doesn’t look too happy with Bret for getting involved.

• During the Royal Rumble report, Diesel has some words for Bret Hart. He shows a bit of his pre-face turn attitude mocking Bret for taking so much time off after Survivor Series and wishes him luck in his match next week. He hopes he doesn’t have any ring rust and wants him at 100% at the Rumble. He also makes a crack about “frozen assets” from being in Calgary. That’s a “Canada is cold” joke, but it would make more sense if he was feuding with IRS or one of the Million Dollar corp members. 

• The mysterious Hakushi makes his Raw debut. He has a silver-face painted man-servant and Shawn Michaels calls him one of the greatest wrestlers in the history of Japan. High praise. His opponent is the young Matt Hardy who he attacks really quickly. Hardy moonsaults up and over Hakushi - a nice move for a jobber - but is no match for the newcomer with his body covered in Japanese writing. He puts him down with a diving shoulder block off the top rope and then a vaulting splash over the top rope from the apron. Hopefully I’ll get to see him have some longer, proper matches soon. 

• On the King’s Court, Jerry Lawler says he wanted to have Bret Hart as his guest but instead he’s got “big shot Hollywood star” William Shatner. Lawler runs down all his various TV credits (Captain Kirk is the only one that’s endured the test of time) before bringing him out. This is all just to promote Tech War, which he is also credited as the creator and producer of as well as starring in it. I’m not sure how enduring this friendship actually was but Shatner did induct Lawler into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007 off the back of this very segment. They argue, it gets heated and Shatner takes Lawler down twice. Bret Hart runs down to stop the fight from going any further and holds up Shatner’s arm in victory. Jeff Jarrett comes out to console Lawler too, which adds fuel to the fire for his match with Bret next week.

• King Kong Bundy faces Gary Sabaugh. He beats him in 29 seconds with a splash and then threatens Shawn Michaels on commentary because they both think they’re going to win the Royal Rumble.
• On the most recent WWF Superstars, The Smoking Gunns had to sit out of the Tag Team tournament due to an injury and were replaced by the 1-2-3 Kid and Bob “Sparkplug” Holly. They defeated Well Dunne to advance to the semi finals. 
• For the third week in a row, there’s a video promoting the arrival of the Supreme Fighting Machine Kama. He says he was banned from boxing and cage fighting for being TOO rough and name drops Mike Tyson as someone he’s much tougher than. 

• In a Tuxedo match, Howard Finkle and Harvey Whippleman finally settle their issues. The two non-wrestlers roll around on the mat pulling at each other’s clothes as they’re cheered on by corner men The Bushwackers and Well Dunne. This is horrifically awful and despite both being in their underwear for ages, the referee waits for some arbitrary point to declare Howard the winner. He still has his bow tie on which I guess didn’t count as him being fully stripped? Awful, but the fans laughed. Howard Bushwacker bounces around the ring with Butch and Luke in victory. What a main event for Raw’s second anniversary.

• At the end of Raw as Michaels and McMahon talk about next week’s show, Jeff Jarrett and The Roadie come out to talk trash. Jarrett talks about William Shatner like he’ll be at ringside for his match with Bret Hart (which he will) and promises that The Roadie will take him out. 

Monday Night Raw - January 16th 1995

• Raw opens with Vince McMahon narrating a Star Trek style video about William Shatner’s involvement in last week’s show as well as this one. I enjoyed this, and here’s the most up to date Raw intro too. It hasn’t changed much since episode 1.

• In the opening match, the 1-2-3 Kid and Bob Holly face the Heavenly Bodies. On Superstars the Kid and Holly advanced to the Tag Team title tournament finals at the Royal Rumble, as well as Tatanka and Bam Bam Bigelow so that match is now locked. Here it’s a rematch from the semi-finals, but with nothing on the line here. The fans are really behind the 1-2-3 Kid especially. Vince calls them a Cinderella team. Bam Bam, Tatanka and Ted Dibiase swagger down to the ring mid-match to get a closer look at their PPV opponents. Holly gets worked over for the whole match but after tagging out to the Kid, a diving spinning heel kick gives them the victory. The Million Dollar Corp leave in disgust. 
• In the locker room, Bret Hart confirms that there is no ring rust and he is 100% ready for the Royal Rumble. Shatner says that he took care of Lawler last week and this week if the Roadie crosses him he’ll be road-kill. 

• A loud cow moo heralds the arrival of, as Vince calls him, a most unusual creature. It’s the debut of Mantaur and he’s managed by Jim Cornette. Mantaur is up there with Bastion Booger and babyface Doink as one of the gimmicks people bring up first when talking about how bad the New Generation was. He’s a big fat guy in an ugly brown single and rubbish looking face paint. Vince mentions that he wore a big animal head when he made his debut previously but at least he got rid of that. He slams the jobber he’s wrestling and then, I kid you not, moos. Twice. He wins. 

• In the Royal Rumble Report, Todd runs down the card and explains that the Rumble match itself will only have 1 minute between participants this year which should make it much shorter than usual. The Tag Team Championship tournament finals are official, and Undertaker and Paul Bearer have some threatening words for IRS - no amount of money can save his soul from Resting in Peace, and so on.

• The fans go nuts for Bret Hart and William Shatner looks like he’s enjoying the entrance and the fan reaction. He positions himself on the apron facing the hard camera so is on screen for most of this match and, to be fair to him, looks pretty into it. He reacts to everything and seems very engaged which is the least you can ask for out of a celebrity guest. This is a good match as you’d expect from these two wrestlers and after a back and forth wrestling exchange, Bret counters a roll up into one of his own to pick up the victory. The Roadie is furious and rushes the ring but William Shatner puts a stop to that, side-stepping a jump off the top rope and arm dragging him around the ring before throwing up over the top rope. Roadie is great here, flailing and bumping on the outside as Double J leads him to the back.

• With Macho Man being gone, Diesel has replaced him as the new spokesman for Slim Jim in their commercials. He’s nowhere near as good. 
• Late in the show, they show us footage of the two semi-finals in the Tag Team tournament. This might have been better if they did it BEFORE telling us who won and had moved onto the finals already. 
• On the King’s Court, Jerry Lawler hosts the entire Million Dollar Corporation as his guests. That includes the pair of druids who have been acting as bodyguards for IRS lately. Ted Dibiase calls the crowd “mongoloids” which is definitely offensive, and says he’ll be the busiest man at the Royal Rumble - IRS is going to defeat The Undertaker, Bam Bam and Tatanka are going to win the Tag Team Championships and then the massive King Kong Bundy will win the Royal Rumble match itself and go to Wrestlemania. Given how hard they’ve pushed Bundy since his comeback, that feels far more likely than it should. He does also reveal a big match for next week’s Raw as the winners of the Tag Team Championship tournament will defend the titles the next day against The Smoking Gunns, as consolation for them being removed from the tournament due to injury. That’s fair. 

• In the main even, 500lbs Mabel faces a jobber who he has no problem squashing. Vince hypes him up as a favourite in the Rumble match due to his massive size which Shawn objects to of course because HE’s going to win the Rumble. After the match they try to get an interview with Mabel who says he’s the biggest and baddest in the match and that brings out the just-as-large King Kong Bundy. They get in each other’s face and Mabel challenges him to fight him but the show goes to a commercial break and it never happens.