What the World Was Watching: Monday Night Raw – June 30, 1997

–Vince McMahon,
Jerry “the King” Lawler, and Jim Ross are doing the announcing duties and they
are broadcasting from Des Moines, Iowa.

–Hunter Hearst
Helmsley and Chyna cut a pre-recorded promo, where Helmsley says he might be
facing the World’s Most Dangerous Man, but he is bringing the World’s Most
Dangerous Woman with him.

–Opening
Contest:  Ken Shamrock defeats Hunter
Hearst Helmsley (w/Chyna) with a belly-to-belly suplex at 4:38:

Helmsley surprisingly gets in ninety percent of the
offense in this match, with much of it being fists, kicks, and chokes, and
Chyna continues her streak of making a mark by throwing Shamrock into the
steps.  However, Mankind wanders out and
that distracts Helmsley and enables Shamrock to pick up the victory.  A throwaway opener, but it sets up
Mankind-Helmsley for Canadian Stampede.  Rating: 
*

–A video package
reviews the Ahmed Johnson heel turn and the emergence of the WWF gang
wars.  Ross says that Ahmed had to have
knee surgery this week and Ahmed says that when he comes back he’s going to go
right after the Undertaker.

–Michael Cole makes
his Raw debut by interviewing the Legion of Doom in the locker room.  The LOD say that no one has come close to
beating them legally in their WWF tenure and they are ready for Faarooq and
D-Lo Brown tonight.

–Sunny has money in
her cleavage to hype the One Million Dollar Challenge contest that is
affiliated with the SummerSlam pay-per-view.

–Tag Team
Tournament Semi-Finals:  Faarooq &
D-Lo Brown (w/Kama Mustafa) defeat The Legion of Doom when Faarooq pins Hawk
after Henry Godwinn nails Hawk with a bucket:

The Godwinns appear near the entrance to watch the
contest and D-Lo faces less of a size disadvantage than he did in the Nation’s
first round match last week.  The match
proceeds along at a brisk pace and the LOD give D-Lo a Doomsday Device, but the
Godwinns interfere and the Nation scores a major upset to make the finals.  Rating:  ¼*

–McMahon interviews
Faarooq and Faarooq demands to know why one of the members of the Nation did
not get Ahmed Johnson’s scheduled title match with the Undertaker at Canadian
Stampede.  When he is told that Vader is
getting the shot, Faarooq argues that Vader is getting the shot because he’s
white and that the DOA was sent to injure Ahmed by the Undertaker.  Well that would explain why the Undertaker
starting riding a bike in 2000.  Savio
Vega interrupts the promo and says that he is out for revenge and Savio’s gang,
the soon to be called Los Boricuas, interfere and fight the Nation.  When WWF officials get that settled, DOA
comes out to the biggest pop of all the groups and join the fight.

–Cole tells us that
the Legion of Doom have left the building and he is interrupted by Los
Boricuas.  Savio introduces his gang and
says that they are in the WWF to kick ass.

–Film of Sunny’s
photo shoot for Raw magazine is shown and this includes photos of a liaison
with Brian Pillman.

–Footage of Jerry
Lawler piledriving wrestlers is shown because he is Brian Christopher’s mentor.

–“Too Sexy” Brian
Christopher beats Scott Putski with a rollup after Jerry Lawler interferes at
3:37:

This continues the series of light heavyweight matches
that have been on Raw for the last few weeks. 
It is somewhat surprising that Putski didn’t establish a more regular
role with the company at this time because he had a good look and was competent
in the ring.  The crowd really isn’t into
this, but the WWF was misguided in just throwing light heavyweights out there
and thinking the crowd would react.  The
crowds did that in WCW because the cruiserweights were flying through the air
and throwing out tons of insane spots. 
The WWF did not have those kinds of wrestlers, so they needed to give
these guys some mic time and semblance of storylines to make people care.  Putski appears to have the match won with a
splash off the top rope, but Lawler interferes and trips Putski when he tries a
running powerslam and his son wins.  This
was perfectly acceptable and had a good pace, but the screwjob finishes are
getting excessive this evening since this is our third in a row.  Rating:  **

–After the match,
Lawler and Christopher give Putski a spike piledriver and cut a brief
promo.  Lawler throws some ethnic slurs
at Putski’s Polish heritage and Christopher stumbles through his part.  This appears to be setting up a future tag
team match between Lawler and Christopher and the Putskis.

–Steve Austin’s
imitation of Hulk Hogan in ECW, which is on the video Cause Stone Cold Said
So is played for the audience.

–Ross narrates a
video hyping the appearance of the Great Sasuke at the Canadian Stampede.

–Brian Pillman apologizes
attacking a fan on Shotgun Saturday Night, which got him banned from that
show.  He also apologizes for being the
voice of reason and being willing to tell it like it is.

–“The Loose
Cannon” Brian Pillman defeats Mankind via count out at 6:01 shown:

Mankind is still wearing the “Pick Me Steve” sign,
although he’s not wearing an Austin 3:16 shirt. 
Mankind gives Ross a present at the announce table, which ends up being
a Mandible Claw hand.  Pillman just takes
it out of Ross’s hand and drives it into Mankind’s face and then proceeds to
tear up his sign.  Steve Austin appears
in the split screen and says that he doesn’t want to team with Mankind because
he sucks.  The storyline in this match is
that Pillman is losing his mind after getting fired from Shotgun Saturday Night
and he tries to stab Mankind with a pencil, which is interrupted by Earl
Hebner.  We get a fun brawl, but when
Mankind applies the Mandible Claw, Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Chyna interfere
and when Mankind chases after them he gets counted out.  That brings our screwjob streak to four.  Rating:  **

–Paul Bearer says
that he looks forward to revealing the Undertaker’s secret tonight.

–McMahon interviews
Bearer, who is attacked by a fan on his way to the ring.  Since it only takes a camera man to take the
fan away, I would venture to say that it would have to be a plant.  Bearer says that he was an apprentice for the
Undertaker’s father at a funeral home for two years, but he noticed that the
Undertaker as a child had the look of the devil.  Despite this, the Undertaker’s younger
brother Kane followed his around everywhere and Bearer starts getting a little
ridiculous talking about them smoking cigarettes behind a barn.  He said when he came back from college
classes one night, the funeral home was burned down and he says the Undertaker
did it and killed his family.  The lights
flicker in the arena as we go to a commercial break.

–Vader is shown
congratulating Bearer backstage on revealing the secret.

–Sable models the
cash for the Million Dollar Challenge and Marc Mero is not happy about it.

–Tag Team
Tournament Semi-Finals:  Owen Hart &
The British Bulldog defeat The Headbangers when Owen pins Mosh with a roll up
at 4:07:

With the Legion of Doom eliminated, the tag team
tournament has become a mere formality, as it is quite inconceivable that Owen
and the Bulldog would do the job here or in the finals.  Bret Hart calls into the show from Calgary
and he hypes the Canadian Stampede pay-per-view.  The phone interview takes all the attention
away from the match, in which both teams evenly trade offense, but the Bulldog
crotches Thrasher when the Headbangers try to do their flying leg
drop-powerbomb combination to Owen and Owen rolls up Mosh to advance his team.  Rating:  *½

–After the match,
Jim Cornette congratulates his former team and tells them that he wants to
introduce his new team that never made it in time for the tournament and the
men he brings out are the Headhunters. 
Owen and the Bulldog quickly leave, though, so the Headhunters square
off with the Headbangers in an awkward exchange, which ends with the
Headhunters delivering a flying headbutt and moonsault to their new foes.  This never led to anything.

–The Undertaker
addresses his fans from the locker room and says that the funeral home did burn
down.  He says Kane and he were playing
with matches and they were punished by his father, but he says that Kane
probably burned it down because he saw him with embalming liquids as he headed
off to do his chores.  He claims to have
returned from his chores to see that the funeral home had burned down.  He then says that the event put him on a path
of walking in darkness and absorbing the power of death.

–Vader (w/Paul
Bearer) defeats Rockabilly (w/The Honky Tonk Man) by disqualification when the
Undertaker interferes at 24 seconds:

So we go from a great deal of discussion about death and
people burning alive to the Rockabilly theme. 
That’s quite a mood shift.  Vader
no sells a guitar shot to the back at the beginning of the contest, but before
Rockabilly can endure a major beating, the Undertaker runs out and then goes
after Bearer.  The Undertaker tells
Bearer to tell the world the truth and Bearer tells him that Kane is alive and
told him that the Undertaker burned down the funeral home.  After that revelation, Vader hits the
Undertaker from behind and runs away.  I’m sure the Internet liked Vader playing a cowardly heel in 1997.

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–“Stone Cold”
Steve Austin beats Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart by disqualification when Bret Hart
interferes at 8:10 shown:

This is a small rematch from a few weeks back when these
two men faced each other and Austin won in less than two minutes because of a
disqualification.  Austin shows off his
anti-hero persona by grabbing the ropes on abdominal stretch.  During the commercial break, Bret Hart
attacks Ken Shamrock, the only member of Austin’s team at Canadian Stampede in
the building, backstage.  The match never
seems to click, with Neidhart using lots of rest holds, even though he does
take a bump on the entrance ramp for Austin. 
Unsurprisingly, Bret runs out and interferes and puts Austin in the ring
post figure-four until Mankind rushes out to break it up by putting Bret in a
Mandible Claw and that plays us out.  Rating: 
¾*