WWF Monday Night RAW – October 9th, 1995

October 9, 1995

From the Grand Center in Grand Rapids, MI

Your hosts are Vince McMahon and Jerry “The King” Lawler

We are shown a video from the Survivor Series press conference with Shawn Michaels tearing up over doing work with kids. Honestly, he came off great and genuine here. And its clear they are positioning him to be the top babyface.

Yokozuna & Owen Hart & British Bulldog w/ Jim Cornette & Mr. Fuji vs. Undertaker & Shawn Michaels & Diesel

The match is joined in-progress with Shawn and Owen mixing it up. Shawn works the arm after an Irish whip sequence as Lawler calls out Shawn for being “too impressed” with himself. Shawn takes Owen over with a monkey flip then skins-the-cat back into the ring and clotheslining Owen over the top rope. The match breaks down after that as the face team clears the ring with the crowd going nuts. We get a replay of Diesel & Undertaker sending Yokozuna through the ropes with a double big boot. Diesel and Bulldog are now in the ring with Diesel sending Bulldog outside with a punch. Yokozuna tags in and Diesel takes him down with a flying clothesline before tagging out to Undertaker. We see Undertaker hit his ropewalk attack but Yokozuna catches him with a Samoan drop. Cornette is laughing on the outside, saying “that’s the way you do it” but Undertaker comes back with a jumping DDT. Waylon Mercy is in the aisle scouting Diesel for their match on “Superstars” this weekend as Shawn tags but gets planted with an uranage. Owen tags and covers for two then stomps away after hitting a backbreaker. Bulldog tags and Shawn gets hit with a double back elbow smash. Bulldog press slams Shawn then the heels stay in control by running interference to neutralize Shawn in their corner. We go to break and return with Owen having Shawn in an abdominal stretch as Vince makes sure to tell us that Shawn has been “kicking out of everything.” Dean Douglas, in a suit, is taking notes from the aisle while the crowd rallies behind Shawn. The ref breaks up Bulldog providing leverage by kicking his arm then Shawn takes Owen over with a backslide for a nearfall. Owen clotheslines Shawn then tags out to Yokozuna as the camera shows Douglas in the aisle. He clotheslines Shawn and tags out to Bulldog as the camera keeps cutting to Douglas. Bulldog hits a delayed vertical suplex for a nearfall then tags out to Owen, who applies a chin lock. The hosts now talk about America Online and that Shawn will be on tomorrow night at 9pm EST. Shawn fights out but runs into a spinning heel kick as Owen covers for another nearfall. Owen targets the back again then heads up top after a gutwrench suplex but we go to break as Owen is in midair and return to see that Owen missed the splash. Both men are down and tag out as Diesel fires away on Bulldog. Diesel then cleans house until Owen attacks him from the outside. Bulldog hits Diesel with a running powerslam but Undertaker breaks up the pin. Yokozuna sneaks in and leg drops Diesel then Bulldog covers and gets the win (11:55) **3/4. After the match, Mabel runs in and attacks Undertaker with help from Yokozuna. We see both men hit Undertaker with consecutive leg drops then Douglas fires away on Shawn and rams him into the apron. Douglas then drops Shawn on the steps with a suplex as we see Undertaker & Diesel getting attacked inside of the ring while Cornette celebrates on the apron.

Thoughts: The match was solid but never went into the next gear. Some of the commercial breaks were oddly placed too I thought and took away from things. That was also another theme of the show. I did think the sequences with Owen and Shawn were quite good though. The crowd seemed less invested as it went on too. However, the match was designed to get heel heat and get the challenger a pin on the champion. Speaking of the champion, between the opening package on Shawn and the fact he dominated the match with Vince putting over his resilience the transition from Diesel to Shawn as top face is happening sooner rather than later. The post-match annihilation by the heels was good and shocking to see on WWF TV in this manner as it rarely happened. This was obviously influenced by Bill Watts, who wound up quitting before the week ended.

Back from break we see officials tending to Shawn, Diesel, and Undertaker.

Clips from last week’s Bret Hart vs. Jean Pierre Lafitte match with Bret being victorious but afterwards getting into it with Lawler as Isaac Yankem ran in from behind to attack Bret. This leads to a steel cage match for next week between Yankem and Bret. We are then shown the last several minutes of the Bret vs. Yankem match from SummerSlam.

We see footage from the last MSG show that was a benefit for the underprivileged and handicapped children.

Ad for the WWF World Tour de Force shows in the USA. Tomorrow I’ll have the Cologne, Germany house show recap posted.

Skip w/ Sunny vs. Fatu

Vince tells us the cameras are backstage following everyone involved in the six-man tag match. Skip fires away to start. Vince says that Mabel is trying to get into the Undertaker’s dressing room as Skip does some jumping jacks. Both men trade arm wringers as the announcers also alert us that WWF is touring Europe at the moment too. Fatu no-sells a turnbuckle smash and fires away. Sunny screams on the apron and Fatu follows her out then counters a sneak attack from Skip. Back inside, Skip begs for mercy but avoids a charge as Fatu’s shoulder rams into the post. Skip hits a back suplex and follows with jumping jacks before using a scoop slam. Skip hits a flying fist drop but walks into a punch as Vince says Dok Hendrix is in front of Diesel’s dressing room. Skip fights back and celebrates with Sunny before making the cover and gets two. Skip uses a chin lock then tries a flying headbutt but hurts himself as he hits Fatu’s head. Fatu now runs wild and hits a backbreaker then heads up top but Sunny distracts him. Skip attacks Fatu from behind and brings him back into the ring. He sets up for a superplex but Fatu blocks it then he tries again but Fatu knocks him down with a chop then hits a flying splash for the win (5:54) *.

Thoughts: A dull, heatless match between a cold babyface act and a heel who loses to practically everyone. Really just time filler here.

Dok is pacing in front of the locker room but can’t hear the announcers. We go to break and come back to learn the audio problems are taking care of but first, a replay of the aftermath from the six-man tag match. Dok tells us its not a good time to interview Shawn, Diesel, and Undertaker since they are not feeling well and are angry. Dok then says if they want him to go in he will but we cut away to Jim Ross. We see Ross go into the locker room as Bulldog, wearing a baseball cap, flex and pose while Cornette gloats and rants over how Bulldog defeated Diesel in front of anyone and how he will do the same at In Your House. Bulldog then tells us how he has been denied title shots for many years and even beat Bret for the Intercontinental Title in front of “83,000” fans at Wembley Stadium. Bulldog then says he is hungry and needs a bone to chew on and will do so by beating Diesel at In Your House. Mabel then comes up to call Bulldog his “homie” and how they both accomplished the impossible (he beat Undertaker, Bulldog beat Diesel) and Mabel then promises to bury Undertaker under a mountain of snow. Again, lots of heel heat here used to build up the PPV.

A replay of Douglas beating on Shawn after the six-man is shown.

Back to the hosts as they talk about WWF Interim President Gorilla Monsoon’s edict of Lawler being placed in a cage above the cage if he interferes in the cage match. Lawler then flips out over the threat of being caged.

A video package hyping the Bret/Yankem cage match narrated by Todd Pettengill.

Final Thoughts: The show was focused on the six-man tag and getting lots of heel heat along with hyping up the cage match for next week. I thought it was enjoyable and broke the mold of random squash matches plus a featured match formula that has been the WWF show formula for many years. However, the frequent commercial breaks at random times was a negative I felt. Anyway, we are less than two weeks away from the next PPV as the hype will continue across WWF TV.