What the World Was Watching: WWF Monday Night RAW -01.01.96 (Start of a New Series!)

The World Wrestling Federation (WWF) was on the defensive when 1996 began because 1995 was a fiscal disaster. James Dixon’s Titan Sinking argues that Vince McMahon and Titan Sports lost $6 million, and, according to Wrestlenomics, the WWF’s revenue declined from $89.2 million to $87.4 million. While the WWF was venturing back outside of the Northeast for house shows and trying to expand its national footprint after weathering years of federal investigations, those shows drew poorly. Ever since the national expansion began the WWF had run multiple circuits of house shows. By 1995 this dwindled to an “A” and “B” circuit but in September the WWF decided to abandon “B” shows due to poor ticket sales. The last straw was a loop through Florida where less than 1,000 fans attended a card in Palmetto, Florida headlined by Razor Ramon facing Sir Mo. The fact that WrestleMania, the promotion’s biggest annual pay-per-view, was held in the Hartford Civic Center was a testament to how far it had fallen because the venue was second-rate compared to previous venues like the Pontiac Silverdome, Toronto Skydome, or Madison Square Garden. While television ratings for Monday Night RAW for the first six months of 1995 achieved new heights this was not translating into higher levels of pay-per-view buys or arena attendance.

It is not as if the WWF was not trying. 1995 ushered in new experiments to try to bring in new revenue sources for the company or reorient it creatively. The pay-per-view schedule was adjusted from five shows per year to ten as two-hour, B-level cards entitled In Your House began in May, fitting into the gaps between bigger cards like The King of the Ring, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series. This was in response to World Championship Wrestling (WCW) adopting a larger pay-per-view calendar. However, the low price point for the shows – a mere $14.95 – did not lead to more people buying them. If anything, they gave the impression that In Your House was a sub-standard product compared to the longer, more established shows that were priced at $29.95. By December, the WWF raised the price of In Your House events to $19.95, realizing that the people buying them were already diehard fans. In terms of creative direction, McMahon reached out to Bill Watts, a territory star and former owner of Mid-South Wrestling and the Universal Wrestling Federation in the 1980s. McMahon and Watts competed against each other in the territory wars and Watts went on to a poor stint as WCW’s booker in 1992-1993. McMahon brought Watts in to reportedly book the promotion while McMahon focused on the business side. Watts only stayed for three months, though, angry at McMahon continuing to micromanage decisions. However, the Watts months did lead to some interesting concepts like a “wild card” match at Survivor Series that put babyfaces and heels on the same teams.

Try as it might, the biggest obstacle for the WWF was adjusting to the way that the wrestling business was changing. The media landscape was pivoting more to cable television. The old, syndicated model, which the WWF and other promotions used for years to drive people to live events, was fading. For the past few years the WWF was losing syndicated markets, owed partly to its legal problems with the federal government and partly due to advertisers paying better rates for non-wrestling programming. With fewer eyeballs on its non-cable programs, this imperiled the WWF’s attendance at house shows, which in turn shut down visiting some areas that were no longer receiving WWF Superstars, the promotion’s former flagship show, and Wrestling Challenge. WWF Superstars would continue into 1996 as a syndicated program but Challenge was not as lucky, holding its last taping in St. Louis, Missouri on July 26, 1995. The WWF had been steadily replacing Challenge’s programming with The Action Zone, a cable program that aired on Sunday afternoon on USA Network. This indicated that cable television was where the company’s future would be, doubling down on the WWF’s relationship with USA Network that went back to 1983.

However, even the WWF’s role in the cable television landscape was not safe as 1996 began. In September 1995, WCW launched Monday Nitro to go head-to-head with the WWF. It was a shot in the dark by WCW Senior Vice President Eric Bischoff, who proposed the idea of beating the WWF on Monday nights to WCW owner Ted Turner. Very few wrestling journalists gave WCW any chance of challenging the WWF’s supremacy since the WWF had occupied a Monday evening timeslot for ten years, going back to Prime Time Wrestling in January 1985. The first episode of Nitro was unopposed since the RAW was pre-empted by USA Network showing tennis’ United States Open. But that program was a shot across the bow as Lex Luger, a former WWF main event talent who was working on a handshake deal with Vince McMahon for much of 1995, jumped ship and went back to his old stomping grounds. Luger challenged WCW World Champion Hulk Hogan to a title match on the following week’s program and in the first head-to-head showdown between RAW and Nitro on September 11, Nitro prevailed 2.5 to 2.2 in the ratings. It was not a fluke either as Nitro would win eight of the first fifteen matchups between the companies, as well as notching two ties. WCW became more openly antagonistic toward the WWF as well as Bischoff spoiled the WWF’s taped television results on Nitro. McMahon was slow to respond to the WCW challenge, not wanting to put more feature matches on RAW, but it was apparent by the end of 1995 that Nitro was not going away. If anything, its success was calling into question how stale the WWF model had become.

It was easy for the WWF to ignore other wrestling alternatives during the 1990s. Smoky Mountain Wrestling and the Memphis-based United States Wrestling Association (USWA) were traditional territories that catered to a specific geographic region. Both knew their place in the wrestling universe and never went beyond their Southern footprint. The WWF even worked with both as part of a talent pipeline, reinforcing its own status as a premier destination for wrestling talent in North America. Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was doing wild garbage brawls with chairs and tables and had Jerry Springer-like storylines. It was popular among the readers of Bill Apter’s wrestling magazines and had a cult following but it had not drawn a crowd over 2,000 fans, had a limited television reach, and was not on pay-per-view. However, WCW was a different story, backed by Turner’s billions and establishing connections with New Japan and Mexican wrestling promotions. That money and opportunity lured longtime WWF talent Hulk Hogan away in 1994, causing McMahon to pivot hard into a New Generation of talent.

In 1994 and 1995 the New Generation was not catching on, though. The lower attendance at house shows and low pay-per-view buyrates were a testament to that. McMahon still preferred to treat wrestling as a cartoon when popular culture was becoming jaded with clear cut heroes and villains storylines and wanted something with more of an edge. McMahon’s reliance on occupational gimmicks was becoming legendary as the roster going into 1996 had a garbage man (Duke Droese), a hog farmer (Henry Godwinn), a stock car driver (Bob Holly), a country music singer (Jeff Jarrett), and an evil dentist (Isaac Yankem). None of this was appealing to longtime fans and the WWF was struggling to appeal as much to children as it once did. Another handicap of the New Generation was a power imbalance on the roster between babyfaces and heels. Most of the WWF’s star power was concentrated with babyfaces, a problem that got worse in 1995 when heels like Shawn Michaels and Bam Bam Bigelow turned and other talent who could have been turned like Razor Ramon and Luger were not. The WWF did try to build a new big heel in 1995 with Mabel, a former tag team wrestler, but his push by winning the King of the Ring Tournament was forced, not helped by him earning a weak win over the Undertaker and beating “newcomer” Savio Vega in the tournament final. In desperate need for options, the WWF cast its eyes elsewhere and by the end of 1996 new talent was coming in from WCW. Dustin Rhodes was signed and turned into Goldust, a sexually androgynous character that had the edge many gimmicks lacked, albeit one that carried its own risks as gay rights organizations like Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) became critical of it. Other workers would soon to be signed too like Vader, who had been fired by WCW after a fight with Paul Orndorff; Steve Austin, fired from WCW after suffering a triceps injury and coming off a brief run in ECW; and Mick Foley, who left WCW in the fall of 1994 and had spent the last two years on the independent scene doing wild brawls and death matches. So new talent was arriving but the WWF would need time to introduce this talent to its audience and there was not a lot of confidence that the WWF would use these workers to their best potential.

This column, which will be released on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, will review all major WWF television shows and pay-per-views throughout 1996. Wrestlers win/loss totals will also be provided for their matches, noteworthy house shows will be broken down, and at the end of each week a review will be provided of major backstage news that affected WWF booking and business. Replayed or repeated segments are eliminated from the summaries of shows to enhance the reading experience.

Here was the WWF’s roster to start 1996:

Babyfaces: Ahmed Johnson, Aldo Montoya, Barry Horowitz, Bob Holly, Bret Hart, Fatu, Hakushi, Diesel, Duke Droese, Henry Godwinn, Marty Jannetty, Rad Radford, Savio Vega, Shawn Michaels, amd the Undertaker

Heels: Bob Backlund, Buddy Landel, Goldust, Hunter-Hearst Helmsley, Isaac Yankem, Jeff Jarrett, Mabel, Sid, Tatanka, the 1-2-3 Kid, and the British Bulldog

Tag Teams: Owen Hart & Yokozuna (heels), the Bodydonnas (heels), and the Smoking Gunns (babyfaces)

And here is a list of the WWF’s champions to begin the year:

WWF Champion: Bret Hart (defeated Diesel on November 19, 1995 at Survivor Series in Landover, Maryland)
WWF Tag Team Champions: The Smoking Gunns (defeated Owen Hart & Yokozuna on Monday Night RAW on September 25, 1995 in Grand Rapids, Michigan)
Intercontinental Champion: Razor Ramon (defeated Dean Douglas at In Your House 4 on October 22, 1995 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)

The first WWF television show of 1996 was the January 1 edition of Monday Night RAW, billed as “The RAW Bowl” as a play on college football’s bowl games that shared the same date. Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler commentated from Newark, Delaware. This was the second episode taped in Newark, with the taping taking place on December 18, 1995. Attendance was not reported.

A graphic shows fans chanting for the RAW Bowl outside of the arena. To give the show a football vibe there are cheerleaders, a Raw Bowl queen, a pep band, and the ring mat looks like a football field. Classie Freddie Blassie is also shown giving a pep talk to a team of WWF superstars in a school-like setting. Lawler has a Cleveland Browns jersey on.

Brother Love is shown prepping a speech in the locker room.

Opening Non-Title RAW Bowl Contest: The Smoking Gunns (WWF Tag Team Champions) defeat Owen Hart & Yokozuna (w/Jim Cornette & Mr. Fuji), Razor Ramon & Savio Vega, and Sid & the 1-2-3 Kid (w/Ted DiBiase) when Billy Gunn pins Sid after Ramon interferes at 17:15 shown:

Other Eliminations: Ramon & Vega are eliminated when the Kid pins Ramon after a Sid clothesline to the back of Ramon’s head at 9:53 shown; Owen & Yokozuna are eliminated after Billy pins Owen after a Yokozuna Banzai Drop at 12:48 shown

The Gunns had their best year in the WWF in 1995, winning the Tag Team titles from Bob Holly and the 1-2-3 Kid the night after The Royal Rumble where Holly and the Kid won an eight-team tournament, defeating Bam Bam Bigelow and Tatanka in the finals. They had the belts until WrestleMania XI, where they lost them to Owen and Yokozuna, who beat them again at the first In Your House. The Gunns treaded water for months, not appearing on another pay-per-view until SummerSlam where they defeated the Blu Brothers. That positioned them for another crack at the Tag Team titles, upsetting Owen and Yokozuna the night after In Your House 3 to regain the belts. They successfully defended them against PG-13 of the USWA; Ramon and the Kid several times, becoming a cog in the feud between those two; and also successfully defended the belts at the end of 1995 against Skip and Rad Radford. The team entered 1996 without a feud and at the top of arguably the thinnest tag team division in company history.

Owen started 1995 as a singles competitor, losing a long feud to his brother Bret in a no holds barred match that aired on the RAW prior to WrestleMania. Undeterred, Owen issued a challenge to the Gunns and unveiled Yokozuna as his mystery partner at WrestleMania. Yokozuna had not been seen in the WWF after he lost a casket match to the Undertaker at Survivor Series. After winning the titles, the duo fended off challenges from Holly and the Kid, the New Headshrinkers, the Allied Powers, and Ramon and Vega but had their five-month reign ended by the Gunns. Their reign should have ended a night earlier at In Your House 3 in a “Triple Header” match against Diesel and Shawn Michaels where all three of the company’s titles were on the line. However, the WWF did a bait and switch with the audience as the British Bulldog took Owen’s place as Yokozuna’s tag team partner but Owen ate a late in the match. The result was overturned by WWF President Gorilla Monsoon after legal wrangling by heel attorney Clarence Mason. Owen and Yokozuna never got a televised rematch for the titles and the WWF seemed poised to put them back on a singles path, positioning Owen for a feud with Michaels after Owen knocked Michaels out with an enzuigiri on a November 20 episode of RAW.

Ramon and Vega became onscreen friends at the first In Your House when Vega came out of the crowd to help Ramon fight off an attack by Jeff Jarrett and the Roadie. They were together for four matches in 1995, going 0-3-1. That included losses to the Blu Brothers, Men on a Mission at In Your House 2, and Owen and Yokozuna after the first match between the teams went to a time-limit draw. They were a makeshift team since both were known more for singles competition. Ramon entered 1996 as the Intercontinental Champion, a title that he had been wedded to since first winning it in the fall of 1993. By this point he was a four-time champion, winning the belt from Dean Douglas at In Your House 4. However, Ramon’s babyface act was stale and a heel turn would have freshened him up significantly. A heel turn seemed to be in the cards during a ladder match against Michaels at SummerSlam, which turned out to be the WWF’s match of the year, but the WWF did not pull the trigger, instead building to another feud between Ramon and the Kid, who turned heel. For his part, Vega did better than his previous gimmick, wrestling as Japanese martial artist Kwang, who was cannon fodder to put over babyface talent from 1994-1995. He enjoyed a strong push in the King of the Ring Tournament, replacing Ramon and defeating Irwin R. Schyster, Yokozuna, and the Roadie en route to a loss to Mabel in the finals. After that, he became firmly planted in the midcard, losing to top tier acts like Sid and Goldust and drawing with other stars like Skip and Bob Backlund.

Sid and the Kid were poised to be DiBiase’s best chance at bringing gold to his stable. Sid started 1995 as Shawn Michaels bodyguard but he turned on Michaels the night after WrestleMania XI when Michaels told him he could have the night off when Michaels received a rematch against WWF Champion Diesel. That triggered a feud between Sid and Diesel that resulted in Sid becoming a cowardly heel, which was completely out of character for him. Michaels was scheduled to defend the Intercontinental Championship against Sid at SummerSlam but the WWF changed the match to Michaels against Ramon in a ladder match to solicit a larger buyrate. Sid wrestled Michaels in the first head-to-head match of RAW against Nitro, an infamous one where Eric Bischoff gave away the result of the match to viewers when Nitro came on the air. After losing to Michaels, Sid struggled to look special anymore. He was put over midcarders like Vega and Henry Godwinn but could not get into title contention. For his part, the Kid carried his plucky underdog character into 1995. After winning and losing the Tag Team titles alongside Bob Holly, the Kid suffered a severe neck injury that kept him out of action for much of the spring and early summer. When he returned he put over the Roadie in a fun match at In Your House 2 and did the same for Hakushi at SummerSlam. After that pay-per-view the Kid started having problems with longtime friend Ramon, arguing that Ramon treated him like, well, a kid. This culminated in the Kid turning on Ramon in a non-title match on RAW on November 13, helping Sid beat Ramon and counting a quick pin as the special guest referee. The Kid aligned himself with DiBiase’s Million Dollar Corporation and DiBiase bought him a spot into the opening elimination match at Survivor Series, where the Kid used Sid’s interference to be the sole survivor and pin former tag team partner Marty Jannetty. DiBiase paired Sid and the Kid together, but the team did not get off to a good start, losing to Ramon and Jannetty in the opening match at In Your House 5.

The teams wear shirts that are meant to mimic jerseys and they go through a tearaway RAW poster in the entrance way. Referee Earl Hebner is dressed like an NFL referee. This is a four-corner elimination match that gives teams one timeout that they can call at any time. On his way to the ring, Ramon is given gold roses by Goldust’s usher and Ramon does not kindly to that, beating the usher up. To show how little McMahon follows real sports, he has a hilarious botch about how “The NAACP is looking into possible recruiting violations” by DiBiase. Throughout the match, McMahon and Lawler throw in football terminology, which gets to be a bit heavy handed, talking about interference, intentional grounding, delay of game, roughing the kicker, the line of scrimmage, and scoring. Lawler also hits on the Raw Bowl Queen, Playboy Playmate Ashley Allen. Owen thinks it is funny early to tag Billy in to face Bart, leading to the Gunns making quick contact and tagging in Owen and Yokozuna. All of the participants get a time to shine, building to a fight between Ramon and the Kid, which pops the crowd. Ramon dominates the Kid, who calls timeout to stop a Razor’s Edge. However, Ramon does the move anyway and that leads to a mess where DiBiase hops on the apron, Hebner throws a flag at DiBiase, and Sid comes in and clotheslines Ramon in the back of the head, allowing the Kid to score a pin over his rival. The Gunns work two-against-one as the lone babyfaces left in the match, finding a creative way to eliminate the former Tag Team champions when Bart trips Owen when he tries to position Billy for a Banzai Drop and Yokozuna splashes his former partner instead. Yokozuna tries to call timeout but the referee does not see it. Sid and the Kid place Billy in peril for a long time, nearly beating him with a Sid clothesline and leg drop. Sid holds Billy in place for a Kid top rope move when the referee tries to keep Bart out of the ring but Ramon comes down to ringside, throws the Kid off, and the Kid collides with Sid, allowing Billy to do a jackknife cover to the big man and give the Tag Team champions a RAW Bowl win. The ring work was fine for this and it was a novelty in an era when multi-team and multi-man matches were rare. Rating: **¼

McMahon says that Shawn Michaels will hold a press conference next week. Lawler insists that Michaels is going to announce his retirement.

Dok Hendrix does the RAW Bowl Halftime Report, sending the broadcast to Jim Ross, who is outside of Diesel’s locker room. Ross reports that Diesel looks forward to kicking Mabel’s “can” later tonight. Hendrix hypes The Royal Rumble main event of WWF Champion Bret Hart facing the Undertaker and another match between Ahmed Johnson and Jeff Jarrett.

There is a replay of the hog pen match from In Your House 5 between Henry Godwinn and Hunter-Hearst Helmsley.

Diesel pins Mabel after a big boot in 10 seconds:

Diesel spent most of 1995 as the WWF Champion, but his reign was marred by poor booking and bad challengers. At The Royal Rumble, Diesel wrestled former champion Bret Hart to a double disqualification after a multitude of wrestlers poured into the ring. That robbed him of a strong title defense on his first pay-per-view as champion. After that, he feuded with former ally Shawn Michaels, who won the Royal Rumble. The good match between the two at WrestleMania further cemented Michaels’ rise as he blew Diesel up and fans booed Diesel beating up a smaller competitor when the match was ending. When Sid attacked Michaels the night after the pay-per-view, Diesel came to Michaels’ aid and spent the next few months feuding with Sid, winning the program in July at In Your House 2 in a lumberjack match. Diesel then defended the title against Mabel at SummerSlam and similarly defeated the British Bulldog in a poorly received match at In Your House 4. At Survivor Series, the WWF pulled the plug on Diesel’s title push, having him lose to Bret Hart in a no holds barred match. When the match ended, Diesel became more of a tweener character, attacking Bret and cutting a worked shoot promo the following night, saying that he would only slap hands with fans who wore his trademark black glove and he was bringing a new attitude to the ring. That attitude showed itself at In Your House 5 where he got disqualified for beating up Owen Hart too much to avenge what Owen did to Michaels weeks prior and then got into an argument with the Undertaker at the end of the pay-per-view, upset that WWF President Gorilla Monsoon would name the Undertaker as the number one contender for the WWF Championship.

Since the WWF was short on heels, Mabel got a strong push to be a monster for Diesel to slay in 1995. The problem, though, was that Mabel was working in tag teams prior to that push and his first run as a babyface single in 1994 did not go well. Even though Mabel’s tag team with Mo was feuding with the Smoking Gunns prior to WrestleMania XI, Mabel was plugged into the King of the Ring Tournament. Many thought he would lose to Adam Bomb to put Bomb into the tournament at a qualifying match at In Your House 1 but Mabel won instead. Then, people believed that he would lose to the Undertaker in the first round but Mabel won that match due to Kama’s interference, got a bye through the semi-finals, and then defeated Savio Vega in the tournament final. The win was not liked by the Philadelphia crowd, who believed the Undertaker or Shawn Michaels was a likely tournament winner. Even though Mabel won the event, he was still booked in tag team matches afterward, teaming with Mo to beat Razor Ramon and Vega at In Your House 2. He did get a WWF title shot at Diesel at SummerSlam but came up short when Lex Luger kept Mo from interfering late in the contest. Mabel was transitioned into a feud with the Undertaker after this, becoming one of the many people during the year to steal the Undertaker’s urn. The Undertaker vanquished Mabel in a casket match at In Your House 5. Like Diesel’s title reign, the WWF knew by late 1995 that Mabel’s push had been a disaster, contributing to declining ratings for Monday Night RAW after The King of the Ring. Mabel did not help himself by injuring top level talents, doing a sit down splash on Diesel that he was told not to do at SummerSlam and breaking the Undertaker’s orbital bone weeks later.

One of the carriers of Mabel’s throne is Jeff Hardy, who is clearly ailing under the weight. Diesel makes a quick statement of how he wants to get back to the top of the WWF, attacking Mabel before the bell and beating him in 10 seconds.

After the bell, Diesel pulls Mo into the ring and gives him the Jackknife. He poses for fireworks afterward, gesturing that he wants the WWF Championship back around his waist. When Lawler wants to ask Diesel some questions after the match, Diesel takes the Raw Bowl Queen away with him.

The Brooklyn Brawler gives a Lombardi trophy to the Smoking Gunns for winning the RAW Bowl match in the locker room. It is a joke you see because his real name is Steve Lombardi. The trophy has a big picture of the Brawler’s face on it. The Gunns are not happy to receive it and break it. When Lombardi gets in the Gunns’ face, he is beaten down by them and Ahmed Johnson. Johnson holds Lombardi down so the Gunns can dump a cooler of Brisk tea on him. This was a funny play on the Lombardi concept, if nothing else.

McMahon reminds viewers that The Royal Rumble is taking place on January 21 in Fresno, California. Those who have declared for the match are Diesel, Owen Hart, the British Bulldog, Dory Funk, Jr., Savio Vega, Mabel, Bam Bam Bigelow, Barry Horowitz, Yokozuna, and Tatanka. Bigelow and Tatanka would not make the show because Bigelow left the company after Survivor Series and Tatanka was suspended pending a lawsuit from a woman who alleged that he and Jimmy Del Ray attacked her in Anaheim, California in late 1994. It is announced that Vader is also entering the Royal Rumble. Footage shows Vader lifting weights, jumping on a trampoline, growling at the camera, and doing moonsaults.

The show ends with a Billionaire Ted “Wrasslin’ Warroom” sketch that was meant to lampoon Ted Turner, Hulk Hogan (known as Huckster), Randy Savage (known as the Nacho Man), and Gene Okerlund (known as Scheme Gene). This was the first of these and the Huckster and Nacho Man are asked if they can do some of the new moves that WWF stars perform but they say they are too old to do it. When asked what they can do, Huckster and Nacho Man do poses. A narrator says that the WWF is “on top of the hill, not over it.” Seeing as how many Savage impressions people do these days, it is surprising that the WWF found someone who could not pull off his cadence for this parody.

Tune in next week to see Hakushi battle Jeff Jarrett! Also, the Bret Hart-British Bulldog match from In Your House 5 will be shown!

The Last Word: The show was a mixed bag as the RAW Bowl tag match was fun enough but the whole concept of a RAW Bowl show started to get silly as Vince McMahon beat the concept into the ground. The outcome of the Diesel-Mabel match showed that Mabel’s role as an upper tier talent was over. That spot will be filled by Vader, which was a big acquisition for the WWF in its war with WCW.

Monday Night War Rating: 2.6 vs. 2.5 for Nitro (Main event: WCW World Champion Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan)

Up Next: WWF Superstars for January 6!

And if you would like to read a compiled breakdown of 1990-1993 WWF, 1993-1995 ECW, or of various promotions in 1995, check out my Amazon author page to purchase e-books or paperback copies!