What the World Was Watching: WWF Monday Night RAW – 01.22.96

Sunny is still playing billiards to open the show and the camera shows her from the back as she bends over the table. This leads into a video package to recap the events of last night’s Royal Rumble.

Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler are doing commentary, live from Stockton, California. According to thehistoryofwwe.com, the show drew a sellout crowd of 2,904 fans.

Opening Contest: Vader (w/Jim Cornette) defeats Savio Vega after the Vader Bomb at 2:59:

Vader, who made his debut the previous evening in The Royal Rumble, started his career in 1985 after a knee injury that ruined a career with the National Football League’s (NFL) Los Angeles Rams. Trained by Brad Rheingans, he first worked for the American Wrestling Association (AWA), known as Baby Bull and Bull Power. From there he spent the next nine years working for Otto Wanz’s Catch Wrestling Association (CWA) and New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). In the latter, he became a three-time IWGP Heavyweight champion. After WCW used him for a few matches in 1990 and 1991, he became a more permanent fixture in 1992, becoming the promotion’s top heel by destroying Sting for the WCW World Championship at The Great American Bash. The two would engage in a two-year feud, which Vader won, and along the way Vader worked programs against Cactus Jack, the British Bulldog, the Boss, and the Guardian Angel. While Vader worked WCW, he also wrestled for Japan’s Union of Wrestling Federation International (UWFi), a worked shoot promotion, and he became its World Heavyweight champion in 1994. In 1995, Vader held WCW’s United States title and feuded with Hulk Hogan. The feud did little for Vader, who failed to beat Hogan for the title and lost a cage match to him at Bash at the Beach. Following that show, Vader turned babyface and feuded with Ric Flair and Arn Anderson and was booked to team with Hogan as part of a WarGames match against the Dungeon of Doom. However, Vader was fired after getting into a locker room fight with Paul Orndorff, a fight that Vader lost badly.

Even though Vader is positioned as a heel, he receives a lot of cheers from the Stockton crowd. Based on the beating that Savio received last night at the hands of Vader and Yokozuna in the Royal Rumble it is surprising that he is capable of having this match. Savio gets squashed, only managing to superkick Vader out of the ring, a move that only gets him pulled to the floor and dropped throat-first across the guardrail. Back in, Vader avalanches Savio and then pins after him after a corner slingshot splash, dubbed by Lawler as the Vader Bomb.

Vader is not content to go to the locker room, giving Savio another Vader Bomb while Cornette holds back the referee. When the referee Jimmy Korderas gets away to confront Vader, he is given several headbutts and tossed to the floor. Referee Jack Doan comes out and Vader, since he does not like to be told what to do, gives him a powerbomb. At this point Cornette is concerned that he cannot control Vader and WWF President Gorilla Monsoon joins the fray. Monsoon gets in Vader’s face as Cornette tries to get Vader to go to the locker room. Monsoon has ring announcer Manny Garcia tell the crowd that Vader has been indefinitely suspended. An angry Vader confronts Monsoon again after shoving Cornette aside, leading Monsoon to take off his glasses and give Vader chops like it is the 1970s. Vader initially backs off but again shoves Cornette aside and avalanches Monsoon when Monsoon helps Doan to his feet. Poor Doan gets sandwiched between the two big men and acts like he is dead. Vader drops an elbow to Monsoon and gives him a Vader Bomb. It takes a run-in by Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon to force Vader to leave the ring. McMahon yells at Vader “I can’t believe you did that!” to which Vader replies “You want some?” The segment was a way to write Vader out for a while because he needed to have shoulder surgery stemming from his Bash at the Beach match with Hulk Hogan. The angle was wild by 1996 standards as having authority figures beaten up by talent was not an overplayed trope yet. If this segment played out in the WWF’s Northeast home base instead of on the West Coast, it might have sparked a riot.

Backstage, Vader has Cornette by the neck and announces that he is declaring war against all the WWF wrestlers and officials. Vader says this includes McMahon and, in a funny botch, cannot remember Lawler’s name, just saying “and Mr.” and yelling. The former WCW World champion beats up a trash can as the show returns to the ring.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley (0-1) defeats Razor Ramon (0-2) via count out at 5:31 shown:

Helmsley is accompanied to the ring by Shae Marks, a Playboy Playmate of the Month for May 1994. This begins a new aspect of Helmsley’s gimmick where he is accompanied to the ring by beautiful women, seeming to dispose of them quickly after matches. In the split screen, the 1-2-3 Kid and Ted DiBiase argue that Ramon is a crybaby after losing the Intercontinental title last night. They emphasize their point by holding up a baby bottle and diaper. Ramon’s errant charge causes him to fly over the top rope and Helmsley beats him down. The Kid comes to ringside and shoves the large baby bottle in Ramon’s mouth. When Ramon recovers, he chases the Kid around ringside and gets counted out, continuing a bad run for him this month where he has lost all of his televised matches. Most of the match was Helmsley beating up Ramon, so it was not a balanced encounter and Helmsley’s offense was not that interesting at this stage of his WWF career. Rating: *½

Ramon, aiming to get some heat back, runs back into the ring and attacks Helmsley. A Razor’s Edge is attempted but Helmsley wiggles out, gets Marks, and flees the ringside area.

McMahon emphasizes that for “comedic purposes” there will be another Billionaire Ted sketch. Ted talks about buying old assets to make money. When he asks those around the table for an original idea, no one has anything until Scheme Gene tells Ted that he has to call 1-900-SCHEMEGENE to get it. The table quickly dials their phones.

Dok Hendrix is shown jamming with the RAW Band by the entrance, entertaining the audience who could not see the Billionaire Ted sketch.

McMahon interviews Shawn Michaels, who wastes no time calling out Owen Hart for talking trash about ending his career. The segment is interrupted by Jim Cornette. Cornette argues that there is no reason for Owen to wrestle Michaels because Owen beat him before. Michaels offers anything to get Owen in the ring so Cornette proposes that Michaels put his WrestleMania WWF title shot on the line. Since the crowd wants to see Michaels face Owen, Michaels agrees to that stipulation and then he tosses Cornette over the top rope.

Non-Title Match: Bret Hart (WWF Champion) (1-1) defeats Goldust (Intercontinental Champion w/Marlena & Usher) (3-0) via submission to the Sharpshooter at 5:07 shown:

McMahon explains that the woman who accompanies Goldust is his director, Marlena. In the split screen before the match, Goldust says what he did last night was an Oscar-worthy performance and quotes John Wayne for what he will do to Bret, the “Calgary cowboy” tonight. The commercial breaks are terrible in the match as two of them occur within the first three minutes of televised action. Like the previous night, there is a lot of stalling by Goldust and slow work by Bret. The champion appears to have a black eye from last night’s match as well. When Bret blocks a figure-four, Goldust tries to retreat to the locker room but Razor Ramon intercepts him and encourages Bret. That is followed by another commercial break, which sees Bret do the moves of doom and apply the Sharpshooter, handing Goldust his first loss. The cutting of this match made Goldust look like a bum. Rating: *

McMahon quickly gets in the ring to interview Bret about the scheduled cage match at In Your House 6. Bret blames Diesel for not allowing fans to see the conclusion of his match at The Royal Rumble with the Undertaker. He promises the Undertaker that he will get a rematch and tells Diesel that he is deadly in a cage.

Tune in next week to see Diesel collide with the British Bulldog! Also, Shawn Michaels wrestles Yokozuna! And Billionaire Ted explains in a press conference why he is trying to put the WWF out of business! The WWF is billing this as “Super Monday.”

The Last Word: The Vader segment was tremendous and carried the show. It put Vader over as an uncontrollable monster but his absence for shoulder surgery is going to derail some of that momentum. The rest of the show was laying the groundwork for the next In Your House as that will seemingly have Shawn Michaels vs. Owen Hart for the WrestleMania title shot and a match between Razor Ramon and the 1-2-3 Kid, although due to Ramon’s interference in the main event a match against Goldust cannot be discounted either.

Monday Night War Rating: 2.9 vs. 2.7 for Nitro (Main Event: Hulk Hogan vs. The One Man Gang)

Up Next: WWF Superstars for January 27!

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