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The SmarK Rant for Monday Night RAW–11.27.95

The SmarK Rant for Monday Night RAW – 11.27.95

Another Saturday, another three new RAWs uploaded on time! Which means that in another week, I’ll be able to fulfil my dream of doing alternating RAW and Nitro rants.

Taped from Richmond, VA

Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Jerry Lawler

Rad Radford v. Ahmed Johnson

Radford was such a bizarre gimmick, in that he was barely even able to establish himself as a headbanging grunge rocker before he suddenly decided that he wanted to be a Bodydonna as well. And then that ended up going nowhere anyway. Radford pounds away in the corner, but Ahmed puts him down with an ax kick and finishes with the spinebuster and Pearl River Plunge at 2:44. Ahmed has some harsh words for Dean Douglas afterwards (I mean, I assume that’s what he’s saying, but then who knows?) and challenges him to get in the ring, but Douglas backs off.

Let us take you back to last week when Shawn Michaels collapsed in the ring in the aftermath of a beating from nine thugs.

Aja Kong & Tomoko Watanabe v. Alundra Blayze & Kyoko Inoue

This is pretty random for RAW. The babyfaces double-team Kong, but Inoue gets overpowered and is your face in peril. Watanabe with a surfboard and Kong comes in with a delayed suplex for two as we take a break. Back with Inoue fighting back with a flying elbow on Watanabe and she makes a hot tag to Blayze, who gets a pair of missile dropkicks on Kong. The heels double-team her, but it’s back to Inoue, and Kong drops her with a backdrop suplex and backfist to finish at 8:10. That was certainly a change of pace. **1/2

Speaking of random, Brother Love returns from getting killed by Ultimate Warrior six years previous, apparently now in a position of booking power and putting himself on TV. This immediately comes off as incredibly dated and out of place. Both the Love character and the gimmick interview segment in general quickly died off in the faster-paced Monday Nights Wars. Bret has words for British Bulldog, and Bob Backlund bursts out of the darkness with a chickenwing on Bret to set up a later RAW match.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley v. John Crystal

Hunter pounds him down with a forearm and quickly catches him with the Pedigree at 1:30.

Undertaker v. Kama

Nope, turns out that Kama is on crutches (and had given notice in real life according to the WON), so Dibiase buys a replacement:

Undertaker v. Sir Mo

Vince feels like Kama might be faking his injury. Mo clotheslines Taker to the floor, but Kama attacks and Vince is VINDICATED because Kama is fine. We take a break and return with Taker cleaning house and finishing Mo with a chokeslam at 6:00. This was junk. DUD Mabel of course comes out after that win, as does Yokozuna, and Mabel beats up Paul Bearer and steals the urn/necklace. This was literally the fourth or fifth “heel steals the power of the urn” angle in a row and you’d think Undertaker was getting pretty bored of it by that point. Thankfully he would have the Diesel and then Mankind feuds to sink his teeth into within a few months.

Next week: Razor Ramon v. Dean Douglas!

This show was another snooze, which is a shame because the previous week was a classic.

Comments

  1. This women's tag match ran opposite of a Japanese women's tag match on Nitro at the same time. Joshi Mania Running Wild!

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  2. It's weird, that "Kama quit" story sounds like bullshit, but I don't remember the guy doing anything between the Corporation falling apart and him popping up in the Nation.


    And Taker had some shit feuds before Mankind's debut, didn't he? (Yeah, his WM match with Nash is a lost classic, but still.)

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  3. David McClane was a worthless fuckbarn, but he got this much right: A women only fed would work in the US if done right. Someone needs to get Lifetime network and Shimmer on the phone.

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  4. I think Kama was seriously gone for a couple years or something. He didn't show up again until the Nation of Domination.

    A quick check reveals that he disappeared right here, did a one-shot at the next Rumble, then vanished for a year until the Nation of Domination angle ("Kama Mustafa"), which turned him into The Godfather. He's one of Taker's buddies, which is why he kept getting brought back and put into bigger roles.

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  5. TJ: Looks like TNA is done on Spike...

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  6. Worthless? David McLane created an entire roster from scratch! Nobody else has ever pulled that off.

    Hate on him all you want, but the man got results.

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  7. Based on what?

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  8. I've always thought Charles Wight was very overrated. Despite several completely different gimmicks and a number of pushes (which to be fair got him extremely over at points) i can't think of single match or interview he had which was better than MEH. He was just always there, not stinking the ring up but never doing anything worth watching either.

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  9. That was just shameless counter-programming by Bischoff. Shameless!

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  10. Man, Bret must have been so happy to have finally shaken off Jerry Lawler to then have to deal with Bob freakin' Backlund again.

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  11. Oh yeah- as a worker, I'd give him maybe a 3 out of 10. He was straight-up AWFUL by the time he was The Godfather, too. His only real advantages were his size and his charisma in that role (since he was a real club-owner, he could actually talk the talk of a Pimp).

    Every time he was a heel, he utterly bombed. His ONLY schtick was to basically grimace at everyone. Kama & The Goodfather both had the same facial expression. He just wasn't that good at not being liked.

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  12. I believe that was the US debut of the Fisherman Buster.

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  13. Introducing a grunge rocker gimmick in 1995. Never let it be said that Vince wasn't behind the times.


    Also, during this time, were the Japanese women's talent (other than Bull Nakano, before she got fired, and Aja Kong) actually contracted to WWE or just in for one-shots?

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  14. No, seriously. I heard it from your mom.

    You should call her, she's beside herself.

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  15. Seed of doubt planted.

    Frantic phone calls being made to family.

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  16. His best matches probably were the borefests with Undertaker this year in 95.

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  17. "This was literally the fourth or fifth “heel steals the power of the
    urn” angle in a row and you’d think Undertaker was getting pretty bored
    of it by that point."

    haha, even as a 15 year old mark, when Taker did his "I will get you Mabel, Rest in Peace" promo the next week on Superstars, I remember actually thinking "He seems to have an attitude of 'really? AGAIN? Ok fine, urn, revenge, yadda yadda yadda". Like he's said it so many times, it's lost all meaning

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  18. Vince: "Remove the Stone of Shame!"

    Bret: "Woohoo!"

    Vince: "Attach the Stone of Triumph!

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  19. always thought it was weird that even on his way out Kama was allowed to be one of the last men in the ring at Rumble 96


    but they did the same thing in 97 with keeping Fake Diesel in the ring until the final 5 guys

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  20. I always thought The Supreme Fighting Machine MMA gimmick was better suited to feud with Bret Hart since he had the best wrestling technician gimmick. Kama wanting to feud with Undertaker didn't make a whole lot of sense, but had Kama feuded with Bret, I'm pretty sure Bret could have carried him to a great match.

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  21. I'm not saying he was a great worker, but he did improve as a worker during the Supreme Fighting Machine era as he actually put effort in his matches.

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  22. Given Kama was going to leave, it'd seem fitting to have him feud with Ahmed as Ahmed's first feud instead of Dean Douglas just so they could put Ahmed over as the #1 black guy in the promotion.

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  23. I've always thought they brought the Brother Love character back for Ahmed to destroy as they seemed to be recycling all the great moments to put Ahmed over as the next big thing, like with Ahmed being the second man to bodyslam Yoko.

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  24. Radford and Candido did have good chemistry as a team, so I can understand WWF wanting to pair them up, but it was a total clash of gimmicks.

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  25. Jeremy Botter tweet. Apparently he had a little powwow with Spike executives last night during the Bellator show.

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  26. "Per Jeremy Botter at Bleacher Report, he had it confirmed from Spike TV executives whilst covering Bellator that they are leaving the wrestling business, and will not air TNA in 2015. Mike Johnson at PWInsider reports that TNA has the Manhattan Center on hold for January 6th-8th, and they intend to announce the new TV deal this week. He also says that this Wednesday's episode will be the last on Spike, and the "best of" episodes will not be airing."

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  27. Hmm. Okay. So possibly an announcement at the end of Wednesdays show?

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  28. If TNA does make a big announcement and there are any signs at all to think we're entering a new and better era for them, I am slightly tempted to make the trip down to Wem-ber-ley for their TV taping on the UK tour.

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  29. It's still weird that Kama pinned WWF Champion Undertaker clean as a sheet on Raw before the 1997 King of the Ring.

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  30. They're friends so I think Undertaker just wanted to help the guy out and I was a little surprised that Kama's huge upset was largely ignored afterwards.

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  31. He's Kama. He sucks. When he was the Godfather her worked harder in his entrances than the actual match.

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  32. He was only a few years behind. Give him credit.

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  33. Total thread jack but...

    The idea of Beat Bobby Flay is pretty spot on. Booby is pretty unlikeable, and it's a show where the hosts and the competitors are against him. So, that totally makes sense.

    Also, I'm now really in the mood for Thai food. Damnit. White rice isn't exactly weight training/weight control friendly.

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  34. The intro during this era was so awful. Why is Shawn randomly dancing on a roof? At night?

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  35. Looking back, his gimmick appeared to be stripper who dances for free... Anywhere.

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  36. I always thought it was ironic they re-purposed some of the Raw intro during one of the goofiest times in WWF history for the Titantron video of one of the edgiest groups in WWF history.

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  37. That's the same year Raven debuted. Wrestling was behind the times not just Vince.

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  38. I remember Todd Pettingill hyping "RAW on the Roof" big-time on WWF Mania and Action Zone, and I thought they were actually going to hold a show up there, which sounded way cool to me. For as much money as they sank into that intro, they may as well have.


    I always liked that WCW was willing to hold Nitro (and other shows) in unusual venues, whether by design (Mall of America, the beach Nitros) or necessity (outdoors at Disney during the Olympics).

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  39. And the year before too, with Crush.

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  40. Who really rates him, though?

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  41. GLOW was better booked than TNA and I'm not being facetious or ironic in saying that.

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  42. Cause vince liked his sexy boy

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  43. Vince and the booking committee during this time constantly introduced gimmick characters and added no depth to them.

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  44. Rumors on the dirtsheets was that Crush was in line for a monster heel push before he got arrested.

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  45. I would make the shows nowadays instantly a bit more interesting if they would occasionally not look the same "as usual".

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  46. I'd go a step further and say Kama the Supreme Fighting Machine would have been a better choice to win King of the Ring and face Diesel for the WWF Title at SummerSlam 95.

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  47. I had no idea that had even happened.
    Fuck.

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  48. Agreed. I thought it was universally accepted that he was an awful wrestler who only got over once by trotting out half naked women.

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  49. Mister Charismaaaaaaaaa

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  50. Did he pin Undertaker before or after Ahmed turned heel?

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  51. He pinned Taker and then Ahmed turned heel after the match, I believe. It was a week after Faarooq disbanded the original Nation.

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  52. WTF? Who has ever rated the Godfather as any good?

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  53. Don't forget Club La Vela down on the redneck riviera!

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  54. Ask Ivory about McClane's "results". She probably still wants to kick his ass.

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  55. Who cares about the "wrestlers"? They were almost literally a dime a dozen.

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