The SmarK Rant for Monday Night RAW – 11.06.95
So after one episode last week, on a Wednesday, this week they add three new episodes on a Saturday again. Whatever. I would have had these up sooner but there’s been major technical issues with the Network lately and none of them were able to be played.
Speaking of technology, here’s a quick “How dumb is Scott, anyway?” story for you to put the perils of technology in perspective for you. I typically keep the hotspot function on my iPhone turned on because the wifi at work is shit and I just like to noodle around and update the blog while I’m on lunch, so I’ll run the internet to my iPad from my phone. However, because I’m an idiot much of the time, I frequently forget to turn it off, and specifically forget to turn the USB tethering function off. So I get home on Friday night and plug my phone into my laptop to charge and download new podcasts and stuff, not realizing that my laptop was then using my cellular data in place of wifi (because I had never erased that connection from the wifi list on the laptop) and that I was also downloading Lego Marvel Super Heroes from Steam at the time because it was $5 and I bought it and forgot about it. So long story short, I got up on Saturday morning and realized that I had accidently blown through 4.5 GB of my monthly 5GB plan…two days into the monthly cycle. So there’s gonna be a LOT of wifi usage on my phone this month whenever possible. Don’t do what Johnny Don’t do, kids.
Taped from wherever they’ve been for the past few weeks. Brandon, MB, I think it was.
Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Handsome Dok Hendrix.
The British Bulldog v. Marty Jannetty
SO MUCH FRINGE. Fringe and tassels everywhere! Marty grabs a headlock and works the arm, then hits an enzuigiri for two. Bulldog presses him onto the top to break the momentum while Clarence Mason does an inset promo announcing Bulldog’s title shot in December. I should note both Bulldog title shots set the record for lowest buyrates in modern history. And his matches against Michaels in 96 didn’t do much better. Jannetty fights out of a chinlock, but Bulldog headbutts him down for two and goes back to it. Marty with a crucifix for two, but Bulldog clotheslines him for the 360 sell, and that gets two. I could watch Jannetty sell clotheslines all day. We take a break and return with Bulldog holding another chinlock, but Marty fights back with a sunset flip that Bulldog blocks for two. Aaaaaaaaand back to the chinlock. Jesus fuck. Did we time travel back to a 1988 episode of Primetime Wrestling? Bulldog stomps away in the corner and, say it with me, BACK TO THE CHINLOCK. Finally Marty makes the comeback and goes up for the fistdrop, but he lands on his feet and opts for a DDT instead. That gets two, but Jannetty misses a blind charge like a moron and Bulldog puts us out of our misery with the powerslam at 11:31. *1/2
Meanwhile, Barry Horowitz pumps up Bret and Hakushi for the main event.
Henry Godwinn v. Terry Richards
I guess HOG was supposed to be a babyface at this point, but you wouldn’t know it from the dead silent crowd. He drops an elbow and guillotines him on the apron, before finishing with the slop drop at 1:51. Sadly, that cur Hunter Hearst Helmsley attacks him from behind and Pedigrees him on the floor before dropping a bucket of slop on him (while wearing gloves, in a nice touch).
MILTON BRADLEY KARATE FIGHTERS PRESENTS SURVIVOR SERIES SLAM JAM, WITH TODD PETTINGILL!
…is a sentence that sums up 1995.
Kama v. Tony Roy
Speaking of things that couldn’t be any more 1995, Barry Didinski is offering a bag of 1000 Mad Caps (pogs), which everyone loves of course, for only $21! Yes, $20 for a fucking bag of plastic discs. I feel bad for the idiot kids who bit on that “deal”. Kama beats on Roy in the corner while Vince talks to Shawn Michaels on the phone and ignores the match (rightly so). Shawn’s Marine count at this point is up to “nine guys” by the way. I wonder if the number of Marines was affected by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and that’s why it kept changing? Kama finishes the jobber with a sidekick at 3:00.
Weird bit as they hype next week’s Ramon v. Sid match as an IC title match, with DQ and countout rules waived, even though the match was already taped and they changed it to a non-title match for no real reason. Why even do that kind of scummy bait and switch advertising?
Bret Hart & Hakushi v. Jerry Lawler & Isaac Yankem
Bret and Hakushi double-team Yankem in the corner while they overlay a steady white noise of fake crowd heat that makes this sound SO low-rent. This was the end of the night on a nothing RAW taping so I can certainly understand the dead crowd at least. Bret with a sunset flip on Yankem for two, but Hakushi tries the handspring elbow and Yankem cuts him off with a clothesline. Yankem works the back on the floor, running Hakushi into the post, and back in with a sideslam for two. Lawler with a piledriver for two and we take a break. Back with Yankem holding a bearhug and going to a Boston crab, but Bret breaks it up and gets the hot tag. Bret with the usual on Yankem and he’s submitting to the Sharpshooter behind the ref’s back, but Lawler grabs a chair, only to be intercepted by Barry Horowitz. The ref sees that and disqualifies the babyfaces at 12:40. Clearly Bill Watts was long gone if we’re getting that kind of shitty finish. *1/2 This led to nothing and was just a finish to get them out of the match.
Next week: Helmsley v. Godwinn and Ramon v. Sid (not) for the IC title as this sad taping continues its death march. We even get HIGHLIGHTS of next week as they just blatantly give away that it’s taped!
You've missed an easy joke there dude, Henry Godwinn vs. Terry Richards = HOG vs. Rhyno!
ReplyDeleteMan, he was just a kid there.
ReplyDeleteObviously you don't come to Canada very much.
ReplyDeletePogs were actually made out of cardboard, but yeah, they were definitely stupid.
ReplyDeleteRhino was a WWF jobber? Never knew that.
ReplyDeleteHer trademark droopy facial features (I've heard she had a stroke in the past, and kept up the look because it was a trademark) are there. Plus the half-closed eyes. There are pictures where she looks legitimately challenged in the head.
ReplyDeleteBut largely it's because of how she comes off in interviews.
There's a line between Aubrey Plaza & Jim Carrey that actors can shoot for. Her comedy thing as Daria Morgendorffer reminded me of how awful Daria could be on her show (which was often quite good otherwise), and the "Teen Titans" cartoon's Raven was the same way.
Her fanbase makes me lose faith in humanity.
ReplyDeleteI, uh, still have my set of WWF pogs. In an Apollo 13-shaped Pog storage container that I got as a freebie from Hardee's.
ReplyDeleteHe's all over WCW doing jobs around this time. Didn't know he was on Raw!
ReplyDeleteSo... did Bret Hart and Barry Horowitz (who used the ring name "Brett Hart" for awhile) ever team?
ReplyDeleteSorry but your post lost all credibility with me when you called the character Daria, awful.
ReplyDeleteYou mustn't have been watching in 2001-2002! HOHOHAHAHEEHEHAHHO.
ReplyDeleteblah. She was constantly rocking her moral high-horse while being hostile to everyone around her. One of the weirdest things about that show was how most of the kids were NICE to Daria, yet she constantly ripped on them. Some of the show's best moments were calling her out for this hypocracy in the later episodes.
ReplyDeleteShe's a good CHARACTER, but not a good PERSON.
Would I want to spend my time with a bunch of hockey-playing bandwidth-Navis?
ReplyDeleteI bet Alf will get to host RAW sometime next year. HA!
ReplyDeleteWait... Hakushi was a face? When the fuck did this happen?
ReplyDeleteHoly shit, I haven't thought about the Hardee's Apollo 13 stuff in a dog's age.
ReplyDeleteOH MAAAAA OHHHHHHH
ReplyDelete"which is annoying and poor acting."
ReplyDeleteNo that was the characters specific characterization. Not poor acting. Not EVERYONE has to be emotive ALL THE TIME.
"She's a good CHARACTER, but not a good PERSON."
Because GOD FORBID, those two things can't POSSIBLY be mutually exclusive.
He was one of the most genuinely funny comedy faces ever.
ReplyDeleteDon't you fucking talk shit about pogs. Don't insult my investment decisions.
ReplyDeleteThere are times when even a deadpanning Daria could get emotions across- that's good acting. But especially later in the series, everything was the same monotonous droning voice- that's not good acting.
ReplyDeleteI'm aware that good characters & good people are not mutually exclusive- I'm just making a point (I watched HBO's "OZ" for God's sake). I said Daria was "awful" and you disagreed- I pointed out the ways in which she was awful- specifically awful as a PERSON, not an awful character (which I think is the impression you got).
Yeah, Canada really really sucks for it's data plans. Rogers iphone plans start at 80/month for 500mb. -_-
ReplyDeleteJohn Cena is guest-starring on Parks and Rec.
ReplyDeleteGrumpy Cat (who will be played by Aubrey Plaza) shows up on Raw.
Hrm...
That's not bad acting. That's an INTENTIONAL characterization choice you don't like.
ReplyDeleteEven then I don't think Daria was a TRULY awful person. Overly critical of people around her? Sure, but I don't think that makes her an awful person.
By all accounts she's legitimately weird. Like, hate her for being weird or unfunny (I admit she's an acquired taste and she probably isn't a very good actress) but to shit on her realness reeks of hipsterdom.
ReplyDeleteI mean, there's plenty of actual complaints to wage against people before assaulting their credibility as a person/gimmick/character.
Plus, in the weird roundabout ways pop culture works, this means that the Anna Kendrick will be connected to wrestling in two ways (through Aubrey and Lana) and I don't know if I can handle that.
There was some interview where the guy got up to do something, and she picked up his recorder and just said a bunch of sex terms (or just "penis" repeatedly) into it. She's either trying too hard to be weird, or legitimately the most annoying person on the planet.
ReplyDeleteI don't see how it's "hipsterdom" to cast aspersions as to her credibility. It's not like I'm using some other, more obscure, "weird" celebrity as a comparison, while insisting that I knew that celeb before anyone else did.
? Huh?
ReplyDeleteFrom what I understand, her V.A. wasn't given proper instructions in the later seasons. Glenn Eichler explained in an interview that he didn't have time to direct the show's voice recording sessions that season, which is why her "intentional characterization choice" altered a lot. I found it bizarre that she appeared to get LESS emotional in voice as she easily got MORE emotional in character (dating, breaking-up, arguing with everyone constantly).
ReplyDeleteDaria wasn't TOTALLY awful, but could definitely BE awful. I think a lot of people identified with her way too strongly because of her snarkiness, and were probably blind to Daria's own flaws (which the show, to it's credit, actually pointed out later on), which were naturally their own.
The prose of Shakespeare combined with the comedic timing of Richard Pryor.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was THE Terry Richards, but since Scott didn't mention it, I figured the name was just a coincidence.
ReplyDeleteSince the Bret/Lawler feud is sadly going on, did that feud ever get blown off?
ReplyDeleteThey tried to make the whole Sid getting a title shot bait and switch into a storyline as Gorilla changed his mind about the title shot because he thought the Kid would turn on Ramon in a weird bit of WWF telegraphing the turn.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason Bulldog was such a poor draw was because despite being a pretty big name for the company, he was never booked as an actual main event threat as he never beat anyone of note.
ReplyDeleteOnly one way to find out. We need to track Barry down and ask him if he ever had tears in his eyes.
ReplyDeleteI never got WWF Pogs, but I was a pretty dumb mark that would buy anything at the time. Heck WWF could have sold dog poop and as long as they put their WWF logo on it, I would have brought it.
ReplyDeleteBut here's the crazy thing. As Scott points out, they showed clips from the match at the end of this episode as a "preview." So they've already acknowledged that the match happened and next week you're going to see it. Then on next week's show, they say it's been changed to non-title due to things that happened over the weekend. So the "change" was just made to a match that they clearly told us last week was already taped. That is some Interstellar wormhole shit going on right there.
ReplyDeleteEven as a jobber, the guy didn't have a terrible look. But the hair. Oh, that hair.
ReplyDeleteYeah guess that bit just made it weird and hard to defend, but I will defend WWF's stance of showing next next's highlights. I know it seems dumb in hindsight, but WWF had to think outside of the box and try new things to see if that made a difference to the ratings.
ReplyDeleteI always assumed that was their panic move to counter Bischoff giving the results away. "Yeah, that hairdo on the other channel might have told you who was going to win, but here's an exciting shot of Sid with Razor up in power bomb position. Aren't you interested in knowing if he nails it?"
ReplyDeleteSpoiler alert: People weren't.
When I first got a smart phone, I had an unlimited use plan. Not so much anymore. 2 gig per month and with the wi-fi at home and work, I barely use 1 per month.
ReplyDeleteBebop vs. Rocksteady. SMELL THE BUYRATE!
ReplyDeleteThey're actually working on an Alf remake, so that's not entirely impossible.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually more possible if the remake doesn't happen. Vince likes to get in on things 20 years after they're cool.
ReplyDeleteRhyno in a match with Godwinn?
ReplyDeleteSounds like a BOOORE! BOOORE! BOOORE!!!!!!!!
I thought KOTR95 was meant to be the ultimate final blow off. I'm sure Bret was aghast that it's still continuing here in November.
ReplyDeleteYeah going from memory, I thought the blowoff was the whole Bret/Yankem cage match match with Lawler being humiliated, so it's surprising reading these reviews to find that it's STILL going on.
ReplyDeleteThey kinda made up when bret turned heel
ReplyDelete"I would have had these up sooner but there’s been major technical issues
ReplyDeletewith the Network lately and none of them were able to be played."
Wait, did you move to the UK and not tell anyone?
Was anything done on screen or was it Lawler starting to defend Bret on commentary? I remember PWI doing a article about it and showed a picture of Lawler holding a photo of a heel turned Bret while giving the thumbs up.
ReplyDeleteI was past the age of the pog demographic. My generation still had our share of stupid stuff
ReplyDeleteHe cried during the reunion and became his biggest supporter
ReplyDeleteThe WWF should have just offered Alf Pogs.
ReplyDeletefake fake totally fake
ReplyDeleteYeah it got blown off in 2012. Remember Jerry's heart attack on Raw? Bret was in the building that night. Coincidence? I think not.
ReplyDeleteMy takeaway from this whole thing is Scott has a monthly cycle.
ReplyDeleteOh my god, that's exactly how I've stored my WWF pogs all these years.
ReplyDeleteSO MUCH FRINGE! But, was it LUNATIC FRINGE?!?!
ReplyDeleteThat can't be it. No one beats anyone today and look at all the draws they have now.
ReplyDeleteWhat, no HOG POG?
ReplyDeleteBecause when I see a Grumpy Cat Meme, I think WRESTLING
ReplyDeleteThat would make sense though. It's a real prop from the kennel from hell.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget the sheer charming charisma of Oscar Wilde.
ReplyDeleteThe jobber in the HOG match was Rhyno, right?
ReplyDelete"legitimately the most annoying person on the planet"
ReplyDeleteThat's entirely possible, but I would argue that there's no difference between a person trying to be weird and being legitimately weird. But that's more ontological than I really like getting.
That said, I've always defined hipsters as people overly obsessed with "realness". They like things nobody else has heard of because they are more authentic than more mainstream things, and if they do like something mainstream they always parse their fandom with claims of ironic enjoyment and are terrified of expressing genuine affection for something that isn't "real enough". I prefer this description of a hipster over the "some upper middle-class white douchebag who wears a scarf and lives in Brooklyn/Oakland and listens to Vampire Weekend" which plays into anti-elite interregional conflict and has become a useless insult phrase (that we have all too many already).
So, in this sense I'm calling you a hipster for being obsessed with the realness of Aubrey Plaza's weirdness when that really doesn't seem to be your problem with her. You find her annoying which is a perfectly serviceable reason to not like somebody and doesn't require a deep psychological examination of the person.
These taped RAWs really killed the WWF in the Ratings Wars. And not just because Bischoff have away the results of a few matches here and there. Simply the lethargic and worn out crowd of a 4 hour TV taping killed the entire atmoshere, as Scott noted.
ReplyDeleteCan't believe the WWE and USA waited till March of freaking 1997 to finally go live every week.
He was pretty bad as a heel too. Much more of a natural face. Corvette was kind of past his prime as a manager at this point too, evidenced by his inability to transfer heat onto Davey
ReplyDeleteSee, I always viewed hipsters as people who pit on airs about how "indie" and out there they are. Nowadays, it'd just something old people call younger people they don't understand. I know I've done the latter now that I'm in my 30s and hate all those high-voiced indie acts in their sweaters.
ReplyDeleteOoh, also Ryan room The Office was the most prototypical hipster. Constant attempts to be "deep"
ReplyDeleteonly country to never lose a war
ReplyDeleteas South Park said last week "Screw that, Go Canada!"
I think the indie rock aesthetic and the hipster ideals have overlap but they're not the same thing. Because bands like fun. (I'm not a fan either) and Mumford and Sons are legitimately mainstream, they had top 40 hits and I believe that a true Hipster would shit all over that. Hipsters are the folks talking about how bands sell out if they get a national tour, it's artistic selfishness, if something becomes more popular it loses what made it special.
ReplyDeleteNow the indie aesthetic is just like metalheads or rap fans, they're a culture who like a certain type of music and have a stereotypical dress code (thick rimmed glasses and bow-ties). Indie fans (despite the name) enjoyed Arcade Fire or MGMT having a big album.
My definition of hipsters can have Rap hipsters, who are hardcore backpack fans. Or metal hipsters, who only listen to Panamanian Black Sludge Metal.
Now, I understand there's been a breakdown in terminology, but it is my effort here to maintain some level of purity in our language.
There it is!
ReplyDelete