WWF Monday Night RAW (May 27, 1996)

Original Airdate: May 27, 1996  

From Fayetteville, North Carolina; Your Hosts are Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Goldust v Ultimate Warrior: Goldust's WWF Intercontinental Title is not on the line here. All of Warrior's gear plugs his University tonight. Like, even down to the wristbands. Despite this being the night after one of the most infamous pay per view events in wrestling history, not even a mention of the show is made here. Goldust stalls for a while on the outside, and tries to sucker Warrior into losing the high ground, but Warrior powers through the attack, and sends Goldust over the top with a pair of atomic drops. Finally, some four minutes into the telecast, Vince finally mentions last night's In Your House, promising more information on it after this match. Goldust stalls some more, and tries another attack on Warrior from the high ground, but Warrior again shrugs it off, and hits a pop-up flapjack to send Goldust back to the outside. Warrior whips him into the guardrail out there, but Goldust returns the favor, only for Warrior to no-sell, and post the Intercontinental champion. Inside, that gets Warrior a two count, but Goldust fights him off, and manages a bodyslam, followed by a reverse chinlock. Warrior powers to a vertical base and nearly kills Goldust with an electric chair, and Goldust takes a walk up the aisle. He's met at the top by Ahmed Johnson though, and dragged back to ringside, where he continues to stall. Goldust manages to trip Warrior up and send him into the steps, but Warrior again shrugs him off as they head back in. Goldust dodges an avalanche and dumps Warrior to the outside, with Warrior taking out Marlena's director's chair as he lands, and back in, Goldust cranks on the arm in the corner. Man, this thing is just dragging on. Warrior comes back with a backdrop and a belly-to-belly suplex for two (don't see that move from him too often), so Goldust goes to the eyes to buy time, then cracks Warrior in the nuts. That's enough to put Warrior down for a headvice, then a chinlock to really up the excitement, as Vince talks about what a "wonderful time" everyone had sitting in the dark during the pay per view the night before. And that's not even the most ridiculous thing he's said during this match even. Anyway, Warrior fights out of the hold and hits a powerslam, then starts throwing the clotheslines. Jumping shoulderblock looks to finish, but it ends up knocking Goldust to the outside, and he bails up the aisle again. Warrior has this won, but stupidly decides to chase after him, and it's a ridiculous double countout at 14:02. Long, boring, and a bad finish to boot. Afterwards, Lawler tries to sneak up on Warrior with the remnant's of Marlena's chair, but gets chased off. DUD

And now we finally address last night's In Your House, with Vince going over highlights from the dark portion of the show, and announcing that they will be redoing the matches that happened during the outage on a live pay per view tomorrow night, airing in what would normally be the replay slot

Backstage, Steve Austin and Ted DiBiase are fuming over their loss to Savio Vega in the dark last night, to the point where DiBiase decides to put up his career ahead of the rematch for tomorrow. Apparently they added that in at the last second after DiBiase gave his notice, and they wanted to get him off TV right away instead of easing him out over a few months

The Smoking Gunns v The Bodydonnas: The Gunns' WWF Tag Team Title (which they won the night before on the Free For All) is not on the line here, and Hillbilly Jim sits in on commentary for this. Bart Gunn and Zip start, with Bart dominating, as Harvey Wippleman takes notes from the aisle. The Gunns trade off while working the arm, and Bart press-slams Zip, but Billy runs into trouble, and Skip gets the tag in. The Bodydonnas try a double team, but fail to take advantage of the element of surprise, and an extended criss cross sequence ends in Skip on the outside. He goes after Sunny out there, but the Gunns save her, so the Bodydonnas use an illegal double team to put Bart down on the outside. The use of replays here is really annoying, with every little thing getting a double feature. The Bodydonnas cut the ring in half on Bart - which is weird, since they're supposed to be the babyfaces now. As this goes on, Phineas Godwinn shows up to confront Sunny, but Hillbilly Jim and Henry Godwinn pull him away, as the Bodydonnas continue to work Bart over in mundane fashion. The stuff in the ring is totally background noise here. Finally, Billy gets sick of them and runs in without a tag, but the Bodydonnas dump him, and hit Bart with a tandem slingshot suplex. Skip goes up with a flying bodypress from there, but Bart rolls through for the pin at 10:56. That finish felt so out of nowhere and heatless. This was pretty dull compared to their much better match at the Royal Rumble a few months prior, and dragged badly. And the layout made no sense, with Bart selling an extended heat segment, despite supposedly being a heel. * ¼

Last night at In Your House, Shawn Michaels was served with a court summons for 'attempted alienation of affection' by Diana Hart-Smith's lawyer, which he promptly tore up. Oh, and his match ended in a draw, with a rematch has been ordered for King of the Ring. You'd think they'd at least add a gimmick to the rematch, but nope, just another standard bout. Funny that they show video of the pre-match stuff, but the any actual footage of the match is limited to still images only. Never mind that they were showing full matches off of weeks old pay per views earlier in the year. And then they show the same footage in video form as the part of the 'Sega Saturn Slam of the Week' right after it anyway

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Vader v Ahmed Johnson: Okay, this one could be cool, but I don't have high hopes. Owen Hart sits in on commentary here, sporting a cast on his arm that would become his trademark for the rest of the year, and an outfit straight out of Reservoir Dogs. Ugh, Vader's entrance lighting is annoying as hell, and is giving me a migraine. They size each other up for a while to start, until Ahmed starts wailing on Vader, and puts him down in the corner, as the crowd loses their shit. Johnson probably would have been a massive star if he wasn't so injury prone. He was like a Goldberg meets Ultimate Warrior. 80s Warrior, not the goof from the opener. Ahmed sends him over the top with a bodypress, so Jim Cornette whacks Johnson with the tennis racket, but Ahmed no-sells, and chases Jim off. The interference does allow Vader to take control though, and he bodyblocks Ahmed down for a 2^nd rope flying bodyblock for two. Ahmed slugs back, so Vader tries a short-clothesline, and a pair of avalanches. Another clothesline puts Johnson on his ass, and Vader goes to a chinlock to wear him down. Vader tries a vertical suplex next, but Johnson reverses, so Vader cuts him off with a slam to keep control. He goes up for the Vadersault, but Ahmed rolls out of the way, and makes a comeback. Powerslam hits, so Cornette starts distracting the referee, and Johnson takes the bait - going after Cornette. That allows Vader to recover, but Johnson fights off the attack with spinebuster, so Owen comes off the top with the cast while the referee is busy with Cornette, and Vader covers at 10:51. Afterwards, the unconscious Johnson is carted off on a stretcher, but Goldust cuts off the gurney before they can load it onto the ambulance, wanting to help revive Ahmed with a little mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. And it works, but instead of thanking Goldust for basically saving his life, Johnson goes absolutely ballistic - flipping over the stretcher, and beating up anything that moves (like Bob Holly) as he goes after Goldust. Turns out Goldust is hiding out in his guarded dressing room, so Johnson drives his security through the door in uber violent fashion, but Goldust isn't there. Johnson takes out his frustration on the cameraman instead, and stomps off into the night in search of the Intercontinental champion. What a great, intense angle. Johnson made a much better opponent for Goldust than over the top characters like Warrior or Undertaker. ¾*

BUExperience: This was a weird limbo episode, as they were dealing with the fallout of a pay per view, while hyping that same pay per view simultaneously. So, you get stuff like Goldust moving into a feud with Ahmed Johnson, while his title defense against Undertaker is still technically pending.

Monday Night Wars Rating Chart

	5/27/96
Show	RAW	Nitro
Rating	2.3	2.8
Total Wins	16	16
Win Streak		2
Better Show (as of 5/20)	8	22