Original Airdate: September 23, 1996
From
WWF Intercontinental Title Match: Marc Mero v Faarooq: This is the tournament final for the vacant title, with Pat Patterson as the special guest referee, and Mr. Perfect doing guest commentary. Kind of weird that they're using the white leather version of the belt here. Faarooq jumps him before the bell, and hammers him for a bit, but gets caught with a headscissors takedown. Mero adds a sunset cradle for two, but gets nailed with a leg-feed enzuigiri, and Faarooq corner whips him. Charge misses, allowing Mero an armdrag, and a clothesline to send Faarooq over the top. Marc dives after him with a somersault suicida, and a springboard flying moonsault press gets two on the way back in. Missed the mark on it, but whatever. Charge, but Faarooq blocks by backdropping him over the top, and he sends Mero into the guardrail for good measure. Back inside, as Ahmed Johnson calls in to talk tough about Faarooq. Faarooq dominates Mero with a powerslam for two, as even the Network's closed captioning has trouble making sense of Ahmed. Faarooq with a Samoan drop off the middle rope for two (dropping poor Marc right on his shoulder), and Sunny takes some cheap shots as Faarooq works a chinlock. That gets her tossed by Patterson, as I guess he's one of the few people immune to her charms. Dominator looks to finish Mero, but Marc manages to counter with a backslide for two, so Faarooq clotheslines him back down for two. Chinlock, but Mero fights free, forcing Faarooq to throw a knee to keep control. Backdrop, but Mero counters with a sunset flip for two, so Faarooq grounds him in another chinlock. That wears Mero down for a clothesline attempt, but Marc reverses, only to miss an elbowdrop follow-up. That allows Faarooq a slam, but he gets crotched on the top turnbuckle while going for a dive, and Mero brings him down to earth with a rana for two. Criss cross results in a double knockout spot, as Sunny shows up at ringside again, despite being tossed. That leads to a confrontation with Sable, and Faarooq gets hold of Sunny's loaded purse as Patterson tries to break them up. Unfortunately for him, that backfires, and Mero hits the Wild Thing at 11:50. Strong effort here, and they did a good job of making it seem important. This would have been a welcome addition to the painfully bad undercard of Mind Games, where it was originally intended to take place. Afterwards, Jim Ross and Mr. Perfect head into the ring to congratulate the new champion, and Marc gives a victory speech that would be more at home at the Oscars than a wrestling ring, but it works. Again, great job of making this seem big and important. ***
Razor Ramon and Diesel are in the house, as evident by the dressing room marked 'Razor' and 'Diesel' and 'keep out' backstage. All that one was missing was a 'no girls allowed' for good measure
At In Your House II, you know, way back in July 1995, Shawn Michaels beat Jeff Jarrett to win the Intercontinental Title. You know, Jeff Jarrett. That guy that's on his way into WCW
Backstage, Marc Mero is celebrating his win by showing the belt off to all the JTTS guys who would never get to see it up close otherwise. What a dick!
Vince McMahon reports with a special expose on Jeff Jarrett, revealing that when he sang With My Baby Tonight at In Your House II, he was actually lip-synching the whole time, and that the REAL Double J will be here next week! What a cliffhanger! How will I sleep tonight?!
WWF Tag Team Title Match: Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith v The Bodydonnas: This is the first appearance of the Bodydonnas since way back at SummerSlam. Clarence Mason sits in on commentary for this one. Owen and Zip start, trading off as they feel each other out. Suddenly, the crowd starts flipping out about something, and we soon find out what, as ECW's Taz jumps the rail, holding a 'Sabu fears Taz' sign, and marching around ringside, in another worked shoot angle. They handled this perfectly too, not actually shooting him directly, but just letting it happen in the background, like it wasn't worked. The dust settles on Davey and Skip once Taz is removed, but the crowd is really worked up about it now, and there's 'ECW' chants going off left and right. The champs manage to railroad Skip into their corner for some abuse, and Bulldog tries a press-slam, but Skip counters with a rollup for two. 2nd rope bodypress follows, but Davey dodges, as Jim Cornette shows up on the split screen to bitch at Mason for stealing Owen and Bulldog away from him. He uses the words 'shyster' and 'hornswoggled' in his promo, so perhaps that's a hint at the team he's bringing in to get revenge for him. Anyway, Zip gets the hot tag, and the Bodydonnas go for the kill with a rocket launcher on Owen, but it only gets two. Bulldog quickly takes a cheap shot at Skip from there, and Owen finishes with the Sharpshooter at 6:19. And that was it for Skip in the WWF, as he jumped to ECW in October. Well, at least it wasn't a long jump from here. The match was decent, but there was so much else going on that no one was really paying much attention to it. * ½
The Undertaker is hanging out in a graveyard, getting himself ready for the Buried Alive match with Mankind at the next In Your House. The Undertaker/Mankind feud was great and all, and I loved how it really pushed Undertaker in a new and interesting direction, but what annoyed me with it to this day is that Undertaker would take these decisive losses in brutal gimmick matches... and then just show up at the next show like nothing happened. Like, he was betrayed by his long time manager and carried out by druids at SummerSlam, and then just popped up to wrestle the likes Salvatore Sincere the next week on TV. And then he loses the first ever Buried Alive match (whoops, spoilers), and you'd think THAT would take him off of TV for a while, but there he is wrestling Mankind again at the very next PPV. At least that time he showed up with a new look to at least acknowledge the part with the whole, you know, literal burial
Dok Hendrix is outside of Razor and Diesel's locker room, but he gets the door slammed in his face while trying to get a word. Wow, even with only a tiny fraction of the back of his head shown through the crack in a door, you can totally tell that is in no way Scott Hall
Shawn Michaels springboard Superkicking a chair into Mankind's face at In Your House is this weeks Playstation Slam of the Week. Good choice, Playstation. And then they give us the superplex through the announce table as well. Can't really blame the WWF for wanting to boast about that match as much as possible, considering it was probably the best one in the entire promotion in over a year (the ladder match at SummerSlam '95)
Hunter Hearst Helmsley v Stalker: Steve Austin does guest commentary for this, and he is all up in Bret Hart's business. I know this is hardly news, but man, Steve Austin is a great talker. And, of course, Jerry Lawler is quick to agree with every negative thing he has to say about Bret. Stalker takes him down with an armdrag right away, and he works the arm from there. It must have been both hilarious and heartbreaking for
Mankind and Paul Bearer are also hanging out at the cemetery, since I guess that's what all the cool kids were doing in 1996? I dunno, I was uncool
A testy Jim Ross hits the ring, and goes on this great, worked-shoot rant about his WWF run, one that's perfectly suited for this ECW heavy crowd. He also directly identifies Vince as the owner of the promotion (as opposed to just hinting at it, like had been done in the past), before introducing Razor Ramon back into the WWF! But, of course, it's not Scott Hall, but rather Rick Bognar, who is most notable for somehow looking older than Hall, despite being over a decade younger. Razor hits the ring (sans Diesel), but only gets a couple of words out before Savio Vega runs in to brawl with him, as the broadcast abruptly ends
BUExperience: The WWF was hitting new levels of desperation around this period, to the point where they were even buying ad time on TNT to push their programming on Nitro’s airwaves. This must have been a very humbling period for Vince McMahon personally, as here’s the once all-powerful WWF having to run cheap imposter gimmicks, and do worked-shoot angles with renegade regional promotions just to try and stay relevant in a TV war with a promotion that was little more than a distant second place joke only a few years prior. And, the thing is, the rest of the show actually wasn’t bad. But all the desperation stuff, like the Jeff Jarrett expose and the ‘Razor’ and ‘Diesel’ return just negate any of it completely.
Monday
Night Wars Rating Chart
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9/23/96
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|
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Show
|
RAW
|
Nitro
|
|
Rating
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2.0
|
3.4
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Total Wins
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17
|
30
|
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Win Streak
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|
13
|
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Better Show (as of 9/16)
|
11
|
34
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