WWF Monday Night RAW (October 21, 1996)

Original Airdate: October 21, 1996

From Fort Wayne, Indiana; Your Hosts are Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler

Owen Hart v Sycho Sid: Owen debuts his shorter hairstyle here, which he'd basically keep until the end (give or take some product). And he immediately complains of hair pulling, which is awesome. Get your money's worth out of that cut, dude! Sid dumps him to the outside in short order, so Owen dives off the top on the way back in, but Sid slugs him out of the air. Owen manages a facebuster so he can give it another try, and hits with a missile dropkick, then clotheslines Sid over the top. Davey Boy Smith is ready and waiting, but Sid starts fighting him off, so Owen clips the knee to take control. He and Bulldog work together to bash Sid's leg into the post a few times, as some older dude at ringside tries to fight Smith. Big 'Sid' chant from the crowd, but Owen fights off a comeback attempt, and grounds him in a leglock. Hart keeps pounding and pounding on the leg, but walks into a chokeslam during a criss cross, and shit, this crowd is really hot for Sid. No wonder they put the belt on him. Powerbomb looks to finish, but Bulldog runs in before Sid can execute it, and that's a DQ at 8:58. The tag champs go to work on the big lug, but WWF Champion Shawn Michaels runs in for the save (nearly breaking his Rolex in the process), despite the fact that Sid is now the number one contender to his title. ½*

Last night at In Your House, Undertaker defeated Mankind... but still got his ass buried alive, anyway

The Smoking Gunns v The Godwinns: Jim Ross joins us for commentary here, hyping up Bret Hart's appearance a little bit later on. Bart Gunn and Phineas Godwinn start, and Phineas seems to have a wet spot centered right where the asshole of his overalls is. Classy. They trade holds to start, and Bart uses a cheap shot to set up a bodyslam, and Billy Gunn pulls down the top rope during a criss cross to send Phineas over the top. Inside, that gets Bart two, as the asshole wet spot seems to be growing. Billy misses a charge in the corner to allow the tag to Henry Godwinn, and he barrels into Bart with a backelbow, followed by a clothesline. Powerslam gets two when Billy saves, but here comes Phineas, and Roseanne Barr the door. The Gunns collide with one another on the apron, allowing Henry to Slop Drop Bart at 5:25. Afterwards, the Gunns have heated words, as they continue teasing the breakup. ¼*

This years WWF Hall of Fame inductees are Vince McMahon Sr, Pat Patterson, and Jimmy Snuka. This was a very different era for the Hall of Fame

Mr. Perfect is warming up backstage, when Hunter Hearst Helmsley comes out of nowhere, clipping his leg with a one of the production trunks. They played this off really casually, like HHH just pulled a funny prank on him, instead of as a big angle

Out on the highway here in Indiana, there's a billboard advertising tonight's RAW taping. Why we needed to see it, I don't know. But it is there. And it's not like it's in the middle of Times Square, or somewhere cool looking. It's in the middle of a field, off of a quiet stretch of road. Not exactly a great image

Big Bang Boom Tour ad

Over the weekend on LiveWire, Steve Austin talked to Sunny in a way that either turned her on, or made her think he's a huge asshole. Probably depends on her relationship with her father. Also, he wants to face Bret Hart

Jim Ross brings Bret Hart out for an in-ring interview to talk about his future in the world of pro-wrestling. I think the crowd half expected another Razor/Diesel situation here, and are genuinely relieved that didn't come to pass. Bret dives right into the deep end, talking about how WCW ('a rival wrestling organization') made him a great offer, and treated him with respect... but he's going to come back to the WWF. The story goes that Vince didn't know what Bret would say (as in, staying with the WWF or taking WCWs deal) until he said it on air. And Vince does a great job of looking nervous as Bret builds suspense/relieved when he says he'll stay, but I'm sorry, I don't buy it. No way in hell he's letting a guy go out on live TV if there's even a small chance he's going to announce that he's jumping ship. No way. Anyway, now that he's staying, Bret accepts the challenge of Steve Austin for a match at Survivor Series. Of note, the Rock is one of the guys standing around watching on the monitor with Austin backstage, though he hasn't debuted on TV yet at his point. And, of course, he makes sure to playfully knock Shawn Michaels a bunch along the way - causing Vince to defensively chime in each time. You can feel the fans ready to back him over Michaels here, after a summer of boyhood dream/Jose Lothario/phony goody goody/stripper bullshit. Yeah, so this was a great segment, of course. It's good to have Bret back, and though we didn't know it at the time, his return signaled what would be the resurgence of the WWF in the war with WCW - first creatively, and eventually financially

And from that, we go to a pre-taped Karate Fighters Holiday Tournament segment with Todd Pettengill and Jerry Lawler. The theme this year seems to be men v women, but since there's only three female valets in the whole promotion, we get Mr. Perfect, too. No wonder he left for WCW

WWF Intercontinental Title Match: Marc Mero v Hunter Hearst Helmsley: And speaking of Mr. Perfect, he's supposed to lace up the boots against HHH here in his big return, but wouldn't you know it, he's just too banged up from earlier to wrestle. But his protégé Marc Mero is game. And, heck, he'll even put the Intercontinental title on the line! And here's President Gorilla Monsoon with Perfect to officially sanction it! Man, so lucky all those things fell into place, huh? And Helmsley even uses the word 'belt' here when talking about the title, so I'm guessing Vince doesn't even let him have a slice of pie at Thanksgiving to this day. Perfect settles for doing guest commentary instead. Mero fights HHH off in the corner, and uses a backdrop, and a pair of armdrags to ground him in an armbar. HHH escapes, so Mero sends him over the top with a dropkick, but Helmsley uses Sable as a human shield to block a dive. Marc knocks the shit out of him for that, and uses a slingshot sunset flip for two, the cradle reversed by Hunter for two. Marc bridges into a backslide for two, but runs into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker during a criss cross, and Helmsley unloads in the corner. HHH with a vertical suplex to set up a kneedrop for two, and a high knee is worth two. Cross corner whip hits, but Helmsley wastes time gloating, and eats a catapult into the corner for two. Marc adds a slingshot legdrop for two, and a corner whip leads to a Samoan drop. Time for the Wild Thing, so HHH shoves the referee into the ropes to crotch Mero on the top, and he goes up for a superplex - only for Marc to counter with a gourdbuster! Mero adds a flying moonsault press for two, but a reversal sequence ends in the referee getting bumped. That allows Helmsley to grab a chair, but Perfect takes it away from him - only to turn on Mero with the weapon! It's hilarious watching the crowd go from wildly cheering, to dead calm in an instant. HHH capitalizes with the Pedigree to win his first title in the WWF at 9:43. Mero's reign felt much longer to me as a kid. Only a measly twenty eight days, though. This was actually a damn good match, and coupled with a damn good angle. Much better than what they did together at Beware of Dog earlier in the year. Afterwards, Perfect personally presents Hunter with the belt as the show goes off the air, and this was supposed to lead to them forming a pretty awesome heel team, but unfortunately Perfect backed out, and was out of the promotion all together only a few weeks later. *** ¼

BUExperience: Good episode, pretty much all for the main event match/angle, and the Bret Hart segment. What’s interesting is that RAW was up almost a full point from last week, but Nitro was down only down a tenth of a point from where they were last week. There was a huge potential audience out there, and it was about to get tapped into in a big way.

Monday Night Wars Rating Chart

	10/21/96
Show	RAW	Nitro
Rating	2.6	3.2
Total Wins	17	34
Win Streak		17
Better Show (as of 10/14)	14	34