\u00a0 \u00a0The show starts off with blue blood Hunter Hearst Helmsley facing Sycho Sid in a three-minute squash match in the Intercontinental Championship tournament. It is always surreal to see the heir to the throne of the WWE get destroyed. As a side note, Sycho Sid is incredibly over. In 1996 these people can\u2019t get enough of \u201cThe Man Who Rules the World.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0This match continues the long-running (and I stress the word long) story of Mr. Perfect coming down to the ring and taking Helmsley\u2019s beautiful valets from the ring, distracting him and causing him to lose matches. We\u2019ve got another month of this stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0In another Intercontinental Championship tournament match, Stone Cold fights Marc Mero in an average match. Nothing special really happens, and it ends when Austin shoves the referee down and gets disqualified. He then brawls with Mero and hits him with a Stone Cold Stunner before the agents come and pull them apart.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Then we get Mankind facing off against \u201cThe Pug\u201d in an absolute mat classic. I know what you\u2019re thinking; this is not a man dressed up like a dog fighting Mrs. Foley\u2019s baby boy. It\u2019s just a dude in a singlet who must love the adorable dog breed. Oh, and this was a super quick squash match.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Next up are two horrid promo segments. The first is Jerry Lawler making an ill-timed joke about the Olympic Park bombing during the 1996 Olympics a month earlier that killed two and injured 11. He challenges Mark Henry to a match, and Henry gets worried due to his total lack of wrestling experience. Lawler calls him a coward, and that\u2019s it. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Second, we see Bob Backlund and The Iron Sheik in the ring, as they tell the fans that they will be managing the next WWF Champion. This man would turn out to be The Sultan and spoiler alert, I don\u2019t believe he even had a WWF Championship match. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0The highlight is the complete gibberish that Sheiky baby speaks, as no one knows what the devil he\u2019s saying. It\u2019s so bad that the show just goes to commercial while he\u2019s in mid-sentence, ending the segment.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Throughout the show, JR had promised big news for the WWF, and we finally get it after this segment. He announces that Razor Ramon and \u201cBig Daddy Cool\u201d Diesel are coming back to the WWF. We\u2019ll just have to see about that.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Then we get our main event, Michaels vs Goldust for the WWF Championship. It\u2019s solid, but we only get about 11 minutes of a 25-minute match here, as two commercial breaks interrupt the match. Unfortunately, a lot of what we do see here are chin locks, and the match ends with a Michaels moonsault.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Mankind tries to attack him after the match, but Michaels is able to get away. Bearer stands on the ring apron making funny faces, and that\u2019s all she wrote for this Raw. Not a very good one.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0We open with another first round match in the Intercontinental Championship tournament, this time champion of the Colosseum Faarooq taking on Savio Vega. It\u2019s about as exciting as it sounds, as both men rarely leave their feet and there are quite a few chin locks abound.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0However, JR has a few bad moments on commentary. He starts off the show yelling about how Sunny is a Jezebel and deserves a trip to the woodshed (I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s Oklahoma slang for being beaten). I get that Sunny is a heel, but a man stating a woman deserves to be beaten for being shameless hasn\u2019t aged well.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Later on he doubles down and follows King\u2019s lead from last week, making a Tupac Shakur joke just two days after he had been shot. He wasn\u2019t even dead yet, as he would officially die of internal hemorrhaging on September 13. Also, Faarooq won after about 13 minutes of action.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0After this we get a bizarre video of several WWF personalities wishing Ahmed Johnson well following his kidney injury. Heels and faces alike send messages, and the only one that really stuck out to me was Austin, who wanted Johnson to come back soon so he could \u201cpound the other kidney.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0We are then presented with the debut of The Stalker. Poor Barry Windham, one of the original four horsemen and a very talented worker, was reduced to wearing camo face paint and hunting gear. He was announced as being from \u201cThe Environment\u201d and wrestled the biggest moneymaker in the WWF, the wrestling plumber T.L. Hopper. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Stalker wins after a crappy superplex and two months later he will become\u00a0a babyface. Odd. We\u2019re then treated to one of the great technicians of the time, Crush, facing Freddie Joe Floyd in a two and a half minute squash that was two and a half minutes too long. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0He wins with the deadliest maneuver in all of wrestling: the heart punch. He punches people in the chest after some theatrics and people sell it like they were shot. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0The main event of this show was The Undertaker fighting Salvatore Sincere, a stereotypical Italian who had just debuted and was on a winning streak. This was the deadman\u2019s first appearance since being betrayed by Paul Bearer at SummerSlam, and these guys wrestled for around nine minutes. NINE MINUTES!<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0During this whole affair, JR is still yelling about Diesel and Razor coming back, before this match has its merciful end. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s it for this one. It was an abysmal show, and I do apologize for all the sarcasm in this recap, but some parts of these Raws are unbearable. Specifically whenever Crush is on screen. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0After last week\u2019s poor display, will this Raw be any better? Enter The Sultan making his in-ring debut, so I am doubtful. He faces Jake Roberts and we get to hear King make more hurtful alcoholic jokes for five minutes. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0We also learn the backstory of The Sultan. He was a man captured during the tensions between the U.S. and Iraq, and had his tongue cut out. However, he was such an inspiring athlete that he brought two mortal enemies, Bob Backlund and The Iron Sheik together to manage him to a world championship. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0His ring work was anything but inspiring. The match ends in three minutes when the former Fatu and future Rikishi submits Roberts with the camel clutch, the first choice move of all foreign heels.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Then we see Jim Cornette decked out in a Vader shirt and blue sweatpants stretched to his belly button, getting ready for a wrestling exhibition in preparation for his match against Jose Lothario. He fights Tony Williams, a jobber guy, and gets beat by him until Vader comes and cleans house.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0This was a fun segment as the Cornette and Vader duo always entertains. Plus it was short and sweet.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Then we get more build for the Mind Games pay-per-view, as The Smoking Gunns with Sunny face the dream team of Bob \u201cSpark Plug\u201d Holly and Alex \u201cThe Pug\u201d Porteau. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Camp Cornette (Jim, Owen Hart and Bulldog) show up on ringside to scout out their competition. Then this match ends with Owen throwing soda at one of the Gunns and the team of Pug and Plug get an upset victory and never team again. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Owen sticks around for a semi-final match in the Intercontinental Championship tournament, facing Marc Mero. Rather than focus on the match, we see and hear JR arguing with Gorilla Monsoon about the legitimacy of Diesel and Razor coming back to the company.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0They spend almost 10 minutes arguing and shouting about an angle with a horrible payoff, while King and Kevin Kelly are trying to talk about the halfway decent match happening. It ends with Mero taking off Owen\u2019s cast and hitting him with it for the win. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Main event time: we get Sycho Sid vs Faarooq in a semi-final match in the tourney. It\u2019s a slow affair that\u2019s nothing to talk about until Faarooq hits Sid with a chair and gets a two count. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0Because Sid cares so much about getting an Intercontinental Championship he gets right up, grabs the chair and beats the space gladiator with it in full view of the referee, giving Faarooq the win. He advances to the finals to take on Mero next week on Raw, instead of on the pay per view six days away. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0This was another sad Raw, and I can definitely see why they were losing hard to WCW Monday Nitro in the ratings. We have the NWO angle going on at this point in time, and WWF\u2019s response is to bring back two stars they lost as inferior clones (no disrespect to Glenn Jacobs or Rick Bognar, no one could make this work). <\/span><\/p>\n That’s it for this edition of the recaps, next time we’ll look at the build toward the Buried Alive pay-per-view and the finals of the Intercontinental Championship tournament and the debut of Fake Diseal and Fake Razor Ramon. Riveting stuff, no doubt about it. Have a great weekend and check back on Monday for the next installment of Raw reviews.<\/p>\n Henry Wolski<\/strong> Hello everybody, welcome to the next installment of my Monday Night Raw recaps from 1996. Last time we saw the rise of Shawn Michaels and Mankind, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin is still in the mid-card after cutting an all-time great promo months prior and the debut of futuristic space gladiator Faarooq (A.K.A. Ron Simmons). With […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":20687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2104,2109,3,2138],"tags":[2000,2141,1384,2618,74,2438,2644,772,2173,2642],"class_list":["post-20633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-opinion","category-tartan-news","category-wrestling","tag-henry-wolski","tag-online-exclusive","tag-opinion","tag-raw","tag-reviews","tag-wolskis-wrestling-ramblings","tag-wolskis-wrestling-rewind","tag-wrestling","tag-wwe","tag-wwf"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-09-at-11.01.52-AM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-5mN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20633"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20752,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20633\/revisions\/20752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-09-at-10.10.40-AM-193x300.png\")
Rating:<\/strong> 1.5 out of 5<\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-05-at-5.13.28-PM-300x187.png\")
September 9, 1996<\/b><\/h1>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-09-at-10.27.18-AM-172x300.png\")
Rating:<\/strong> 1 out of 5<\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-09-at-10.26.19-AM-224x300.png\")
September 16, 1996<\/b><\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-09-at-10.15.11-AM-224x300.png\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-09-at-10.19.05-AM-190x300.png\")
Rating:<\/strong> 1.5 out of 5<\/span><\/h2>\n
\nExecutive Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"