Monday, November 27, 2023

Monday Night Raw 5-22-95 Review

Original Airdate: Monday, May 22nd, 1995
Broome County Arena
Binghamton, New York

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We get a recap of Sid turning on Shawn Michaels and hyping up his return tonight, as he takes on King Kong Bundy. 

Razor Ramon vs. Mike Bell

Razor is out with "Caribbean legend" Savio Vega. I love that we are just to accept that some guy we have never heard of is a legend. Vince talks about how badly Razor needs this victory. He does his usual squash match here until the end. Instead of giving him the Razor's Edge, he shoves him to the ground and stands on his chest for the pin. Quite the babyface move there.

Match Rating: 1/4*

Bret Hart comes out and confronts Lawler. Bret wants to know how he lost to Lawler and calls him worthless scum. He also refers to him as a parasite maggot. Bret then says that he wants one more match at any cost. Bret is very attitude era here, getting bleeped out a couple of times. He then grabs Lawler and has to be pulled apart by referees and officials. That was a well done segment and completely out of nowhere. 

Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. John Chrystal

This is Hunter's Raw debut. He hits the spin kick again that I don't ever remember being in his repertoire. He hits a version of the RKO/Diamond Cutter and that's all for Chrystal. He looked solid here. 

Match Rating: 1/4*

We go to Mr. Backlund, who is considering running for President. He goes over his demands, which includes reading an American novel every week and getting rid of calculators. 

We get a video of Stephanie giving the house to the winner. They open the closet and the Bushwhackers are in there. 

Allied Powers vs. Tony DeVito & Bill Payne

They show a clip of British Bulldog getting Mabel on his shoulders for an electric chair on the Action Zone. This is exactly what you would think it would be. They hit the big spots and put the ham and eggers away.

Match Rating: 1/4*

They re-show the challenge from Ted DiBiase for Sid and Tatanka against Bam Bam Bigelow and Diesel. 

Next week on Raw, Jeff Jarrett will take on Undertaker in a King Of The Ring qualifying match. 

Kama vs. Barry Horowitz

The first three squashes were all a little bit better than this, but who could have expected that? He puts on a half crab and that is enough? 

Match Rating: 1/4*

Todd Pettengill tells us how we can get tickets for the Hall Of Fame ceremony, which will take place the night before King Of The Ring. Antonina Rocca is going to be one of the inductees.

We go to Barry Didinski to show us the brand new $20 Shawn Michaels shirt. Don't forget about the $16 Raw shirt.

King Of The Ring Qualifying Match
King Kong Bundy vs. Shawn Michaels

Michaels knocks Bundy out of the ring before the match starts and continues with his dance into the commercial break. We have Michaels with his mullet/beard combo here. He hits a dive to the floor on Bundy before Bundy ever got back in the ring again. We get Michaels outsmarting Bundy at every turn until Bundy sends him on an Irish whip and Michaels ends up on the floor. Bundy then slams him to the floor before throwing him back in the ring. I'm not really sure why this is even for the King Of The Ring since it has a storyline attached to it and the tournament feels unimportant. This all leads to a bear hug spot, my favorite. They show Bam Bam and Diesel watching the match backstage before we go to another commercial break. When we come back, Michaels hits a top rope reverse crossbody and then hits Sweet Chin Music to pick up the victory. That was a quick post-commercial break finish there. They show Diesel and Bam Bam heading to the ring. Bam Bam plays middle man and Diesel extends his hand out for a handshake. It's wrestling, so Michaels has to look at the crowd for answers. He backs away and then tells Diesel to lift his arm up for a high five and they then hug. As far as Bundy matches go, this is about as good as it's going to get in 1995.

Match Rating: *1/2

Next week, we'll see both Sid and Hakushi in action. Jerry Lawler then tries to address Bret, but he can't talk due to a throat injury. We get an Undertaker and Paul Bearer promo for his match with Jeff Jarrett next week.

The Bret Hart moment was the highlight here and Michaels also looked really sharp in his return. The rest of the show was just fluff, but nothing offensive. 

Overall Rating: 39%

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