Original Airdate: Monday, January 15th, 1996
Bob Carpenter Center
Newark, Delaware
Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork22
We get a Martin Luther King Jr. intro. We then get a warning for graphic nature after that. They then run through a bunch of stuff for a scattered intro.
Marty Jannetty vs. Owen Hart
I'd be good if this one got 20 minutes. Jerry Lawler predicts that someone with royalty will win the Rumble. Owen Hart, Mabel or himself. We get some good action as we head into the first commercial break. I really wish I didn't have to binge all of these Raw episodes without watching Superstars (and Nitro). Hopefully it will prove to have been a bad idea by me, but I have no faith that they will put this up on Netflix. We get mostly 50/50 action and then kind of a winner out of nowhere with Owen pinning Marty with a bridge.
Match Rating: **
We go to Todd Pettengill and he's hyping up the first ever Free For All on the Preview Channel. I was legitimately so excited for this. I am pretty sure I watched every Free For All there ever was. Todd announces that there will be a match where the winner will get #30 in the Rumble and the loser will be #1. They flash through a lot of the Superstars in it, but don't name them like they typically do. We hear from Diesel and he says that it's Diesel time. We then see more of Vader. Todd promises that they won't show these Royal Rumble matches anywhere else like they did In Your House. That's still hilarious to me.
We go to Dok Hendrix and he tells us that Razor Ramon is furious with Goldust and he can't wait any longer to tear Goldust apart.
We then get the Sunny playing pool Raw vignette. Then they hype up the rest of the show into a commercial.
Ringmaster vs. Matt Hardy
It's always good to see Matt Hardy. It's hilarious to me that someone approved the name "Ringmaster". Ringmaster has a real Widowmaker vibe to it. This match should be over already It should have been 5 moves and over. If they wanted to make this extended, they should have given him Bob Holly or Barry Horowitz. Ringmaster reverses a suplex by hitting a face first suplex. Ringmaster drops Hardy on the top rope and then slaps on the Million Dollar Dream for the victory. Like I said, this should have been quicker.
Match Rating: 1/4*
We get a Shawn Michaels video package about how exciting he is. They then go over the concussion drama. They once again show him announcing that he'll be in the Royal Rumble. This, of course, is the origin of the "boyhood dream".
We go to Dok again and he said that Razor is just a few miles from the arena.
Smoking Gunns vs. The Spiders
We join this awesome match in progress. The Spiders are the Headbangers. They hit the Sidewinder and that is all. They mention the match with the Body Donnas, who have not been on Raw ahead of a pay per view title match.
Match Rating: 1/4*
We go back to Billionaire Ted wanting to buy WWF.
Vince McMahon is in the ring for an interview with Goldust. They play on the homophobia of this era. It's all about as classy as you would expect it to be from pro wrestling. They go back to Dok and he thinks Razor has just gotten here.
We see Razor walk in the arena.
Isaac Yankem vs. Undertaker
Lawler gives Yankem a pep talk before the match. There are very few matches that I want to see less than this one. Why are there still 2 commercials left in this show? The Undertaker dominates until the King gets involved and Yankem is able to drive Taker into the ring post. We go back to Dok and he says that after the match, he'll get to interview Goldust about his match with Bret Hart next week on Raw. Gee, I wonder what will happen. Taker reverses a piledriver and they cut to Dok, likely because they botched the move. Taker hits the Tombstone and puts us all out of our misery. This was horrible. I can't believe they saw this and were like, give me about 95 more televised matches of this.
Match Rating: 0 Stars
Dok interviews Goldust and wouldn't you know it, Razor attacks him. I didn't see that coming. Goldust is able to slow him down with a low blow and then we go to commercial.
We get Sunny in a bath tub.
They show the same Razor attack again. The amount of filler on a 45 minute show the last month or two has been crazy to me.
As mentioned, next week it will be Bret vs. Goldust. Don't forget to buy the Royal Rumble. They run through the card real quick and go back to Dok. Razor attacks Goldust again and throws him out the door and into the snow. He tries to hit him with a shovel, but Goldust throws him into a truck. Goldust is able to get away in a car before we end the show. That at least was pretty fun.
I really hope that this isn't the last Raw I get to watch because that main event sucked big time. Let's hope Netflix decides to put the Raw library up sometime soon. If not, I bought myself some time by binging these episodes and actually made it further than I thought I would. Anyway, this episode sucked again, which is a shame heading into Royal Rumble. After a little hot streak in the fall, they have definitely slipped again. There are a few good things going on, but the taping cycle is really killing Raw.
Overall Rating: 28%
No comments:
Post a Comment