Raw/Nitro November '97 (Week 4)

Monday Night Raw 24/11/97 (2.75 Stars)

Segment- “Handsome Harvey” in-ring promo. Handsome Harvey comes to the ring impersonating Rick Rude in a skit. Harvey introduces D-Generation X. Shawn says he takes full responsibility for what happened at Survivor Series, before inviting Bret Hart to have one last face to face in the ring later that night.

Tag Team Championships

Match 1- Billy Gunn & Road Dogg def Legion of Doom (c)

Segment- Michael Cole interviews Goldust. Goldust is in a wheelchair accompanied by a nurse and claims he is a paraplegic and woke up as a quadriplegic. Vader interrupts the interview and shouts at Goldust before attacking him. The nurse throws alcohol in Vader's eyes, before revealing herself as Luna, as Goldust stands from the wheelchair and assaults Vader.

Segment- Michael Cole interviews Commissioner Slaughter. Slaughter says DX and Hemsley crossed the line when they brought his family into it. Slaughter says at In Your House, Hemsley won't be facing commissioner Slaughter, but Sgt. Slaughter.

Match 2- Brian Christopher def Flash Flanagan (Light Heavyweight Tournament)

Segment- Hunter Hearst Hemsley responds to Commissioner Slaughter, and says the promo he cut is the same one he used to watch as a kid, so he is unfazed. Shawn calls out Bret Hart only for a

midget dressed as Bret Hart to confront Shawn Michaels instead, as Shawn mocks him by re-enacting the screwjob on the midget. Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart confronts and calls out DX. Shawn points out that none of the Hart Family are there to support Jim. Shawn offers Jim Neidhart a spot in DX after claiming the ‘Hart Foundation’ never respected him, instead holding him down.

Match 3- Ken Shamrock def Savio Vega

Segment- Rocky Maivia in-ring promo. Rocky says he's the real Intercontinental champion. Rocky sucks appears in big letters on the titan-tron. Steve Austin shows himself in the production truck messing with the live broadcast, before he appears live behind Rocky Maivia and beats him, until Rocky and The Nation of Domination all escape from the ring.

Segment- Jeff Jarrett refuses to wrestle a match with Chainz, as he feels stipulations in his contract have been breached. Jeff claimed he was promised a luxury locker room, catered food and freshly bottled water. Jeff ends with saying Chainz isn't a suitable opponent for someone of his calibre anyway.

Match 4- Crush def Jeff Jarrett via forfeit

Segment- Kane attacks Crush

Match 5- Shawn Michaels def Vader

Segment- D-Generation X attack Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart

Analysis

Opening Segment

We saw a Rick Rude skit as “Handsome Harvey” introduced Shawn Michaels, whilst doing a crude Rick Rude impersonation. DX eventually came out, as Shawn promised that Bret Hart would make an appearance later that night! Most of you reading this will know what actually happened, and if Vince and the WWF put as much effort into booking a solid show as they did trying to take the piss out of Bret Hart, maybe Raw would be more enjoyable for all involved!

Match 1

An unexpectedly entertaining opener as Billy Gunn and Road Dogg pinned L.O.D to win the tag straps! Probably L.O.D's best TV match since their return, with an enjoyable finish as the heels utilised a ref bump to smash Animal with a chair, reversing a Doomsday Device into a roll up. The TV openers were usually garbage, so while not a five star classic by any means, a hot title change and a watchable match would always be welcomed.

Second Hour/WarZone

Hour number two kicked off with the infamous and super corny promo, that Bret Hart was sat watching at the end of his “Wrestling with Shadows” documentary, as a midget dressed as Bret Hart came out to confront Shawn Michaels! The less said about this the better. The segment did end on a high note at least, as Shawn pointed out that Jim Neidhart was the only one from his family who actually showed up to Raw (Owen was talking time off, Davey was having knee surgery and Bret had already left the company) before putting Neidhart over and going as far as to offer him a spot in DX. This seemed like a rather obvious bait and attack angle, but Shawn's promo as he ran down the members of the Hart family who weren't there, was actually quite good.

Segment

This purely admin, but Jeff Jarrett was cutting a promo saying he was set to wrestle Chainz, when it was actually Crush. Jeff refused to wrestle, citing a lack of bottled spring water and no freshly cooked hamburgers backstage. This must have been when he met his real life bestie Taylor Swift, as her diva ways were clearly rubbing off on him! Crush won by forfeit, leading to Kane assaulting him in the ring.

Main-event

Shawn Michaels took on Vader in the main-event. Before the match, Shawn Michaels introduces Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart as the latest member of D-Generation X! This match was very frantic and quite short at around 5 minutes, but it served its purpose. Post-match, Jim Neidhart stood in the middle of the ring with DX, before the faction eventually turned on him, assaulting the Hart family member.

Summary

The Goldust segment in hour one was entertaining, and a perfect example of an attitude era promo that wasn't too hammy or OTT. We also saw an 80s style Sgt Slaughter promo that turned dark, as Slaughter talked about the “horrors of war”. Very segment heavy yet again, but at least they were entertaining (for the most part) Yet outside of the opener, the in-ring wasn't quite there. So overall, while this was still a fun show, it just didn't have enough actual wrestling to warrant a 3 star rating.

WCW Nitro 24/11/97 (2.5 Stars)

Segment- The nWo are shown congregating backstage as they all walked out to the ring together. ‘Hollywood’ Hogan issues an open challenge for his title that The Giant accepts. J.J. Dillon says that he will have to sign a waiver on account of his broken hand, and The Giant agrees!

Tag Team Championships

Match 1- (c) The Steiner Brothers def Disorderly Conduct

Match 2- Booker T def Meng

Segment- J.J. Dillon asks Raven if he finally has an answer for him, as to whether he will sign an official contract or not. Raven states a lot of unreasonable stipulations, including working when he wants, and only for the pay he requests. Dillon says regardless of all that, Raven is now officially under WCW contract! Raven throws Sickboy into the ring to face Chris Beniot as his last minute replacement.

Match 3- Chris Beniot def Sickboy

Segment- Raven's flock all attack Chris Beniot

Segment- Larry Zbyszko calls out The nWo and Scott Hall. Flyers fall from the celling, with images of Eric Bischoff standing over Zbyszko at Halloween Havoc, following an attack from The nWo. Eric Bischoff comes out to taunt him, before Zybysko offers an official challenge to Eric.

Match 4- Prince Iaukea def Alex Wright

Match 5- ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage def Disco Inferno

Match 6- Dean Malenko def Brad Armstrong

Segment- Mean Gene interviews Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael. Mongo says he respects Alex Wright for cutting Debra loose, leading Debra to come out and try and reconcile with Mongo. Steve McMichael tells her to walk away as he's not interested!

Match 7- Buff Bagwell def Chris Jericho

United States Championship

Match 8- Ray Traylor def Curt Hennig (c) via DQ

World Heavyweight Championship

Match 9- The Giant def ‘Hollywood’ Hogan (c) via DQ

Analysis

Opening Segment

Standard nWo fare once again, but I actually have some points to add this time. I had seen A LOT of these promos by this point. And they were all FAR better when Bischoff was on the mic for most of it. As crazy as this may seem, there's an argument to be made that during THIS time at least, Eric was the best on the stick out of the entire nWo! He had this naturally abilty to be cocky, while still leaning into the fact that he was aware that his group was still insanley over at this point, so tried to not piss off the fans too much. He knew when to reign it in and when to lay it on thick. If he got that aspect wrong, the nWo could have been portrayed in an entrley different light, and it may not have worked as well! My point is that I strongly believe that having Eric Bischoff as the front man is what made the group seem so cool in the first place. I wasn't a huge fan of Eric and some of his booking policies or business decisions back then, but as far as on screen personalities, he was one of the best in my eyes!

Anyway, Eric introduced and put over all of his pals dressed in black, before Hogan issued an open challenge for his title leading to The Giant accepting. J.J. Dillon says that he will have to sign a waiver due to his broken hand, but The Giant quotes Dua Lipa and says IDGAF, as he wanted the Hulkster in the main-event…with it ALL on the line! Really strong opening segment, starting the show on the right track.

Matches 1 & 2

‘Mean Mike’ and ‘Tough Tom’ made their Nitro debuts as ‘Disorderly Conduct’ They had worked some dark matches and a few shows on WCW Saturday Night, but I couldn't find much out about them individually, so I guess they had middling carrers. That said, they seemed to stay with WCW until its closure, which was pretty impressive. And, I don't say this as an attempt to sound funny whatsoever. But from my research, as of writing they both seem to be alive and well, which being a wrestler from this time period, no matter to what level, is an achievement in itself! The Steiner Brothers made easy work of Disorderly Conduct, with the main talking point being how Scott Stiener had a great degree of difficulty, putting ‘Tough Tom’ on his shoulders to execute the finish. That could have been anyone's fault to be fair, and seeing as the disorderly duo remained in the company for another 3-4 years until WCW eventually shut up shop, thankfully it wasn't seen as a big deal to anyone in the back.

Next up we saw Booker T roll up Meng at around the 3 minute mark, so not much to analyse here. I have always been a huge Booker T fan, so hopefully this indicated the start of his singles push (I also enjoyed Harlem Heat as a team, so it's a double edged sword I guess) Post match, Meng locked the death grip on Booker T, leading to Stevie Ray attempting BUT failing the save. The Barbarian comes out to even up the numbers and no doubt we'd see these two teams duke it out soon! Yayyyyy…

Second Hour

The second hour begins with Tony Schiavone running down FAR TOO many matches for the remainder of the show. Like sweet jesus, how are they going to fit all of that in ON TOP OF the obvious segments they probably had planned. Sorry, silly question. Rushed matches and running over their alloted 2 hours of TV time of course!

Anyway, Prince Iaukea beats Alex Wright after Debra's dress got caught in the ring and caused a distraction, leading to Alex Wright firing her. Women huh?! A fine match for what it was, with a big emphasis placed on Iaukea's “increased intensity” following his tour of Japan. A small detail but one that I appreciated nonetheless.

Main-event

Bischoff and Rude were on commentary for this one. Hogan worked the cast well, and the Giant did a good job of selling it. But this match was always going to be ALL ABOUT the finish and how well it was executed. And look, if you liked the nWo run-in nonsense then it was fine I guess. But personally, I didn't love it. All of the heat was taken out as The Giant hit a chokeslam and spent what seemed like FOREVER on the ground, until Kevin Nash walked down in a Sting mask (Yes Eric, the audience had probably caught on by this point) and layed a baseball bat into The Giant's injured hand for the DQ finish. The nWo work over The Giant and a prop Sting falls from the ceiling and goes crashing through the ring in an attempt to mock the ‘Icon’. This segment went on far too long in my opinion, but what I will say is the crowd sounded super hot for Sting as “We want Sting” chants were audibly heard around the arena. Maybe this worked, but in retrospect he didn't actually appear on THIS show, so it's impossible for me to say with any fairness. In my eyes, it was a disappointing end to the show.

Summary

The promise alone of a Hogan title match, immediately added to my rating of the show. Say what you want about WCW (and Hogan) but they did a REALLY good job of protecting him, and making him feel like a big deal! Dean Malenko/Brad Armstrong was also a good, solid competitive match in hour two, reminding us of Brad Armstrong’s legitimate wrestling chops. He may be best known today as a former WWE referee, but he could REALLY go in the ring! A point that someone else made (I can't take credit for this as it didn't occur to me right away) but why was Scott Hall not made to seem like a bigger deal following his win at WW3. This was essentially WCW's Royal Rumble, with the winner getting a World Title shot, and he barely said two words all night. That said, this still could have been a really good show if they treated the main-event with more care. But they didn't, so it garners an average rating at best. Raw pulls one back with a win to close out the month!

Summary and Final Scores

So, Raw got pretty rough for a minute. A few things probably contributed to this. 1) The loss of Bret Hart. 2) The Raw following Survivor Series was BAD, and I don't mean Michael Jackson bad either, as what should have been the entire driving force angle wise for the rest of the year (The Screwjob) wasn't even mentioned due to a fear it would affect the replay butyrate. 3) Shitty booking and poor wrestling (for the most part). However, we do know that the quality of both of these things improves drastically in the year of 1998 due to *checks notes* Ah yes, Steve Austin and Vince McMahon. Let me just check my notes for Nitro in 1998 really quickly…hold on. Wait, that can't be right. It says here the shows are all 3 hours long and are virtually unwatchable! Well, who am I to judge prematurely, we’ll cross that ‘Bridge to Terabithia’ when we get to it.

Anyway, the two main talking points were The nWo and Bret Hart. I've already spoken about the Canadian hero to nauseum quite frankly, so here's my ‘hot take’ on the boys in black. The nWo were actually over so didn't get any heat with their run ins. Which to me, made the sheer excessive amount of them predictable and annoying. Now people must have enjoyed it surely as that's what they did, and they are considered one of the top heel factions of all time. Although I wonder if the people actually saying this tuned into Nitro, or are quoting what they believe to be true. Yes, Kevin would say they drew HUGE numbers and moved a shit ton of merch, so there's that and I won't and can't take that away from them. But maybe they were a product of their time and it hasn't aged as well as we all thought. Anyway, Raw managed to avoid a clean sweep with their win during week four, but Nitro still won the month overall 3-1, clearly capitalising on Raw being, well, really bad TV for the most part. The final scores stand as WCW 54-43 WWF and 12 draws.

Match of the Month: Shawn Michaels Vs Bret Hart (Survivor Series)