Monday Night Raw

I’m about to enter the world of the Internet Wrestling Community (IWC).  It’s basically people who discuss wrestling on the internet and by discuss I mean complain, but in all seriousness most of the time with good reason.  Wrestling just isn’t like it once was.  I.E. fun, unpredictable, compelling, continuity, red-hot crowd, actual care for mid-card, an announce team that made things feel important, not pandering to the people who will never ever understand and watch wrestling, not an absolute chore to sit through 3 hours of constant recaps.  What I wouldn’t give for a sit down interview with Vince McMahon.  I’m starting to get off track here back to the IWC.  If you don’t know anything about the IWC, please understand that they are not happy with anything.  Like any large group they can never agree on anything and there are many factions within the group.  Just by talking about wrestling online Triple H has put me on his hit list.  Triple H is the executive vice president of the former World Wrestling Federation (sorry I just can’t bring myself to say WWE).  His insecurities are very real and will probably never eat a pretzel again or stomp on a bunch next Monday as his way of burying me and this site.  Oh who am I kidding, he only buries people when they make it big time. 

            Now, picking an actual episode among the 1000 plus was a little tough.  However, you need to remember I’m not trying to pick the best episode of all time, but the one that starts a run of can’t miss episodes.  May 26^th 1997 is the winner.  An almost pretty inconsequential episode that’s smack dab in the middle of two ppv’s.  Usually the show after or right before a ppv is the most memorable.   Let’s go through some of the reasons why raw pretzeled at this time.  One, there was no jobbers (wrestlers that are inconsequential to a storyline and always lose to make the other look better) used this night and began a move towards ending the practice of using jobbers.  Two, we are in the midst of the Monday night wars between WWF and WCW.  The show was actually renamed Raw is War and War Zone for the first and second hours.  We are in the attitude era the greatest wrestling era of all time.  Three, Mankind’s part 2 interview with Jim Ross gives the audience a look into the Mick Foley’s alter egos Dude Love and Cactus Jack.  The three faces of Foley were an instrumental part during the attitude era.  Four, Stone Cold in the main event spot.  Stone Cold and Shawn Michaels defeated Owen Hart (R.I.P) and British Bulldog (R.I.P) to become new tag team champions.  Stone Cold is the greatest superstar of all time and I will defend that until my death.  Coming off of his great WrestleMania match with Bret Hart at WM 13, Steve Austin has the crowd and the company behind him.  This show is a precursor to some great points in wrestling Canadian Stampede, SummerSlam 97, Badd Blood, Survivor Series 97 and of course WrestleMania 14.