Kevin Ridge

Gene runs for the hills the first chance he gets. Oh, if only he got beat up by Savage. JJ ends up being the one who suffers Savage’s wrath.

It’s a slow start to the video package showing very random stuff on DDP but once they focus on him hitting the Diamond Cutter in different positions it picks up a bit. Was hard to follow up the Foley segment.

It really was a point when WWF was more open to their own archives of video/pictures but also working in pictures/video of Mick from FMW. We also get some brief ECW footage. You could tell these stories but it helped for them to show the extra footage of the death matches he was in.

WWF busting out video of Summerslam 91 when LOD won the tag titles. LOD is making easy work of Michaels early on. Maybe Michaels was ahead of his time and had those horse placenta massages of his knee as looks good as new. LOD are the faces in match. Michaels and Austin end up brawling outside which leads to a very quick count out. Patterson is back to wearing his white sneakers.

Sunny wins the Super Soaker challenge against the Headbangers and Honky. Sunny has become useless as far as managing. Cornette not doing much himself either.

WWF goes into the archives to show Snuka splash off the cage on Muraco. Brief interview of Mankind.

A rare interview of Bret by McMahon. Bret brings up Canadian athlete Donovan Bailey winning against USA’s Michael Johnson. Bret won’t be able to wrestle Michaels at King of the Ring because of the knee. Michaels is upset at not being able to rid of Hart for good in the USA. Austin doesn’t care about that which of course the fans pop big for. Michaels ends up confronting Austin backstage but they don’t come to blows. Ever the gentleman, Pillman gives up his spot at King of the Ring for Michaels to face Austin instead. Austin is quick to accept.

Dudleys just decide to pick on Balls and attack him outside. Sandman’s leap over the top rope plancha/cane shot was nice. Rick Rude, “Big Dick is choking Balls” This ends up with Richards hitting the Stevie Kick on Funk.

Wearing the eye glasses is a bad idea for an ECW guy. Only Arn can pull off the eyeglasses look. Richards talks about how he became a fan of wrestling. Stevie came up with an idea of his own. The BWO! This promo doesn’t work for me but I can see trying to make him more serious as potential ECW Champion. Match for him versus Funk for the ECW title has been set for Wrestlepalooza.

Dutch is more advanced than me as he had email back in 1997. He makes a promise to slap someone every week on TV. Dutch hopes he doesn’t get arrested for what he is going to do to Gypsy Joe. Dutch wearing an ECW shirt!

Now we have the fake Diesel cutting a promo before Vince McMahon shows up on screen in full suit! McMahon in USWA is a fave of mine. He totally buries fake Razor as much as possible. Just wow. Vince is not a fan of fake Razor. USWA was the testing ground for heel Mr. McMahon. Jacob’s charisma is so below Kevin Nash for that character. We get the Fake Razor/Fake Diesel feud that I've been clamoring for.

I’m down for the return of Billy Travis. Complete with weird looking tights. He brawls with Christopher in the parking lot.

Can’t believe they are still trying to get this gimmick over at this point after being a bust in WWF.

Was Corey Maclin gone from USWA? Lawler talks about this extremely crappy wrestling organization making challenges towards him. Jerry mentions USWA has been doing brawling for a long time. We watch a ECW video to Nirvana that Lawler sets up beforehand. Dreamer will be on USWA TV.

Too much editing in match to say how good it was. Kobashi with the big Lariat on Taue to win the tag titles.

Bischoff and Hogan were good in playing to the fans that had the appropriate pro NWO signs. Bischoff takes a look under the ring to make sure Sting isn’t hiding there. But Sting appears under the ring but it is another fake. The real Sting drops from the rafters and Hogan is slow to recognize. Hogan calls out the whole NWO to back him up. We are still over half a year from these guys facing off. Great slow build.

Both Hall and Nash had some good lines here that had me laughing. They aren’t too fazed by Flair and Piper and are willing to put the tag titles up in a match. Nash calls out Piper for not being a man of his word and retiring when he told his kid he would.

The slick NWO segments still don’t fit Savage in my mind as on his own he can deliver the promos as is.

Hector Garza is now in WCW. Calo’s somersault flip into the crowd was insane! Looked like nobody got hurt which is good but he flew in there with great velocity. I’ll never understand commentators being dismissive to the ring action when their job is to be selling everything. Great dives all around and finished off with a awesome corkscrew plancha by Garza.

Konnan has got some tough words for Kevin Sullivan and the Dungeon of Doom. That group is still going?

Every sport athlete in the world must have been hounding Michaels about his super recovery from his career ending knee injury. Bulldog versus Michaels seems to always have a crotch spot on the top rope. Maybe not as great as remembered but still a quality tag team match. Michaels and Austin win the tag titles. Austin gets a free shot at Bret Hart after match.

Mankind talks about the effect Snuka/Muraco had on him as he watched in person at MSG. He brings up the Dude Love character as a chick magnet. More backyard scenes of Mick and then him training with Denucci. Mankind doesn’t become the heart throb he planned on being. Awesome segment. Next week we go in to Cactus Jack.

Undertaker tells Bearer to do what he has to do and that Undertaker will do the same in response. This doesn’t make much sense right now.

Lawler gets a pop from the crowd when shown on the Titantron. This promo floored me at the time with Lawler using the language he did about Goldust. Something you would not get away with these days. Quarterfinal match up on Raw. They are starting this the year before with 96 King of the Ring. Announcers acknowledge Lawler’s local fan base. He is getting huge crowd chants during this. Lawler scores the win with his feet on the ropes to advance to semifinals and does a great exaggerated roll down the stage after taking a shot from Goldust. Crowd were still cheering him.

Pretty tame Barbed wire match overall. Just mostly about Tanaka fighting off all of Onita’s team. Good effort by Tanaka but his partners were barely visible in all of this.