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God, if you could combine the WWF main event scene of 1997 with WCW's mid- and undercard, you'd have the greatest American promotion of all-time. This is fantastic, maybe a better TV match than the one I just raved about over on Raw. The spots hit, the comedy works, the complexity of some of the sequences is breathtaking, and this is legitimately one of the better builds to a dive train that you'll ever see. Larry Z notwithstanding, this is also helped immeasurably by Mike Tenay's commentary--his build-up to Garza's corkscrew plancha is letter-perfect and paid off wonderfully. It really does make you wonder how much we're missing in not being able to understand the Moraleses, Riveras, Babas, and Fukuzawas of the world even if great in-ring psychology is universal.

Sullivan is on a "self-imposed sabbatical," which was a shoot. Okerlund chides Konnan for daring to speak Spanish, and Konnan chides Sullivan for not being able to get rid of Benoit and hiding behind Jackie. Sullivan is a "bi-yoz-nitch." He then calls out Hugh Morrus--the feud we all may deserve, but not the one we need.

This was an old-school southern-fried tag match in many ways. The pace is a little rushed, but in about 10-12 minutes they fit in two FIP segments and every tag staple from the double-teams, to the ref distractions, to the false hot tag, to the Hart Foundation swarming the ring as soon as the bell rings, is carried out perfectly for maximum heat. Michaels, for all his obnoxiousness out of the ring, is still bringing the goods once the bell rings. Everyone's at least decent here but he was far and away the best performer in the match. His offense had snap and was surprisingly varied by his standards, and he was great at taking a beating during and after the match. The finish is a little rushed, but it works--it's no Hokuto & Kandori uniting to topple Aja & Bull, but as a free TV match in 1997 it's excellent--probably trailing only the European title final as far as the WWF goes. Austin takes all credit for himself, takes out Bret after the match, and leaves Shawn to the wolves, prompting a backstage argument. This seems to be an increasingly rare Raw that goes off the air in standard fashion, rather than on an in-ring cliffhanger.

Pre-Have a Nice Day, this was pretty much all new material at the time. Though I guess from now on, Mick's inspiration will be the Slaughter/Patterson alley fight or something. We get clips from The Loved One, and even some footage from DeNucci's gym of Mick mixing it up with Shane Douglas. Terrific interview, of course--I don't know if these segments rank up at the very top of Foley's promos, just because there's a lot of competition, but they certainly have a strong argument--maybe the biggest being that it actually tangibly affected his career to a much greater degree than any of his anti-hardcore promos did.

Undertaker appears to be on a crucifix, which I'm stunned they got away with, unless it was just too quick and subtle for anyone to notice.

Dig how Ross and McMahon (who are both awesome here) are more offended at Lawler's comments about Marlena and Dakota than they are about using a slur to describe Goldust. I was ambivalent on the Goldust unmasked interviews before, but the fact is they actually got him surprisingly over for a few weeks...until they threw him in the ring with Jerry Lawler in Evansville. Not the last time in 1997 that the WWF would book a prospective babyface in a city where he'd predictably be shat on. You have to respect Lawler's commitment to staying heel as best he can. Pretty spirited match--the kind of solid mid-card bout that was rapidly disappearing from the thinning WWF roster. Goldust actually throws better punches here than Lawler does, but the King ends up stealing a pretty big upset victory.

Onita's problem isn't the haircut, it's that he's working heel, a situation that doesn't seem to play to his strengths at all. He's all about heat, selling, and big comebacks--here he works like the Undertaker, no-selling and shrugging off pretty much everything that's thrown at him. Not sure what the story is behind the turn but it's not for the better. Tanaka is far and away the star here, putting on a compelling performance both on top and (mostly) underneath, as this comes off as a glorified Tanaka-Onita singles match with occasional contributions by Kanemura--the other 3 may as well have not bothered to show up. Onita being so dominant would be fine if this built to a huge comeback where Tanaka pays him back for everything he did, but outside of a few token moves Onita doesn't actually give him anything. Maybe he's less Undertaker and more Hollywood Hogan. Then Onita pins Tanaka anyway after kicking his ass the whole match. This was a pretty decent match, window-dressing partners aside, but pretty lousy booking. If this leads to *another* match where Tanaka actually pins Onita, then I'll be less upset. Something tells me that's a pipe dream, though.

Overbooked match that's weirdly worked somewhat traditionally, with strict enforcement of legal tags and such, even as tables and chairs get involved. I agree that it feels like a big reset button has been hit on the Richards/Raven relationship, for reasons I can't quite figure out. It's way past time to pull the trigger on this.

They could take Parv's route and christen him the more formal-sounding "Zed-Man."

Chris Candido first speculates that RVD went to the WWF to be near his girl, but decides that he only did it because he's an asshole. Rick Rude gives some trenchant advice involving KY Jelly, as Joey does more of his stupid mugging. Raven expounds upon the idea of selling out. The Pitbulls are GRRR ANGRY--their Loud Wrestling Voice promo is pretty funny in how out of sync it is with the tone of the rest of this. Sandman will give up cigarettes and beer if he can get 5 minutes in the ring with Van Dam. Bill Alfonso is grateful to Vince McMahon for helping him clean up. Terry Funk is once again the most compelling talker in the company. Douglas declares that WWF stands for We Want Franchise, in a refreshingly brief and bitterness-free bit. Spike Dudley throws a tantrum. Louie Spicoli wants RVD to put a good word in with the Clique. Tommy Dreamer whines about how you should never sell out. Big Dick Dudley grunts. Buh Buh Ray and D-Von makes threats to RVD...and everyone else, in a funny segue. Perry Saturn tries to say he doesn't give a fuck what RVD does but he sure doesn't act like it. The Big Don calls off the FBI's workout, and Tracy Smothers laments that Rob Van Ham will never be a paisan now--Rich wonders why we're talking about Jean-Claude Van Damme. "Are you down with Gordon Solie on Monday nights, is that what this is?!" Bill Alfonso gloats about all the new checks he's getting because of where RVD wrestles now. Chris Chetti cuts an incredibly wooden promo. Francine's done a lot of things for money, but not that. A neckbraced Beulah cuts a hairdryer-aided promo. Balls Mahoney is angry. Tod Gordon calls out RVD's business sense and then suspends him indefinitely. Definitely one of the better Pulp Fictions--some of the sellout talk is funny but I liked how they treated his Raw appearance as the ultimate act of betrayal, and I liked how the ECW heels stayed true to their characters--along with the FBI, Gertner and the Dudleys were the highlight here.

We're just about nearing the end here--Larry Burton had already run off Dave Brown and temporarily ran off Lance Russell, which was explained on TV as Lance refusing to work with Dutch Mantell. Mantell took the opportunity to repeatedly show clips of him beating Jerry Lawler in 1982, then attempted to impose his will on Stacy before Lawler makes the save. A really good, heated brawl breaks out, which ends with Lawler and referee Downtown Bruno getting the Shoo Baby treatment. Dutch sends in a video promising to embarrass Lawler in front of his few remaining friends. It's definitely a throwback, to-the-well feud that in some ways is just as bad as WCW rehashing Piper and Hogan, but Dutch and Lawler are far more compelling in their old age than Roddy is in his.

This got a lot better as it went along to a pretty heartstopping conclusion, and with me not having a problem with Kanemoto's performance, I may well have liked this better than anyone else. Kanemoto wasn't as good as Otani but this was a more even and back-and-forth match, and Takaiwa's gimmick of being a cruiser who wrestles like a heavyweight stands out as unique as compared to Tajiri working like an underneath guy. Both guys do a great job of making the multiple-powerbomb spot look realistic, which is incredibly hard to do (no blatantly grabbing onto the powerbomber's arms here).

Always fun to watch two Japanese male wrestlers wear their emotions on their sleeves like this. Otani's confident but freaks out with every two-count--both for him and against him. Tajiri is woefully overmatched and can only fight to keep his head above water, but busts out a dragon suplex for a 3-count and another holy-shit, audible-gasp moment for me. This may be another case of NJPW cute-for-cuteness-sake upset booking in hindsight, but it worked for me. Tajiri's celebration and Otani's reaction are gold, too.

Good segment to put more heat on the NWO, and what heat they draw in Flair Country. No Horsemen in the building--they all got thrown out because McMichael and Kevin Greene got into it backstage, and it's also explained that Piper isn't there either.

A pretty good segment that hints at a promising feud to come, that we never really get. Some subtle touches that I like--Syxx *did* have the upper hand on Flair the previous night, one of the only long sustained runs of offense the NWO had. Flair: "You, my friend, are a fly in the ointment--and I'm gonna kick your flyweight ass!" They have a quick pull-apart and Syxx runs off.

The crutch has indeed eclipsed the high heel shoe as wrestling's most deadly weapon. Jim Ross relays to Austin and Michaels, in the midst of another near-brawl, that Gorilla Monsoon has ordered them to team up as partners next week to go after the tag titles. This comes after segments earlier in the night with Michaels trying to recruit Ken Shamrock as his partner, and Austin, out of obligation of needing a partner at all, trying to recruit Harvey Wippleman. This does not sit well with either man and we have yet another pull-apart. Part of me wishes the Hart Foundation could have stuck around and we'd get an off-the-air shot of them laughing it up to close out Raw. This was an action-packed episode that also offered a ton of things to keep you tuned in next week, between Shawn Michaels' return and the possibility of Paul Bearer's secret being revealed.

Undertaker talks about Faarooq playing the "race card"--UT, like Stephen Colbert, doesn't see color. Not a particularly good way to go with this promo, but what do you do to hype an Undertaker-Faarooq match? Undertaker refuses to address the secret that Paul Bearer revealed the existence of last week. Slow-burn storytelling, whatever happened to it? It's mid-May and we're beginning to hype something that won't be paid off until October and won't *really* be paid off until March! Bearer is about to spill the beans about the death of Undertaker's parents, but Undertaker, in a rare position of vulnerability, asks Paul for more time. Bearer graciously gives Undertaker another week. Of course this whole storyline was ridiculous, but it ended up working against all odds, and we're at the beginning of what may be the run of Percy Pringle's career.

As mentioned, these started the previous week and I threw an internal fit at the end of Raw, somehow blaming this commercial (which aired right before the final segment at like 5 till the hour) for the show running long. I was pissed we didn't get the end of the segment and I was pissed we didn't get the surprise, which we probably weren't going to get anyway. So I have an inherent bias against these clips, even though I did love Super Soakers as a kid.

You know, take that line out and this is a hell of a segment from both guys. It was an incredibly needless digression because Shawn was actually on-point for the rest of this segment, keeping things mostly about the program and offering only one other generic personal shot. Bret's promo is fantastic and I have to actually credit him for holding it together and no-selling that line--anything else on-camera would have just drawn attention to it. This is a very old-school set-up--heel issues stipulation challenge, babyface agrees with a caveat--and I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing was Cornette's idea (the other heels being handcuffed is an old southern wrasslin' staple as well). I too am fascinated as to how this would have been booked had the match gone off. There's no other possible result besides Shawn losing, but HBK losing in ten minutes regardless of whatever overbooked clusterfuck would lead up to it seems unthinkable.

The post-Raw scene was shown the next weekend on Livewire and Superstars, so fans did have a clue of what happened. And a wild scene it is, pretty reminiscent of the DDP/Savage angle at Slamboree with the hitting-and-running, crutch use, and numbers game.

Never fear--RVD will be back on Raw soon enough. He does, as you'd expect, look good in highlight form.

Yes, Mick as has been usual has his finger on the pulse of where wrestling and kayfabe are going, to a greater degree than just about anyone else. It's kind of a crime that Foley never had any kind of shot at a position in creative, because I think he was the kind of experienced and creative voice that wrestling could have used in the 21st century. A tremendous start to a great series--Mick bares his soul but gets off a number of funny lines ("Now I'm not saying I didn't take money to eat other strange things...") as well.

We've come full circle, as Shawn Michaels is now impersonating Stevie Richards. Other than that, this is another hot segment with two awesome pull-aparts between Austin and Shawn--all while Owen, Davey Boy, and the Anvil cackle with delight.

Not a workrate classic, but just about every other note is hit letter-perfect here to garner the maximum possible crowd response. The NWO know when to stooge, when to play it cool, and when to play running cowardly heels. A lot of the spots are stuff we've seen before but the way the respective signature spots "edited" together is kind of clever--like Flair doing the Flair Flip into the cross body off the top, only to fly into a common Hall spot--the catch and blockbuster suplex. Without wearing out its welcome we go to the finish, with Piper decking Randy Anderson in a cool moment, a cool teased spot with Nash hitting Flair from the back to set up the Outsider's Edge only for that to get cut off by Ric, and all three babyfaces laying out the heels at once, like a classic all-figure-fours spot from the old-school Horsemen or all of Misawa's Army grabbing submissions on Jumbo's team. Nick Patrick counts the 3 and the Wolfpack are all left laying, as decisively beaten as you'll ever see them.

Mark your calendars--Mongo McMichael carries a match. He actually does the best he can, and it's a testament to how hot WCW was that the crowd was actually into the closing stretch of this, despite a ridiculous 17-minute bell-to-bell time. Cute finish as Gilbert Brown prevents McMichael from using the briefcase, but as Mark Curtis is trying to shoo him away after he was previously distracted by Debra, Jeff Jarrett runs out with a duplicate which McMichael uses to get the win. I do like how WCW tended to use celebrities to put wrestlers over rather than the WWF moving heaven and earth trying to put the celeb over--you hear that, Russo? Reggie was a legendary player but as a wrestling participant I don't actually recall this being a huge deal--it did get some mainstream pub, but it also felt kind of overshadowed by the presence of Rodman.