[1996-01-01-WWF-Raw] Smoking Gunns vs Psycho Sid & 1-2-3 Kid vs Razor Ramon & Savio Vega vs Owen Hart & Yokozuna (Raw Bowl)

[Charles (Loss)]

Talk about it here.

[Charles (Loss)]

Fun concept that would have worn out its welcome had it ever happened again, as it was WWF cheese at its best/worst. Good action though, and Vince and Lawler were having way too much fun on commentary.

[Hollinger.]

Watching this for the first time since it aired, it now blows my mind that they built a halfway coherent match around a list of puns. The amount of time that had to have gone into scripting that is insane to think about.

[Robert S]

They shouldn't have bothered using the time-out gimmick: It played into the match only once and even then it looked bad (Razor should have been dq'ed). Otherwise I can only agree: It seems as they made a list of about 200 puns they wanted to bring in and went through all of them.

[Tim Evans]

Fun concept that would have worn out its welcome had it ever happened again, as it was WWF cheese at its best/worst. Good action though, and Vince and Lawler were having way too much fun on commentary.

It happened in 97 also. Although it was on Superstars and they weren't wearing football uniforms. I think it was between The Nation, Furnas and Lafon, The Godwins and Owen/Davey.

 

Good way to start out the set. Lawler was on a roll with his commentary.

[Kronos]

The football gimmick got really old fast, and the match was kind of a mess. I did enjoy some bits, though. Owen getting replaced and squashed by a very very large Yoko. The Gunns tagging in OwenYoko. (hehe. YokoOwen) Billy's hot tag that included Cornette's nasty bump. King drawing out the first pinfall like he was Madden.

 

Fun enough, though not something I'm in a rush to see again.

 

Razor didn't have much to do - were they protecting him for some reason?

[Wahoos Leg]

The puns got old fast, but the Magistrator made me chuckle.

 

Some good action, but two of the three finishes were pretty dumb.

 

Still a good way to start off the set, really set the tone for the era.

[Jack_Briscoe_Is_My_Hero]

Just got the set, and very ecstatic to start.

 

Liked some parts of this. Favorite joke was the State Penn joke that the King fumbled...woops. Good action throughout the match, with the right team winning a throwaway match that aired against at least two bowl games. The fact that the numbers on the jersey meant something to every one (or their gimmick) is a nice touch showing they put some thought into the match. The puns started wearing on me when Sid/Kid come down the aisle. Vince has some insane stuff like saying someone jumped off a goal post then hits an upright. Either its an insanely long kick or a kick into a MAJOR headwind. This gimmick match has Vince's handwriting all over it.

[anarchistxx]

Surprised how much I enjoyed this, especially given that I hate a lot of mid 90’s WWF stuff. Efficient pace throughout, everyone gets a reasonable showcase and it was less of a shabby clusterfuck than it could have been. Agree that the commentary got annoying quick though.

 

On a more bizarre note I found it helped a lot that the ring was a brighter colour, most of the aesthetics in WWF around this time were so dull and colourless that it seemed to take away from the match quality. I always felt ROH suffered from their black ring, it made everything too dark, and not in a cool, underground type of way.

[fishbaugh]

This was pretty damn fun, as I found the non-stop puns on commentary to be infectious. Could have made a better "backfield in motion" joke though.

[Kevin Ridge]

Jerry Mushburgerking. That is hilarious with Brent’s lusting over various females in the audience over the years. Ramon gets a gift and beats up Goldust’s servant. That will ban you for WrestleMania. Different ring mat. Referee all dressed up like the NFL. It’s a cross over of sports but this needs Latrell Sprewell choking Hebner. This appears to be a four way tag team match. Is that Lawler’s mom sitting next to him ringside? You’re a terrible person Earl Hebner. Owen! He gets the Banzai drop in error. The Kid and Sid. Plenty of football puns. Thankfully no drinking games set up. Jim Ross must have been disappointed to not be able to call this.

[Zenjo]

If they'd just done this once a year then Vince would've got his fix and wouldn't have had to waste all those millions on the XFL.

 

Also the commentary wasn't too different to early 90's JR doing a Ron Simmons vs Brian Pillman match for instance.

[BruiserBrody]

After a month or so of bad RAWs this was a heck of little match to get 1996 kicked off. The puns were rough to listen to. Then we get more from Doc during a "Halftime" report.

[soup23]

This was a good bit of fun to me. THey went all out on the concept and set up some good crowd pleasing spots to get over the rules like Yoko and Owen going at it and Yoko trying to call time out. WWF has never been the most subtle company in the world getting over their storytelling but this match seemed like a good hybrid of the bleakness and zanyness of 1995 and the hope that 1996 would start to bring. (**1/2)

[PeteF3]

Sooo many puns. Like, the entire library of SNME's worth. They can't be faulted for effort, at least. Hardly a great match but an all-action one, like the best of those early Survivor Series bouts. Owen Hart getting Banzai Dropped by Yoko was rather contrived, but clever.

 

I wonder if the music clearances are what's holding this up from appearing on the Network. The band is playing real songs before and during the match.

[El McKell]

Vince saying NAACP instead of NCAA when Sid and The Kid are coming to the ring is the greatest thing ever