What the World Was Watching: Monday Night Raw - March 3, 1997

-A nice video package starts the show, where Vince McMahon discusses the Berlin Wall and ties it to tonight’s showdown between Owen Hart and the British Bulldog, which will decide who the first WWF European champion will be.

-McMahon and Jim Ross are in the booth and they are taped from Berlin, Germany.

-Opening Contest:  Hunter Hearst Helmsley defeats Bret “the Hitman” Hart by disqualification at 8:39 shown:

Bret is really over in Germany, as evidenced by the Canadian flags in the audience and several kids that are dressed in his ring attire.  One of them gets Bret’s shades to fully outfit their costume.  Helmsley dominates most of the televised action, until Bret makes a comeback with his five moves of doom.  Helmsley eventually gets tied up in the corner and Bret lays into him and then shoves the referee out of the way when he tries to break it up and gets disqualified.  After the bell, the mysterious muscular woman (Chyna) gets in the ring and stares down Bret before leaving with Helmsley.  This may have been a lot of fun live, but it was disjointed with the cutting for television.  Rating:  **½

-McMahon and Ross hype tonight’s Owen-Bulldog match with Royal Rumble footage, where Owen eliminated the Bulldog “by accident.”

-The Undertaker’s match with Faarooq is the Full Metal:  The Album Slam of the Week.  They must have really been starved for a highlight.

-Intercontinental Championship Match:  “The Rock” Rocky Maivia (Champion) defeats Vader (w/Paul Bearer) by disqualification at 7:13 shown:

Vader had defeated Maivia in the first round of the European title tournament and thus earned a match for the Intercontinental title here.  Now see, you can set up matches without the help of random authority figures.  They work a fast pace, with Vader using his weight to bully the young Maivia and toss him around at will.  We get another unclean finish for the evening, as Mankind comes out and nails Maivia with the urn for no reason on the floor in plain view of the referee and gets Vader disqualified.  After the bell, Vader destroys Maivia, which doesn’t really do anything for the champion’s credibility.  No wonder the American crowd was starting to turn their backs on Maivia as champion by this point.  Still, this was a pretty good match that was a Cliff Notes version of the matches that Vader used to have with Sting in WCW.  Rating:  **¾

-We get a recap of the ECW invasion of RAW last week.  What’s interesting about the recap is the weird censoring, with the Sandman’s drinking of a beer being blurred out.  Even when he spits the beer it is censored!  Good thing that the WWF took care of this issue within the next calendar year.  Jerry Lawler also calls in and runs down ECW.

-Tune in next week to see the debut of RAW is War!

-The Sultan beats Flash Funk via submission with the Camel Clutch at 4:04 shown:

Neither man has his usual entourage and we join this in progress.  Most of the focus is pulled away from the match when Paul Heyman calls in and says that he’s tired of Lawler’s constant challenges and if Lawler continues, ECW just might have to show up next week.  Funk knocks himself silly on a moonsault and gets pancaked, which leads to his demise.  They wouldn’t quite give up on the Sultan character, despite it generating zero reaction from crowds everywhere.  Rating:  *½

-Austin’s last visit to WWF headquarters in October 1996, when he had to be escorted from the building by police is shown.

-WWF Champion Sid says that he’ll survive Mankind’s challenge to his title tonight.

-More emphasis is placed on tonight’s main event, as the announcers discuss tensions between Owen and the Bulldog that arose from the last In Your House.

-Ahmed Johnson says that he’ll accept Faarooq’s challenge for a Chicago street fight at WrestleMania, but he won’t accept it alone.

-The Legion of Doom’s return to the WWF last week on Raw and their interview on Shotgun Saturday Night where they talk about life on the streets of Chicago is shown.

-Vince recaps the whole show thus far to kill time, which is a bad thing to have to do in the Monday Night Wars.

-WWF Championship Match:  Sid (Champion) defeats Mankind (w/Paul Bearer) at 10:16 with a powerbomb:

Instead of hyping Mankind’s brutality, the commentary team thinks it’s cooler that he knows German for a promo.  Steve Austin cuts a great promo during this match, complaining that to get to WWF Studios today he had to sit in seat 36C on an airplane near the restroom and had to eat a stale sandwich in a brown bag for lunch and it made him ill, which is no way that a star like himself should be treated.  Mankind takes lots of crazy pumps in this one for Sid, by having his unprotected head rammed into the ring post and then getting side suplexed on the floor.  Sid powers out of the Mandible Claw, thereby destroying the theory that it has a paralytic effect on its victim, and a miscommunication spot between Mankind and Bearer enables Sid to turn the tide and successfully defend his title.  Sid was made to look super human in this match to build him for WrestleMania and it shows how far Mankind has fallen since SummerSlam that he now comes off like a midcarder.  Rating:  **

-The announcers talk more about the Owen-Bulldog match.

-McMahon interviews Steve Austin, who is at the WWF’s studio in Connecticut.  Austin says he doesn’t make excuses when he’s injured or sick and that he won’t quit in the submission match he’ll have with Bret Hart at WrestleMania.

-Chyna’s stare down with Bret Hart is the Karate Fighters Rewind segment.

-European Championship Finals:  The British Bulldog pins Owen Hart after reversing a Victory roll to win the title at 16:44 shown:

To get to this point, the Bulldog defeated Mankind and Vader and Owen defeated Flash Funk and Bret Hart.  Speaking of which, Owen has a really good record against Bret in international tournaments, as he beat him in the Kuwaiti Cup Tournament the previous year.  In any compilation of great Raw matches, this should always be on the list, as both men counter each other’s major moves because they know them so well.  Owen has a really unique counter for the Bulldog’s powerslam, by hanging onto the ropes and then using his momentum as he releases the ropes to fall on top of the Bulldog for a near-fall.  After a series of dramatic near-falls, Owen applies the Sharpshooter, but it isn’t enough, as the Bulldog reaches the ropes.  The Bulldog hits his running powerslam and while it doesn’t finish Owen, it weakens him enough to where Owen can’t kick out of a reversed victory roll.  After the match, both men shake hands, but Owen teases attacking the Bulldog from behind to keep the tension between them in the audience’s mind.  This was an entertaining technical contest between two of the more proficient wrestlers in the company at the time and they were given enough time to showcase what they could do in primetime.  I went less than four stars on it, though, because the finishing sequence was a little awkward and the drama of the match was somewhat subdued by the fact that the Bulldog had not completed his planned face turn yet.  Rating:  ***¾

The Final Report Card:  The wrestling was a lot better this week, but the fact that this show was taped and Nitro was live resulted in a disaster in the ratings.  This show generated the worst Raw rating of all time and prompted a reshuffling of the creative team that gave Vince Russo more power and reduced the influence of more “traditional” bookers like Jim Cornette.  With that shift completed and RAW is War set to kick off the next week, the foundation was laid for the shift into the Attitude Era.  I was one of the 1.9 that watched this show when it originally aired and I enjoyed it then and still do so today, as the Owen-Bulldog match still stands up and Vader-Maivia is a hidden gem.

Monday Night War Rating: 1.9 (vs. 3.4 for Nitro)

Show Evaluation:  Thumbs Up