WEBVTT
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Welcome everyone to another edition of The Fall Count. I
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am your host, Steve fall And if you tuned in
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today expecting to hear about five star classics, amazing wrestling,
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or even the best years of the business, well I
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am sorry to let you down, because today we're hopping
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into our wrestling time machine and going straight back to
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the first episode of Monday Night Raw in nineteen ninety six.
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So happy New Year from World Wrestling Federation. Right wrong.
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This was the time when Vince McMahon was looking down
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the barrel of a multi million dollar rival down in
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the South WCW. His big creative answer was to give
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us some of the most confusing, painful, and downright embarrassing
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theme TV in the history of Monday Night Raw. Today
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we are breaking down an episode that time for good,
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or rather an episode that wrestling fans try to wipe
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from their brains. Ladies and gentlemen, Today we are talking
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about the raw Ball. Now. Vince McMahon loved a gimmick.
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He loved copying big pulp culture events, and since the
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NFL's Super Bowl was right around the corner, Vince decided, Hey,
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why don't we turn our biggest show into our football
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game goodshit. He called it the Stepdaddy of the mac
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Daddy of the Mall, and it was taped in Delaware,
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of all exciting places, no offense to the Delaware audience
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out there, and hosts for the night were a hyper
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Vince McMahon and a completely bored Jerry the King Lawler.
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Before so we get into the ring, let's talk about
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how this show looked, because the visual alone tells you
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everything you need to know about the WWF in nineteen
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ninety six. Now Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler are wearing
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full football jerseys. They spent a whole hour planning out
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terrible football puns. I love it though, I do love it.
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Every single sentence out of Vince's mouth is a weird
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joke about first downs, the gridiron or trick plays. Then
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you have the storylines happening in the background. Gold Dust,
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who was a brand new, highly controversial character at this time,
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is trying to play mind games with Razor Ramone. He
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sends an usher down to ringside to give Razor a
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nice bunch of flowers. How does Razor handle it? To
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show off how tough and manly he is, he beats
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up that poor damn usher beats the hell out of
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him and then smashes the flowers to pieces. Now you'd
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think a guy with that much tough guy energy would
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be a little more secured himself, but hey, it is
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the nineties. But the main part of this episode, the
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thing that took up nearly half of the entire show,
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was the actual raw ball elimination match. Four teams. We
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got the smoking Guns, Savio Vaga teaming up with a
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Razor Ramone, Psycho Said teaming up with a one two
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three kid, and All in Heart with Yokozuna. The rules
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were a total mess. It was elimination style, but with
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the tweets, each team got one a fish shall time
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out that could call at any point during the match.
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It was a train wreck from the word go. So
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let's get into this beautiful disaster, all right. So this
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four way elimination match gets underway, and right away the
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football gimmick ruins the actual logic of the match. Early on,
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Owenhart is doing what Owenhart does, stalling and pulling cheap
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bad guy tricks. Referee Earl Hebner actually reaches into his
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pocket and threatens to throw a delay of game flag
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on Owen, I am not making this up. The match
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drags on, We've got random tags leg Larry, It's flying everywhere,
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and the commentary team is completely ignoring the action to
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make terrible football jokes to make matters worse. Throughout the
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entire match, this show keeps cutting backstage to the dressing
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room where Brother Love is screaming and preaching about love
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to a completely empty room. No one is there. It's
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just a useless noise filling up space because the action
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in the ring is going absolutely no nowhere. Now I
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get it. They were trying to have an inspirational speech
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about love in God, but they didn't want to say God,
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so they said love and said I get it. But
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Brother Love nineteen ninety six. No one's thinking we need
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him at this point. Finally, though, we get to the
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first big moment that actually matters, the first elimination. Razor
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Ramone gets a hot tag, enters the ring and starts
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running wild on the one two three kid. The kid
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is getting desperate and destroyed, so what does he do.
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He uses the match gimmick. He calls an official timeout. Now,
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in a normal world, a timeout means the action stops.
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Earl Hebner stepsid and forces Razor mode to stop beating
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down the kid, but because this is nineteen ninety six,
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WWF rules don't actually matter. While Hebner is distracted trying
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to yell at Ted Dibiaski on the outside, Razor decides
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to screw the timeout and hit the one two three
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kid with a massive razor's edge. Anyways, but the bad
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guy has karma. Psycho sid In blindsides the razor with
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a hard clothesline, drags the half dead one two three
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kid onto razors knocked out body, and the referee counts
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the pinfall. Just like that, the most exciting team is
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eliminated and their wrestling football jerseys will have to be retired.
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This evening, Razor and Sabia Vaga are out, and it
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leaves you with asking the obvious questions, why on God's
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Earth was there a timeout? But yet the action is continuing,
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so we're not fulfilling the gimmick. The kid called the timeout,
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the good guy ignored the timeout, the bad guy cheated
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during the timeout, and the raft counted the pin during
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the timeout. It was completely backwards storytelling that helped absolutely nobody.
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But we go to a commercial break When we come back,
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the match slows down to a crawl. It's Bart Gunn
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getting beaten down by the bad guys Owen. Hart is
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hitting shoulder blocks, flying souplexes, controlling the pace. Eventually, though,
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Owen decides to take a big risk. He goes up
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to the top rope, jumps off for a flying splash,
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but nobody is there. He hits the canvas hard. This
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leads to one of the most idiotic messed up finishes
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you'll ever hear about. Now, while the referee is completely
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distracted by something on the apron, the massive four hundred
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pounds Yoko Zuda climbs the ropes, hits the bond's eye drop.
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Billy Gunn moves though somehow though Owen ends up rolling
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right underneath his own partner. Yoko Zuna comes crashing down
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with all his weight onto his own teammate. Billy Gunn
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simply puts a hand over Owen and the referee counts
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to three. Now Owen and Yoko are out ouch. So
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now we go down to the final two team Psycho
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Sid in the one two three Kid versus the Smoking Guns.
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Now Sid takes control using his usual offense, which is
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Let's be honest, lots of punches. Sid hits a chunk
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slam on Billy Gun and the match is over. All
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Sid had to do was lay his massive body over
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Billy Gun and take the win. But instead of covering him,
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Sid gets cocky. He decides to send the end the
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one two three kid to the top rope to hit
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a flashy move off bad move though out from back
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comes a mad Razor amone. Remember Razor was screwed over
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during the time out earlier, so he's he eliminated. Who knows?
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Razor runs down the aisle, storms the ring, shoves the
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one two three kid right off the top rope. The
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distraction completely confuses the big guy. Billy Gun takes advantage,
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rolls up a confused Sid, and the referee counts to three.
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The Smoking Guns win the highly prized robble now over.
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On the other channel the exact same night, WCW Nitro
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was on the air. Eric Bischoff looked down Ranto the
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camera and called the rabble the toilet bowl, and folks,
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perhaps he wasn't lying. It wasn't a complete piece of garbage,
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but there was garbage. It had no energy, It dragged
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on forever. The rules were stupid, and the finishes made
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everything look idiotic. Though I did like the theme part.
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I liked how the wrestlers came through a giant raw
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bull signed like football players. I enjoyed the jerseys. I
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did enjoy the football puns. But if you're looking at
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this with my eyeballs in today's world, yuck. If I
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look at it in nineteen ninety six, when I was eleven,
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I loved it. Loved it now. I haven't even mentioned, though,
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some of the worst parts of this. Throughout this whole
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twenty minute match, Jerry Lawler completely ignored the wrestling because
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he was too busy hitting on a Raw magazine model
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who was sitting at the broadcast table. Her entire job
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for the night consisted of staring blankly into space, occasionally
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whispering this is wild into her microphone. Truly a high
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point of the broadcast. But if you thought the football
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theme ended the match right here and then you're wrong.
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Next up, Vince McMahon treats us to the official Raw
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Ball halftime show. Is it gonna be SEZ ninety six?
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We got we have Michael Jackson singing Tina Turner. Nope,
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we cut backstage to Doc Hendricks drank way too many
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energies and he's trying to bring a maximum hype to
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this segment. Doc tries to throw the show over to
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Jumbo Jumbo Jim Ross for a live report. Now, Jim
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Ross is a huge football fan. He loves a sport,
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but when the camera cuts the good old Jr. He
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looks and sounds like a man who wants absolutely zero
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part of this circus. He gives the most bored, flat
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delivery possible, completely killing Doc's energy. You could practically hear
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Jim Ross updating his resume in his head while the
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cameras were rolling and speaking of things that people wanted
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zero part of. Vince McMahon decides that the best way
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to kick off the new year on the Biggest TV
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Show is to take us back to the previous month's
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pay per view in Your House five. Specifically, he decides
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to the infamous hog pen match between Hunter Hurst, Hemley Hemsley,
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Triple Ah and Henry O. Godwin. Think about the business
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logic here for a second Okay pay per view companies
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charged fans hard earned money to watch this match just
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a few weeks ago, and Vince's brilliant plan to show
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the entire thing on free TV right afterward. I'm sure
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the pay per review bosses were absolutely thrilled with that choice.
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The match featured Hillbilly Jim as a special guest referee,
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because if there was one thing Vince McMahon loved more
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than bad football funds, it was Hillbilly's. Then. The goal
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of the hog pen match is very simple. You have
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to physically throw your opponent inside a mud, poopy filled,
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dirty pig pen that was built all the way across
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the arena entrance ramp to ring. But for some weird reason,
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the match actually starts inside the ring. Now, let's skip
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right to the finish of this masterpiece. After fighting back
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and forth from the ring to the stadium floor, they
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finally end up back where the hog pen is. Henry
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oh Godwin, which I love that name, Henry Oh Godwin
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h O g ha, it's hog you got it. Henry
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Godwin hits his finisher, the slop drop, flattening the high
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class Hunter Hurst Hemsley on the floor. Henry thinks he
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has the match completely won. He runs hard at Hunter,
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looking to throw him into the filth, but Hunter uses
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Henry's own speed against him. Hunter docks steps aside in
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demps Henry headfirst straight into the hogpen. Now, during this matchup,
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Hemsley was slammed into the hogpen, cunning his back and
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now he has an open wound and pig poop and
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mud are going inside of his body. Now here is
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a funny bit of wrestling trivia for you. The original
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pay per view match only ran for about nine minutes,
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but because the WWF editors chopped that match up with
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a massive amount of commercial breaks for its TV reair,
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they somehow stretched the match out to nearly twelve minutes.
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And let me tell you, adding those commercial breaks made
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an already bad match worse, but it completely filled up
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the time on TV. But hey, the highlight package wasn't
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a total waste. Now, during the commercial breaks of this rebroadcast,
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the wwfails got to see historic early footage. We got
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the very first glimpses of the Huckster in the not
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cho Man. These were the infamous, pretty bad, poorly put
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together parody skits that Vince McMahon made to make fun
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of Hulk Coogan and Randy Savage for leaving his company
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for WCW. At this point in the show, though they
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hadn't even officially introduced these characters, yet we were seeing
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them for the first time during this commercial breaks of
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a hog Pen match. Now, as the segment wraps up,
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Vince McMahon hypes up that next week's episode of Monday
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Night Raw, proudly announcing that they are going to give
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away another big pay per i view match for free.
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You're gonna actually get to see Brett Hart first the
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British Bulldog for the WWF Championship on TV. My parents
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pay this bill for me in December of ninety five
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to watch this pay per view match. Now, if you
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watch it a RAW, I get to see for free.
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Plus Jeff Jarrett will take on Hakushi in a live
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press conference with Shawn Michaels. Now, Vince was losing viewers
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to WSW and you could feel the desperation as he
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tried to throw everything at the wall giving away pay
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per view matches. I cannot imagine the WWF or the
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pay perview companies being happy about that. Now, moving on
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to the next part of the show, we finally get
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something short sweet. We get Diesel versus King Mabel, a
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rematch from Summer Slam nineteen ninety five, as the main event.
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Now you're getting it. It's just a regular match on Raw.
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Before the match even begins, though, there is a historical
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nugget buried in the entrance that perfectly shows the brutal
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reality of working in wrestling business back then. Now, King
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Mabel makes his grid entrance sitting on top of a massive,
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heavy royal throne. And guess who one of the poor
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unnamed extras tasks with carrying that heavy throne on his shoulder.
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Was a very young, skinny Jeff Hardy. You actually can
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see Jeff Hardy on the screen visibly hurting his back
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compressing under the sheer weight of King Mabel. And it's
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no wonder that the poor guy ended up needing pay
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medicine later on in his life to fix that broken
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back from carrying Mabel all the way to the ring. Now,
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the match itself, thank god, it was short. Remember anything
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about SummerSlam ninety five That match went three seconds too long.
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Diesel doesn't play around the bell rings. Diesel hits King
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Mabel with one massive big boot, pins him and gets
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the win in exactly ten seconds. Hallelujah, where's brother love
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to celebrate this ten seconds? It was a ten seconds
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can you believe it? Ten seconds? The main event Summers
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ninety five? Ten seconds now who in for good measure.
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After the match is over, Mabel's partner Sirmo tries to
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get some revenge, but Diesel catches him and destroys him
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with a massive jack knife power bomb. Then we get
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to Diesel's new character direction. Vince McMahon was trying to
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turn Diesel into this cool anti hero rebel badass, very
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similar to what Stone col C of Austin would perfect
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a year later. But Vince's idea of showing that you
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were a rebel was forcing the audience to buy merchandise
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for a man who's seem to be doing poor and
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evil things. Vince mcmahondough announces that if you are a
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true fan of Diesel, you have to go out and
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buy official w WF branded black Diesel leather gloves to
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show your support. Nothing says I'm a rebel against a
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system quite like buying official corporate merchandise. Am I right?
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And of course the football theme keeps on giving folks
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because next up is the official Lombardi Trophy presentation. Only,
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because this is WWF, it's not the real football trophy
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it's the Steve Lombardi Trophy, presented none other than the
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legendary Brooklyn Brawler himself, Steve Lombardy. I love it so much.
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The trophy itself was a cheap plastic bowling trophy with
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a cardboard cutout of Steve Lombardi's face tape to the
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top of it. This was the big creative payoff to
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twenty minutes of football puns, football related matches, timeounts flags.
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The good guys naturally storm the ring and smash the
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cheap trophy to pieces in dump cans of Lipton wrist
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iced tea all over Steve Lombardi. To wrap up this
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sports theme nonsense, we get a quick promotional list for
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the upcoming Royal Rumble pay per view. They start listing
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off all the names of the restlers who are officially
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entering the match, and right there, buried in the middle
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of the hype package, we get a massive historic moment,
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the official WWF introduction of Vader. Big Van Vader was
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coming to the World Wrestling Federation, which was a huge
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deal at the time because of his brutal runs in
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WWCW w CW that is in Japan. And speaking of WCW.
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The show closes out with another trip to Billionaire Ted's
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Wrastlin war room. This was the peak of the Monday
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Night Wars propaganda skits. The skits feature the Billionaire Ted
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character sitting around a conference table with two top executives
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watching the tape of the WWF superstars doing high impact
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power bombs. In the skit, the Huckster and the Nachomen
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are terrified of the moves and want absolutely nothing to
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do with taking a power bomb. But hey, they look
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at each other and decide, hey, at least we can
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still do our signature postes. Get a lot of finger poking,
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a lot of hand cup in our ears. Now, looking
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back at this footage, the irony of these skits is
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absolutely off the charts. The whole point of Vince McMahon
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in his parody was to make fun of WCW for
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being an old, outdated wrestling company were the top stars
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did exactly the same moves they did in the eighties.
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But if you look closely at the air quote cutting
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edge product that the WWF was offering on the exact
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episode of Raw, their entire roster's big offense consisted of
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variations of the same exact moves that we were seeing
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in the eighties. It was the pot calling the kettle black,
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and it made no sense. In nineteen ninety six, these
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billionaire ted skits were seen as cheap shots. Now, obviously
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they're harmless through but they're incredibly petty. It wasn't until
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later in the year when these skits started getting deeply
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personal and nasty and targeting real life legal issues. The
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whole creative direction went completely off the rails and turned
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honestly a lot of fans off. As eleven year old kid,
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I thought they were hilarious. When you look at though,
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this entire episode of Raw, it stands as one of
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the absolute worst, most painful episodes of Monday Night Raw. Ever,
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it was creative, but at a low point in the WWF,
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we had terrible puns, bad corporate jokes, making fun of
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the huckster and the nacho man. But hey, this is
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the beauty of the wrestling business, in the wrestling history.
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Sometimes you have to sit through the mud and the
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hog pens to appreciate the gold we got later on,
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Ladies and gentlemen, though, thank you so much for tuning
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in to another episode of a fall count. I've been
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your host, Defaul, make sure to hit that subscribe button,
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leave us a review, and call your local cable providers
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and let them know how angry you are that Monday
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Night Raw in nineteen ninety six was giving away pay
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per view matches that you convinced your parents to purchase
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just two weeks ago. Oh, I love the rabble, but
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until next time, keep your shoulders off the mat and
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we will see you next time.
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Welcome everyone to another edition of The Fall Count. I
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am your host, Steve fall And if you tuned in
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today expecting to hear about five star classics, amazing wrestling,
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or even the best years of the business, well I
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am sorry to let you down, because today we're hopping
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into our wrestling time machine and going straight back to
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the first episode of Monday Night Raw in nineteen ninety six.
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So happy New Year from World Wrestling Federation. Right wrong.
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This was the time when Vince McMahon was looking down
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the barrel of a multi million dollar rival down in
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the South WCW. His big creative answer was to give
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us some of the most confusing, painful, and downright embarrassing
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theme TV in the history of Monday Night Raw. Today
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we are breaking down an episode that time for good,
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or rather an episode that wrestling fans try to wipe
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from their brains. Ladies and gentlemen, Today we are talking
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about the raw Ball. Now. Vince McMahon loved a gimmick.
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He loved copying big pulp culture events, and since the
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NFL's Super Bowl was right around the corner, Vince decided, Hey,
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why don't we turn our biggest show into our football
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game goodshit. He called it the Stepdaddy of the mac
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Daddy of the Mall, and it was taped in Delaware,
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of all exciting places, no offense to the Delaware audience
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out there, and hosts for the night were a hyper
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Vince McMahon and a completely bored Jerry the King Lawler.
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Before so we get into the ring, let's talk about
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how this show looked, because the visual alone tells you
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everything you need to know about the WWF in nineteen
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ninety six. Now Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler are wearing
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full football jerseys. They spent a whole hour planning out
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terrible football puns. I love it though, I do love it.
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Every single sentence out of Vince's mouth is a weird
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joke about first downs, the gridiron or trick plays. Then
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you have the storylines happening in the background. Gold Dust,
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who was a brand new, highly controversial character at this time,
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is trying to play mind games with Razor Ramone. He
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sends an usher down to ringside to give Razor a
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nice bunch of flowers. How does Razor handle it? To
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show off how tough and manly he is, he beats
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up that poor damn usher beats the hell out of
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him and then smashes the flowers to pieces. Now you'd
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think a guy with that much tough guy energy would
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be a little more secured himself, but hey, it is
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the nineties. But the main part of this episode, the
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thing that took up nearly half of the entire show,
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was the actual raw ball elimination match. Four teams. We
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got the smoking Guns, Savio Vaga teaming up with a
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Razor Ramone, Psycho Said teaming up with a one two
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three kid, and All in Heart with Yokozuna. The rules
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were a total mess. It was elimination style, but with
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the tweets, each team got one a fish shall time
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out that could call at any point during the match.
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It was a train wreck from the word go. So
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let's get into this beautiful disaster, all right. So this
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four way elimination match gets underway, and right away the
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football gimmick ruins the actual logic of the match. Early on,
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Owenhart is doing what Owenhart does, stalling and pulling cheap
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bad guy tricks. Referee Earl Hebner actually reaches into his
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pocket and threatens to throw a delay of game flag
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on Owen, I am not making this up. The match
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drags on, We've got random tags leg Larry, It's flying everywhere,
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and the commentary team is completely ignoring the action to
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make terrible football jokes to make matters worse. Throughout the
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entire match, this show keeps cutting backstage to the dressing
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room where Brother Love is screaming and preaching about love
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to a completely empty room. No one is there. It's
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just a useless noise filling up space because the action
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in the ring is going absolutely no nowhere. Now I
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get it. They were trying to have an inspirational speech
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about love in God, but they didn't want to say God,
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so they said love and said I get it. But
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Brother Love nineteen ninety six. No one's thinking we need
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him at this point. Finally, though, we get to the
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first big moment that actually matters, the first elimination. Razor
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Ramone gets a hot tag, enters the ring and starts
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running wild on the one two three kid. The kid
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is getting desperate and destroyed, so what does he do.
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He uses the match gimmick. He calls an official timeout. Now,
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in a normal world, a timeout means the action stops.
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Earl Hebner stepsid and forces Razor mode to stop beating
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down the kid, but because this is nineteen ninety six,
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WWF rules don't actually matter. While Hebner is distracted trying
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to yell at Ted Dibiaski on the outside, Razor decides
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to screw the timeout and hit the one two three
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kid with a massive razor's edge. Anyways, but the bad
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guy has karma. Psycho sid In blindsides the razor with
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a hard clothesline, drags the half dead one two three
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kid onto razors knocked out body, and the referee counts
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the pinfall. Just like that, the most exciting team is
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eliminated and their wrestling football jerseys will have to be retired.
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This evening, Razor and Sabia Vaga are out, and it
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leaves you with asking the obvious questions, why on God's
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Earth was there a timeout? But yet the action is continuing,
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so we're not fulfilling the gimmick. The kid called the timeout,
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the good guy ignored the timeout, the bad guy cheated
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during the timeout, and the raft counted the pin during
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the timeout. It was completely backwards storytelling that helped absolutely nobody.
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But we go to a commercial break When we come back,
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the match slows down to a crawl. It's Bart Gunn
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getting beaten down by the bad guys Owen. Hart is
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hitting shoulder blocks, flying souplexes, controlling the pace. Eventually, though,
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Owen decides to take a big risk. He goes up
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to the top rope, jumps off for a flying splash,
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but nobody is there. He hits the canvas hard. This
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leads to one of the most idiotic messed up finishes
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you'll ever hear about. Now, while the referee is completely
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distracted by something on the apron, the massive four hundred
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pounds Yoko Zuda climbs the ropes, hits the bond's eye drop.
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Billy Gunn moves though somehow though Owen ends up rolling
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right underneath his own partner. Yoko Zuna comes crashing down
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with all his weight onto his own teammate. Billy Gunn
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simply puts a hand over Owen and the referee counts
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to three. Now Owen and Yoko are out ouch. So
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now we go down to the final two team Psycho
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Sid in the one two three Kid versus the Smoking Guns.
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Now Sid takes control using his usual offense, which is
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Let's be honest, lots of punches. Sid hits a chunk
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slam on Billy Gun and the match is over. All
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Sid had to do was lay his massive body over
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Billy Gun and take the win. But instead of covering him,
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Sid gets cocky. He decides to send the end the
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one two three kid to the top rope to hit
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a flashy move off bad move though out from back
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comes a mad Razor amone. Remember Razor was screwed over
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during the time out earlier, so he's he eliminated. Who knows?
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Razor runs down the aisle, storms the ring, shoves the
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one two three kid right off the top rope. The
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distraction completely confuses the big guy. Billy Gun takes advantage,
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rolls up a confused Sid, and the referee counts to three.
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The Smoking Guns win the highly prized robble now over.
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On the other channel the exact same night, WCW Nitro
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was on the air. Eric Bischoff looked down Ranto the
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camera and called the rabble the toilet bowl, and folks,
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perhaps he wasn't lying. It wasn't a complete piece of garbage,
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but there was garbage. It had no energy, It dragged
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on forever. The rules were stupid, and the finishes made
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everything look idiotic. Though I did like the theme part.
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I liked how the wrestlers came through a giant raw
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bull signed like football players. I enjoyed the jerseys. I
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did enjoy the football puns. But if you're looking at
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this with my eyeballs in today's world, yuck. If I
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look at it in nineteen ninety six, when I was eleven,
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I loved it. Loved it now. I haven't even mentioned, though,
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some of the worst parts of this. Throughout this whole
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twenty minute match, Jerry Lawler completely ignored the wrestling because
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he was too busy hitting on a Raw magazine model
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who was sitting at the broadcast table. Her entire job
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for the night consisted of staring blankly into space, occasionally
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whispering this is wild into her microphone. Truly a high
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point of the broadcast. But if you thought the football
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theme ended the match right here and then you're wrong.
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Next up, Vince McMahon treats us to the official Raw
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Ball halftime show. Is it gonna be SEZ ninety six?
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We got we have Michael Jackson singing Tina Turner. Nope,
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we cut backstage to Doc Hendricks drank way too many
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energies and he's trying to bring a maximum hype to
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this segment. Doc tries to throw the show over to
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Jumbo Jumbo Jim Ross for a live report. Now, Jim
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Ross is a huge football fan. He loves a sport,
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but when the camera cuts the good old Jr. He
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looks and sounds like a man who wants absolutely zero
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part of this circus. He gives the most bored, flat
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delivery possible, completely killing Doc's energy. You could practically hear
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Jim Ross updating his resume in his head while the
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cameras were rolling and speaking of things that people wanted
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zero part of. Vince McMahon decides that the best way
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to kick off the new year on the Biggest TV
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Show is to take us back to the previous month's
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pay per view in Your House five. Specifically, he decides
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to the infamous hog pen match between Hunter Hurst, Hemley Hemsley,
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Triple Ah and Henry O. Godwin. Think about the business
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logic here for a second Okay pay per view companies
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charged fans hard earned money to watch this match just
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a few weeks ago, and Vince's brilliant plan to show
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the entire thing on free TV right afterward. I'm sure
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the pay per review bosses were absolutely thrilled with that choice.
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The match featured Hillbilly Jim as a special guest referee,
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because if there was one thing Vince McMahon loved more
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than bad football funds, it was Hillbilly's. Then. The goal
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of the hog pen match is very simple. You have
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to physically throw your opponent inside a mud, poopy filled,
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dirty pig pen that was built all the way across
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the arena entrance ramp to ring. But for some weird reason,
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the match actually starts inside the ring. Now, let's skip
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right to the finish of this masterpiece. After fighting back
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and forth from the ring to the stadium floor, they
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finally end up back where the hog pen is. Henry
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oh Godwin, which I love that name, Henry Oh Godwin
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h O g ha, it's hog you got it. Henry
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Godwin hits his finisher, the slop drop, flattening the high
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class Hunter Hurst Hemsley on the floor. Henry thinks he
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has the match completely won. He runs hard at Hunter,
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looking to throw him into the filth, but Hunter uses
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Henry's own speed against him. Hunter docks steps aside in
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demps Henry headfirst straight into the hogpen. Now, during this matchup,
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Hemsley was slammed into the hogpen, cunning his back and
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now he has an open wound and pig poop and
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mud are going inside of his body. Now here is
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a funny bit of wrestling trivia for you. The original
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pay per view match only ran for about nine minutes,
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but because the WWF editors chopped that match up with
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a massive amount of commercial breaks for its TV reair,
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they somehow stretched the match out to nearly twelve minutes.
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And let me tell you, adding those commercial breaks made
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an already bad match worse, but it completely filled up
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the time on TV. But hey, the highlight package wasn't
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a total waste. Now, during the commercial breaks of this rebroadcast,
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the wwfails got to see historic early footage. We got
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the very first glimpses of the Huckster in the not
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cho Man. These were the infamous, pretty bad, poorly put
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together parody skits that Vince McMahon made to make fun
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of Hulk Coogan and Randy Savage for leaving his company
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for WCW. At this point in the show, though they
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hadn't even officially introduced these characters, yet we were seeing
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them for the first time during this commercial breaks of
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a hog Pen match. Now, as the segment wraps up,
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Vince McMahon hypes up that next week's episode of Monday
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Night Raw, proudly announcing that they are going to give
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away another big pay per i view match for free.
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You're gonna actually get to see Brett Hart first the
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British Bulldog for the WWF Championship on TV. My parents
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pay this bill for me in December of ninety five
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to watch this pay per view match. Now, if you
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watch it a RAW, I get to see for free.
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Plus Jeff Jarrett will take on Hakushi in a live
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press conference with Shawn Michaels. Now, Vince was losing viewers
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to WSW and you could feel the desperation as he
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tried to throw everything at the wall giving away pay
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per view matches. I cannot imagine the WWF or the
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pay perview companies being happy about that. Now, moving on
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to the next part of the show, we finally get
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something short sweet. We get Diesel versus King Mabel, a
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rematch from Summer Slam nineteen ninety five, as the main event.
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Now you're getting it. It's just a regular match on Raw.
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Before the match even begins, though, there is a historical
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nugget buried in the entrance that perfectly shows the brutal
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reality of working in wrestling business back then. Now, King
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Mabel makes his grid entrance sitting on top of a massive,
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heavy royal throne. And guess who one of the poor
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unnamed extras tasks with carrying that heavy throne on his shoulder.
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Was a very young, skinny Jeff Hardy. You actually can
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see Jeff Hardy on the screen visibly hurting his back
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compressing under the sheer weight of King Mabel. And it's
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no wonder that the poor guy ended up needing pay
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medicine later on in his life to fix that broken
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back from carrying Mabel all the way to the ring. Now,
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the match itself, thank god, it was short. Remember anything
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about SummerSlam ninety five That match went three seconds too long.
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Diesel doesn't play around the bell rings. Diesel hits King
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Mabel with one massive big boot, pins him and gets
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the win in exactly ten seconds. Hallelujah, where's brother love
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to celebrate this ten seconds? It was a ten seconds
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can you believe it? Ten seconds? The main event Summers
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ninety five? Ten seconds now who in for good measure.
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After the match is over, Mabel's partner Sirmo tries to
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get some revenge, but Diesel catches him and destroys him
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with a massive jack knife power bomb. Then we get
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to Diesel's new character direction. Vince McMahon was trying to
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turn Diesel into this cool anti hero rebel badass, very
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similar to what Stone col C of Austin would perfect
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a year later. But Vince's idea of showing that you
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were a rebel was forcing the audience to buy merchandise
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for a man who's seem to be doing poor and
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evil things. Vince mcmahondough announces that if you are a
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true fan of Diesel, you have to go out and
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buy official w WF branded black Diesel leather gloves to
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show your support. Nothing says I'm a rebel against a
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system quite like buying official corporate merchandise. Am I right?
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And of course the football theme keeps on giving folks
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because next up is the official Lombardi Trophy presentation. Only,
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because this is WWF, it's not the real football trophy
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it's the Steve Lombardi Trophy, presented none other than the
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legendary Brooklyn Brawler himself, Steve Lombardy. I love it so much.
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The trophy itself was a cheap plastic bowling trophy with
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a cardboard cutout of Steve Lombardi's face tape to the
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top of it. This was the big creative payoff to
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twenty minutes of football puns, football related matches, timeounts flags.
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The good guys naturally storm the ring and smash the
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cheap trophy to pieces in dump cans of Lipton wrist
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iced tea all over Steve Lombardi. To wrap up this
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sports theme nonsense, we get a quick promotional list for
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the upcoming Royal Rumble pay per view. They start listing
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off all the names of the restlers who are officially
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entering the match, and right there, buried in the middle
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of the hype package, we get a massive historic moment,
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the official WWF introduction of Vader. Big Van Vader was
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coming to the World Wrestling Federation, which was a huge
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deal at the time because of his brutal runs in
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WWCW w CW that is in Japan. And speaking of WCW.
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The show closes out with another trip to Billionaire Ted's
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Wrastlin war room. This was the peak of the Monday
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Night Wars propaganda skits. The skits feature the Billionaire Ted
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character sitting around a conference table with two top executives
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watching the tape of the WWF superstars doing high impact
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power bombs. In the skit, the Huckster and the Nachomen
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are terrified of the moves and want absolutely nothing to
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do with taking a power bomb. But hey, they look
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at each other and decide, hey, at least we can
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still do our signature postes. Get a lot of finger poking,
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a lot of hand cup in our ears. Now, looking
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back at this footage, the irony of these skits is
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absolutely off the charts. The whole point of Vince McMahon
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in his parody was to make fun of WCW for
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being an old, outdated wrestling company were the top stars
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did exactly the same moves they did in the eighties.
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But if you look closely at the air quote cutting
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edge product that the WWF was offering on the exact
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episode of Raw, their entire roster's big offense consisted of
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variations of the same exact moves that we were seeing
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in the eighties. It was the pot calling the kettle black,
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and it made no sense. In nineteen ninety six, these
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billionaire ted skits were seen as cheap shots. Now, obviously
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they're harmless through but they're incredibly petty. It wasn't until
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later in the year when these skits started getting deeply
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personal and nasty and targeting real life legal issues. The
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whole creative direction went completely off the rails and turned
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honestly a lot of fans off. As eleven year old kid,
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I thought they were hilarious. When you look at though,
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this entire episode of Raw, it stands as one of
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the absolute worst, most painful episodes of Monday Night Raw. Ever,
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it was creative, but at a low point in the WWF,
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we had terrible puns, bad corporate jokes, making fun of
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the huckster and the nacho man. But hey, this is
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the beauty of the wrestling business, in the wrestling history.
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Sometimes you have to sit through the mud and the
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hog pens to appreciate the gold we got later on,
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Ladies and gentlemen, though, thank you so much for tuning
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in to another episode of a fall count. I've been
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your host, Defaul, make sure to hit that subscribe button,
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leave us a review, and call your local cable providers
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and let them know how angry you are that Monday
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Night Raw in nineteen ninety six was giving away pay
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per view matches that you convinced your parents to purchase
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just two weeks ago. Oh, I love the rabble, but
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until next time, keep your shoulders off the mat and
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we will see you next time.
