Monday Night Raw – March 20, 1995: Sweet Goodness 1995 Was Bad
Monday Night Raw
Date: March 20, 1995
Location: Memorial Civic Auditorium, Stockton, California
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jim Cornette
There are less than two weeks to go before Wrestlemania and that means it’s time to really crank up the football talk. Ignore the fact that it’s not the most exciting story in the world because there are CELEBRITIES involved and that makes up for any lack of interest, talent or care whatsoever. Let’s get to it.
Opening sequence.
Razor Ramon vs. Henry Godwinn
This is still during Henry’s heel push which went as far as the evil hog farmer character was going to take him. Razor starts in on the arm as we hear something about his contract issues. A wheelbarrow slam plants Razor and Cornette continues to amaze me by never being able to shut up. He goes from insulting Steve McMichael to talking about Ernie Ladd to hyping up the Tag Team Title match to doing color on this match in the span of two minutes.
Henry chokes on the ropes a bit and we hit the neck crank as Cornette goes on a mini rant about Jim Ross reporting on everything. We take a break and come back with Razor scoring with some right hands. A bad looking middle rope bulldog (more a cross body to the back) gets two on Henry but here’s the Roadie for a distraction. The 1-2-3 Kid comes out to kick Roadie in the face and for some reason Henry is distracted as well, allowing Razor to hit the Edge for the pin.
Rating: D. This was too long with Godwinn not being anything worth watching other than a big strong man and Razor being way off his game for some reason. The interference was a good call but Razor and the Kid were really getting tiresome at this point as they were almost glued together at the hip.
Post match Razor is ticked off at Backlund getting a title shot on some upcoming Sunday night special. Razor wants to know what happens if Backlund wins the title and goes to Wrestlemania to defend against Bret so he basically promises to interfere in the match.
Just in case you have no idea what’s going on here, we see Backlund signing the contract last week.
Also on that Sunday night show, Lex Luger will face Tatanka in a cage match.
Jim Cornette leaves commentary to get ready for the Tag Team Title match.
Fan Festival ad.
Lawrence Taylor says he’s scared of snakes and alligators but he doesn’t see those things in Bigelow.
Yesterday on Action Zone, Bigelow shoulder blocked Doink like a football player.
Steve McMichael replaces Cornette on commentary.
King Kong Bundy vs. Raven Clarke/Adam Croomes
Bundy slams the jobbers together and the camera keeps cutting to the announcers instead. This just keeps going for awhile and an Avalanche ends Croomes.
Post destruction, here’s Kama to get in a brawl with McMichael.
Wrestlemania Report with a few nothing interviews that fill in some time.
Tag Team Titles; Smoking Gunns vs. Heavenly Bodies
The Bodies (Jimmy Del Ray and Tom Prichard, basically another attempt to recreate the Midnight Express) are challenging and have Cornette in their corner, leaving Vince alone on commentary. Billy has bad ribs coming in but starts with Tom anyway. Cornette yells at Del Ray for some reason, leaving Tom to get chopped by Bart.
Back to Billy for an armbar before Bart elbows Del Ray in the jaw. We take a break and come back with Tom holding Bart in a front facelock. Billy accidentally distracts the referee to break up a tag as this match just keeps going. A double clothesline drops Bart as the fans are trying to find ANYTHING to care about in this thing. In case the match wasn’t boring enough yet, Prichard puts on a reverse chinlock.
Del Ray misses a top rope splash but we need a double clothesline before the hot tag can bring in Billy. A modified Sidewinder looks to finish Tom but Del Ray comes in off the top and puts…..no one into a cover for some reason. Billy grabs a backslide for the pin to retain the titles.
Rating: D+. Technically the match was certainly acceptable but there’s just no interest in watching these teams fight. Neither team has a personality between them and it was clearly just a Rock N Roll Express vs. Midnight Express knockoff without anything that made those matches work. Well, save for Cornette of course.
We see clips from a charity auction last night with Undertaker signing autographs. That’s always weird to see.
Vince and Cornette preview the Sunday Night Slam (Sunday special) to end the show.
Actually not quite as Tatanka is ready for Luger in a cage next week to really end the show.
Overall Rating: D. Really not much to this one either as we’re heading straight for Wrestlemania with every single boring story they can cram in there along the way. The long tag match at the end didn’t help things either as it really didn’t set up the title defense at Wrestlemania. To be fair though that would imply something is more important than the football match and that’s just not true. There was very little sarcasm in that last sentence if that wasn’t clear.
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Will you be reviewing Sunday Night Slam?
Hadn’t planned on it, no.