Monday Night Raw – March 27, 1995: Your Wrestlemania Commercial
Monday Night Raw
Date: March 27, 1995
Location: Memorial Civic Auditorium, Stockton, California
Commentators: Jim Ross, Gorilla Monsoon
It’s the go home show for Wrestlemania and there’s only one match announced as we have Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart in an anything goes match. Other than that the hyped up matches were done on the Sunday Night Slam special so there’s a good chance tonight is just going to be one big Wrestlemania preview, which to be fair it probably should be. Let’s get to it.
The opening video is a recap of Bret vs. Owen but we’ll only start back in November 1994 when Bret cost Owen the WWF World Title.
Opening sequence.
JR and Gorilla are in some corner of the arena so yeah this is a special episode. How lucky we are.
We go to Vince McMahon and Todd Pettengill who promise to talk to almost everyone involved with Wrestlemania this year.
We recap Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel. They used to be friends but then Shawn bailed on their tag team, leaving Diesel to win the WWF World Title. Shawn is angry and won the Royal Rumble, earning himself a title shot.
Shawn makes Pamela Anderson miserable.
With Diesel gone, Shawn debuted Sid as his new bodyguard.
Clip of Shawn’s speech at the press conference.
Vince and Todd speculate that Shawn might win the title and plug an online chat.
Salt N Pepa are ready for Wrestlemania.
Vince and Todd talk about Lawrence Taylor vs. Bam Bam Bigelow.
Recap of Bigelow vs. Taylor. Bigelow shoved him at the Royal Rumble and a match was eventually made.
We hear from Taylor’s team of NFL stars.
Vince and Todd hype the match.
Fan Festival ad.
Bob Backlund promises to trigger a cascade of chemical reactions in Bret Hart’s mind.
Video on the Intercontinental Title, which Jeff Jarrett won at the Royal Rumble thanks to Razor Ramon’s knee injury. Ramon gets his rematch at Wrestlemania.
Chat about Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy.
Undertaker, with his eyes looking even freakier than usual, says Bundy’s time is up.
Bret tells Backlund to watch the no holds barred match so he’ll know what’s coming.
Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart
No holds barred. Bret starts fast and chokes on the ropes a bit before getting two off a DDT. They head outside with Bret in full control before Owen is tossed back inside to keep up the beatdown. Owen finally takes over with a rake to the eyes and a headbutt between the legs to slow things down. Back to the floor with Bret being sent into the barricade a few times in a row as this is already better than almost anything that would happen at Wrestlemania.
We take a break and come back with Bret caught in a chinlock. Owen ties him in the Tree of Woe and exposes another buckle, leaving the referee to untie Bret. Monsoon is completely accurate as he says the referee isn’t supposed to do that. I know it sounds heelish but Gorilla is right there. Bret uses the break to send Owen face first into the exposed buckle for two, followed by a good looking piledriver for the same.
A quick poke to the eye breaks up the Sharpshooter (Gorilla: “Do what you can!”) and Bret goes chest first into the exposed buckle (of course). Owen goes up for the missile dropkick but dives into a slingshot into the steel (of course again), setting up the Sharpshooter to give Bret the win.
Rating: B-. Sweet goodness this needed to be on Wrestlemania instead of half of the drek we saw instead. These two had a much better rivalry than Bret vs. Backlund, which was long since done by this point. If nothing else it would keep Owen looking like a big deal and let Bret get his win back from last year.
Referee have to drag Bret off.
One more batch of interviews, this time from celebrities, fill in even more times.
Ted DiBiase and company are ready for Taylor and company.
One last BUY OUR SHOW speech finally wraps us up.
Overall Rating: D. Well that happened. This is almost literally a big commercial for Wrestlemania and that doesn’t make for an interesting show. The first half of this was a bunch of ads and while the match does help improve things a lot, it was necessary for the sake of the pay per view. I’ve seen worse though and somehow that’s an improvement.
Here’s Wrestlemania if you’re interested:
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