Monday Night Raw
January 2, 1995
Liberty, NY
Civic Center

The current WWF champs were as follows:
World Champion: Diesel (11/26/1994)
Intercontinental Champion: Razor Ramon (8/29/1994)
World Tag Team Champions: vacant (11/23/1994)
Women’s Champion: Bull Nakano (11/20/1994)

Tonight is the night! We are finally going to see Jeff Jarrett perform!

Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon and Shawn Michaels. Vince is a little “under the weather” tonight.

• Lex Luger & Davey Boy Smith vs. Bam Bam Bigelow & Tatanka (w/Ted DiBiase)
  

Being that Tatanka and Bigelow are in the tag team tournament, DiBiase’s decision to put these guys up against anybody that’s NOT in the tournament baffles Monsoon. Tatanka and Bigelow attack Luger before Davey Boy even makes his entrance. Davey Boy ends up having to make the save. Clotheslines everywhere on Bigelow put the match in favor of the Allied Powers. Tatanka buries a knee into Luger as he comes off the ropes to turn the tide. Luger is *your* face in peril. After a commercial break, Luger is STILL in trouble. Flying Chop on Lex gets two. Luger fights out of a bearhug from Tatanka. He nails Tatanka with a back suplex, but Bigelow diving headbutts him when he goes down. Bigelow runs Luger over a few times, but one time too many as Luger catches him for a powerslam. HOT TAG TO DAVEY BOY! Almost immediately, Tatanka receives the RUNNING POWERSLAM for 1-2-NO! DiBiase yanks Tatanka out to the floor just in time. It leads to a pier-six brawl on the floor that gets both teams counted out. (8:44 shown) This looks much better on paper to me than it actually turned out. Not terrible though. *½

After the break, we see the Roadie at ringside prepping the mic for Jeff Jarrett’s big performance.

• Duke Droese vs. Mike Bell
  

Monsoon informs us that Duke “The Dumpster” Droese has entered himself into the Royal Rumble. I’m sure those awaiting his decision to enter the Rumble in order to buy the PPV officially sealed the deal for approximately zero people! Anyways, the TRASH COMPACTOR finishes off Bell at 1:35. Nobody does the tilt-a-whirl powerslam quite as cool as Droese, actually.

King’s Court with “The King of Harts” Owen Hart: Lawler is so happy to bring in the New Year hanging out with someone else who happens to be royalty. Owen brings with him the towel that was thrown in to assist in Bret losing the WWF title at Survivor Series. He says that Bret losing the WWF title was just the start of his master plan. Owen wants to hold all the belts in the WWF and then retire as the WWF champion. Owen is also here to announce that he is entering himself into the Royal Rumble – and that’s where his plan to win the WWF title will begin. Don’t forget that he’ll have an IC title shot next week against Razor Ramon on Raw’s second anniversary show!

• Jeff Jarrett (w/the Roadie) vs. Buck Quartermaine
  

Before he performs, JJ has to beat up Buck. HBK mentions a New Year’s Eve party he and JJ had over in Las Vegas. I just can’t see those two hanging out together. Superplex leads to the FIGURE FOUR. Buck taps like a little girl at 2:43.

And now, the moment we’ve ALL been waiting for: Jeff Jarrett’s musical performance. He’s got his electric GEETAR and everything. Wait, something’s wrong with the mic. Okay, now it’s working. The lights go out, but JJ gets NO SPOTLIGHT! Then there’s some feedback going on with the monitors. It’s just a disaster. Jeff Jarrett decides to walk out on what WOULD have been the performance of a lifetime. I just know it.

Gorilla Monsoon sends it over to Super Dave (who’s doing a WONDERFUL John Laurinaitis impression here) to advertise his Super Dave’s Vegas Spectacular show. Hey, I’d watch it.

• Lex Luger & Davey Boy Smith vs. Bam Bam Bigelow & Tatanka (w/Ted DiBiase)
  

For whatever reason, we are JIP to part TWO of this encounter. It’s a lot like the first match with Luger playing *your* face in peril. We go through a commercial break and come back to see Luger fight back with a double-clothesline and a HOT TAG TO DAVEY BOY! DOUBLE NOGGIN KNOCKER! Dropkicks everywhere! Slams too! Luger clotheslines Bigelow out. Once he’s back on the apron, Davey Boy reverses a whip on Tatanka and sends him crashing into Bigelow. Cover, 1-2-3. (4:59 shown) Not sure why they didn’t just do this finish in the first match. It would have achieved the same level of uncertainty Anyways, the Million Dollar Corporation is falling apart! They’ll never win any belts in 1995! NEVER EVER! This was about as good as the first time we saw it. *

Next week: It’s the second anniversary show! Razor Ramon defends his IC belt against Owen Hart and Harvey Wippleman meets Howard Finkel in a tuxedo match. Such highs and such lows all in the same sentence.