Monday Night Raw
May 15, 1995
Binghamton, NY
Broome County Arena

The current WWF champs were as follows:
World Champion: Diesel (11/26/1994)
Intercontinental Champion: Jeff Jarrett (1/22/1995)
World Tag Team Champions: Owen Hart & Yokozuna (4/2/1995)
Women’s Champion: Alundra Blayze (4/3/1995)

THIS WEEK: Bam Bam Bigelow battles IRS who seems quite serious about taxing him for his tattoos. Shouldn’t they have bigger issues to be fighting over than tattoo taxes?

Your hosts are Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler. King is naturally ECSTATIC over the fact that he finally beat Bret.

• WWF Tag Team Champions Owen Hart & Yokozuna (w/Mr. Fuji & Jim Cornette) vs. Bill Weaver & Nick Barberry
  

In a nice little tidbit of continuity, Owen congratulates Lawler for his win over Bret last night. Yoko throws these two jabronis around for a while. Tag to Owen, he hits a Spinning Heel Kick on Weaver. Uranage from Yoko ends Weaver in 3:06.

We get still shots from the first In Your House where Jerry Lawler defeated Bret Hart with a measure of assistance from Hakushi and Shinja and got a kiss from his “mom”.

Straaange “WWF: Saving the World” ad including aliens who decided to spare earth after watching WWF wrestling.

• Man Mountain Rock vs. Iron Mike Sharpe
  

Only Man Mountain Rock plays his own entrance music after he’s already in the ring. This is Iron Mike Sharpe’s last ever match on RAW. Sharpe can’t take MMR off his feet and gets slammed and takes an elbow drop for his trouble. Man Mountain Rock runs Sharpe into the corner shoulder-first and brings him down for the WHAMMY BAR submission for the win at 1:25. So long, Mike. You may not have been Canada’s Greatest Athlete, but you were pretty darn entertaining for many years.

Video footage gets shown from last night of Todd Pettingell and Stephanie Wiand giving away the house. Vince says the kid who won the house’s favorite wrestler is Shawn Michaels, who will see return next week to take on King Kong Bundy.

More still shots of In Your House. This collection of shots showcased Razor Ramon overcoming Jeff Jarrett and the Roadie in a handicap match before a “strange individual” now known as Savio Vega debuted to clean house on Jarrett and Roadie before security took him away.

Backstage, Savio cuts an excited promo and can’t but go into a Spanish rant like he was Ricky Ricardo or something. He and Razor go way back to the days when they were slinging so much cocaine, that you wouldn’t believe it.

Some t-shirt shiller named Barry (didn’t catch his last name) advertises the IYH t-shirt and the new Bret Hart shirt.

• Bob Holly vs. Mantaur (w/Jim Cornette) – KOTR Qualifier
  

All Bob Holly has to do is beat Mantaur to get into the tournament? This shouldn’t be too hard. Such a poor roster at the time. Just for the sake of information, Mabel became the first KOTR qualifier last night after beating Adam Bomb. Luckily, no still shots are shown. Mantaur manhandles Holly to start. He hits his powerslam, but only gets two. Bossman straddle leads to boot chokes and forearm smashes. Nice side slam and then a suplex scores another nearfall. He delivers a kind of avalanche on Holly, but misses a second one for 1-2-NO! A dropkick and a series of clotheslines won’t take down Mantaur, but a missile dropkick will for 1-2-NO! Flying bodypress connects for the 1-2-3. (5:30) As far as RAW is concerned, the long and seemingly cruel joke on Jim Cornette is over as the Mantaur character wraps up in a couple months. ¾*

Next up, Bob Backlund meets with Vince McMahon in this very ring to make his big announcement. He tries to equate this announcement to historical events, but most definitely gets most of the dates wrong. Hilarious. (“December 22, 1983, when John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas!”) The wrong month, definitely the wrong year by twenty years. On accident? Maybe. If not, this is gold. He also mentions his title win on February 20, 1978 as one of these historical moments, but does not speak of Superstar Billy Graham. He appears to be having an anxiety attack of some sort. Okay, he’s *contemplating* running for the President of the USA. Not officially running, just thinking about it. Crowd actually pops for it as a band marches out playing “Hail to the Chief” as well as fireworks going off in honor of Bob. They even printed up picket signs and made buttons that say, “Mr. Backlund for President”. How many times do wrestlers announce they are running for POTUS in the ’90s? Any idea? Was it just Backlund and Hogan?

Stills shown of the Diesel-Sid main event from last night. Much more entertaining than actually watching the match.

In the back from earlier today, Jim Ross interviews Ted DiBiase and IRS. As head of the Million Dollar Corporation, DiBiase challenges Diesel and Bam Bam Bigelow to take on the combination of Sid and Tatanka, which is *your* King of the Ring main event.

• Bam Bam Bigelow (w/Diesel) vs. IRS (w/Ted DiBiase)
  

I don’t remember when Bigelow debuted his new flaming jacket, but he’s wearing it now. Knowing now that Bigelow hated the Kliq, it’s so weird seeing him work in a partner capacity with Diesel. He chases DiBiase all the way to the back before the bell. Bigelow pounds away on IRS and atomic drops him to the floor. More bailing out by IRS. Diesel grabs him by the suspenders as we take a break. AND WE’RE BACK! Bigelow misses a Flying Headbutt and turns the tide. WRITE-OFF connects for 1-2-NO! The obligatory chinlock leads to the ab stretch. Once Bigelow breaks free, IRS unties one of the turnbuckle pads and ducks a charge by Bigelow to send him crashing into the exposed steel. Irwin covers with his feet on the ropes, 1-2-NO! Diesel walks by and shoves his feet off the ropes. IRS goes to buckle smash Bigelow on the exposed corner, but Bigelow blocks and sends IRS to the steel instead. Diving headbutt gets the win for Bam Bam. (5:12 shown) So Bigelow takes out the first member of the MDC. Sid and Tatanka slowly walk down the aisle, but nothing comes from it as we go to break. *

Shawn Michaels return video takes us out, but not before King Kong Bundy sends him a message.

NEXT WEEK: Although he’ll be looking for Sid, Shawn Michaels returns to action to face King Kong Bundy!