Monday Night Raw
October 21, 1996
Fort Wayne, IN
War Memorial Coliseum

The current WWF Champs were as follows:
World Champion: Shawn Michaels (3/31/96)
Intercontinental Champion: Marc Mero (9/23/96)
World Tag Team Champions: Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith (9/22/96)

Mr. Perfect returns to the ring – TONIGHT! IT’S GONNA HAPPEN!

Your hosts are Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler. The King thinks Bret Hart is going to announce his retirement tonight, which would make this the greatest Raw of all time. Well, according to Lawler.

• Psycho Sid vs. Owen Hart (w/Clarence Mason)
  

Vince tells us that Clarence Mason now has the contracts of Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith since Jim Cornette wants to get out of the management game. Sid overpowers Owen to start, so Owen has to regroup. Clarence Mason can’t bother to get up on the apron to distract Sid though. Owen tries to catch Sid looking the other way, but Sid nails him as Owen comes off the top rope. Owen does land a missile dropkick and throws Sid to the floor. Out walks Davey Boy Smith. Sid defends himself against Davey Boy, but Owen clips Sid from behind to take us into commercial. When we come back, Owen is doing all he can to destroy that knee. After a few minutes, Sid catches Owen with the Chokeslam and goes for the POWERBOMB except that the British Bulldog clotheslines him away from Owen for the DQ. (7:00 shown) Shawn Michaels runs out as he and Sid clean house on the tag champs. After that’s over, Sid and Shawn discuss things and bump fists. What amazing friends they must be! ¾*

We get some thrilling still shots of the Undertaker/Mankind buried alive match. Thanks, WWF magazine.

• The Smoking Gunns vs. The Godwinns (w/Hillbilly Jim)
  

Jim Ross joins us the commentary duo for the rest of the show. Winner of this match gets another tag titles shot. So there’s Owen and Davey Boy, the Smoking Gunns, the Godwinns, and the New Rockers. Seriously, somebody try and name me a fifth team right now. The only possible fifth team would be the new Razor Ramon and Diesel combination and they have yet to tag together on Raw. Spoiler alert: the Smoking Gunns are about to split. Phil LaFon and Doug Furnas are coming soon, but won’t arrive until Survivor Series and don’t really set the world on fire despite being good talents. Just a real low for the tag division. Phineas plays hog farmer-in-peril, but it’s nothing super interesting happening. Billy misses the Stinger Splash setting up the hot tag to Henry. Match breaks down as Henry hits the SLOP DROP on Bart for the win and a shot at the tag titles. (4:14 shown) Didn’t they say last week that the Godwinns defeated Owen and Davey Boy in a non-title match on Superstars? Shouldn’t that have been enough to grant them a championship match? I’m so confused. Afterwards, Billy gets on Bart’s case for being such a loser. *

The WWF Hall of Fame class of 1996 is introduced. Why the music in this video sounds like something the HR department would have created, I have no idea. Pat Patterson, Jimmy Snuka, and Vincent J. McMahon are the inductees announced as of this broadcast. Back in those days, the Hall of Fame ceremony took place in a hotel banquet hall instead of a big arena and occurred the night before Survivor Series. Get your tickets now from that evil corporation called Ticketmaster!

Elsewhere, Hunter Hearst Helmsley spies Mr. Perfect warming up and runs him down with one of those large speaker cases square in the knee. HHH laughs about it while Perfect says a word that you couldn’t say on TV back in 1996. We’re live, pal!

Speaking of words you couldn’t say on TV in 1996, Steve Austin appeared on Livewire running his mouth about Bret Hart.

Bret Hart returns to WWF TV for the first time since WrestleMania 12. Jim Ross is responsible for bringing him back, so he conducts the interview. Ross wants Bret to tell us what his future holds. Bret tells us he was a great offer by a “rival organization” and has done a lot of soul searching concerning this decision. He says he’s not greedy for money, but he is greedy for respect. While the other organization treated him with nothing but respect, he owes everything he has and everything he ever will do to the WWF and its fans. Bret says he’ll be with the WWF forever. Vince McMahon is nothing short of relieved to hear that news. Bret brings up Shawn Michaels and admits he lost to Bret in the middle of the ring, but there’s still something about Shawn that just bugs the crap out of him. Shawn may be more popular and cuter than Bret – his words – but he’ll never be tougher or smarter than Bret. As for Steve Austin, Bret accepts his challenge to wrestle him at (the) Survivor Series. Over in the heel locker room, Brian Pillman jumps for joy while Austin looks at him funny. Hey, what is Rocky Maivia doing in the heel locker room? Bret considers Madison Square Garden as holy ground and can’t wait to see who kicks who’s ass on November 17. Bret then thanks his fans for everything they have given him and starts to tell a story about a sick little boy in Canada. When Bret promised the kid he would come out of retirement, the kid started to get better. However, he still passed away. That little boy turned out to be his nephew Matt Annis – the brother of Teddy Hart. Bret says he doesn’t dance too well and can’t pose for girly books, but he will be a role model for the kids watching at home and will continue to be the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, and he’s back. OK – that was great.

Todd Pettengill and Jerry Lawler talk about the game Karate Fighters.

• WWF Intercontinental Champion Marc Mero (w/Sable) vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley
  

This was supposed to be Perfect’s big return to the ring to answer Helmsley’s challenge for taking all his women, but HHH took Perfect’s knee out before the match. Perfect says that Mero has agreed to wrestle HHH tonight in his place, but the only way H will wrestle Mero is if he puts the IC gold on the line. Perfect eggs Mero on, so Mero agrees to put the belt on the line. The match starts up during the break. We come back to see Mero tossing Helmsley around with armdrags while Perfect joins Vince and King on commentary. H takes a dropkick to the floor and we all know Mero likes to get WILD when somebody’s on the floor, but Helmsley pulls Sable in front of him to prevent Mero from taking flight. Sable gives HHH a good slap across the chops and that brings Mero out to beat him back into the ring. Back in, we see a decent nearfall sequence that leads to a backslide from Mero for two. Mero wants a tilt-a-whirl, but HHH stops that with a backbreaker. Hunter hits a suplex and delivers the Jumping Knee Drop for two. High Knee gets two. Mero comes back with a catapult into the corner and rolls up Hunter for two, but he pops up with a clothesline. Commercial break! Afterwards, Mero connects with a slingshot legdrop for two. He sets up for the WILD THING, but HHH stops him up top for a superplex. Mero shoves him off and hits the Merosault for 1-2-NO! Helmsley begs off and whips Mero off into the referee. He finds a chair and goes to whack Mero when Sable tries to stop him. That doesn’t work, so Perfect hops up from the table and takes the chair away from Helmsley. When he leans back to whack HHH, he swerves the world and nails Mero with the chair! Russo, anyone? Perfect exits the ring while Hunter puts Mero away with the PEDIGREE to capture the IC title. (6:38 shown) Afterwards, Perfect and HHH hug because it was all part of their evil plan to sucker Mero into defending his belt! Too bad this went nowhere, as Perfect leaves the WWF in disgust in a few weeks before entering WCW by summer 1997. **½

NEXT WEEK: HBK vs. Bulldog III! Well, in 1996 anyways.