WWF: Raw is War
February 2, 1998
Indianapolis, IN
Market Square Arena

The current WWF champs are as follows:
World Champion: Shawn Michaels (11/9/1997)
Intercontinental Champion: The Rock (12/8/1997)
World Tag Team Champions: The New Age Outlaws (11/24/1997)
European Champion: Owen Hart (1/26/1998)
Light Heavyweight Champion: TAKA Michinoku (12/7/1997)

We open the show with an announcement made by D-Generation X. This is the famous “State of the Union” address channeling a little bit of George Carlin by pointing out words they can and cannot say on TV with the words they can’t say being bleeped and their mouths being covered with DX censor graphics. Shawn’s facial expressions are pretty funny. I believe the unedited version airs on some DX videotape the WWF released way back when. Being an Arrested Development fan, my mind can’t help but wander to the time Gob gave a sexual harassment speech to the Bluth company staff which had much funnier results than this did. All the same, this is a fun little parody of network censorship that really doesn’t make much sense. Some words are bad, some words are worse, and who or what decides that seems arbitrary. They even manage to make it a little topical treating the whole thing like a Bill Clinton press announcement. Shawn – “I did not sleep with that young intern – as a matter of fact, I was up all night!” Apparently, USA Network liked it.

TIME TO GET RAW! Your hosts are Jim Ross, Michael Cole, and Kevin Kelly. Read the rest of this entry →