Loss

This Raven vignette takes place in a classroom. Yawn.

Last few minutes. Vince on commentary says you aren't likely to see Bret vs Shawn ever again. Pretty good action between these two. Shawn ends up tapping to the ankle lock just like Bret did the week before. Rude runs in and hits Shamrock with the briefcase and the match is thrown out. HHH does a pedigree on the briefcase to close out the show. Interesting that there was no Bret/Shawn confrontation.

Shawn is unbelievable at this point. The "Shawn is gay" chants start yet again and this time, he decides to just kiss HHH on the lips. I have to admit, that's some awesome button pushing. Chyna ends up tripping Michael Cole. They do a lot of Hogan mocking. Next week, Shawn is going to come on RAW naked. He also wants Sgt. Slaughter to come out because he wants Ken Shamrock in a match next week. They put on the windshield wipers to prevent Slaughter from spitting on them while he talks, and this is hilarious. Anyway, Slaughter says Shawn will have to face Shamrock this week instead of next.

A GREAT recap of the Bret/Shawn feud with new interview comments mixed in about why exactly it is that they hate each other so much. Nice piece of business.

They speak vaguely about the Pillman storyline now, simply saying Marlena was "away". Goldust doesn't say a word during this interview until he just snaps and says he can't do this anymore. He tells Terri everything she says is making him sick. Dustin says his father has made his life a miserable wreck for 25 years and that he has been a little puppy dog for her for the past seven years. He ends up cursing at her, telling her he doesn't love her anymore and that he has found someone else. Both do a great acting job in this. This is an awesome segment and leads to the very weird era of Goldust.

Fantastic tag match with Sasuke as FIP getting his knee viciously worked over. Funaki probably gives the best performance I've ever seen from him here. Cool to see Japanese guys aping the ringpost figure four from Bret. It's really cool how Sasuke teases these awesome comebacks and they cut them all off at precisely the right time. Delphin is repeatedly put in position to be the savior of his team with Teoh as the spoiler, but in the end, it's not enough. One of the best tags of the year.

Nice Nitro-style tag match. It's not much better than solid since the Can-Ams aren't really good heels, but the layout of the match and execution of a lot of tag team staples was really well done. It's a shame Furnas and LaFon didn't really get over in the U.S. They weren't as good as they were in All Japan in years prior, but that doesn't mean they weren't worth watching at all.

Eaton may benefit in the sense that not as many people have watched and commented on 1993 and 1995, which are strong years for Morton.

The FBI allow themselves to be completely humiliated and they make it as entertaining as possible. Tracy Smothers is covered in blood and I laughed at some of the weapons shots, especially Kronus using the violin. Tommy Rich even takes a few bumps and does a hilarious oversell for Kronus's 450 splash. After the second ref bump, the Dudley Boys enter the ring and do a number on New Jack and Kronus, giving the FBI the tag titles. This was tremendous booking and an awesomely entertaining scene. Axl Rotten and Balls Mahoney end up coming out to take on the Dudleys. Poor FBI -- all they want to do is leave with their gold. But we end up with a four-team brawl.

Talk about it here.

The story was that Shawn kept finding ways to do terrible things to Undertaker, sometimes with the assistance of others, then somehow sneak away. He hadn't atoned and in fact kept refusing to take responsibility for anything he had done. This match was all about confining him and giving Undertaker the chance to get even. When the camera man is taken out of the cage, the action spills outside and Shawn sees this as his chance to finally get away. But that ends up backfiring even more and he falls from the side of the cage through a ringside table. Undertaker then brings him back in to finally finish what he started ... and then the finish happens. I didn't feel like this was all about that cage spot at all. This was intended to give people who wanted to see Shawn get his ass kicked plenty of time for that to happen. Note the "Kill him" chants from ringside fans. The announcers kept stressing that because they were locked in, Undertaker didn't even have to be in a hurry to get the job done, so the layout was the methodical destruction of Shawn Michaels ... and then the finish happened.

October: #1 - Bracito de Oro, Cicloncito Ramirez & Mascarita Magica vs Damiancito El Guerrero, El Fierito & Pierrothito (CMLL 10/03/97) ***** #2 - Eddy Guerrero vs Rey Misterio Jr. (WCW Halloween Havoc 10/26/97) ****1/2 #3 - Shawn Michaels vs Undertaker (WWF Bad Blood 10/05/97) ****1/2 #4 - Taka Michinoku vs Great Sasuke (Michinoku Pro 10/10/97) ****1/4 #5 - Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 10/21/97) ****1/4 #6 - El Hijo del Santo vs Psicosis (Promo Azteca 10/03/97) **** #7 - Lioness Asuka vs Jaguar Yokota (Jd' 10/22/97) **** #8 - Akira Taue vs Johnny Ace (AJPW 10/21/97) **** #9 - Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace (AJPW 10/11/97) ***3/4 #10 - Eddy Guerrero vs Chris Benoit (WCW Monday Nitro 10/20/97) ***3/4 #11 - Randy Savage vs Diamond Dallas Page (WCW Halloween Havoc 10/26/97) ***1/2 #12 - Chris Benoit vs Fit Finlay (WCW Monday Nitro 10/27/97) ***1/2 #13 - Hulk Hogan vs Diamond Dallas Page (WCW Monday Nitro 10/27/97) ***1/4 #14 - Dick Togo, Mens Teoh & Shoichi Funaki vs Super Delphin, Naohiro Hoshikawa & Masato Yakushiji (Michinoku Pro 10/10/97) *** #15 - Toshiaki Kawada vs Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW 10/21/97) #16 - Fit Finlay vs Barry Houston (WCW Saturday Night 10/25/97) #17 - Ian Rotten vs Axl Rotten (IWA Mid South 10/21/97)

The first half of this match would be nice to get. I think we got enough to call it a great match, but I don't want to rate it because plenty of other matches this year have started out bland and had a really strong finishing stretch. What we saw looked really good and I wish we had more of this feud.

Recap of this from Lorefice. It was really cool how they did this. Exactly the type of moment yearbooks are meant for.

Here's a summary I found through this of Google. Quite the scene. I love that Michael Jackson's Free Willy song is playing during part of this. Was this a major news story at the time? It seems like it would be. Anyone add anything to it?

The best Hulk Hogan match of the year! You should see what DDP is able to do this with guy. It might surprise you. This is one of the few times this year that Hogan has looked like The Man in the ring and not just on interviews. Page gives him most of the match, but Hogan also makes him look like a good challenger. These two should have had a PPV series in 1998. Sting comes to the rescue after the entire NWO swarms DDP post-match, and the show goes off the air with Sting making a clean sweep.

Another strong TV match for Benoit in October. I like the Eddy match better, but this isn't far behind. Just as brutal as you'd expect for these two.

Talk about it here.

Zbyszko has had it with Scott Hall. He gives Hall a first class ticket to Larryland. He wants Hall to come out and accept his challenge. Hall and Syxx come out and laugh this off, with Hall saying Zbyszko couldn't even beat Easy E and showing footage of Zbyszko getting attacked the night before. Hall won't give Zbyszko the satisfaction of coming into the ring.

Sit-down interview with Jeff Jarrett. He laments the Double J character and feels like he succeeded in the WWF in spite of Vince, not because of his help. He talks about how when he was in WCW, he had no opportunity at all because he wasn't one of Bischoff's boys. He has nothing against the WCW top guys, but he and Shawn Michaels could steal the show no matter who else was on the card. He feels like the biggest difference between the WWF and WCW is the match quality, focus on youth and better house shows. Make your own jokes.

Shawn has no desire to speak to Vince. Instead, he'd rather moon the camera. God, someone destroy this guy.

Last few minutes. Pretty decent stuff, and I think Bret could have eventually carried him to a really great match. Bret taps to the anklelock after a ref bump, but Bret ends up hitting Shamrock with a chair. Shawn comes in and superkicks Bret and then takes the opportunity to lay in some punches. Shamrock isn't happy that Shawn interfered and belly-to-belly suplexes him and beats him up. He ends up having to be pulled off of Shawn. The Hart Foundation and DX come in to check on Bret and Shawn and a huge brawl breaks out. Great segment.

Jim Ross, Bill Watts, Jack & Jerry Brisco and Danny Hodge were acknowledged at RAW before the show started. Sunny flirting with Bill is funny.

Jim Cornette complains about use of the word "icon" in wrestling and talks about how horrible the cage match was last night. He talks about how Hogan, Savage and Piper don't know when to quit. He mentions the Undertaker, Ric Flair and Steve Austin as better choices, and it's funny that he doesn't put Flair in that same too old category.

Commercial for Bret on Mad TV this coming Saturday night. Shots are taken at Hogan and Savage and Bret is called the real deal.