Arnold Furious: In Canada, Raw was broadcast on TSN. Unlike USA they objected to certain content. Swearing, consumption of alcohol, sexual stuff and sexy violence. I’m surprised they screened anything at all during Attitude! To compensate the Canucks for what they were missing out on, the WWF released a tape featuring all that gratuitous TV mature material for them to feast their beady little eyes and flapping heads on.
An opening video gives us teasers. Annoyingly, it’s hosted by Michael Cole. Luckily, we don’t see his face.
Stone Cold
We start with the WWF’s top guy during Attitude. The first section is the Corporate Rattlesnake segment from after WrestleMania XIV. Vince forced Austin to conform to his image of a corporate champion. Austin comes out in a suit and tie and Vince won’t let him mount the buckles to salute the fans. Vince doesn’t like Austin’s wrestling boots as the Gucci shoes didn’t fit nor his baseball cap, which McMahon lobs into the crowd. “That was a damn good hat”. The fans boo the hell out of the corporate makeover. Austin’s promo where he debates what chance he has battling the owner of a multi-million dollar company is good stuff. “Hell no, you can’t beat Vince McMahon”. Steve poses for a photo before telling Vince to get the photo developed because this will be the last time Vince will ever see him in a stupid “son of a bitch” suit. He strips off, punches Vince in the cock, takes another photo and leaves. I guess the swearing was edited out in Canada? What follows is a montage of Austin swearing at people. He sure says “ass” a lot. The Corporate Rattlesnake segment is a good one but I’d wager everyone reading this has already seen it elsewhere. Oh, and there’s the beer drinking. Canadians weren’t allowed to watch people drinking beer as it might inflame them into consuming all of the country’s Molson supplies, thus causing a state of emergency. We finish with him flipping the bird to just about everyone in the company, and hitting a Stunner on Chyna.
Val Venis
I find it hard to believe any of Val’s stuff made it onto Canadian TV. Val was a porn star and everything he said was a metaphor for nailing chicks, so all his promos were edited down and when he debuted in the ring all his introduction stuff was edited out. The interracial stuff with Mrs. Yamaguchi leads to Kaientai getting miffed with Val’s womanising ways. Even on this UNCENSORED videotape, Mrs. Yamaguchi blowing Val gets pixellated out of existence. She was under the covers but all we see on tape is a gigantic pixel-based mess. Yamaguchi-san threatens to “choppy, choppy your pee-pee”. This leads to Taka Michinoku turning heel, as Mrs. Yamaguchi was his sister. Val’s butt is also pixelled out when Kaientai go through with the threat. Val credits John Wayne Bobbitt for turning the lights off and causing Yamaguchi-san to miss. And wouldn’t you know Bobbitt is in the ring as part of the ‘The Big Valbowski is fine’ celebrations. Val kicking Mrs. Yamaguchi to the curb was a little harsh. Misogyny in pro-wrestling? I’m shocked! I’m not sure how much of any of this made it onto TV in Canada, but I don’t remember seeing the Bobbitt promo in the UK either. For those who don’t remember, he was famous for having his manhood chopped off by his wife. From what I understand he was a bit of a scumbag. The Bobbitt promo is pretty tame and I’m surprised it got cut at all.
DX
Apparently every time Hunter did the “let’s get ready to suck it” that got cut in Canada. A promo follows where Hunter, Waltman and the New Age Outlaws all call each other “jackoffs”. The fellas threaten to drop trou, but Chyna SPEAKS, breaking her silence, and drops her own trousers, thus giving us the “DX split”. DX hit the streets to promote SummerSlam, getting foreign people confused and getting people to do crotch chops. Road Dogg seems to enjoy the interaction especially; claiming a bar in the name of Ireland and telling a cop the body was there when he got here. Hunter’s Pakistani accent is a wee bit racist. They get women to flash their tits and Hunter gets a woman to expose herself at a show. Boobies! Actual honest to God, boobies. A flash of nudity is far more extreme than anything else on the show so far. DX’s street antics dragged, but were still more entertaining than all of the clips beforehand.
Divas
We finish with some sexy diva stripping stuff, which is a lot tamer but does feature Sable wearing the handprint bikini. That’s your lot.
Mick Foley
Predictably Foley’s bit involves him getting hit in the head a lot and taking silly bumps. This includes both Hell in a Cell bumps (from multiple angles) and assorted other PPV stuff that didn’t happen on Raw, like his header through the announce table. And that’s the tape finished.
Summary: The tape has three main segments, two of which were removed from Raw for being too risqué. The Corporate Rattlesnake bit has been seen before but if you really, really want the John Wayne Bobbit promo and DX wandering around New York AND you live somewhere with draconian internet control, you may just have to get this tape. The WWF’s production was aimed entirely at winning the ratings war in the late 90s so their tape releases were ghastly or futile. This isn’t on the same level of uselessness as say the Countdown to SummerSlam ’94 but it still has no wrestling on it whatsoever. I would not encourage tracking this down. At least the “Best of Raw” tapes feature wrestling as well as controversial moments.
Verdict: 18
History of Wrestling 