It has been nearly 17 years since it happened, but "Ravishing" Rick Rude appearing on Raw and Nitro on the same night remains one of the most amazing things in wrestling history, even though we understand how it happened. Rude was on a special per-appearance contract with the WWF at the time. He wasn't locked in for any set of time. He would just get paid whenever he appeared on television or pay-per-view, which was as often as the company needed him. If he didn't appear on television one week, he wasn't paid for that week. Simple enough, but not exactly the most financially secure thing to have in your life. Unbeknownst to the WWF, Rude had been in contract talks with WCW, and with WWF's "live one week, taped the next" schedule for Raw, Eric Bischoff saw the perfect opportunity to make history, to make his opposition look stupid, and to get everyone talking about Nitro. On November 17th, 1997, Rude shocked the wrestling world and appeared on an episode of Nitro, cutting a scathing promo on Vince McMahon, Shawn Michaels, and what happened just one week earlier at the Survivor Series, when the Montreal Screwjob went down. Approximately one hour after he showed up on Nitro, Rude made an appearance on Raw that was taped the previous week. Fans who didn't know about Raw's taping schedule were terribly confused. Rude had only a mustache on Nitro, but had a full beard on Raw. There were legitimately people asking how he grew a beard so quickly. Rude referred to the WWF as "the Titanic", which certainly looks foolish in hindsight. Of course, he passed away in 1999, long before the Monday Night War was over, but making the WWF look that dumb could not have sat well with Vince McMahon.
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
