50 Greatest WWE Raw Moments Ever
41. Jim Ross Drops The Original Pipe Bomb (September 23rd, 1996)
Jim Ross has spoken at length (when asked, at least) about the out-of-the-blue heel promo he cut on the September 23rd, 1996 edition of Monday Night Raw, and isn't particularly complimentary of his performance.
In his capacity as an analyst of pro wrestling, it's his worst take.
The whole thing was a generational hospital pass, yet Ross couldn't have done more to throw his credibility behind it with his impassioned takedown of those within WWE's corporate offices - Vince McMahon in particular - that had wronged him.
Fake Razor Ramon and Diesel (the characters that emerged at the climax of Ross' diatribe) are misunderstood to a point. It wasn't McMahon in the middle of a complete meltdown over Scott Hall and Kevin Nash leaving for WCW and helping it soar. Not entirely, anyway. They were there to embarrass the company on Ross' behalf, which is a doomed concept, but one that would have stood up had they appeared once and never again.
Alas, they stuck around and Ross the heel didn't. This was the wrong way around after such a blistering opening. "Bad Ol JR" had more legs the phoneys, and than Ross himself believed, and this promo - a foreshadowing of an entire style to come, and the best bullet-by-bullet takedown of top brass until CM Punk sat cross-legged on a stage - was cast-iron proof.