WWE In 1997 | Wrestling Timelines
22. April 14 | Rip It Up And Start Again
The WWF presents, on primetime cable, with WCW’s foot halfway up its guts, Monday Night Raw. The show, sold as a live simulcast, is actually a hybrid broadcast taped from both Johannesburg and Muncie, Indiana. It’s not entirely nonsensical - Vince wants to convey the impression that the mighty WWF enjoys an impressive global reach - but it really doesn’t work. The South Africa taping, with the exception of the 1995 high school gym TV tapings, is the least glamorous that the promotion has ever felt. The impressive attendance does nothing to compensate for the grim production values. From that location, Ahmed Johnson defeats Crush in the main event. Jim Ross knows this sucks, which is why he says “This won’t be a technical classic”. It isn’t; the match is awful, and feels even worse against the backdrop. This is, on every level, bad.
Meanwhile, over on Nitro, in the main event, Lex Luger takes on Kevin Nash. The match lasts four minutes and ends in a disqualification, purely so that Sting can drop to the rafters and kick ass. It’s a familiar sight, and the show runs out of time yet again, but the vivid, deafening fireworks display of star power is irresistible. In April 1997, the WWF feels like a territory that Vince McMahon raided and killed off.
This infamous Johannesburg taping is nowhere near an adequate episode of Raw worthy of competing with WCW Nitro; it is at best a glorified future WWE Vault YouTube upload, something that is mildly interesting to look at for a few moments decades later.
It is so crap and bleak that Vince, furious, walks into the very next creative meeting with a copy of Vince Russo’s Raw magazine. Russo is the editor, the co-host of supplemental LiveWire show, and his brash, bold personality and incessant idea generation lands him a spot in creative meetings.
McMahon throws the mag on the desk and says words to the effect of “Make the show look like this”. This is the origin story of Vince Russo: lead writer.