Looking back at Monday Night RAW February 17th, 1997

I Hear That There's An 'ECW Representative' On The Phone...

Why is Owen Hart holding both title belts?

MATCH #4: OWEN HART (w/ Clarence Mason) vs. FLASH FUNK (w/ The Funkettes)

Ladies & gentlemen, introducing first, here comes Owen Ha— I mean, here comes the Slammy Award winning, tag-team belts holding unbelievably charismatic individual named Owen Hart.

Wait, why is he holding both tag belts? Where is The British Bulldog at?

I would not be surprised if Owen just stole his brother-in-law’s title belt while the latter was in the shower. The match starts off with a great sequence. It is quite fast-paced & does hold up to today’s standards.

But both Flash Funk & Owen Hart are performing at an equal pace & displaying equal offense. So when both of them go for a dropkick & both miss at the same time, Owen Hart probably thought ‘f*ck it’ & went for a quick heroic ‘Woo!’

But, that’s not how we do things here. Readers might have noticed that there has been a lack of good/great matches on this show so far. Well, no matter how hard these two wrestlers might perform, the WWF also try their best by inserting random plots in between to divert us from the match itself. That is exactly what happens, except I am not complaining this time around, because…

…Jim Ross reveals that Jerry Lawler has just received a phone call. Lawler double-checks just to confirm that his colleague is not fooling around. Well, it turns out that there is someone on the phone for Lawler. But who is it?

I would encourage the readers to take a wild guess & then sound off in the comments below.

Well, do you remember Lawler calling out the ECW boys a few segments ago? So as it turns out, that there is an ‘ECW Representative’ on the phone, & this representative is none other than Paul E. Dangerously…a.k.a Paul Heyman!

He has personally called to accept Lawler’s challenge, & unlike Vince McMahon, Paul states that he does not hide behind representatives. Meanwhile, on the other end of the line, Jerry Lawler’s pure gold facial expressions are that of pure disgust (& ample confusion).

"On The Phone...ECW Representative Paul E. Dangerously."

Lawler bashes the ‘bingo halls’ & says that Paul & his boys probably won’t recognize the Manhattan Center next week just because it’s an ‘arena’. Get it?

So that was that, back to the match now.

Finally, The British Bulldog comes out. He tells Clarence Mason to get the hell out of here. Mason walks back to the locker room.

But, yet again, as I stated before, it feels as if the viewers are not allowed to enjoy a wrestling match this week, because they keep on inserting subplots & interferences in between. This time around, our view turns split-screen (AGAIN) & we see Steve Austin standing by.

Split-Screen: Part 2

JR (to Austin): “Have you lost it? What’s going on?”

Austin: “What do you want son, you gonna ask me a question or what?”

The Texas Rattlesnake goes on about how the whole wrasslin’ industry has screwed him. Austin even takes a shot at WWF President Gorilla Monsoon by saying— “Gorilla Monsoon said I was this close from going over the edge? I done gone over the edge already, and I’m this close to whoopin’ his a*s!”

That was the second plot inserted in between this contest, let’s get back to the match now.

It looks like 3/4ths of the contest is already over. Funk goes for a moonsault. 1,2— Owen Hart kicks out. Unexpectedly, The British Bulldog hits Flash Funk with a Slammy to the back of his head. He also holds Funk’s leg down for the three count. Owen Hart wins the match. Maybe The British Bulldog is more accepting of Owen’s ideologies after all.

Meanwhile, Owen is still confused as to why his brother-in-law decided to help him cheat. Last week, both of them were pretty close to breaking up as a tag-team, but this week, Owen & Bulldog just might qualify as Han Solo & Chewbacca from Star Wars (with The British Bulldog being Chewbacca, obviously).

Result: Owen Hart wins via pinfall.

Owen Hart is Han Solo & The British Bulldog is Chewbacca...

Pic credit: Pranesh Arry