WWF 'Royal Rumble RAW' Review: February 3rd,1997

Royal Rumble RAW...Not Exactly.

MATCH #6: The Undertaker & Ahmed Johnson vs. Farooq (w/ Nation of Domination) & Mankind (w/ Paul Bearer) {No Holds Barred Tag Team Match}

This is the Ultimate Fan Service of the Night.

I’ve typed ‘Nation of Domination’ so many times it feels as if they’re somehow included in each & every segment.

This is the ultimate fan-service of the night. Ahmed Johnson comes out with a 2x4 (& he’s off Prozac!). Everything is No Holds Barred, so he instantly drives every N.O.D member out of the ring using his weapon. GONG!

The Deadman comes out & the whole commentary team shuts up for the first time in the night. The bell rings & everything is chaos. There is zero teamwork involved because no rules apply, so nobody tags anybody in this match. It’s a straight-up brawl.

‘Taker immediately delivers an Old-School to Farooq whilst Ahmed goes after Mankind. What’s funny is that all I remember Ahmed doing is chasing after somebody, & then coming back to the ring, then chasing after somebody again but he’s just too slow & too tired to come back, so Johnson just stays there.

‘Taker goes for an old-school, but Mankind catches him mid-air & reverses it into a Mandible Claw.

Mankind & Undertaker have a good back & forth. But Vader unexpectedly interferes & splashes on top of the Deadman. Looks like Vader & Mankind have a lot more in common since their tag-team match last week. Also, Undertaker & Vader are two participants in the upcoming Four-Man No DQ elimination matchup.

But hey, it doesn’t matter if this is 2018 or 1997, Undertaker is The Undertaker, & he’s very well capable of taking care of two enemies at the same time. He tombstones Mankind on top of a steel-chair & wins it for his team. Toronto loves it!

RESULT: The Undertaker & Ahmed Johnson win via pinfall.

---

Bait & Switch, huh?

Like I said, this all feels like a house show. Vince did not intend this to be WWF RAW’s first ever 2-hour telecast, & it clearly shows. He wanted to air a full-length Royal Rumble Match on free TV, hence the 2-hour length. But that didn’t work, so he had to put murky house show clips with Royal Rumble highlights as filler in order to make it work.

So it’s not ROYAL RUMBLE RAW exactly. The 1997 Royal Rumble happened two weeks ago. If this week’s episode was an article, it’d be pure clickbait. (Wait, is this recap clickbait?)

Viewers tuned in to watch a full-length Royal Rumble match, only to watch Royal Rumble clips that were clearer than the actual episode itself. Eh.

Other than that, sure, this week’s matches were better than last week’s matches. Many parts were interesting to watch, & the show didn’t have an Ahmed/N.O.D stamp throughout its runtime (unlike last week).

It’s almost an A-Show, but WWF is not ready for its 2-Hour Runtime (yet).

GRADE: B+

Join me next week, where I recap the 13th February 1997 Edition of Monday Night RAW a.k.a Thursday RAW Thursday, where everything changes forever as 'someone' drops a huge bombshell in front of us.

As always, you can check out last week's recap by clicking here.

Thanks for reading this recap, share it to spread the word, sound off in the comments section & stay tuned for more.