Samuel Shaw was a wrestler with TNA who essentially tried to be a cross between Christian Bale in American Psycho and Dexter Morgan. No, like, here was his ring attire:





He made his debut and began being incredibly creepy towards Christy Hemme. I mean he was referred to by announcers as "that creepy bastard". How was he creepy? Well, after multiple spurned advances on Hemme, he came out to give a promo.



Oh yeah, he also had a shrine to her of pictures and a mannequin



and uh, did this



He begins feuding with Mr Anderson and ends up winning some matches due to using Hemme as a shield or dragging her into the cage via the camera hole for a distraction. Eventually, Christy tries to trick him into going to the psych ward



He fights Mr Anderson in a COMMITTED MATCH, loses, and is forced to go to the psych ward.

Then, Gunner comes and bails him out after a serious of vignettes











So Samuel is released, where he is a face after saying sorry to Hemme or something? But then he turns heel on Gunner to be with some other girl.





Then she left the company
Then he left



This **** was hot garbage

The main event of the 20 November 1995 Raw featured Shawn Michaels vs Owen Hart.

Here is the match:

The match, while very good (as could be expected given the two participants), was not especially notable until the finish (skip to 7:30 if you're impatient) where Owen delivers a nasty enzuigiri on Michaels. Michaels would recover, throw Owen outside the ring, and begin spamming the taunt button while alone in the ring.

But then Michaels holds his head and collapses in the middle of the ring. As Michaels lays there, the ref basically stops the match, Owen and Jim Cornette look legitimately concerned, and Vince McMahon gets up from commentary to get in the ring to check on him. Raw ends with Michaels being checked over by EMTs.

Two weeks later, Todd Pettengill provides an update in a pre-recorded segment taped "over the weekend". He meets with Jeffrey Unger, who is Shawn Michaels' personal physician.

Here is the clip:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2b...-04-1995_sport

After Pettengill leads off by saying that Michaels was suffering from "post-concussion syndrome", they go to Unger for comments that are very unsettling in retrospect.

Unger then reports on the prevalence of head trauma, saying that it affects millions of people every year and that the resulting syndrome for some of these patients results in maladies such as ringing ears, headaches, blurred vision, forgetfulness and loss of direction. As a result, they may get depressed and have loss of sleep for periods of months, years, or even a lifetime.

They then show clips of a brain scan and talk about how Michaels' results are very abnormal and that the question of when he can return to the ring is way too premature.

Going on, Unger answers the question of whether the resiliency of Shawn Michaels would translate into a quicker recovery, saying "probably not, because the brain is not resilient". He says that Shawn has "brain damage" and that is the source of the post-concussion syndrome. He then says that "any additional blows to the head could be life threatening", and closes with "it may not be safe for him to go back to wrestling at all".

The clip then fades into a voice over by Vince McMahon being philosophical about how WWF superstars may not look like us, but are very human and not invincible. But the superstars constantly "take one step closer to the edge in an effort to thrill the crowd". He then says that Shawn Michaels may have pushed himself over that edge noting that "we helped push him over the edge in our unquenchable thirst for excitement". After these comments, Raw fades to black.

To be clear, this entire angle was a work. But it showed just how much was known about concussions in 1995. While medical science has clearly advanced since then, the effects of head injuries were clearly not a secret.

Over the next decade, unprotected chairshots to the head were basically commonplace.

Listen to this one on HBK himself (at 32:15)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2e...l-in-a-cell_tv

In the late 90s and early 2000s, basically every Raw had one unprotected chairshot to the head. While they made a cool sound, they became so commonplace that the brutality was minimized. The effects of so many frequent blows to the head have certainly shortened lives.

The WWE has since banned chairshots to the head, and seems to have taken somewhat of a proactive role in head injuries. But even now, actions such as clearing Tommy Dreamer to wrestle and allowing Lesnar to throw MMA-style elbows call into question the actual seriousness of the policy.

Vince McMahon appears on the final Monday Nitro to announce that he has bought WCW, securing a monopoly over mainstream American wrestling that shows no sign of ever being broken. There can be no reasonable question that the lack of anything resembling competition at the top has had a significant negative effect on the quality of the product from that point forward.

I select WWF buys WCW.

Final Draft:
Fingerpoke of Doom
Giant falls off roof, then immediately wrestles without explanation
Gobbledygooker
Undertaker murders Big Boss Man
Big Boss Man/Big Show feud
The Renegade Bait-and-Switch
Vince Degrades Trish
WWF Spoils Bischoff Shocker
Blackface Roddy Piper
WrestleMania IX Ending
Shane vs. Taker 2016 Feud
Steiner/Nowinski Great Debate
What?
Observe This, Brother!
Vince McMahon Stand Back
WWF Buys WCW

At 8 pm ET on March 19, 1995, this message appeared on the TV screen for many unfortunate souls:

“The program you are about to see is a first in World Championship Wrestling. The following pay-per-view event, Uncensored, has been established due to the many grudges and differences which have developed between wrestlers over the past few months. With this in mind, the WCW Board of Governors has the following statement: Every match at Uncensored will occur without the sanction of the WCW board. The following matches have been agreed upon by all involved and will be held solely to settle any personal disputes. Get ready for a professional wrestling event like none other. It's now time for WCW Unauthorized, Unsanctioned and UNCENSORED.”

Yes, it's Uncensored 95.

This PPV was conceived as a counterpoint to the surging ECW, and is a forerunner to the current WWE Extreme Rules event. Most matches had some sort of stipulation, and the ones that didn't were no disqualification and no countout. Remember that, it'll be important later.

First up was a King of the Road match between Dustin Rhodes and the Blacktop Bully (one of the multitude of gimmicks for Barry Darsow). What's a King of the Road match? Well, you really don't want to know, but I'll tell you anyway -- it's two guys fighting on the back of a moving 18-wheeler, trying to be the first to get to the cab and blow a horn. Yes, it was exactly as dumb as it sounds. Even worse was that it was pre-taped and the editing for this was so bad that they switched from day to evening and back again. AND, in an effort to generate some small amount of interest, both guys broke WCW's no-blading policy and got colour. They were both fired after the PPV, which worked out great for Dustin, as he got to jump to the WWF and into the Goldust character.

Next up was an atrocious martial arts match between Meng and ****ing Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and a boxer vs. wrestler match between Johnny B. Badd and Arn Anderson that was actually quite good. But then, we got Randy Savage vs. Avalanche. What was going along as your typical Randy Savage vs. Big Fat Guy match ended when Savage was attacked by a woman at ringside. Which caused Avalanche to be disqualified. In a match with no rules.

Right.

Oh, and the woman wasn't actually a woman, it turned out to be Ric Flair in drag. Which, sadly, wouldn't be the most embarrassing thing involving Flair this evening.

We then had a not-terrible match between Sting and Big Bubba Rogers, which was followed by a truly atrocious brawl between Harlem Heat and the Nasty Boys, which went into the concession stands and featured offence involving sodas and cotton candy.

Which brings us to the main event: a non-title strap match between WCW World champion Hulk Hogan and Vader. (No, this was not a YAPAPI strap match.) I will spare you the details of this awful match and just give you the result, which is the reason I wanted this match: Hogan beat Vader in this strap match BY ATTACHING THE STRAP TO RIC FLAIR AND DRAGGING FLAIR TO ALL FOUR CORNERS.

But hey, it's Uncensored.

Shockmaster debuts, trips over himself
Eddie Guerrero/Rey Mysterio custody feud
HHH and Friends
Kaientai choppy-choppies Val Venis' pee pee
Hogan/Warrior II
Farting Natalya
Ed Ferrara as Oklahoma
Mass Transit incident
Rock/Cena WM28 build
Samoa Joe kidnapped by ninjas
Daniel Bryan/Sheamus at WM28 goes 18 seconds
Piper/Mr. T boxing match at WM2
Jim Cornette gets thrown off a scaffold, blows out both knees
Verne Gagne lets Hulk Hogan go to WWF, kills own company
Uncensored 95