James Dixon - The Raw Files: 1997

THE

RAW

FILES

1997

James Dixon

Arnold Furious

Lee Maughan

Rick Ashley

Bob Dahlstrom

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ISBN 978-1-291-75779-8

MEET THE TEAM

All of the contributors in this book have been wrestling fans for a long time, probably longer than we would care to admit. Some of our favourite memories of our early wrestling fandom involved renting video tapes and watching them repeatedly. However, there had never been one truly all encompassing guide to those tapes, and what turns up on them. Yes, there are some great sites on the internet here and there, but nothing ever published. No guide book. Here at History of Wrestling , we decided that we would write that book, and we did! With a century of combined viewing between us, we have lived through all of this many times over. We decided to bring that knowledge and love of wrestling, to you. While the opinions you will read are often controversial, off-the-wall or just plain moronic, they are from likeminded people who put wrestling before almost anything else. Disagree with them if you wish, certainly the office has seen its fair share of furniture thrown and occasional bloodshed (there was an unpleasant incident with a stapler that was later resolved with a pint). After the success of our ongoing Complete WWF Video Guide series, and the fun we had doing it, we have decided to branch out further and cover everything the WWF has ever produced. It might take a while. This is the fifth in our series of books covering WWF flagship show Monday Night Raw. Look out for other TV shows and books about other wrestling promotions, coming soon.

THE TEAM AT WWW.HISTORYOFWRESTLING.INFO:

ARNOLD FURIOUS

Arnold Furious likes Mitsuharu Misawa, Jushin Liger, Eddy Guerrero, Bret Hart, Raven, Toshiaki Kawada, Vader, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, Kenta Kobashi, Star Wars, Martin Scorsese, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Hicks, Wall-E, Akira Kurosawa, Johnny Cash, Scott Pilgrim, Tintin, The Wire, Firefly, The Simpsons, Jackie Chan, AC/DC, Rocky, Simon Furman, Danny Wallace, Aerosmith, The British Red Cross, Garth Ennis, Batman, Kiss, Asterix, Alan Moores Top Ten, Astro City, Christopher Walken, Juliette and the Licks, Quentin Tarantino, Goodfellas, Kurt Busiek, Watchmen (the book, not the film), White Out (the book, not the film), Super Troopers, Swingers, Deaths Head, Iron Maiden, Will Ferrell, Clint Eastwood, Trish Stratus, Everton FC, Tom Hanks, The Blues Brothers, Simon Pegg, Clerks, Terry Pratchett, Richard Pryor, Viz, Mutemath, Joe Bonamassa, How to Train Your Dragon, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dexter, Jimi Hendrix, Alien, Aliens, Predator, Frankie Boyle, Secret Wars, Woody Allen, True Romance, Lethal Weapon, Takashi Miike, Graham Linehan, Big Bang Theory, Darren Aronofsky, John Woo, Charlie Chaplin, films with ridiculous shoot-out sequences in them, Douglas Adams, Chow Yun Fat, 12 Angry Men, Wilson Pickett, Studio Ghibli, Pixar, The Avengers, Fable II, history, Bill Bailey, Skyrim, Stephen Fry, Top Gear, kung fu movies, Alan Wake, Meet the Feebles, Die Hard, Sin City (the books and the film), zombies, Red Dwarf, Peter Sellers, Peter Cook, Michael Caine, Planet of the Apes, conspiracies, steak, The Princess Bride, Grimlock, Mel Brooks, top fives, 30 Rock, Preacher, Pringles, Pirates of the Caribbean, Back to the Future, Klaus Kinski, The Sopranos, boxing, Casablanca, Stephen King, Hunter S. Thompson, Mike Leighs Naked, Captain America, Hawkeye, Spaced, Flight of the Conchords, Monty Python, Pearl Jam, Carol Danvers, 100 Bullets, Indiana Jones, The Goon, Thorntons, Jack Nicholson, Jim Beam, real ale, cartoons, novelty underwear, the Joker, Frank Miller, Robert Brockway, The Breakfast Club, Far Cry 3, Freddy Krueger, Alec Baldwins speech in Glengarry Glen Ross, John Carpenter, Bill & Ted, MMA, John Wayne, Terrence Howard, The Terminator, Guy Forsyth, nudity, coffee, crazy Japanese films that make no sense, crazy Japanese wrestling that makes no sense, crazy Japanese people that make no sense, Greg Benson, Tony Cottam, Bernard Rage, Redje Harris, Ezet Samalcaand forever Maria.

JAMES DIXON

James Dixon has been watching wrestling for over 20 years. Inspired by the likes of Davey Boy Smith, Bret Hart and The Undertaker, Dixon was drawn to the business like any other fan, for reasons that are difficult to explain. A hobby quickly became an obsession, and Dixon was determined to get involved in wrestling by utilising the one thing he could do: write about it. In previous books James wrote alongside his writing partner Evil Ste. The truth is, the Evil Ste character was merely an extension of Dixons own personality, his way of sharing his Jekyll and Hyde opinions on things. The writing choice worked fairly well at first, but the team all feel it has perhaps become more gimmicky that was hoped, so Dixon has reverted to just writing as himself. Well, we say himself. In reality James is a former British professional wrestler, but he has adopted the pseudonym to retain relative anonymity and to distance himself from his past career in the industry. However, that past experience does give him a unique and more inside perspective on things than the others, though he is still a mark at heart. James has limited patience for anything in wrestling post-2002, and much prefers 80s and 90s grappling. Curious really, because as you will see in these pages, he spends a lot of time complaining about it. James currently lives in the North of England, where it rains the majority if the time.

LEE MAUGHAN

Lee Maughan has been a fan of the professional wrestling industry for as long has he can remember, dating back to an embryonic memory of sitting on his grandparent's living room floor, his eyes transfixed to British household names Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks belly-busting their way through ITV's World of Sport . Somehow this wasn't enough to deter him, and young Lee was rewarded with having the incredibly good fortune to be within the WWF's target demographic just in time its early 90s UK boom period. He was hooked, his bedroom quickly becoming a wall-to-wall palace of video tapes, action figures, magazines, posters and any piece of tat all stamped with the WWF insignia. His thirst for the quasi-sport was ravenous but unfortunately, his family were too cheap to subscribe to Sky television, home of the WWF. His quencher? WCW International Pro , broadcast well past his bedtime on regional terrestrial station Tyne-Tees. Those WWF magazines soon found themselves piled up alongside copies of Pro Wrestling Illustrated and Superstars of Wrestling , making Lee possibly the most clued-up eight year old wrestling superfan in the entire TS14 postcode. It's possible, nay probable thanks to a further 20 years of research, that Lee is still the most clued-up wrestling superfan in the entire TS14 postcode. A trader of tapes, a distributor of DVDs and a purveyor of pixels, Lee keeps up with everything from New Japan to CHIKARA whilst continuing to catch up with the classics of pro wrestling's territorial days. Away from the grapple game, Lee likes to watch sitcoms, rock out in punk bands, and play video games with a strong preference for old school platformers and kart racers. Despite this, he even found the time to graduate from the University of Teesside in 2005 with a degree in media production, and after much soul searching and stints making Christmas cards for a living and working as a producer and on-air talent for a community radio station, is now taking the tentative first steps into the world of film video editing. He also tweets with a reverently dry sense of humour @atomicbombs , but reserves the right to ignore you entirely unless you want to pay him to write about wrestling, guitar bands or 80s pop culture for your book, website or magazine.