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Monday Night Raw
Date: August 16, 1993
Location: Mid Hudson Convention Center, Poughkeepsie, New York
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan, Randy Savage
This is back in the first year that the show was on the air. The show was only an hour at the time so this is going to be very short indeed. The arena is tiny to say the least, and while the show was considered the big show, not a lot really happened on these early shows. After a very brief opening, we hear Vince’s voice being drowned out by the Million Dollar Man’s music.
After coming down the shortest entry ramp of all time, we get a recap of DiBiase losing to the 1-2-3 Kid, who is with Razor Ramon. That obviously dates this match as happening sometime between summer of 93 and spring of 96, as they were inseparable for almost three years, killing both of their WWF careers.
1-2-3 Kid vs. Ted DiBiase
As I’ve said, this is a rematch from about two weeks ago. We’re literally at two minutes plus into this video before anyone but Vince talks. I had to go back afterwards to change the commentators thing. My goodness the ring girl might be the ugliest woman I have ever seen. Crowd is hot for the Kid for some reason.
I’ve always liked these smaller crowds. It’s the ECW concept, which is odd as when this show was aired, Heyman hadn’t booked a single ECW show as that was about two months away with Ultra Clash. Something odd happens as Vince says that Summerslam is two weeks from tonight. Isn’t tonight a Monday? Whatever.
Razor “calls into the show” as Vince talks to him on the phone. This is something that they did a lot back in the day and I never was big on it. Just have them in the damn arena! Ramon and DiBiase are going at it at Summerslam apparently so at least we have a reason for a feud. The match is a squash at first with DiBiase just killing him and making me a bigger fan of his than I thought possible.
Kid botches a cross body block. That’s hard to do. The crowd chants Razor so obviously the booking for this match couldn’t be going any better. IRS runs out for the DQ and the double team ensues. Steiners run out for the save.
Rating: D-. The wrestling was one sided, the botches were very noticeable, the fans wanted Razor, and while IRS was banned from ringside, he comes out anyway? Someone want to find a way this makes sense for me, because I certainly can’t see it.
Bastian Booger vs. Marty Jannetty tonight, and Savage has a surprise for us.
Another ugly as hell ring girl. I know Vince has better taste in women than this.
Headshrinkers vs. Mike Khoury/Dave Morlado
Sweetness personified, we have a tag team squash match. This right here is the biggest thing missing from wrestling today in my eyes. We don’t always have to have star against star. Why not have a big named guy or team just beat up two nothings? They look good, the young guys get their names and looks out there, and you can save the showdown for later.
I distinctly remember a guy back in the NWA days named Jack Foley looking cool as a jobber. He changed his first name to Mick. Seriously, I don’t get why these went out of style. Anyway, it’s a squash so this is going to be short and likely ratingless. The topic of discussion is a cage match next week or something like that, but they never actually say who’s in it.
For some reason Vince starts talking about a poll of people that believe Elvis is still alive. I wonder if he polled Eric Young. Yep, I’m right. This is an annihilation. One jobber gets beaten on as a Shrinker rolls him to his corner so he can tag out. The other guy takes some double team moves until a top rope splash ends this massacre in about 2 minutes.
Rating: N/A. It’s a squash. How can I grade that?
Bastian Booger vs. Marty Jannetty is NEXT!
Bastian Booger vs. Marty Jannetty
See? I told you so. Booger is eating ice cream for some reason. Maybe because he’s hungry. For those of you that don’t remember, Bastian is a big fat guy that wears a diaper looking thing and eats anything. It was a very weird character that didn’t catch on and no one has any clue what the point of it was. The talk is mostly about Jannetty’s red, white and blue arm bands which brings on talk of Luger’s big Lex Express campaign.
Marty, for some reason that God alone knows, beats the living hell out of Bastian. He’s practically a jobber out there. It’s about a 3 minute match, not counting a commercial in between. For one of these minutes, we talk about Madonna’s birthday being today with random jokes about her. The commentary on here is filler.
Now I get the idea of having matches as fillers, but DAMN man, I’ve never once heard of having commentary have to be nothing but filler as well. After Jannetty beats on him for a long time, we get back to the show and Jannetty goes for a sunset flip, Bastian stands there for a seconds, then starts waving his arms as he remembers to sell, but then Booger drops down with his finisher, but the referee just stops counting before the three to give Jannetty time to complete the move which gets the pin.
Rating: D. My LORD this made no sense. Marty is apparently being built up for his match at Summerslam with Ludvig Borga. They’re building up a jobber to be squashed by having him squash someone else? Good grief how low does that make Bastian? Literally, Booger had no offense at all and this was a waste of time.
Money Inc. talks to Vince about their steel cage match with the Steiners (that’s it!) next week and Money Inc. isn’t worried. This goes on for awhile but that’s all they really have to say.
Men on a Mission up NEXT! Savage says he’s been hanging out with them. Please, I’m begging you, for the love of all things good and holy left in this world, for the sake of my immortal soul, LET US SEE THIS!!!
Men on a Mission vs. Iron Mike Sharpe/Barry Horowitz
HOLY SHIT where do I begin? First of all, ROCK ON we’re getting the mega jobbers in this one. These two jobbed so much they actually had fans, with Barry actually winning a PPV match in a few years. If you’re going to squash jobbers, squash the A-list jobbers I suppose. Now I’ve ranted on MOM before, so go check out my History of Mania thread in the 10th show to see it, but this offers another aspect of it.
During their entrance, we see random very short clips of streets. Not streets in a particular city or of any people or issues on them. Just of streets. What in the hell is that supposed to mean? Are MOM from the streets? Are they running from the streets? Are the looking for the streets? Are they trying to show us the way to Sesame Street? This is all shown over Oscar, the rapping manager, singing an incomprehensible song about screaming I think.
The cameras are literally spinning upside down which coupled with the song and sheer bewilderment of this entrance is making me nauseous. Mable just stands there with his arms folded looking mad. This was a face team right? Looking at Mable, I see 4 distinct colors to his outfit: red, blue, purple and gold. Mo has those plus black, white and orange. They look like a Crayola 64 pack exploded on them.
At the same time, Horowitz has black tights with green shapes on the back of them. What in the hell was up with colors around this time? It’s making me want to crack open some Fruit Loops. As the jobbers are thoroughly thrashed, we’re told about some movie with Bette Midler and Shelly Long that’s airing on Thursday night. This of course leads to jokes about the actresses. Dude, what in the hell is going on with the commentary in this show?
This is just flat out horrific, and Ross was about 8 months away at the moment. They hit their double splash move on Sharpe, complete with his trademark forearm pad. That’s showing the epicness of a jobber when he has a trademark part of his outfit. This leads to more rapping and waving of the hands by perhaps the most highly Caucasian crowd I’ve ever seen.
Rating: N/A. Again, it was about 90 seconds. It’s better than the first one but that’s not saying much.
Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Rich Myers
Myers looks like a guy that looks too much like a porn star to be a porn star. Long bleached blonde hair and a great porn mustache makes him your jobber of the moment. Bigelow’s offense is 90% stomps. During the match, the highlight as always is the commentary, this time featuring Bobby talking about how he likes women with bald spots or something like that. What more can I say about a match like this? Diving headbutt ends it.
Rating: N/A. Same issue as before. In a two minute match with about 15 kicks to the back, what do you want from me?
It’s time for Macho’s surprise. It’s………the Macho Midget. Oh for the love of fuck what did I do to deserve this? He comes out with the four Raw girls, they stand in the ring and wave to the crowd, and we go to a commercial. Seriously, what was the fucking point of this?
After a commercial, we hear a rundown of next week’s Summerslam Spectacular, featuring Shawn vs. Bob Backlund for the IC Title, an interview with Taker, and the steel cage match for the tag belts. We also have Hacksaw vs. Yoko. This is apparently next Sunday, instead of Monday. This concludes your show.
Overall Rating: B. You know, the video is 36 minutes, 50 seconds long. In that time we got an in ring interview and 5 matches. That’s actually a very good job, especially considering there’s time they had to kill as well. That is a very good use of TV time which is a huge lesson that WWE needs to learn now. They didn’t use a bunch of interviews and stupid segments and you got a very action packed show.
Ok so there was one real match in the whole thing aside from squashes, but some wrestling is better than no wrestling at all. This was pretty good given that absolutely nothing happened other than to build up to the next week’s show/Summerslam. Not bad for what it was, but this was the polar opposite of what Raw is now.
Date: August 16, 1993
Location: Mid Hudson Convention Center, Poughkeepsie, New York
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan, Randy Savage
This is back in the first year that the show was on the air. The show was only an hour at the time so this is going to be very short indeed. The arena is tiny to say the least, and while the show was considered the big show, not a lot really happened on these early shows. After a very brief opening, we hear Vince’s voice being drowned out by the Million Dollar Man’s music.
After coming down the shortest entry ramp of all time, we get a recap of DiBiase losing to the 1-2-3 Kid, who is with Razor Ramon. That obviously dates this match as happening sometime between summer of 93 and spring of 96, as they were inseparable for almost three years, killing both of their WWF careers.
1-2-3 Kid vs. Ted DiBiase
As I’ve said, this is a rematch from about two weeks ago. We’re literally at two minutes plus into this video before anyone but Vince talks. I had to go back afterwards to change the commentators thing. My goodness the ring girl might be the ugliest woman I have ever seen. Crowd is hot for the Kid for some reason.
I’ve always liked these smaller crowds. It’s the ECW concept, which is odd as when this show was aired, Heyman hadn’t booked a single ECW show as that was about two months away with Ultra Clash. Something odd happens as Vince says that Summerslam is two weeks from tonight. Isn’t tonight a Monday? Whatever.
Razor “calls into the show” as Vince talks to him on the phone. This is something that they did a lot back in the day and I never was big on it. Just have them in the damn arena! Ramon and DiBiase are going at it at Summerslam apparently so at least we have a reason for a feud. The match is a squash at first with DiBiase just killing him and making me a bigger fan of his than I thought possible.
Kid botches a cross body block. That’s hard to do. The crowd chants Razor so obviously the booking for this match couldn’t be going any better. IRS runs out for the DQ and the double team ensues. Steiners run out for the save.
Rating: D-. The wrestling was one sided, the botches were very noticeable, the fans wanted Razor, and while IRS was banned from ringside, he comes out anyway? Someone want to find a way this makes sense for me, because I certainly can’t see it.
Bastian Booger vs. Marty Jannetty tonight, and Savage has a surprise for us.
Another ugly as hell ring girl. I know Vince has better taste in women than this.
Headshrinkers vs. Mike Khoury/Dave Morlado
Sweetness personified, we have a tag team squash match. This right here is the biggest thing missing from wrestling today in my eyes. We don’t always have to have star against star. Why not have a big named guy or team just beat up two nothings? They look good, the young guys get their names and looks out there, and you can save the showdown for later.
I distinctly remember a guy back in the NWA days named Jack Foley looking cool as a jobber. He changed his first name to Mick. Seriously, I don’t get why these went out of style. Anyway, it’s a squash so this is going to be short and likely ratingless. The topic of discussion is a cage match next week or something like that, but they never actually say who’s in it.
For some reason Vince starts talking about a poll of people that believe Elvis is still alive. I wonder if he polled Eric Young. Yep, I’m right. This is an annihilation. One jobber gets beaten on as a Shrinker rolls him to his corner so he can tag out. The other guy takes some double team moves until a top rope splash ends this massacre in about 2 minutes.
Rating: N/A. It’s a squash. How can I grade that?
Bastian Booger vs. Marty Jannetty is NEXT!
Bastian Booger vs. Marty Jannetty
See? I told you so. Booger is eating ice cream for some reason. Maybe because he’s hungry. For those of you that don’t remember, Bastian is a big fat guy that wears a diaper looking thing and eats anything. It was a very weird character that didn’t catch on and no one has any clue what the point of it was. The talk is mostly about Jannetty’s red, white and blue arm bands which brings on talk of Luger’s big Lex Express campaign.
Marty, for some reason that God alone knows, beats the living hell out of Bastian. He’s practically a jobber out there. It’s about a 3 minute match, not counting a commercial in between. For one of these minutes, we talk about Madonna’s birthday being today with random jokes about her. The commentary on here is filler.
Now I get the idea of having matches as fillers, but DAMN man, I’ve never once heard of having commentary have to be nothing but filler as well. After Jannetty beats on him for a long time, we get back to the show and Jannetty goes for a sunset flip, Bastian stands there for a seconds, then starts waving his arms as he remembers to sell, but then Booger drops down with his finisher, but the referee just stops counting before the three to give Jannetty time to complete the move which gets the pin.
Rating: D. My LORD this made no sense. Marty is apparently being built up for his match at Summerslam with Ludvig Borga. They’re building up a jobber to be squashed by having him squash someone else? Good grief how low does that make Bastian? Literally, Booger had no offense at all and this was a waste of time.
Money Inc. talks to Vince about their steel cage match with the Steiners (that’s it!) next week and Money Inc. isn’t worried. This goes on for awhile but that’s all they really have to say.
Men on a Mission up NEXT! Savage says he’s been hanging out with them. Please, I’m begging you, for the love of all things good and holy left in this world, for the sake of my immortal soul, LET US SEE THIS!!!
Men on a Mission vs. Iron Mike Sharpe/Barry Horowitz
HOLY SHIT where do I begin? First of all, ROCK ON we’re getting the mega jobbers in this one. These two jobbed so much they actually had fans, with Barry actually winning a PPV match in a few years. If you’re going to squash jobbers, squash the A-list jobbers I suppose. Now I’ve ranted on MOM before, so go check out my History of Mania thread in the 10th show to see it, but this offers another aspect of it.
During their entrance, we see random very short clips of streets. Not streets in a particular city or of any people or issues on them. Just of streets. What in the hell is that supposed to mean? Are MOM from the streets? Are they running from the streets? Are the looking for the streets? Are they trying to show us the way to Sesame Street? This is all shown over Oscar, the rapping manager, singing an incomprehensible song about screaming I think.
The cameras are literally spinning upside down which coupled with the song and sheer bewilderment of this entrance is making me nauseous. Mable just stands there with his arms folded looking mad. This was a face team right? Looking at Mable, I see 4 distinct colors to his outfit: red, blue, purple and gold. Mo has those plus black, white and orange. They look like a Crayola 64 pack exploded on them.
At the same time, Horowitz has black tights with green shapes on the back of them. What in the hell was up with colors around this time? It’s making me want to crack open some Fruit Loops. As the jobbers are thoroughly thrashed, we’re told about some movie with Bette Midler and Shelly Long that’s airing on Thursday night. This of course leads to jokes about the actresses. Dude, what in the hell is going on with the commentary in this show?
This is just flat out horrific, and Ross was about 8 months away at the moment. They hit their double splash move on Sharpe, complete with his trademark forearm pad. That’s showing the epicness of a jobber when he has a trademark part of his outfit. This leads to more rapping and waving of the hands by perhaps the most highly Caucasian crowd I’ve ever seen.
Rating: N/A. Again, it was about 90 seconds. It’s better than the first one but that’s not saying much.
Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Rich Myers
Myers looks like a guy that looks too much like a porn star to be a porn star. Long bleached blonde hair and a great porn mustache makes him your jobber of the moment. Bigelow’s offense is 90% stomps. During the match, the highlight as always is the commentary, this time featuring Bobby talking about how he likes women with bald spots or something like that. What more can I say about a match like this? Diving headbutt ends it.
Rating: N/A. Same issue as before. In a two minute match with about 15 kicks to the back, what do you want from me?
It’s time for Macho’s surprise. It’s………the Macho Midget. Oh for the love of fuck what did I do to deserve this? He comes out with the four Raw girls, they stand in the ring and wave to the crowd, and we go to a commercial. Seriously, what was the fucking point of this?
After a commercial, we hear a rundown of next week’s Summerslam Spectacular, featuring Shawn vs. Bob Backlund for the IC Title, an interview with Taker, and the steel cage match for the tag belts. We also have Hacksaw vs. Yoko. This is apparently next Sunday, instead of Monday. This concludes your show.
Overall Rating: B. You know, the video is 36 minutes, 50 seconds long. In that time we got an in ring interview and 5 matches. That’s actually a very good job, especially considering there’s time they had to kill as well. That is a very good use of TV time which is a huge lesson that WWE needs to learn now. They didn’t use a bunch of interviews and stupid segments and you got a very action packed show.
Ok so there was one real match in the whole thing aside from squashes, but some wrestling is better than no wrestling at all. This was pretty good given that absolutely nothing happened other than to build up to the next week’s show/Summerslam. Not bad for what it was, but this was the polar opposite of what Raw is now.
