The SmarK Legacy Rant for Monday Night RAW - March 8 1993
- Prerecorded from New York.
- Hosted by Vince, Macho & Rob.
Money Inc. v. Virgil & Tito Santana
Nice bit of continuity, as Dibiase makes sure to tell Virgil that his boots need polishing before they start. Dibiase locks up with Tito in the corner and hits him with a cheapshot, but Tito comes back with an elbow for two. Tito works a headlock and brings in Virgil, who does his own headlock on IRS. He puts IRS down with a series of clotheslines and Irwin bails, but Tito fires away on the floor and sends him back in. Double elbow puts IRS down and Tito gets two. Tito rams him into the mat for two. The faces switch off with armbars and work him over in their corner and the crowd is surprisingly right into it. We take a break and return with Tito running into a knee. Tito collides with Dibiase, however, and it's a hot tag to Virgil. He runs IRS into the corner and puts him down with a clothesline, but Dibiase trips him up, allowing IRS to finish with a backdrop suplex at 7:30. Kind of a weak finish, but at least it was clean. **
Tatanka v. Phil Apollo
Apollo was actually something of a star in the Tri-State indies back in the day. Tatanka backdrops him out of the ring and then back in, as he whips Apollo around and chops him down. Powerslam follows, but an elbow misses and Apollo pounds away in the corner. Tatanka makes his PISSED OFF RACIAL STEREOTYPE comeback and chops Apollo down, and the Papoose To Go finishes at 2:40.
Papa Shango v. Mike Edwards
Shango hammers away and hits a samoan drop for two, but picks him up. Backdrop suplex gets two. Shoulderbreaker finishes at 2:30.
Bob Backlund v. Tony Demoro
Not yet Crazy Bob, of course. Bob offers a handshake, but the jobber is having none of it. Bob puts him down with a throw and then outwrestles him into another throw, and Demoro takes a breather. Back in, Backlund fights for a butterfly suplex and then wrestles him down for the pin at 3:50. This, it should be noted, is the only time I've ever heard where Vince says someone "shoots the half" and it actually gets the pin.
Mr. Perfect v. Rick Martel
Vince is already hyping Perfect v. Luger as one of the "greatest all-time matches in Wrestlemania history", which it so turned out not to be. They trade headlocks to start and Martel gets a cheapshot and hammers on him, then evades a clothesline and shows off his jumping jacks. Perfect, being perfect, repeats the same sequence himself. That bit never gets old. Martel goes to the eyes and throws knees in the corner, then catches Perfect with a knee out of the corner to take over. Martel with an armbar takedown and he works on that, but Perfect leverages him out of the ring. We take a break and return with Martel getting a gut wrench suplex for two. Martel hammers on the neck and goes to a camel clutch, but Perfect fights out, only to run into a knee. Martel with a backbreaker to set up a slingshot splash, but it hits the knees. Martel keeps coming and goes to the middle rope, but Perfect nails him on the way down and sends him into the corner with an atomic drop. Perfect fires away on Martel and backdrops him out of the corner and we take another break. And we return with Perfect victorious at 7:36. It's a taped show, they couldn't have cut around the finish? Whatever, good TV match. ***
Next week: Kamala! Razor Ramon! Typhoon v. Bam Bam Bigelow!
I will always remember that Perfect/Martel match, not only because Hennig is my all-time favorite, but because of the commerical break finish.
Even as a 13 year old semi mark, I remember being smart enough to recognize the show was taped because they didn’t put the “live” graphic at the beginning of the show. I’ve always found it fascinating that they tried to show the unpredictability of the show being live by having a match end during a commerical ON A TAPED SHOW!!!
God bless the creative duldrums…
Perfect vs Luger could had been good. Maybe WWF was hoping the Perfect could had worked good with Luger like Flair did.
Yeah, I agree, back then Perfect v. Luger seemed like one of those interpromotional dream matches. And on paper, WM9 did seem like a good card.
Yeah, it seems like Luger/Perfect should have been good. Perfect could still go for sure and Luger put on a decent enough match with Sting the year before. Wasn’t Luger in a bad motorcycle accident around this time? I don’t think he had another good match the rest of his career really, at least not in the way he had good matches with Flair, Steamboat, Dan Spivey, Stan Hanson, Brian Pillman, and Barry Windham. I kinda liked his match with Ron Simmons at Hallowen Havoc as well.
If Luger/Perfect had happened in 1990 though, I’m sure it would have been pretty awesome!
I may be in the minority on this but I also thought the narcissist gimmick was pretty good. I sure hated him back in 1993! I certainly thought it worked for him better than the babyface Lex Express.
Luger gets crapped on alot by smarks. They always say “Flair carried Luger” or “Sting carried Luger”. Luger COULD Work. Luger really never was really carried in his matches. Luger had decent WWF matches in 93-94.
The WWF had talent in 1993. They just didnt use the talent right. I could had booked WM 9 way better. It would had been safe just to book Bret Hart vs Mr. Perfect World Title at WM 9.
I still don’t know why they messed with Luger at all…the Total Package was a great gimmick, that could be face or heel, and it already had an established fanbase. I liked the Narcissist gimmick but he could have done the same thing with his original name…and Narcissist was too hard to say, Bobby Heenan could NEVER say it right.
The Lex Express thing, again…why couldn’t they just have made Lex a face. The whole “Made in the USA” thing just screamed FLASH IN THE PAN because it was a gimmick made for one feud against Yokozuna. If you looked at Hogan, he only played the role of super American hero when necessary (Volkoff, Slaughter, etc.)…its not like he was carrying Old Glory to face Andre or Savage.
Before Luger’s debut at the Royal Rumble, Heenan referred to him as “Narcissus”, which was the name of the character from Greek mythology that fell in love with his reflection. He wasn’t known as “The Narcisst” until after he debuted, likely because they didn’t want people knowing it was Luger beforehand.
Basically it is also probably the well-known compulsion Vince has to take talent/a persona, and make it his own. Sometimes it works, others not so much.
It’s OK to want to have your touch on some kind of work you present to other people. I just hate it when it borders on prejudice against other people’s stars. (On the flip side of the coin, there’s TNA who’ll push anyone who was seen in the WWE, pretty much EXACTLY AS THEY WERE IN THE WWE. There needs to be a happy medium sometimes)
This is a fair point I think. And he certainly could work. I have seen so little of his work, outside of the big matches, in 1993 – 1995, so I can’t really say if he had any good or great matches in that period of time, but from 1988 until 1992 you could usually count on him for an entertaining match, which is more then you can say for most musclebound primadonnas.
“Next week: Kamala! Razor Ramon! Typhoon v. Bam Bam Bigelow!”
…and FINALLY, Rob as Vince! (I think)
After all the craziness of the previous year, it’s funny how pedestrian the buildup to this WM was. Right now, pretty much every angle has happened – all that remains is Yoko hurting Bret at the contract signing, and then Lex attacking Bret at the pre-WM breakfast, since Hogan couldn’t be bothered to do much work leading up to the big show. The lack of Bret and Yoko interaction really hurt this show – I’m all for serious buildups, but just having both guys beating everyone and never interacting doesn’t make any sense.
In homage to the Terry Gordy/Steve Williams team, known as “The Miracle Violence Connection”, the team of Virgil and Santana, two of the greatest J2TS (Jobbers To The Stars) of the time, were known throughout rec.sport.pro-wrestling as “The Miracle Jobber Connection”