The SmarK Legacy Rant for Monday Night RAW - May 24 1993
- Taped from New York.
- Your hosts are Vince, Macho and Brain.
King of the Ring Qualifier: Doink the Clown v. Mr. Perfect
This is the third match between them, as the first two went to non-decisions on Superstars. Lord Alfred finds another Doink in the street ("There's a clown under the ring, and Lord Alfred Hayes outside" to quote Vince), so you know there's shenanigans afoot. Doink attacks to start and chokes Perfect out with his own towel. Perfect slugs back and they exchange fists before Perfect takes him down and goes after the knee. Perfect wraps the knee around the post as we take a break. Back with Perfect pounding him in the corner, but Doink tosses him and follows with an axehandle off the apron to take over. He sends Perfect into the post, but back in Perfect takes him down with a headscissors and holds onto that. Doink reverses him for two as Bobby gets his classic "Doink is like Jello, there's always room for more" line in. Doink then breaks out a Fujiwara armbar to take Perfect down, but Perfect breaks free and goes back to the bad leg again. He hooks him in an Indian deathlock, but Doink goes to the eyes to escape. He goes back to Perfect's arm, yanking on it and running it into the post, then into a top wristlock. We take another break and return with Perfect clotheslining Doink to the floor, but here's another Doink under the ring. The original one hides under the ring, while GatorDoink takes his place and hammers Perfect into the corner. Sadly, he puts his head down, and NOW YOU'RE GONNA SEE A PERFECTPLEX at 11:38. Good work, solid wrestling, clean finish (well as clean as a match with multiple evil clowns is gonna be). ***1/2
Money Inc. v. Tony Devito & Mike Bell
Dibiase does the "I've got $100 for someone to shine my shoes" deal and Bobby immediately pipes up with "Hold my headset!" Great delivery there. The kid shines the shoes, but IRS deducts $70 for taxes. That's about right. Vince is all "That kid was just humiliated!" but really the kid made $30 for a minute's worth of work. Go get a haircut and enjoy the real world. I'd also point out the irony in Vince getting upset for someone getting screwed out of money promised to them, but really that's too easy. Devito gets worked over in the corner and tossed by Dibiase, and IRS drops an elbow as Vince dubs Sean Waltman "The 1-2-3 Kid" for the first time. Dibiase chokes Devito out on the ropes and follows with a suplex for two. IRS with a nice double underhook suplex and Dibiase follows with the powerslam, and IRS finishes with the Writeoff clotheslines at 3:52. "Devito just got squashed" notes Vince. Thanks for clarifying that.
Crush v. Bobby Who
No relation to Jim Neidhart. Who tries a full-nelson, which is easily broken by Crush, and he puts the jobber down with a high knee and follows with a delayed suplex. They head to the floor and Crush puts him down with a clothesline. Back in for the bearhug, which turns into a belly to belly, and the head vice finishes at 3:16.
Razor Ramon joins us for a special interview, as he's offering the 1-2-3 Kid $2500 to wrestle him again next week. Bret Hart comes out and laughs at him for getting beaten by a jobber.
Adam Bomb v. Phil Apollo
Now here's a debut for the ages. Bomb slugs away in the corner and hiptosses Apollo into a dropkick, then elbows him down and tosses him. Back in, a flying clothesline and powerbomb finish at 2:23. This was the weird case where the manager (Johnny Polo) was 100 times the worker and talker that the wrestler was.
Next week: Marty defends the I-C title against Bam Bam Bigelow!
Out of curiosity, why is it that Polo/Raven was given the role of manager and commentator, rather than wrestler? Anyone up on their Raven lore that can answer that?
I think Raven was working backstage at the time and they valued him more as an office guy than a wrestler. Besides, the Raven identity didnt come around for another year or so in ECW and it wouldn’t have flown in the cartooney WWE.
Maybe they didn’t know Raven was that good of a worker?? I’ve only seen a handful of matches from him as Scotty Flamingo or whatever from WCW, didn’t wow me or anything. But he was an awesome talker so they figured that was his best role, I assume.
And I’ll second that I loved Johnny Polo, especially on commentary.
The Doink/Perfect series of matches are extremely underrated. Those two had AMAZING chemistry together.
I miss Raven’s Johnny Polo character. He was always hilarious on color commentary, and I wish he stuck around longer than he did. On a related topic, the quebecers RULED it back in the day. They had good entrance music, double teams, and a manager who you loved to hate (at least he was in our little group back in the day), how could you NOT love Polo?
The Quebecers were my favourite tag team of the era, I loved the double teams.
I think Daivari/Muhammad Hassan was a similar situation to Scotty Polo and Adam Bomb, in that Daivari was the superior worker in between the ropes, yet I think Hassan still had the better mic work. That said, I think Daivari still has a lot to offer if he were to consider another run in WWE, but apparently he’s just re-signed with TNA. Hopefully they use him better than they have been.
Can someone clarify the Doink situation? Scott also said some guy called Ray Lichachelli played the 1994 version, but can’t find a profile on that guy anywhere on ObsessedWithWrestling, as they say it was Phil Apollo that played the ‘94 Doink.
Oh, forgot to mention that Bomb sucked at first, but got better later on.
When I was a kid, I loved Bomb even at this point. His heel entrance theme was awesome.
same here. I always that he totally had that “superstar look”. unfortunately he couldn’t talk …. and Johnny Polo was not the right choice because he was too goofy to get Bomb over as a monster heel.
Original Doink was Matt Bourne, and the “mirror Doink” was Steve “Skinner” Keirn. Steve Lombardi was the third Doink on the house show circuit for a while, and when Bourne left in late 93 they turned Doink face and replaced him with Lichachelli, who wrestled on the indy circuit as Ray Apollo. That’s probably where the confusion comes from, but Ray and Phil were two different guys. Ray wasn’t even a particularly good worker or a good match for the gimmick, as he was noticeably bigger than either Bourne or Keirn and was pretty much just a warm body to stick in the suit.