The SmarK Legacy Rant for Monday Night RAW - June 28 1993
- It's the NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS, back when you could do that concept and still only need three matches.
- Taped from Poughkeepsie, NY.
Intercontinental title: Shawn Michaels v. Kamala
Kevin Nash now has a name -- Diesel. Shawn stalls to start, but Kamala throws chops at him, so he bails out of the ring and gets some advice from Diesel. That advice: "Fake a knee injury and vacate the title." That's probably pretty close to the truth, now that I think about it. Back in, Shawn jumps into a bearhug and we take a break. Back with Kamala missing a blind charge and hurting his knee, which allows Shawn to go to work on it. Kamala doing a normal match with a heat segment and everything? Really? He shoves Shawn off and into the corner, then makes the comeback with chops and tosses him. Back in for the double chop and big fat splash, but once again he can't figure out the pinfall mechanism. This gives Diesel a chance to mouth off at Kamala, and Shawn finishes with the superkick at 8:48. This was…actually not a terrible match. Not a Shawn classic or anything, but it was a regular wrestling match where Kamala got the heat and made the comeback and people cared and everything. **1/2
Yokozuna comes out for a special interview in lieu of a title defense tonight. Vince McMahon notes that whenever America seems to be most down, someone steps up and hits a home run. Well, not so much with the eventual result of the bodyslam challenge. It was more like a solid double where the team paid all the fans to cheer and bribed the outfielder not to throw it in time to make the out. And then dubbed over the tape of the show with fans who cheered louder because the original cheering wasn't loud enough. And then edited the double to make it look like a triple. And Yokozuna TALKS. This is truly a historic show.
The Smoking Gunns v. Iron Mike Sharpe & Barry Horowitz
Even the jobbers are all-stars! Billy hiptosses and dropkicks everything in sight, and it's over to Bart for a criss-cross with Iron Mike. Mike puts his head down and Bart cradles for two, but Barry breaks it up. Bart controls him with armdrags, but Horowitz comes back with a northern lights suplex for two. Sharpe come in for the double-team, but Bart puts Horowitz down with a forearm and it's hot tag Billy. More dropkicks! Bart comes back in with a body vice, and Billy comes off the top with something resembling an inverted DDT for the pin at 4:28. That's a pretty cool finisher, but I can't really figure out what it's supposed to be accomplishing. No matter, I appreciate the visual flash.
Money Inc. joins us to whine about losing the belts to the Steiner Brothers, but Ted Dibiase deflects the discussion over to "Razor Jabrone, I mean Ramon." Basically he's an embarrassment to the heel side of the locker room, and even worse Ramon lost $10,000, which is why Money Inc. is so upset about it. I never made that connection before, actually. And poof, instant face turn for Razor, as the crowd chants openly for Ramon now.
Adam Bomb v. PJ Walker
Between the jobber and the manager, there's some impressive future ECW star power on display. Bomb pounds away and hits a sideslam while Johnny Polo does running commentary from the floor, and Bomb tosses Walker for some mocking from Polo. Back in, the slingshot clothesline and powerbomb (Atom Smasher) finish at 2:13. That's a much better name than the Meltdown, actually.
Crush v. Bastion Booger
Booger pounds away on the ropes, but Crush tries a samoan drop to no avail. Booger keeps pounding, but Crush gets a terrible-looking backdrop. He dropkicks Booger out of the ring, but gets shoved into the post and splashed. Booger pounds away on the apron, but Crush fights his way back in, so Booger chokes him out on the ropes. And we go to the bearhug. What exactly is "The original Hawaiian punch" supposed to mean? There wasn't anyone else claiming to be a Hawaiian wrestler at that point, but Crush was hardly the first one anyway. And the people who made the Hawaiian Punch drink were the original Hawaiian Punch in the first place. I just don't get it. Anyway, Crush slams Booger 3 times and pins him at 5:50. Clearly they were setting up Crush to be The Guy, so I'd be curious to know at what point they called the audible and had Luger get the push instead.
Next week: 1-2-3 Kid, Bam Bam Bigelow and Mr. Perfect! Plus people try to slam Yokozuna and someone succeeds!
Reading the review and RAW in 93 still seems 90,000 times better than Raw today. I also miss the intro music and they should bring it back.
Didn’t Crush fall into some kind of legal troubles just about or after this point? I remember he was looking to have a big push and then boom, disappeared. I also remember Lex just coming out of nowhere as the guy that slammed Yokozuna.
Didn’t he also do the injury angle with Yoko soon after? (Which would explain his absence due to said legal troubles)
Apparently Bryan Adams was busted in March of 1995 for drug and weapons violations, so this would be well after the proposed 1993 push he was supposed to get. It has to be something else, assuming of course the rumors are true.
Yep…which was actually why Crush returned with the convict gimmick (Russo wasn’t booking yet though…despite the REAL LIFE = SHOOT = RATINGS! premise here)
Well, Crush had just lost a feud to Doink The Clown. Come to think of it, he was losing as much as he was winning at this point. Back then people cared about wrestler’s win-loss records and stuff. It’s doubtful Vince would have pushed a guy who had been staring at the lights a lot lately.
That’s part of the reason Luger got it. He was still undefeated in the WWF at that point, had gone over Perfect, and it made more sense.
And many people still thought of Crush as “the guy that ruined Demolition”.
It could be Vince realized that Crush was a horrific worker. Look at Doink, Matt Bourne version…he had awesome matches with Marty, Perfect & Bret, was very over, had an awesome character…but the evil version could never get the stink from the WrestleMania bomb with Crush off and they turned him babyface.
And Crush also had the anti-classic with HBK at the King of the Ring, which I always felt was the end of Crush’s main event potential. It’s like Perfect/HBK where they were trying to hit *****. Crush/HBK was barely one star, if that. If you can’t hit * going 10 minutes with HBK…I don’t know what to say.
I thought his perfect role came with Kronik in WCW, where he could just be a tag team guy, hit some power moves and get over on the look.
Not that anyone is debating this or anything; but Shawn getting a decent match out of KAMALA is amazing. The guy is simply the best ever.
Kerry Von Erich and Hulk Hogan got decent matches out of Kamala, too. It’s not really that difficult.
The more I read these reviews and the more I ignore today’s WWE programming, the more I long for these days to be upon us again. What I wouldn’t give to have my hobby back.
Night of Champions when only one belt was defended?
Where was the promised Yoko defense?
All the Champions were there in the one Night. That doesn’t necessarily mean there’d be all the belts on the line.
Anyone who grew up during the Hogan era knew that even having the World Champion in the building was something special.
I was thinking the same thing. Where were the Steiners?
There never was a promised Yoko defense. At the end of the 6/21 show, Vince said he would be there for a “special interview.”
These were the days where having one champion on television was a pretty big deal. Having two champions simply appearing on one show was something people would get excited about. Two out of three in one night truly was a “Night of Champions” in 1993. Oh, how I miss those days.
The differences between HBK/Kamala & Crush/Booger were night and day. It’s pretty obvious why one man went on to superstardom, and the other…well, didn’t.
I think the Crush change in push had more to do with marketing than anything else. With Hogan about to leave the WWF at this point (Hogan was still doing WWF Shows in Europe after KOTR) maybe they figured Crush wearing a yellow outfit might remind the marks at the time that Crush was nothing more than a Hogan clone. Therefore they switched to Luger instead. Any story could be the case if you factor in Bret/Hogan was supposed to headline Summerslam that year.
[...] don’t want to sound nostalgic, because that road leads to thinking that 1993 WWF**** was better than anything ever. That said, it’s kind of sad that they don’t exist [...]