The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Monday Night RAW – October 10 1994
– Back to the REALLY bad period for RAW, with a “Night of Kings” theme from 1994 to celebrate the royalty theme for 24/7 this month.
– Taped from somewhere not mentioned.
– Your hosts are Vince & Macho King. OK, he’s not a king at this point, but it fits the theme.
Bam Bam Bigelow v. Lex Luger
Vince, in reference to Tatanka’s turn at Summerslam 94, proudly notes that Luger will never sell out and that he personally will never doubt Lex’s word again. HA! Oh, the bitter, bitter irony. You can’t buy awesome like that. Bam Bam attacks and stomps the back, then adds a slam for two. Luger comes back with a back elbow and puts Bigelow on the floor, but Dibiase’s cronies swarm around and prevent him from following up. Back in, Luger works on the arm and Savage notes that Tatanka disappointed “Native Americans all over the world”. Yup. Luger keeps working on that armbar, showing the kind of fire that powered the Lex Express right into Wrestlecrap history, but Bigelow powerslams him and goes up, only to miss the flying headbutt. Lex gets a clothesline for two, and since Bigelow is really staggered now, he…goes back to the armbar. King Kong Bundy wanders out and distracts Lex, and we take a break. Bigelow needed Bundy’s help to escape an ARMBAR? No wonder he lost to a football player. And speaking of losers, Lex’s good friends (not yet King) Mabel and Adam Bomb come out to even the odds, and wouldn’t you want THEM on your side when shit goes down? Bigelow chokes away and gets a DDT for two. Bam Bam gets a stupid looking move where he appears to jump up for a rana, but kind of just claps his ankles together and falls down instead, and that gets two. OK then. We hit the chinlock, but Lex uses THE POWER OF AMERICA to fight up, so Bam Bam headbutts him down and chokes him out again. Dibiase lays the badmouth on him, calling him a loser, and Savage pipes up in his defense: “No, Dibiase, YOU’RE a loser!” You tell him, Macho! Luger comes back with the three clotheslines and STAINLESS STEEL FOREARM OF DEATH, but Bigelow pops up, so Lex sends him into Tatanka and rolls him up for the pin at 10:44. Oh, this was truly a special time in WWF history for shitty TV matches and dumb angles. 1/2*
– Let us take you back to WWF Superstars (two words I’m shocked to see on screen together!) as Bob Backlund challenges Bret Hart (who is quagmired in a sea of hiphopracy, and Bob’s not gonna vacillate from one opinion to another!)
Mabel v. Reno Riggins
Man, Riggins is looking rough here compared to his 80s jobber glory days. Mabel, thanks to cost-cutting measures, has to do his own shitty rapping without the benefit of Oscar. Vince actually compares Mabel to Barney here, which is in inside locker-room joke from the time that I didn’t think ever made it to air. Apparently guys used to circle around Mabel and sing the “I Love You” song as a rib on him. Mabel throws Riggins around, but misses an elbow. He’s only got a headlock to follow up, and Mabel slams out of it and drops the leg to finish at 2:00. His post-match rapping inspires the two lonely black kids in the audience to get down.
(King of Harts) Owen Hart v. John Crystal
Crystal is the jobber who people were like “OMG, that’s Santino Marella!” but I don’t really see it. It’s not actually him, but it was a popular theory last year for some reason. Owen works on the arm and gets a legdrop, while Vince makes bizarre pop culture references on commentary (Jack Tunney on the Late Show, singing a duet with Barry Manilow? Bull Nakano to play Princess Leia in the new Star Wars movies?) Crystal comes back with a hiptoss, but Owen puts him down with a backbreaker and hits the belly to belly to set up the Sharpshooter at 3:35.
– Back to this WWF Superstars show (WWF? Superstars? I’ve never heard of these names before) as Undertaker throws down the punk card to Yokozuna, but I’m pretty sure Yoko is too fat to pick it up.
King Kong Bundy v. Mike Khoury
Khoury slugs away and gets a dropkick, and Vince notes it’s like dropkicking a building. That’s actually a pretty good analogy for once. Bundy casually swats him down and drops a knee, then tosses him. Back in, Bundy pounds him down, but picks him up at two. And Vince inserts MORE pop culture stuff, talking about then-recent movie “The Specialist” with Sharon Stone. Bundy gets the Avalanche and pins the jobber for the five count at 2:45, although the production guys screw up and play his music at three.
– Back to Superstars, as Doink plays a HILARIOUS prank on Jerry Lawler, tricking him into sitting in a pie. And by hilarious, I mean stupid. Where’s Mr. Fuji when you need him?
Jerry “The King” Lawler introduces us to one of the stupidest ideas out of the WWF think tank that year (and this is saying something), as we meet Queezy the midget. This of course led to the brutally bad and unfunny Survivor Series “comedy” match between Doink’s midgets and Lawler’s midgets.
The Headshrinkers v. Cory Student & J.S. Storm
This is the bad period, so of course Samu has now been replaced by the “barbaric” (yuk yuk, Vince) Sionne. Student, who has the worst name AND tights I’ve seen in quite some time, starts with a headlock but gets tossed around by Sionne the Barbarian. Storm comes in and gets walloped by the Shinkers, and Sionne kills him dead with the big boot at 1:37. Yeah, Barbarian as a babyface from Samoa, THERE’S a money idea.
– Meanwhile, Razor Ramon goes to confession on behalf of the New WWF Generation. Yeah, I’m pretty sure Hall’s got more to confess than just knocking a guy out for stealing his toothpick.
SO BAD. And yet SO MUCH material to work with. It tears me up inside.
