The SmarK Rant for Monday Night RAW – 08.15.94
That last Clash killed my WCW mojo for a bit, so we’ll switch back to crappy 94 WWF instead for a change of pace.
LIVE from Lowell, MA.
Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Randy Savage, and this has gotta be close to the final set of tapings for Macho.
Owen Hart v. 1-2-3 Kid
Kid leaps into the ring with a spinkick and works on the arm, getting a cradle for two. They trade wristlocks and Kid kicks him down again for two and grabs a headlock. Owen does a sweet reversal into a backslide, but Kid goes back to the headlock until Owen suplexes out of it. They do another nice series of reversals and Kid dropkicks him out of the ring and follows with a baseball slide. He follows with Jericho’s springboard dive and gets rid of Anvil as well. We take a break, and return with Owen suplexing Kid from the apron to the floor and following with a pescado. Back in, Owen takes over and whips Kid into the turnbuckles for two, but he comes back with a sunset flip for two. Owen slows it down again with a chinlock and a neckbreaker, but goes up and misses a flying kneedrop. Kid goes to work on the knee enthusiastically and goes to a half-crab, so Neidhart just walks in and clobbers him at 14:00. The Kid was actually getting some protection there. ***1/2
Meanwhile, Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz is on strike, which is as close to topical as Vince ever got. Sidenote: The original name for the character was “MVP”.
Duke “The Dumpster” Droese v. Nick Barbery
Duke quickly goes to a chinlock and lets the geek get his shit in before dropping his elbow to finish at 1:14. Since when is a city worker ever in a hurry to finish a job?
Kwang v. Tony Roy
Really bringing out the big guns for the live show, I see. Kwang pounds him down and finishes with a leg lariat at 0:45.
The King’s Court with Ted Dibiase and Paul Bearer. Paul Bearer promises again that his Undertaker will destroy Dibiase’s Undertaker, so Ted brings out an Undertaker to challenge that. Bearer gets all uppity with him and gets choked out, but luckily the lights flicker on and off and everyone is too freaked out to continue the beatdown. This feud was so obviously running on fumes at this point, and they still had two weeks left until Summerslam!
Mabel v. Raymond Roy
Mabel pounds away and puts him down with a big boot. Corner splash and middle rope elbow finish at 2:30.
Jeff Jarrett v. Scott Taylor
Taylor gets a sunset flip for two, but Jarrett lays him out and pounds away in the corner. As ever, the heel stops to point at his head and gets cradled for two. Geez, that even works with jobbers. Taylor keeps coming with a bodypress, but misses and Jarrett goes to work on the leg. Figure-four finishes at 1:30. Afterwards, Oscar and Mabel come out and cut a vicious BATTLE RAP on Jarrett to build up their Summerslam match, but Lowell is pretty far from 8 Mile.
Next week: It’s Sunday Night Slam, which is actually the next one listed in the RAW shows. So that’s Lex Luger v. Crush, Diesel v. Typhoon, and Bull Nakano v. Heidi Lee Morgan! Was there something on that Monday night? Tennis or something?
