WWF Monday Night Raw 19/09/1994

Lex Luger vs Executioner Agony

Feels like Lex should have run through Agony, rather than having to resort to small packages and (briefly) getting heat worked on him. Like Lex leapfrogging over a backdrop attempt before hitting some clotheslines and the torture rack to win.

Jerry Lawler vs Duke “The Dumpster” Droese

Super fun Lawler performance here, just totally entertaining schtick throughout. Right from the start, he locks a simple headlock on Droese, shit talks to the crowd, gets picked up and thrown across the ring, then cowers behind the ref. Droese hits a string of ten punches in the corner, which Lawler sells by faceplanting. Lawler takes over by luring Droese into a test of strength, then punching him with a foreign object from his tights. Absolutely loved Lawler peppering Droese with punches, then jumping to the second rope to celebrate. Such a dick. Lawler hits the 2^nd rope fist drop and a piledriver, but his ego gets the best of him and he decides to empty Droese’s own bin onto him. However, inside is Dink, who squirts Lawler in the face with a water pistol, and the King chases him, getting counted out in the process. Total King showcase, he was superb here.

The Heavenly Bodies vs Mike Bell & Steve King

We’re joined in progress, and the Bodies just demolish King, Bell never even gets in the match. The Bodies are such fun offensive wrestlers, everything looks so good. Del Ray nails a lovely Northern Lights suplex and a huge clothesline, Pritchard hits a great gutwrench powerbomb (baffling the Macho Man on commentary, who claims never to have seen that before) and Del Ray finishes with a moonsault.

Bob Holly vs Richie Rich

Interestingly, the commentary and match graphic both say “Bob Holly”, but you can clearly hear the Fink saying “Thurman Sparky Plugg” in the background. This followed an angle where Bob Backlund had brutalised a WWF magazine writer with the chicken wing, so this is sub two-minute filler while the crowd recovers. Holly throws some awful armdrags, but hits a lovely dropkick and a top rope crossbody to win.

Yokozuna vs Phil Apollo

Yoko interestingly doesn’t use any of his usual moves here – no belly-to-belly, no legdrop, no running corner splash. He just viciously beat away on Apollo, trapping him in the corner and punching him down. Boots and chokes follow, leaving Apollo in a prone position for the Bansai Drop for three. Different edge to Yoko, made a nice change of pace.

WWF Monday Night Raw 15/08/1994

Owen Hart vs 1-2-3 Kid

Bret vs Kid from a few weeks earlier is the best Raw match we’ve seen so far in 1994, but this isn’t too far off. Owen is so smug at the start of this match, utterly slappable face. He charges Kid from the get go, but runs into a leg lariat, then misses a corner charge at full speed. Kid gets a good chunk of control on a man who is the current #1 contender to the world title, as Owen is unable to shake him off from a headlock, before Kid sends him out of the ring with a dropkick. Kid continues by baseball sliding Owen into Jim Neidhart at ringside, then hits a huge top rope cannonball to the floor. Owen takes over by suplexing Kid from the apron to the floor in a huge bump, Kid’s ankles clipping the railings on the way down. Owen zones in on Kid’s back at this point, hitting two slams into the ringpost, then hitting some lovely looking offence to the spine. Vicious kneedrop, lovely second rope elbow and a ridiculously high elevation backdrop. However, he misses a top rope kneedrop, really crashing down, and Kid takes full advantage. He kicks Owen’s leg away, ties it in the ropes, then locks in a half crab after ducking an enzuigiri. This lures in Neidhart for the save and the unlikely 1-2-3 Kid DQ win. Not sure how this ending makes sense with the upcoming PPV match, as the steel cage meant Neidhart interference was impossible and the next world title contender really should be winning these matches, but the match itself was really good.

Duke “The Dumpster” Droese vs Nick Barberi

Short squash joined in progress with a big Droese slam. Barberi gets a little shine as he hits Dumpster with a few milky elbows, but Droese levels him with a beautiful clothesline. Leaping elbow, which is actually Droese’s least impressive move in this match, gets the three.

Kwang vs Tony Roy

Barely goes two minutes, Kwang clubs Roy down, standing leg lariat then hits a spinning kick for the three. Pointless, though the finishing kick does look good.

Mabel vs Raymond Roy

Not the best Mabel squash, doesn’t really show off his speed or agility. Big necksnap did look good, but we only get a few slams before Roy gets smooshed by a corner splash and a second rope elbow for the win. Some of his best offence, like his full weight belly-to-belly suplex, was sadly missing.

Jeff Jarrett vs Scott Taylor

Another ludicrously short squash, though Jarrett still find time to let Taylor get a few nearfalls. Jarrett’s main character trait is his cockiness, so it makes sense that he’d underestimate his opponent. Taylor misses a crossbody though, and Jarrett zones in on his leg straight away. Figure four gets the quick win. Post match, Mabel comes out to set up their Summerslam match, and Jarrett takes full advantage of the refs stopping Mabel getting in the ring, with big overblown chicken gestures and lying on his back to show the big man how unconcerned he is. Glorious.

WWF Monday Night Raw 25/07/1994

Tatanka vs Nikolai Volkoff

This is a $10,000 Challenge match, with Ted DiBiase putting up a prize if Tatanka can beat Volkoff. Jim Ross perfectly describes Volkoff, claiming “He’s not a smooth wrestler, but a powerful one”, as Volkoff slowly beats Tatanka down. His clubbing blows look good, but in contrast his kicks look absurdly weak. Tatanka comes back with a nice clothesline, looks more like he just runs up and whacks Volkoff hard in the side of the head. Tatanka gets the win by rolling up Volkoff on an attempted slam, but man this doesn’t exactly build him up for a match with Luger at Summerslam. Taking a beating from 47yr old Nikolai for most of the match isn’t exactly designed to make him look strong.

The Headshrinkers vs Barry Hardy & Joey Stallings

Stupidly, we go to commercial just as the Shrinkers reach the ring. We return to the Shrinkers just destroying Stallings. Nice DDT from the corner by Samu, before they just beat Stallings down in their corner. Double team Stroke is followed by a top rope Fatu splash for the win. Hardy never gets in.

Jim Neidhart vs Jim Powers

Powers gets sent to the floor at the start with this insanely high elevation. After that, it’s a pretty generic squash, all choking and clubbing by the Anvil. The end sees him lock in a sort of Dragon sleeper Camel Clutch, though he barely has Powers’ head under his control.

Adam Bomb vs Yokozuna

Curiously worked, feels like they want to keep Bomb strong, but aside from an opening shoulderblock that sends Yoko to the floor, he gets nothing for the majority of the bout. It’s all Yoko, until Bomb avoids a corner charge. Liked Yoko ducking a clothesline, only for Bomb to hit him with a DDT instead. The match looks to be hotting up, until Kwang trips Bomb from the floor, drawing him out and resulting in a count out. Not much to this.

Duke Droese vs Duane Gill

Fun squash, with the Dumpster just overpowering Gill all match. Big press slam, nice bearhug and a good slam are followed by the Trash Compacter for the win. This was good enough.

WWF Monday Night Raw 04/07/1994

Jeff Jarrett vs Tatanka

So-so match with really baffling booking. They start off at quite a quick tempo, with Tatanka hitting a nice powerslam, before settling into a series of chinlocks and headlocks. I didn’t actually mind these too much at first, as they both use them effectively. Jarrett is really fun at shit-talking with Tatanka in a chinlock, and I liked Tatanka holding onto his own headlock, managing to keep his grip every time Jarrett tried to fire him into the ropes. The odd booking comes as Tatanka takes a huge bump over the top rope and ends up getting counted out. Jarrett, the heel, demands the ref restarts the match as he wants to pin Tatanka for the win. You could claim this serves to highlight Jarrett’s ego, but it’s not consistent with the cheap-shotting, win-stealing JJ we’ve seen on previous episodes. If he wasn’t insult Macho Man whilst doing it, it would come across as a face action. Very odd. Even stupider is that, after Tatanka fires up, Jarrett quits the match and heads to the back. Doink comes out, driving him back to the ring, and Tatanka rolls him up for the loss. So the crafty heel looks like an idiot and the valiant face only won after losing the bout and having some help from outside. Terrible booking.

Jim Neidhart vs Gary Scott

Decent enough squash, as Neidhart seemed fired up to be back in the WWF. Nothing fancy, but everything looked good, and he seemed to put a little oomph behind everything. Owen Hart is great on the outside, constantly berating Scott. Neidhart hits a nasty looking stungun and a big powerslam to win.

Duke Droese vs Iron Mike Sharpe

Yeah, I almost certainly enjoyed this far more than I should, but both guys have a goofy charisma that makes this work. Sharpe stooges about amusingly in the early stages, trying and failing to slam Droese and acting all fearful when Droese has him in a prone position on the canvas. Sharpe actually gets a small run of control, but Droese blocks a piledriver and hits the big elbow to win.

“The Undertaker” vs Mike Bell

This is the Ted DiBiase-managed Brian Lee version of the Undertaker. When I was 12, I knew this wasn’t the real Taker, as I was certain he’d stay with Paul Bearer, but I remember being really impressed at how much this guy was like the real thing. Fast forward 23 years, and the illusion isn’t quite so convincing. Crucially, it’s really noticeable how much the camera crew are desperate not to show any of his face. He’s also noticeably not as tall as the Undertaker. He has a nice droptoehold, really forceful, and his version of Old School looks good, but his flying clothesline is not a patch on the real Taker. Tombstone gets the win.

WWF Raw 23/05/1994

Owen Hart vs Doink the Clown

This is a King of the Ring qualifying match. Really great Owen performance here. He’s suitably aggressive at the start, jumping Doink at the bell, hitting big upper cuts, and cheating with chokes and eyepokes. Doink is pretty generic by comparison, and relies on Dink outside the ring to give his performance some colour. Dink is a pretty irritating little twat, it has to be said. Honestly, the clowns are so unlikable, it makes it hard to feel bad for Doink when Owen goes after his leg, wrapping it around the ringpost. Owen also hits a perfect belly-to-belly suplex. Doink makes a brief comeback that gets stopped by Jeff Jarrett kidnapping Dink. This distraction lets Owen kip up and roll up Doink to win. Love that Owen kipped up to do the roll up, so wonderfully cocky, and I love that Jarrett let Dink go as soon as Doink lost – can’t blame him for not wanting to be stuck with the shitty little clown.

Duke Droese vs Barry Horowitz

I’m sure this wasn’t the aim of this bout, but I left it thinking Horowitz had a great performance. He bumps around to make Droese look more powerful than he probably was, and his control section on the arm was really fun. Dug him wrapping the arm around the ropes, then giving the ropes a kick. For his part, Droese was fine, nice power moves, but he’d look a touch lost between moves. His spinebuster looked good, and his finishes it with an elbow that looked far worse than the Trash Compacter that he’d later use.

IRS vs Gary Sabaugh

This is really dull. Sabaugh is the former Italian Stallion, but this is a one-sided squash for IRS, and he’s a terrible squash worker. His offence is really basic, and whilst there’s been many a good in-ring story told with not many moves, a squash needs something more interesting to carry the bout along. Not IRS hitting short back elbows, then going to the mat for extended hammerlocks and chinlocks. A brief Sabaugh comeback ends with a stungun, and IRS hits a basic clothesline to win. Waste of time.

Nikolai Volkoff vs Matt Hardy

I liked far more of this than I should have. Volkoff is old and pudgy, and he unleashes some of the weakest looking strikes in this match, but he also works a fun match section to start the bout, he avoids a springboard crossbody by casually walking out of the way, he hits  nice butterfly suplex and wins with a nice Boston crab. I dug this.