Monday Night Raw - April 4th, 1994

• As well as the big 10 man tag team match which was bumped from Wrestlemania, the other big match promoted for tonight is a Wrestlemania rematch between Earthquake and Adam Bomb. The show opens with them screaming at each other backstage - Bomb accuses Quake of taking a cheap shot ahead of his 35 second victory in Madison Square Garden. 

• Just in case you wondered if this week’s was pre-taped, Vince McMahon and Gorilla Monsoon appear via greenscreen in front of the live crowd to open the show.
• Earthquake vs. Adam Bomb opens the show but there’s extra drama as Vince reminds us of the altercation at Wrestlemania between Bomb’s manager Harvey Whippleman and ring announcer Howard Finkle. Will they come to blows again tonight? They get into an argument at ringside but Harvey backs down when Howard gets in his face. Meanwhile in the ring, it lasts a lot longer than Wrestlemania and is a decent big man vs. big man match as both men move really quickly and actually bump for reach other. Bomb scores with a nice clothesline off the top rope but Quake rallies and finishes off Adam Bomb with his Earthquake splash to pick up the win in just over four minutes.

• After a replay of Mr. Perfect’s questionable officiating at Wrestlemania, Lex Lugar makes some pre-recorded comments about having a BIG issue with Perfect’s ruling and says he can’t wait for Perfect to take his suit off and get in the ring with him. From there, Gorilla Monsoon interviews Perfect himself in the ring. He refuses to take any blame and recaps the events as he saw them - Lex Lugar brought Cornette and Fuji into the ring, which was against the rules, and then he not only tapped him on the shoulder but he shoved him so he was perfectly justified in disqualifying Lex Lugar. Gorilla says he does have a problem with that; its a paper thin excuse and he could have and should have counted to three when Lex had Yoko beat in the middle of the ring. Perfect tells Lex to remember that when he touches Mr. Perfect, he’ll pay for it. Gorilla suggests that the issues between Lex and Perfect are far from over but sadly the match won’t come to be because of Perfect’s recurring injuries. Interested to see how that all develops. 

• Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon takes on Austin Steele. I remember this guy because he’s the one who looks and acts like a chubby Ric Flair. Razor takes his time, showing off his big moves and finishes with the Razor’s Edge.
• Up next, Johnny Polo and The Quebecers discuss their Tag Team title defence next week against a yet to be named team. It’s a fan vote - The Bushwackers, The Smoking Gunns or Men on a Mission. Speaking of Men on a Mission, Vince and Gorilla mentioned that on the UK tour the prior week, Mabel and Mo actually WON the Tag Team titles, but lost them back to Jacques and Pierre two days later. That makes The Quebecers three time tag team champions. Captain Lou is still working with President Tunney to get The Headshrinkers a title shot.

• After a reminder of the backstage fall out at Wrestlemania, the 10 man tag team match is next. Irwin R. Schyster, Jeff Jarret, Rick “The Model” Martel and The Headshrinkers (Samu and Fatu w/Afa) vs. The 1-2-3 Kid, Thurman “Sparky” Plugg, Tatanka and The Smoking Gunns (Billy and Bart Gunn). The Headshrinkers are technically babyfaces now but this must have been pre-taped because they don’t have Captain Lou this week as they team up with three heels. Vince and Gorilla keep calling Double J a crybaby as the previous weekend on Superstars, he lost a match to Sparky Plugg and then blamed the referee and had a good whine about it. I won’t try to recap this blow for blow but every man gets a chance to tag in and have their moment to shine before tagging out. Gorilla keeps mentioning that IRS wants Tatanka to pay a “gift tax” on the special ceremonial headdress he was presented with before Wrestlemania. The match breaks down into a wild brawl and in the ring, the 1-2-3 Kid misses a big kick in the corner to IRS, landing hard on the back of his head. Irwin covers and that’s enough for the three count. IRS, Double J, The Model and the Headshrinkers win. 

• Shawn Michaels debuts his own interview segment, the Heartbreak Hotel. He has a flashing neon sign and a heart shaped bed. Awesome. He issued a challenge to Razor Ramon for the Intercontinental title on behalf of Diesel. This was all Shawn’s idea - he wanted to only wrestle at house shows and on PPV, never TV. If you want to see him wrestle? Pay to see it in person or on PPV. This talk show segment lets him still work on his character and will only make his stock soar with both the fans and with Vince McMahon who was always heavily into character work. Vince says that the Heartbreak Hotel’s permanent home will be WWF Superstars and next week’s guest will be WWF Champion Bret “Hitman” Hart! That’s big. Gorilla mentions that Rowdy Roddy Piper has a new talk show segment of his own - Bottom Line, which will be on All-American Wrestling (which is hosted by Gorilla and Johnny Polo these days since Heenan and Okerlund are both gone)

• In the main event, former WWF Champion Yokozuna clashes with Scott Powers. Yoko crushes him with a Banzai drop in the corner. He looks pissed to have lost his title. Yoko takes his time and stays sat on Powers for a very long time before finally standing up. 

Monday Night Raw - April 11th, 1994

• Raw opens with the three teams in tonight’s fan poll making a last minute plea to the fans for their votes for tonight’s Tag Team title match. That’s a lie, this show was pre-taped so that’s really dishonest to still be encouraging fans to vote right up to the last minute like that. 
• Macho Man is on commentary this week with Vince and they’re full of praise for Diesel who kicks us off in a match against Virgil. Shawn Michaels is at ringside to cheer on his bodyguard and now I guess just friend and tag team partner. Shawn has given Diesel his “big daddy cool” nickname now too, which is what his buddies used to all call in behind the scenes. I’ll discuss the Klique in full at Summerslam as there’s a big match on that card where it’ll be relevant. Virgil puts up a bit of a fight but the Jackknife powerbomb gives the big man a victory. 
• The return to Raw of Jerry “The King” Lawler. He’s carried to the ring on a throne by a crowd of jobbers, one of whom is future WWF Superstar D’Lo Brown! He gets to ringside and then takes a big prat fall off his throne which gets a big reaction from the fans and from Macho Man. Savage spends a lot of time drawing comparisons between Lawler’s talk show segment and Roddy Piper’s new one, Bottom Line. His guest is Lex Lugar who joins in with the fans having a good laugh at King’s expense as he rants about how much he hates the people and yells at Macho Man and Vince for laughing too. Vince really yucks it up with a big fake laugh at each and every one of Lex’s jokes and the fans pop when Lex tries to sit in the King’s throne rather than on the guest’s bench. Moving on, King says that he’s spoken to Mr. Perfect who continues to take issue with Lugar’s complaining. It’s the same argument as last week - Perfect believes he was fair in disqualifying Lex, Lex and most other people disagree. Lawler confirms for us all that Perfect is the heel in this situation by praising and agreeing with Mr. Perfect. Lugar ends by repeating his challenge from last week - Mr. Perfect needs to get out of his suit and get back in the ring. 

• Sparky Plugg faces Barry Horowitz. Mr. Perfect calls in during this match to address Lugar’s comments and tells Lex he has a nerve challenging him. He and Macho argue back and forth about whether Perfect has the guts to stand up for himself against Lex physically. Perfect just repeats all his defences from last week. Sparky Plugg picks up the win.

• After a final plug for the fan telephone vote for the main event, The Quebecers enter to defend their Tag Team titles. They don’t seem very worried despite not knowing who their opponents will be and the winner of the vote is - Men on a Mission. Oscar’s pre-match rap focuses on the fact that Mabel and Mo have already beaten them twice, which is valid. This is WAY better than their Wrestlemania match and is the match they should have had in MSG. The crowd is really hot for it and MOM are more than a match for the champions. Jacques and Peirre use twin magic to swap places, undetected by the referee more than once and there’s a series of very close near falls until finally Jacques uses Johnny Polo’s croquet mallet to knock out Mo and steal the victory, retaining their Tag Team titles.

• Raw ends with a recap of the Presidental easter egg roll at the white house which the Bushwackers, Doink and Dink were all present for. They even met the President’s cat. 

Monday Night Raw - April 18th, 1994

• At the start of Raw, Macho Man and Vince McMahon welcome us to the show and hype up Bret Hart vs. Kwang (yes, really) and Macho Man says that since Bret Hart is such a fighting champion, maybe he should give a title shot! I’d be into that. 
• That match kicks off the show. Kwang doesn’t even get an entrance. Kwang puts up a bit of a fight with his faux kung fu. Owen Hart calls in during this and Vince asks him what will happen when they get back in the ring - Owen obviously believes that he’ll win the WWF Championship next time. Bret wins this with the Sharpshooter but unlike Owen, releases the hold as soon as his opponent taps out like a super babyface. 

• Double J faces PJ Walker. They turned off the arena lights for his entrance, and they turned off the arena lights for Bret’s victory celebration with pink strobe lights too. There’s definitely been a little bit of a visual upgrade since Wrestlemania X. Vince, for about the 12th week in a row, randomly brings up Bill Clinton so he can throw thinly veiled jabs at him. He had some kind of edict that the commentators on Raw were to talk about the news and current affairs and most weeks it’s not worth mentioning but most weeks it's also usually tinted with his own biased politics. Jarrett wins this match with the DDT he’s used since his debut. 

• Captain Lou Albano demands an answer from President Tunney - when will The Headshrinkers get a shot at the WWF Tag Team Champions The Quebebecers. He wants his answer next week.
• Rick and Scott Steiner face Barry Hardy and Mike Khourey. This is the last we’ll see of The Steiners but that must have caught Vince by surprise given that they win this squash match with ease and look strong. They went to wrestle in Japan for a while before returning to WCW in 1995. I talked about Scott and Rick being phased out and moved down the card at the Royal Rumble so I’m sure they were glad to get out of the company. 
• There’s a video promoting the arrival of Duke “The Dumpster” Droese. He’s a wrestling garbage man.

• In the ring, Jerry Lawler hosts another edition of The King’s Court. His guest this week is Women’s Champion Alunda Blayze in her first ever Raw appearance. King is really nasty about her appearance for some reason. She comes out with a paper Burger King crown and says that his talk show is a rip off of Roddy Piper’s talk show and he should be paying Royalties. King says Piper’s mouth never closes and he wishes he was a King. He then moves onto Alunda and asks where her title belt is and brings out a woman who if she was champion, she’d have a lot more respect for the title and for him - Luna Vachon. King randomly says that Luna might have stolen Alunda’s title belt - Vachon says she might be the princess of mayhem but she’s not a thief. Alunda fires up and says that Luna stole her title because she’ll never be champion and challenges her to a match now. Luna tries to attack her so King has to hold them apart and then Alundra just…leaves. 

• Earthquake faces Mike Bell. Vince and Macho talk a bit about Quake’s real life sumo background - he’s a real sumo wrestler, unlike Yokozuna who’s a pretend one. He throws a couple of dropkicks in this match to show that he can do it all. They’re working towards Yoko vs. Earthquake it seems. 
• The previous weekend on WWF Superstars, IRS interfered in Tatanka’s match with Kwang, costing Tatanka the match and then after he had green mist sprayed in his face, tied him up in the ropes and forced him to watch as Tatanka’s special headdress was torn up and destroyed. He even beat up Chief Jay Strongbow. Jesus Christ man. I’d go out on a limb and say that destroying a real Native American artifact is against the law. That leads into a match on Raw with IRS vs. Major Yates (That’s his name, he’s not in the army). IRS slaps the jobber around and locks him in The Penalty, which is a modified STF for the submission victory. People in 1994 loved a submission finishing move.

• Raw ends with a Johnny Polo interview. Vince and Macho ask how he feels about The Quebecers having to face the Headshrinkers for the Tag Team titles. He’s not worried because OBVIOUSLY Jacques and Pierre can defeat the Headshrinkers. From there, Jerry Lawler announces that he’ll pull Nikolai Volkoff out of the crowd to be in the King’s Court next week. Alright then?

Monday Night Raw - April 25th, 1994

• Bizarrely, Raw opens with hype for Nikolai Volkoff being on The King’s Court and then after the Raw intro, Macho Man mentions it too. Maybe it’s a bigger deal than I think it is?
• In the opening match, Razor Ramon takes on Double J. They’re very specific that the Intercontinental title is NOT on the line here because Razor will be defending the title against Diesel the following weekend on WWF Superstars. Vince mentions that he successfully defended the title against Adam Bomb and very impressively got him up for the Razor’s Edge on the previous Superstars. That is impressive. This is a really good match, back and forth with Jarrett looking like he’s on Razor’s level. It looks like Ramon is closing in on a victory when Shawn Michaels comes to ringside. Ramon fights him off and tries to give him a Razor’s Edge but Diesel is next out and puts Razor down with a big boot, getting Jeff disqualified. Diesel drops the Intercontinental Champion with a pair of Jackknife powerbombs and then he and Michaels celebrate over Razor’s fallen body with his Intercontinental title belt. Backstage after a commercial break, Diesel is happy with what he’s done and Michaels guarantees that his man is the next champion.

• Bam Bam Bigelow (with his main squeeze, Luna Vachon) faces Tony Devito. During this match, Jack Tunney calls in and the President of the WWF confirms that The Quebecers WILL defend the Tag Team titles against The Headshrinkers next week on Raw. Bam Bam wins this match by the way. From there, we go backstage for words from Johnny Polo and the Champions. Johnny is gravely concerned but Jacques and Pierre are not - they aren’t afraid of anyone and will retain their titles again. They keep saying that The Headshrinkers used to be their friends - what they mean is they used to be heels too.

• Jim Cornette’s Heavenly Bodies Jimmy Del Ray and Tom Prichard (who’ve added little angel wings to their entrance robes) take on John Paul and Mike Hennings. Vince mentions during this match that Lex Lugar and Mr. Perfect’s match was signed but Mr. Perfect has backed out of the deal and so has been indefinitely suspended. That’s because they’ve now finally accepted that he can’t wrestle and that’s just to draw a neat line under the storyline with Lex. The Bodies have won this match three times but keep breaking their own pins to keep showing off. They finally win with a Del Ray moonsault to a standing John Paul for the victory. Fans couldn’t have cared less.
• Jerry “The King” Lawler hosts another edition of the King’s Court and brings Nikolai Volkoff out of the crowd and into the ring. King is full of jokes about how little money Nikolai has and how he has fallen from grave. He does hype him up a little mentioning his former wrestling skills and accolades at least. Nikolai says he had some bad investments and lost all his money but even though he’s from Russia, he is now a proud American citizen and will work hard for money. King tells him to beg. Nikolai fires back saying that he is a proud man who doesn’t beg. He is an honest, hard working man. That gets a big cheer from the crowd and Vince loves it! King says that anyone who has a job for an honest hard working man should call him, and tells him to sit with “the bums in the audience” and Volkoff says he’d rather sit with them than be in the ring with King any day. An odd segment but the fans reacted the way you’d hope for. I think it MIGHT have worked?

• The 1-2-3 Kid takes on Duane Hill and his bleach blond mullet. A big swinging spinning heel kick gives the Kid the victory.
• Over the past few weeks, they’ve been airing videos of regular people spotting The Undertaker out and about. They’ve mostly aired over the weekend shows but the one here is a guy claiming that The Undertaker came into his shop and bought an enormous sandwich with roast beef. Of course we haven’t seen The Undertaker since the Royal Rumble.

• Owen Hart faces Rich Myer. He bullies the jobber for a bit before making him tap out to the Sharpshooter, and beats him up a little more after the match.
• At the end of Raw, Captain Lou Albano comes out to share his excitement about potentially managing ANOTHER team to the Tag Team gold next week. He’s interrupted by Johnny Polo who gets a little aggressive so Macho Man holds him for Albano to punch in the face and the show ends with him raising the Captain’s hand in the middle of the ring.