Monday Night Raw - January 11th 1993

• In some fun trivia, the first voice we hear and the first face we ever saw on Monday Night Raw? Sean Mooney! Outside the building (the Manhattan Centre, which is part of the Madison Square Garden complex), Mooney breaks the news to Bobby “The Brain” Heenan that he’s been replaced on commentary by Rob Bartlett. Who is Rob Bartlett? A genuinely terrible addition to this show, a comedian that Vince McMahon liked. He immediately mispronounces Yokozuna’s name. He’s a lovely guy to be fair, but wasn’t suited to this role. Always happy to see Macho Man Randy Savage though.

• The first ever Raw match is “the bird man” Koko B.Ware vs. Yokozuma, as Bartlett called him. He’s accompanied by Mr. Fuji and has a Japanese sumo ceremony before his match. Bartlett lays it in heavy with the fat jokes and Vince has to keep shutting him down because he’s burying one of his big stars already. Only four minutes in, Vince gets out Raw’s catchphrase “Uncooked, Uncut and Uncensored!”. Within reason, obviously. They circle each other until Yoko just knocks down Koko and flattens him with an over 500lbs Banzai drop for the victory. Vince goes into overdrive pushing the Royal Rumble match and the fact that Yokozuna will be in it. 

• Raw originally had “Raw girls” much like they had at boxing events. This gimmick didn’t last long, but the girl's hair REALLY lets you know it was 1993.
• In a pre-taped promo, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan addresses Mr. Perfect and hypes up the arrival of “Narcissus” who is an anatomically perfect - physically and mentally superior who is so perfect he couldn’t be sculpted from marble, and so beyond Perfect it's like he’s from another galaxy. We’ll meet Narcissus at the Royal Rumble when Heenan unveils him.

• The team of Scott and Rick - the Steiner Brothers - take on the Executioners. They’re a pair of masked jobbers. The more important element of this match is that during it, a clown is in the crowd - he’s been doing this at live events for a little while by this point and does have a name, which is Doink despite Vince getting confused and agreeing with Bartlett that his name is Dork. The Steiners throw them around with suplexes and defeat the losers with a bulldog off the top rope.
• Outside the Manhattan Centre, Bobby Heenan is still trying to get into the building. He dresses up as an old woman this time.

• In the ring, Vince McMahon interviews Razor Ramon who is scheduled to face the WWF Champion Bret Hart at the Royal Rumble. In the build up, Ramon beat up and injured Bret’s little brother Owen to send a message. Ramon has a very distinctive promo style, speaking slowly in a thick, exaggerated Cubano accent. He tells The Hitman that he’ll add his WWF gold to his collection at the Royal Rumble and then flicks his toothpick at Vince, which his real life boss didn’t look like he enjoyed. 

• Shawn Michaels defends the Intercontinental Championship against masked wrestler, Max Moon. I’ll talk a lot more about Max Moon in future because it’s a pretty funny story. Shawn Michaels has the Sherri Martel version of his theme song with his former manager singing the theme about how sexy he is. It’s kind of awesome. The match plays second fiddle to “impressionist” Rob Barlett pretending that Mike Tyson has called in from Prison. It’s as funny as it sounds, and Doink the Clown also comes down to ringside so it’s just impossible to pay attention to this match. During this match, Vince promotes the matches at the Royal Rumble and gets confused calling Shawn the WWF Champion which seems to throw off Bartlett who refers to him as “The Hitman” which is obviously Bret Hart’s thing. This is a mess. Shawn retains the title using his Teardrop suplex (think Kurt Angle’s Angle Slam but with less height). 

• There’s a commercial for WWF Mania, which was their Saturday morning show. The WWF was appealing hard to kids at the time so putting on a show around the same time as their Saturday morning cartoons was a smart move.

• Bobby “The Brain” Heenan tries one more time to get inside the building, this time dressed as a stereotypical New York Jew, which is definitely anti-semetic as he talks about bagels and has to remove his own beard because Mooney is taking too long to remove it for him and catch him out. Come on guys.

• There’s a recap from another of their weekend shows, Superstars, where Ugandan Giant Kamala who was treated like a savage animal by his handlers finally stood up for himself thanks to the Reverend Slick! More on that next week (I think)
• In the first ever Raw main event, Damien Demento becomes the answer to a trivia question facing The Undertaker. The Deadman walks along the top rope and drops an axe handle onto his opponent, chokes him in the corner and ultimately beats the goofy looking voodoo priest (I think that’s what he was supposed to be?) with the Tombstone. A dominant showcase victory for someone who was surely a Rumble match favourite.

• Some more terribly dated comedy from 1993 as Vince promotes a steel cage match between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, who were going through a messy divorce at the time. Hilarious.

• The show doesn’t end with the main event - Vince McMahon interviews Doink the Clown who laughs about how much he enjoys making children cry. He’s been warned not to do that by Crush. The big mulleted Hawaiian comes out and while doing a weird accent I can’t quite place, calls Doink brah and bruddah like a true islander. He warns Doink to stop making kids cry, and Doink sprays him in the face with his squirt flower and runs away as Crush chases him around the ring.

• In the very last shot of the show, Mooney FINALLY lets Heenan go into the building but the joke is that the show? It’s OVER! See you next week guys.

Monday Night Raw - January 18th 1993

• The second ever episode of Raw kicks off in chaos as while the commentary team is saying hello, the Repo man comes through the crowd and attacks Randy Savage, stealing his hat! Macho Man goes off looking for him but can’t find him and is forced to rejoin commentary later sans-hat. He’s very upset about it, and both men will be in the Royal Rumble match. 

• After the intro, the opening match is Terrific Terry Taylor taking on Mr. Perfect. As legend goes, Terry was given his Red Rooster jobber gimmick on the same day that Curt Hennig was given the Mr. Perfect gimmick. How different their lives would have been had they walked into Vince McMahon’s office in a different order! He’s no longer the Red Rooster, but Terry Taylor doesn’t have a much better win-loss record. During this match, Bobby Heenan calls in to blast Rob Bartlett which is fair enough. The match is decent enough - two former AWA World Champions in the ring here - and Taylor gets a near fall with a gutwrench powerbomb. Ric Flair makes his way down to the ring and attacks Perfect on the outside, hammering him with punches and chops and slamming him into the ringsteps! Perfect is the star here though and shrugs it off to finish off Taylor with his Perfect-plex and immediately runs backstage to chase down Ric Flair for that sneak attack! 
• In the ring, Vince McMahon interviews the WWF Champion Bret “Hitman” Hart. He’s all smiles when he comes down to the ring. Razor Ramon said some unkind things about Bret’s family. He says he doesn’t care if someone insults him but when they go after his family - kicking and beating his brother like a dog - he has no respect for that. Ramon also said he’d slap Bret’s father and Bret says “slap my father” so many times I now kind of want to slap his dad. Interestingly he says that while he’s the best, technically, at the Royal Rumble it won’t be a technical masterpiece because Ramon has made this personal and he’s going to beat him from one side of the ring to the other. I suspect it’ll still be quite a technical match.

• Marty Jannetty faces Glen Ruth, who fans might know as Thrasher of the late 90s Headbanger’s tag team. During the match, Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels calls in and talks trash about his title match with former tag team partner Jannetty at the Royal Rumble. I’ll obviously talk a lot more about that match at the PPV itself. Jannetty picks up the win here of course.

• There’s footage from Superstars (commentated by Jerry “The King” Lawler) where Doink the Clown launched a genius sneak attack on Crush. His arm which was in a sling turned out to be a fake arm, which he pulled out and used as a weapon to knock out Crush and hammer him across the back and head until referees and officials were able to force the evil clown to the back.

• From outside the arena, the Repo man speaks to Sean Mooney and via video link, taunts Macho Man “I’ve got your hat!” They talk about having a New York street fight and Randy is desperate to get his hands on Repo man who giggles and teases him like a cartoon villain. 

• After a commercial break and the Royal Rumble Report Macho Man is outside the arena running around the street looking for Repo man and a fight but can’t find him. Bartlett makes the same joke he made about pretty much every outlandish outfit on both shows so far, that Macho Man looks right at home on the streets of New York with the other weirdos. He’s dreadful.
• Nature Boy Ric Flair, last year’s Royal Rumble winner and former two-time WWF Champion faces “El Matador” Tito Santana. Flair spends chunks of the match yelling abuse at former rival Randy Savage on commentary which I enjoyed and confirms Bartlett had never watched wrestling before as he has no idea of their history (a Wrestlemania match and trading the WWF title back and forth in 1992). Santana hits the flying forearm which used to be his finisher but doesn’t go for the pin and pays for it as Mr. Perfect runs down to attack Flair - payback for earlier - and the match ends via disqualification. Referees and officials rush down to restrain these two men but they cannot be contained and furiously brawl up the entrance ramp and disappear backstage.

• After a commercial break, things haven’t settled down and both men are still brawling. The officials finally manage to retrain Perfect and that allows Ric Flair to talk to Vince McMahon and the audience at home at ringside. TheWWF isn’t big enough for the two of them and he wants Mr. Perfect next week on Raw - one of them stays and one of them goes, the loser has to leave the WWF! The crowd booed that because both men were popular especially with the New York fans who have always been a little smarter and “inside” than others. He tells Perfect that he will never, ever be able to beat Ric Flair. Bartlett keeps making lame jokes and undercutting the seriousness of this situation. Flair leaves and somehow, Perfect manages to peacefully get to ringside for his response - he accepts the challenge for next week. Vince McMahon can’t believe that these two men hate each other so much they’d risk their careers. I will talk a lot more about this feud and reasons for this match when we get to it next week on Raw! 

• Raw ends with the Repo man adding to his collection of stolen objects; all night long, Bartlett kept making jokes about being worried where he’d parked his car outside the arena and the payoff to that is his car being repossessed by Repo, who’s still wearing Macho man’s hat too! 

Two very quick episodes of Raw bring us to the 1993 Royal Rumble PPV! As I went through the Attitude era, I divided things up into Previews and PPVs but as 1993 didn’t have monthly PPVs I’ve decided that for now, I’ll break things up month by month and see how that goes. Here’s the announced matches for the Royal Rumble PPV.

The 30-man Royal Rumble match

WWE Championship match

Bret “Hitman” Hart © vs. Razor Ramon

WWF Intercontinental Championship 

Shawn Michaels © vs. Marty Jannetty

Sherri Martel will be at ringside

The Steiner Brothers (Scott and Rick Steiner) vs. The Beverly Brothers (Beau and Blake Beverly)

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. The Big Boss Man

Royal Rumble 1993 - Arco Arena, Sacramento California, January 24th, 1993

The show opens with no opening video, just tonight’s commentary duo of Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan excitedly running down tonight’s matches. We waste no time and get right into the opener! 

The Steiner Brothers (Scott and Rick Steiner) vs. The Beverly Brothers (Beau and Blake Beverly)

Blake is the one with the moustache (Blake with the rake) because otherwise there’s no way to tell these two apart. The Steiners get a big reaction from the fans - these two were a phenomenal tag team with legit amateur wrestling backgrounds and amazing speed to match their impressive strength. Either one of them could have been the Kurt Angle of the WWF’s New Generation era.

There’s a lot of long, awkward pauses on commentary which makes me think a lot of Brain and Gorilla’s commentary has been edited out - likely dated comments about ticket sales and the like.

The two teams keep their distance and start slowly but when Scott spins Beau into a tilt-a-whirl slam, he bails to the outside and the pair of blondes console each other and call the Steiner cheaters. 

It settles back down with Rick and Blake trying their luck, which Rick wins and the Steiners continue to pop the crowd with quick tags and impressive suplexes. The future Big Poppa Pump is the star of his team for sure, throwing both men around until an illegal double team lets the blondes control Scott in their corner and focus on his lower back. 

Blake chokes Scott in the corner as Beau distracts the referee and the fans go wild with boos - it’s really nice to be watching shows in 1993 when the fans were still so taken in by antics like that. Wrestling is most fun when it's like a panto with exaggerated good and bad guys. 

Scott hits a nice suplex and tries to make it to a tag but he’s cut off by the Beverlys and they continue to work on his ribs and lower back with strikes. 

Scott does finally get the tag and the fans explode for Rick who throws Blake and Beau around with ease, including one scary landing right on Blake’s head. He was fine, and with the match breaking down and all four men in the ring, Scott ducks Beau’s top rope clothesline and almost steals the win with a roll up on Blake. He follows up with the Frankensteiner - a hurricanrana where the opponent lands hard on their head and shoulders - to win this for the Steiners and give the crowd a happy start to the show. 

Back in 1993, video packages were still quite a new idea and a novelty on PPVs and TVs but this match deserves one, narrated by Mean Gene Okerlund.

This video includes one of the most famous moments in wrestling history - Shawn Michaels turning on Marty Jannetty and throwing him through the Barber Shop window. This feud started in 1992, but it took until 1993 for us to get this match tonight because Marty, God love him, kept getting fired for drug related issues. He has struggled with addiction his entire career. So did Shawn Michaels, but he did a much better job of hiding it and did eventually get clean and straightened out in 2002. 

WWF Intercontinental Championship

Shawn Michaels © vs. Marty Jannetty

Sensational Sherri at ringside

The big story here at the start is Sherri - who’s corner will she be in? Shawn never even apologised to her for smashing a mirror on her head! 

When the Heartbreak Kid gets to the ring, he invites Sherri to get in the ring with him but she isn’t interested. Shawn has bags of charisma and has great fun taking his time to remove his entrance gear and making Marty wait to start the match. 

In the early going, Marty outclasses Michaels and sends him bouncing to the outside more than once as Gorilla and Bobby argue about whether Sherri is concerned for his well being or not. Michaels finally gets control, running Marty’s shoulder into the ring post but weirdly, Marty sells the wrong shoulder. Shawn thankfully notices and goes back outside and runs the other shoulder into the post so that he can sell whichever one he wants. I’m not sure who’s mistake that was, but Shawn looked pissed and he was. He uses armwringers and bodyslams Marty on the floor of the entrance ramp, trying to win via countout. Marty makes it back to the ring before the ten count. Shawn stomps and wails on Marty’s arm and grinds him down to the mat as Sherri looks on, still apparently conflicted about whether to support Shawn Michaels or not.

Marty finally gets a comeback, avoiding a shoulder charge in the corner and firing up with some clotheslines and countering a suplex up and over the ropes to the outside. With Shawn groggy, Sherri picks this moment to make her intensions clear and slaps Michaels in the face! Marty suplexes him back in over the ropes for a near fall and this is his match to lose - he has full control and has stopped selling his shoulder at all. A scoop powerslam and a big DDT gets a heartbreaking near fall but HBK kicks out. The tempo has picked up dramatically and he dodges Michaels’ superkick to hit one of his own for a near fall. Shawn’s finisher was a back suplex and didn’t have his famous Sweet Chin Music yet. 

It’s a flurry of nearfalls with Marty getting closer and closer each time but the referee goes down thanks to an errant elbow! Marty invites Sherri into the ring and tells her to use her shoe as a weapon but Shawn dodges that and Marty takes a heel to the face. The Intercontinental Champion stalks Sherri, all the while glancing over his shoulder until finally he picks up Jannetty and drills him with a superkick, flipping him inside out to retain his Intercontinental title. There was a bit of a botch at the finish here as Shawn was clearly waiting for Marty to get up on his own but he never did and had to just take charge of his former partner. 

Sensational Sherri is all worked up and runs to the back, so angry at herself for messing up. Shawn sees her on the video wall talking to Mean Gene who’s trying to interview her and hilariously barks “Sherri! Damn it, calm down! You’re hysterical woman!” and goes backstage to confront her but he’s followed by Jannetty and the two brawl in the backstage until officials - including future Stooge Pat Patterson - break them up. Back at ringside, Gorilla and Heenan argue over what Sherri was intending and who’s fault it was that the match ended that way. 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. The Big Boss Man

A battle of big 300lb superstars but most excitingly, a chance to hear Boss Man’s original theme song! 

They start really fast, flying around the ring and I was enjoying this match as Boss Man bounces Bigelow to the outside but when Bam Bam gains control with a heel kick, he slows things right down and hammers on Boss Man with clubs for what felt like an eternity. Neither commentator mentioned a feud or any pre-existing issues between these men so I’ve no idea if this is a heated feud or if this was thrown together to fill up the PPV card. 

Bigelow locks in a bear hug on Boss Man’s big tummy which seems to have zero effect, but hanging him up across the top rope works. Boss Man kicks out.

Boss Man finally mounts a comeback with a big back drop and rocks Bam Bam with some big punches of his own - there isn’t much to say about this one. 

Finally a big diving headbutt off the top rope gives Bigelow the victory in a pretty dull match. It was a dominant performance though, they clearly have plans for Bam Bam. This was also Boss Man's last televised WWF appearance until 1998 as he left for WCW on March 14th.

Before the next match, we’re shown a replay of Razor Ramon’s attack of Bret Hart’s little brother on WWF Mania a couple of weeks ago. Hilariously, Ramon attacked Owen from the front meaning he must have seen him coming, no? There’s also an interview with Razor where he repeats the same thing he said on Raw two weeks ago and during the Royal Rumble Report - he has gold on his fingers, gold around his neck and soon he’ll have Bret’s gold around his waist. It’s a decent line, I’m not sure we needed to hear it three times.

WWF Championship

Bret “Hitman” Hart © vs. Razor Ramon

Mean Gene gets some quick comments from the champion before he heads to the ring. This is a very personal, family thing and Bret is going to make him pay - he’s not just defending the title, he’s defending his family’s honour. Gene and Gorilla have done a good job of hyping up Ramon and telling us this is the most danger Bret’s title has been in since he won it.

I really like Razor’s red and yellow gear. It sounds a bit like Hulk Hogan when I say it like that but it’s not. Maybe it's the shade of red? Bret’s mum and dad are in the front row and Razor flicks his toothpick at them which fires Bret up who goes straight into brawling and punches - he loses that exchange to the bigger, stronger Ramon.

Gorilla asks how long Ramon has been around “8 months?” He debuted in August, so it’s only been five. 

Ramon peppers Bret with punches, the champion locks in a Figure Four out of nowhere but the tall challenger easily reaches the ropes. That started the trend however and Bret focuses his attack on Razor’s leg with kicks and some creative pulls and stretches before wrapping him around the ring post for good measure.

That’s why they call him the Excellence of Execution I suppose.

Razor withstands that assault and regains control by reversing a whip to send Bret sliding ribs-first into the ring post. He follows up with a series of back breakers on the outside and then running the WWF Champion spine-first into the ring post. 

Razor works on Bret’s ribs for a long, long time with an endless abdominal stretch and when Bret finally fights out of it, he’s locked in a long bear hug too. Hart finally has to bite his challenger in the face to break the hold and after throwing him out of the ring and into a rough landing, Bret finally makes his comeback with punch after punch, sending Ramon reeling around the ring struggling to stay on his feet. 

Bret’s on a roll now and gets a near fall after a diving clothesline off the middle rope and then a running bulldog headlock. This is Bret’s famous five moves of doom as he then hits a side-russian legsweep and then goes for the Sharpshooter. Heenan and Gorilla have argued a lot during this match about whether Razor is too tall for the move to be locked in and that turns out to be apt as he struggles to get the hold on his challenger and Ramon breaks it up with a punch to the ribs. 

Razor’s superplex is countered, as is Bret’s dive off the middle ropes with a boot to the face.

Razor sets up his Razor’s Edge powerbomb but Bret wriggles free and takes his challenger down into a backslide for a close near fall. It very much feels like the end of this match is within sight. With both men down on the mat, Bret grabs his challenger’s legs, twists them up and then rolls to his stomach, standing up with a Sharpshooter locked in! Razor quickly submits (verbally - the “tap out” hadn’t been invented yet) and Bret Hart retains the WWF Championship in a technically proficient match with a solid story, but which I found to be pretty boring honestly. Still, an impressive victory for the Hitman on the way to Wrestlemania.

At the conclusion of the title match, Heenan leaves the commentary position up in the sky box of the arena and hustles down to ringside for the next segment which is The Brain unveiling Narcissus. Several young women are shown waiting excitedly in the front row - they’re definitely plants, given away by the fact that they’re wearing dresses and ballgowns to a wrestling event. Narisissus is in fact former WCW and NWA performer “The Narcissist" Lex Lugar, jumping ship to the World Wrestling Federation.

Lex has a very impressive physique and flexes and poses in front of mirrors while Heenan loses his mind, repeating over and over that Lex has every right to be in love with himself because he looks so good. It seems like Heenan might be the one who’s in love and he gets really graphic and excited about the various muscle groups and the definition of Lex’s body. We get lots of close ups of his poses and flexes of the man that The Brain has called “more perfect than Perfect”. This lasted way longer than it needed to and got a little bit awkward by the end. 

Lex finally addresses the crowd himself and promises to be the most dominant force the WWF has ever seen and he will make all other wrestlers bow down on their knees to The Narcissist, making sure to throw some jibes at Heenan’s former affiliate Mr. Perfect.  

Before the Royal Rumble match, Howard Finkle introduces Caesar and Cleopatra who come down to the ring. Wrestlemania 9 took place in Las Vegas at Caesar’s Palace, and this year was the first time that the winner of the Royal Rumble match was given a shot at the WWF Champion at Wrestlemania. It feels insane now to think that the winner of the match used to just get to win, with no prize for doing so. It’s quite funny to think about how badly a segment like this would tank in 2025 but even the much simpler and naive 1993 fans booed this and just wanted the match to start. 

The 1993 Royal Rumble match

Number One is a shock - last year’s winner from the 3rd entry spot, Ric Flair! He’s kicking things off against Number Two, another former WWF Champion Bob Backlund. Backlund puts down Flair with a shoulder tackle and the two grapple and wrestle like this is a normal match - Backlund is playing a goofy, straight-laced babyface here.

Number Three, Papa Shango enters and goes on the attack with punches and kicks only to be dumped out after 28 seconds. Good effort. Number Four is one half of the WWF Tag Team Champions, Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase. He and Flair team up and hammer Backlund. Backlund was 43 years old at the time. Vince was very focused on wrestler’s ages at the time, with Randy Savage confined to commentary because Vince believed he was “past it”. I’ll talk more about Randy at Wrestlemania, when we get there, and the whole age thing during the next episode of Raw! Number Five is one half of the Nasty Boys, Brian Knobbs. Hilariously neither Gorilla nor Heenan seem to know his name and just keep calling him “one of the Nasty Boys”. The action in the ring remains just punches and kicks in the corner, slowly trying to push each other out of the ring. Number Six is Virgil, who has lots of history with Ted Dibiase but that feud was about three years ago by this point. Still, Million Dollar Man goes right for his former man-servant.

Ted ducks a charge by Brian Knobbs and the Nasty Boy goes flying up and over the top rope, eliminated second. Number Seven is Jerry “The King” Lawler who was dividing his time between wrestling and commentary at the time. Heenan is a big fan of his work - heel commentators band together of course. Flair bails to the outside to catch a breather, but through the ropes so that he’s not eliminated. Number Eight is the man from outer space, Max Moon who comes in and goes right for King, putting him down with a dropkick. The Max Moon gimmick originally belonged to Konnan, who was a big star in Mexico and later in WCW. The costume and everything was designed for him and by him, but due to some jealousy backstage from main event talents who didn’t like how much attention Vince McMahon was giving him, he was basically bullied out of the company without ever appearing on TV. Subsequently the costume and gimmick was given to whomever it fit, and that just happened to be long time jobber Paul Diamond. Max was pretty short lived, and that’s the case here too as Lawler dumps him out before Number Nine, “Japanese sensation” Tenryu gets to the ring. Tenryu was a former sumo wrestler who had mixed success in Japan after his WWF career ended. Number Ten is Mr. Perfect, who goes straight after Ric Flair ahead of their “Loser leaves the WWF” match tomorrow night on Monday Night Raw. He lights the Nature Boy up with chops and the crowd goes WILD for him. He brings Flair down off the top with a big slam but a thumb to the eye slows his momentum.

Number Eleven is Skinner. The crowd doesn’t go as wild for him but do perk up when Mr. Perfect clotheslines Ric Flair up and over the top rope, eliminating him from the match! That’s a big one. Number Twelve is KoKo B.Ware who dances his way to the ring and throws punches at Jerry Lawler. Perfect knocks out Skinner with a dropkick and Heenan gets a laugh out of me on commentary, asking Gorilla for a fight and then backing down and talking about his bad back as soon as the challenge is accepted. Number Thirteen is one half of the Headshrinkers, Samu. He throws more headbutts than punches once he’s in the ring. Number Fourteen is the Berzerker who’s whole gimmick is throwing people over the top rope so he should be a favourite. Mr. Perfect launches Jerry Lawler out of the ring as Ted Dibiase eliminates Virgil. The Million Dollar Man then goes for Perfect and with some help from sore loser, already eliminated Lawler, Mr. Perfect is dumped out too.

Number Fifteen is one of the favourites and one of four former WWF Champions in the match, The Undertaker. He dumps Samu, The Berserker and Tenryu in short order. Number Sixteen is Terrific Terry Taylor, who gets an anti-pop when he comes out. Dibiase throws out Koko and Taylor at the same time, but then after a chokeslam, he’s thrown out by Undertaker too. With Undertaker as the only man in the ring, an enormous unknown man, accompanied by Harvey Whippleman, comes down to the ring in a pretty ridiculous outfit - a bodysuit spraypainted with muscles and covered in fur. He looks about 8 foot tall. This is the Giant Gonzales, who doesn’t have a name yet.

Number Seventeen is Damien Demento, who smartly doesn’t enter the ring and lets these two big men conclude their business. The giant attacks Undertaker and eliminates him with a single chop, up and over the top rope. The two brawl on the outside and he chokes and then chokeslams Undertaker in the ring, leaving him flat on his back. Number Eighteen is the other half of the WWF Tag Team Champions, Irwin R. Schyster. He joins Demento in just waiting and keeping his distance from Gonzales who continues to assault Undertaker, wrapping his legs around the ring post over and over until finally being led away from the ring by an army of referees and officials. Back in the ring, Bob Backlund is amazingly not eliminated as he had been knocked out of the ring under the ropes. He’s exhausted having been in there since the very beginning and IRS and Demento go to work, stomping on him with a double team to get this Rumble match back on track. Number Nineteen is Native American Tatanka who gets a big cheer. Undertaker is still down in the corner of the ring, struggling to sit up the way fans expect him to. Three years into his career, this is the worst beating he’s ever been given and the first time he’s looked in real pain. Tatanka rescues Bob Backlund from the two on one attack as finally, Paul Bearer returns to ringside with his urn and the power of the urn allows the Deadman to finally sit up and stumble to the back. Heenan and Gorilla do a good job of hammering home what a big deal this is, and how we’ve never seen the Undertaker in pain like this - like a moral man.

Number Twenty is the other half of the Nasty Boys, Jerry Sags. He goes right after IRS as the Nasty’s are chasing a shot at the Tag Team titles. IRS is the father of future WWE Superstars Bo Dallas and the late, great Bray Wyatt which is the most interesting thing I have to say about him. Number Twenty One is another tag team specialist, one half of the Natural Disasters Typhoon. The tag team procession continues with Number Twenty Two, Fatu. He’s the other half of the Headshrinkers but more importantly, he is the future Rikishi and father of The Usos. This family’s contribution to the WWF/WWE is insane. He trades headbutts with Sags as everyone else pairs off and tries to push each other over the ropes. Ridiculous that Damien Demento of all people is still there. Typhoon gets double teams in the corner but gets some help from his tag team partner, Earthquake at Number Twenty Three. He goes immediately after his own partner, I suppose to prove that it’s every man for themselves but that is a very stupid thing to have done - the two almost 400lbers could team up and clear the ring! Earthquake eliminates his own partner, but it looks like they’re still friends. Number Twenty Four is Carlos Calon, the Caribbean champion. “A lot of fire in this youngster” says Gorilla Monsoon about the man who was 45 years old at the time - the oldest man in this match. He eliminates Damien Demento and then locks up with Fatu. Number Twenty Five is “El Matador” Tito Santana. Fatu was thrown out by Bob Backlund off camera during his entrance.

Number Twenty Six is “The Model” Rick Martel who was the original iron man in the Rumble match, lasting the longest by miles in the 1991 Royal Rumble. He goes right after his original tag team partner Tito Santana - they feuded over that literally years ago. Earthquake launches IRS up and over the top to eliminate him next. The fans are really behind Backlund, getting loud whenever he’s near the ropes. He’s lasted such a long time, the fans want to see him go all the way now! Number Twenty Seven is Yokozuna, the almost 600lbs Japanese superstar who was in fact Samoan and related to the Headshrinkers in real life. Try not to think about that too much. Heenan says that Mr. Fuki has been stuffing him with rice and sushi to get him ready for this match.

He eliminates Tatanka almost immediately, followed by Carlos Colon and then a big staredown with the next biggest man in the match, Earthquake. John Tenta had a real life sumo background, but because he was a white American the black and white world of wrestling could never give him the sumo gimmick. Number Twenty Eight is “The Rocket” Owen Hart but no one pays any attention as everyone’s focused on Earthquake and Yoko. Yoko belly to belly suplexes Earthquake out of the ring and then Number Twenty Nine, Repo Man, runs down. He has a match with Macho Man Randy Savage on Raw tomorrow night as you’ll recall he repossessed Macho’s hat last week! Everyone gangs up on Yokozuna and tries their best to get him out but even with seven people working together, they don’t even get close.

Number Thirty, the luckiest man in the match, is Macho Man Randy Savage. The fourth and final former WWF Champion in this match goes right after Repo and beats the hell out of him, choking him on the mat and in the corner. The eliminations start to come thick and fast with Yoko throwing out Tito, Owen Hart throwing out Sags and then being launched out himself by Yoko. He folds up uncomfortably on his leg and might have injured his knee on that landing. Macho Man throws Repo Man up and over the top and the final four is Bob Backlund who’s been here since the start, Rick Martel, Yokozuna and Randy Savage. Backlund eliminates Martel and, because he’s a heroic babyface, charges Yoko. As tired as he must be, he isn’t backing down or hiding. I like that a lot. He throws some dropkicks but rushing him is a mistake and Yokozuna eliminates Backlund after 61 minutes to massive boos. Yoko dominates Macho for a few minutes, crushing him in the corner but when he tries for a second, he misses and crashes into the corner, falling like a tree onto his back!

Savage drops his big elbow from the top rope but then bizarrely goes for a cover - something which has never been part of a Royal Rumble so we can only assume the point was that he’d been knocked goofy and was running on instinct. Yoko pushes him up and all the way over the top rope to the floor and Yokozuna wins the 1993 Royal Rumble match and earns a shot at the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania 9. He doesn’t even look happy about it! 

Backstage after a montage of images from the event, Yoko was posing for photos and WWF Champion Bret Hart got in his face, taunting him with the title belt and that’s how the show ends! 

This was a decent PPV! I enjoyed the opening tag match and really enjoyed the Intercontinental title match. The WWF title match was a little boring for my tastes but that might be personal preference. The Rumble match was lacking in big spots but was never boring - the layout of a Rumble match means there’s always something happening. It feels like there’s a few plans for Wrestlemania already, lets see how those shake out! 

Monday Night Raw - January 25th, 1993

• The Repo Man arrives outside the arena in the same tow truck he had last week to steal Rob Bartlett’s car. This episode of Raw was actually filmed at the same time as last week’s meaning it was taped BEFORE the Royal Rumble. That must have been a logistical nightmare but they do a good job of hiding it. That leads directly into the opening match which is the Repossessor vs. Macho Man Randy Savage. Bobby Heenan has replaced Macho on commentary this week. Bartlett's comedy is worse than ever, pointing out Randy’s bald spot which I’m sure annoyed everyone involved. This match is just a brawl which goes back and forth and through a commercial break which was an easy way to make the show appear live, or as close to it as they could get away with. Randy picks up the win with his diving elbow drop and then after the match, he’s about to jump to the outside again and attack Repo but the referees stop that. 
• There’s a fun commercial narrated by Vince for Wrestlemania 9 in Las Vegas

• The Ugandan Giant Kamala faces The Brooklyn Brawler. The story here is that since his feud with The Undertaker, being put in a coffin changed Kamala. He was a dangerous heel savage but now he’s less violent and more childlike. His previous managers were very unhappy about that and so Harvey Whippleman has gone out and found a new monster to face Underaker, who we met at the Royal Rumble, and the Reverend Slick has now become Kamala’s manager in order to encourage his more human, babyface side. It works as he gets the crowd to chant “you are a man” at Kamala. If you’re thinking this face painted island savage gimmick was offensive…you’re probably right. It was a different time. He wins this with a splash, but there’s some comedy as he struggles to figure out how to pin the Brawler, rolling him onto his tummy. Kamala doesn’t know how to win a match because weirdly, it’s never come up before. 
• Vince McMahon heads up into the ring to interview Slick and Kamala about this new attitude and gives him credit for what he’s done for Kamala, but Slick turns it around and praises the people who are the ones who really opened their hearts to him and so he has opened his heart to them in return. Well isn’t that lovely? 

• Mean Gene gives us another Royal Rumble Report on the other side of the PPV, so this time it serves as a recap of the event and a commercial for the VHS release. The big highlights - Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart retaining their titles, Yokozuna winning the Royal Rumble and of course, the debut of The Narcissist Lex Lugar. He also reveals that the giant who attacked The Undertaker’s name is Giant Gonzales, which I’ve already told you but this was news to the viewers in 1993. 

• This week’s Raw girl is dressed a little more revealingly than the girl in week one. Heenan plays the Jerry Lawler pervert role, but he’s funnier with it than King ever was in my oh so humble opinion.

• Bobby Heenan abandons commentary to be at ringside for the next match which is Nature Boy Ric Flair vs. Mr. Perfect in a “Loser leaves the WWF” match. I’ll talk about the reasons for this match at its conclusion. It starts out with a lock up and some slaps - both men look very determined. These two were a double act when Flair first entered the WWF but in November 1992 when Ultimate Warrior walked out over a pay dispute, they needed someone to turn babyface and take his place and that someone was Mr. Perfect, “betraying” Flair and Heenan.

• Flair makes Perfect bleed with lots of sharp, short punches and works him over on the outside, using the ropes to try and steal a pin. He’ll do anything to beat Perfect and Heenan is great on commentary, living and dying on every near fall and reversal and cheering on the Nature Boy. They trade long sleepers and Flair locks Perfect in the Figure Four but he makes it to the ropes. It’s on a knife’s edge and thankfully Bartlett sits out and stays quiet for the remainder of this 20+ minute match which ran for half of the length of Raw through two commercial breaks. Flair clocks Perfect with brass knuckles, undetected by the referee but Perfect kicks out of that too! He hammers on the open wound on his head, making his opponent bleed heavily. He lights him up with chops but that seems to only motivate him and Perfect no-sells the chops - he’s had enough, and that was a mistake because it just woke him up! More back and forth ends with Perfect hitting the Perfect-plex with a bridge and the victory for Mr. Perfect! Ric Flair must now leave the WWF and Bobby Heenan is beside himself, having to be loudly beeped. Rob Barlett’s final comment are simply that it was an amazing match and yes, it was. The first properly good match in Raw history belongs to these two men. Great stuff.