Monday Night Raw - January 3rd 1994

The revolving door of commentary partners for Vince McMahon continues and this week it's Johnny Polo.
The first Raw of 1994 opens with Paul Bearer telling us that 1994 is the Year of the Casket, and Undertaker promising that Yokozuna will rest in peace. From there, Jim Cornette ranted like a maniac on Superstars this past weekend taking issue with the suggestion that he messed up the paperwork for this match and allowed the Casket stipulation to be slipped in, and that Yokozuna is afraid of anyone or anything. Interviewer Stan Lane does mention the word Casket and it gets a big reaction from Yoko who looks around, terrified. It seems the WWF Champion has a phobia of Caskets! Jim Cornette does his best to talk about the match without saying the word, calling it a big box instead. After the Raw intro and the commentator’s hello, Yokozuna is in non-title action against Dan Dubiel. The WWF Champion takes his time, slowly working over the jobber and dropping legs across him. At the finish, I’m not sure if Yoko lost his balance or really wanted to make a point but he CRUSHED Dan with the Banzai drop. It looked BRUTAL and it must have hurt because Dubiel doesn’t even bother selling, just chatting to the referee as he waits for Yoko to stand up and get off him. Damn.

After a recap of Lex Lugar fighting off both Jacques and Pierre on Superstars and actually defeating them both with knockout shots, followed by knocking out Johnny Polo for good measure, Lugar recorded an interview with Vince McMahon earlier in the day. His fate still hangs in the balance while we wait for President Jack Tunney to decide if he’s allowed to be in the Royal Rumble match or not. The decision will be made next weekend. Lugar calls Yoko arrogant to assume he’ll still be champion at Wrestlemania.

After another video promoting Thurman “Sparky” Plugg - coming soon! - The Smoking Gunns take on the massive team of Bam Bam Bigelow and Bastion Booger. Johnny Polo uses lots of big words with little to no context. He calls Bastion “ubiqueous” which means “everywhere, present at all times” so I don’t know what he means by that. His jokes about the Smoking Gunns being dumb cowboys are good though. After a few minutes of back and forth action, Bastion Booger gets distracted by Luna on the outside and leaves his partner to get beat up two on one as he puts the moves on Bam Bam’s lady! Bigelow goes out and attacks his own partner and as they fight on the outside they’re counted out. The Smoking Gunns win by countout but the story is Bastion Booger trying to steal Bam Bam’s girlfriend and getting beat up for it! They’re separated by referees as Vince throws to the Royal Rumble report. No new matches this week but Todd runs through the 27 names confirmed for the Royal Rumble match so far which now includes Macho Man, and Ludvig Borga, which ends up not being the case.

There’s a promo for next week’s Raw which marks the 1 year anniversary of Monday Night Raw with, as Vince promises, a very special guest commentator. It better not be Rob Bartlett.
Double J in a lovely sparkly purple outfit takes on John Chrystal - Vince mispronounces his name a few times so I had to go and check the spelling online. I don’t always catch the jobber’s names but when I do, I include them! Jeff wins with the same big swinging DDT he used to win last week.
Vince recaps Johnny Polo’s highly suspect victory over Marty Jannetty last week. As Polo smugly takes credit for the victory, Marty and the 1-2-3 Kid come down to confront him. Marty is all pumped up and challenges The Quebecers to a Tag Team Championship match next week. The crowd chant 1-2-3 and Johnny Polo caves to being threatened, agreeing to the match. Johnny promises that it’ll only be a tune up match for The Quebecer’s title defence against Bret and Owen Hart at the Royal Rumble.

An AWESOME timecapsule for people who know their video gaming history - a commercial for a WWF Game on Sega CD! Never heard of that one.

In the main event, Shawn Michaels (with his unofficial Intercontinental title belt and massive bodyguard Diesel) faces Brian Walsh who has the same haircut as Susan Boyle. Walsh is clearly a decent wrestler as he gets in a fair amount of offence. Shawn has fun throwing him to the outside just so Diesel can throw him back in again. Shawn eventually finishes him off with a superkick and then piledriver combo. That ends Raw (after Vince completes his usual hardsell for next week’s show of course)

Monday Night Raw - January 10th 1994

The first episode of Raw was January 11th, 1993 so this isn’t EXACTLY one year to the day, but this does mark the first anniversary of Monday Night Raw. The opening match is a WWF Tag Team Championship match between The Quebecers and Marty Jannetty and the 1-2-3 Kid. Macho Man Randy Savage is back on commentary tonight, and has an awesome black and red Monday Night Raw outfit to celebrate the occasion. Two of the biggest moments from the first year of Raw were Marty Jannetty’s shock victory over Shawn Michaels, winning the Intercontinental title and the 1-2-3 Kid’s shock upset win over Razor Ramon so it’s VERY fitting that on the one year anniversary they team up to try for another big upset and to win the Tag Team titles so close to their already scheduled defence against Bret and Owen Hart at the Royal Rumble PPV. The Quebecers also won the titles here on Raw in only the second title change on this program in history so if they did have those three events in mind while booking this match they absolutely nailed it. The smaller challengers keep the champions on the ropes with quick counters and spin kicks with Jacques and Pierre having to go back to their partner and be consoled each time. Great stuff. The story of the match is Marty and the Kid being way too fast for the champions but thanks to some help from Johnny Polo and a little bit of illegal double teaming behind the referee’s back, Jacques and Pierre isolate the 1-2-3 Kid and work him over in their corner. The Quebecers have the match won on more than one occasion but won’t go for the pin and continue to hammer the Kid with big tandem moves trying to make a point. It backfires and after a hot tag, Marty and the 1-2-3 Kid hit a double team crossbody/suplex off the top rope to become the new WWF Tag Team Champions! Macho Man jumps into the ring to celebrate with them and the crowd goes nuts! The new Champions climb out into the crowd to celebrate with the people. A great moment and a perfect bit of one year anniversary booking.

This episode of Raw took place in Richmond Virginia, making it only the second ever episode of Raw to take place outside of the state of New York, and the first to not take place on the East Coast.
This week’s Royal Rumble Report is hosted by Jim Ross because, as he says, Todd Pettengill is snowed in. He runs down the Royal Rumble card and all thirty entrants in this year’s Rumble match itself which does now include Lex Lugar, as well as “two mercenaries from Japan, brought in by Mr. Fuji”. He also confirms that Bret and Owen Hart will still battle The Quebecers but now it won’t be for the Tag Team titles, and that Tatanka will face Ludvig Borga. No he won’t, but more on that in a minute.

Helsinki's own Ludvig Borga battles Brad Anderson (That’s the younger brother of future WWF performer Roaddogg). Borga beats him up for a bit before easily finishing him off with the torture rack. Lex Lugar calls in during this match to talk about how excited he is to now be in the Royal Rumble match. He’s a big babyface and spends so much time congratulating Marty Jannetty and the 1-2-3 Kid and wishing Tatanka luck at the Royal Rumble that Vince has to bring his focus back to himself. This is the last we’ll be seeing of Ludvig Borga. He wrestled on house shows until on January 17th suffering a serious ankle injury during a match with Rick Steiner. He was quietly released from his WWF contract a couple of weeks after that.
On WWF Superstars the previous weekend, Yokozuna smashed two jobbers with a double Banzai drop but as he celebrated, the arena lights went out the WWF Champion was forced to watch The Undertaker prepare a double wide and double deep casket for his own body. Yoko looks terrified and yells at Fuji and Cornette for getting him into this match at the Royal Rumble. Good stuff.

The Undertaker is here on Raw. He main evented the very first episode so that’s fitting too. He crushes Ray Hudson with a Tombstone Piledriver.
After putting the moves on Luna last week, tonight’s main event is Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Bastion Booger, to defend his woman’s honour. Luna blows kisses at Bastion to distract him and allow her man to jump him from behind. Bam Bam slams Booger in the ring and finishes him off with a diving headbutt off the top rope. Bastion Booger shakes it off quickly and gets back to his feet to approach Luna again. She slaps him and Bam Bam beats him up some more with a jumping kick to the head.

At the end of Raw, The Quebecers say they have a rematch for the WWF Tag Team titles next week at Madison Square Garden and they WILL get their titles back and go into their match with the Harts at the Rumble as champions.
Before the show does end, IRS comes down to let Macho Man know he’s facing him next week on Raw. That’s not the end of Macho Man’s worries as Crush will be on commentary for next week#s shows. Savage grabs the Raw 1st anniversary cake and smashes it into Irwin’s face as Vince screams “Happy Birthday, Monday Night Raaaaaaawww!”

Monday Night Raw - January 17th 1994

Is this the weirdest commentary combo yet? Crush isn’t a great promo, and puts on an accent when he does so this will be a challenge for him.

Owen Hart, supported by his brother and tag team partner Bret Hart faces Terry Austin. During this match, Stan Lane calls in a report from the Madison Square Garden house show that was taking place at the same time as Raw. Isn’t that weird? Obviously Raw is pre-taped so this is one of those things that they did to try and make Raw appear to be a live show. Owen brutalises Austin and finishes him off with the Sharpshooter. Bret is very supportive of his little brother. Vince McMahon hops off commentary to go and get a word with the Hart Brothers before they leave. Owen whines a little bit about 1-2-3 Kid and Marty having taken his and Bret’s opportunity. Owen says he hopes that The Quebecers regain the titles so that Bret and Owen can take the titles from them at the Royal Rumble. Bret doesn’t agree - he says he can’t root for the Quebecers and Owen looks a little put out that Bret didn’t just agree with him. Interesting stuff. A little later in the show, Stan Lane confirms that The Quebecers were successful and regained their WWF Tag Team titles at Madison Square Garden.

Tatanka squares off with George South, who looks a bit like Jack Roberts but with a bushier moustache. A big jumping chop off the top rope gives Tatanka the victory. I’d say 95% of the moves he did in this match were chops to the chest and/or head.
She has yet to make her debut on Raw but there’s a second video looking at the new WWF Women’s Champion Alundra Blayze. The women’s division at the time consisted pretty much of Alundra and no one else - Vince was impressed and built the whole division around her with no real opponents. For fun I included the new ICOPRO and SlimJim commercials too.

Spotlight on Alundra Blayze

Vince McMahon interviews Yokozuna and Mr. Fuji in the ring. He draws attention to the absence of Jim Cornette and asks if he’s been fired for getting Yoko into a casket match at the Royal Rumble. Mr. Fuji says that Jim is in Japan making arrangements for Yokozuna’s victory celebration after the Royal Rumble. Yokozuna looks afraid when Vince mentions a casket, and then the lights go out. Paul Bearer gleefully wheels the double wide and double deep coffin that Undertaker has built for Yokozuna down to the ring Mr. Fuji and Vince go for a closer look but the WWF Champion stays at the back of the ring, scared to get too close. Yoko gets brave and moves closer but as he does, Undertaker bursts out of the casket and Yoko flips out, bailing out of the ring and rushing backstage and away from Undertaker and the casket. He is very afraid of The Undertaker.

Diesel, with Shawn Michaels in his corner, takes on Scott Powers who has a tight little blonde mullet. He doesn’t have much of a finisher yet so a big clubbing right hand gives the big man the victory.
After the final Royal Rumble Report with Todd Pettengill giving us the sell sell sell, buy buy buy push for the PPV, Macho Man Randy Savage takes on Irwin R. Schyster. He wastes no time challenging Crush to leave commentary and come to fight him, even climbing the ropes and threatening to give off onto him! It settles down enough for Macho and IRS to begin their match and Irwin gets the early advantage and dominates with Macho flailing at Crush while they fight on the outside. Back in the ring, he finally mounts a comeback on IRS and sets up his diving elbow drop so Crush hopes up onto the apron and shoves him off the top. Macho Man wins by disqualification. Crush and IRS begin to hammer on Macho two on one. Tatanka runs down to try and help but is taken out. Yokozuna come down to the ring to make it three on one - he is buddies with Crush I guess? - and Tatanka gets back up and in the fight. Lex Lugar is next and the ring is slowly but surely filling with heels and babyfaces, brawling as a big Royal Rumble preview. Diesel and Shawn Michaels join the fight too, as does Bret Hart who goes right for Yokozuna. Raw ends in pandemonium with Vince screaming himself hoarse about the Royal Rumble.

The three most exciting stories to me at the moment are Macho Man and Crush (who are both in the Rumble match) Bret and Owen (who are also both in the Rumble match as well as having a Tag Team title match earlier in the night), and Razor and Shawn Michaels with their dueling Intercontinental title belts. Hopefully we’ll see Shawn during the IC title match to make it a hat trick for my interest levels (wink). There is a big card change on the night - I’ve already mentioned Ludvig Borga’s injury and departure from the company - but this is the card as announced and we’ll see what happens on the night.

The 1994 30-Man Royal Rumble match

Casket match for the WWF Championship

Yokozuna © (w/Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette) vs. The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer)

WWF Tag Team Championships

The Quebecers © (Jacques and Pierre w/Johnny Polo) vs. Bret Hart and Owen Hart

WWF Intercontinental Championship

Razor Ramon © vs. Irwin R. Schyster

Tatanka vs. Ludvig Borga

Royal Rumble - Providence Civic Centre, Providence Rhode Island, January 22nd 1994

I LOVE this opening music, but I feel like it’s not the original music and has been dubbed for copyright reasons. They have nailed the 90s vibe if so. Who is Vince’s commentary partner tonight? It’s been a revolving door on Raw since Bobby Heenan departed and that continues tonight - the Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase! Now officially retired due to a back injury suffered in Japan, he’s back with the WWF as an on-screen non-wrestler. I’m not sure how long his commentary stint lasts but I guess we’ll find out.

Royal Rumble Opening

Tatanka vs. Bam Bam Bigelow (w/Luna Vachon)

Yes you read that correctly - this was scheduled to be Tatanka vs. Ludvig Borga, but he is injured/gone, as previously discussed. Fortunately, the Native American warrior had unfinished business with Bam Bam so it’s an easy transplant and this is still a PPV match. You can also tell Borga is gone because when talking about the end of Tatanka’s undefeated streak there’s no mention of who actually ended it. What a waste that turned out to be right?

Tatanka starts quick and uses shoulder tackles and a dropkick to finally knock Bam Bam off his feet. Basically the exact same booking they’d have used for him vs. Borga. They’re moving so fast through spots I feel like this won’t last long.

Tatanka misses a crossbody off the top rope so Bigelow can take over on offence. It’s at this point I noticed that Tatanka doesn’t have the red in his hair anymore - that was a choice he was forced to make because the red dye was killing his hair and he was starting to lose - to keep it such bright red he was dying it more or less every single day. I do enjoy Luna’s snarling panto villain behaviour at ringside, screaming support for her man.

Bam Bam grinds down Tatanka with a long bearhug which looks like it’s hurting him more than Tatanka and Ted Dibiase reminds us that both of these men will perform double duty tonight and also be in the Royal Rumble match. Up to this point the only person who’d done that was Roddy Piper in 1992, winning the Intercontinental title and then trying to win the Rumble match later (also making him the first man in WWF history to challenge for two different championships on the same night - trivia! I’m sure I'll have plenty more to share tonight).

Bam Bam mocks Tatanka’s native war dance and the crowd boos LOUDLY. I think the fans in 1993 had a great deal of respect for Tatanka’s roots, which is nice. He takes aim with a 300lbs+ moonsault but Tatanka rolls clear and follows up with a diving crossbody off the top rope to win this match. It was fine - the crowd were red hot for it which always helps.

Video packages were still very much a new idea during this period but you can see the wheels starting to turn as they get more common, especially on Raw! Every show seems to start with one now. Here’s a Todd Pettengill-narrated collection of clips about Bret and Owen’s journey to this Tag Team Championship match.

Build up to Bret and Owen's challenge

I’ve really enjoyed this story, and that Bret and Owen Superstars promo is a masterclass in subtle story-telling. “It doesn’t matter if they were true or not” and “The Rocket leading the way!” just confirms that Owen is NOT over his comments about Bret no matter what he says.

WWF Tag Team Championships

The Quebecers © (Jacques and Pierre w/Johnny Polo) vs. Bret Hart and Owen Hart

I’m now ready to declare that I love the Quebecers. They’re a great comedy heel tag team and both really good wrestlers, in my oh so humble opinion. Obviously Bret and Owen are sensational professional wrestlers so I have quite high hopes for this match. What I DON’T like is Bret’s ring gear tonight. They’ve covered in little white spatters and look like he painted a house while wearing them.

I mentioned earlier that Bret and Owen are doing double duty tonight. More trivia - Roddy Piper’s double duty performance in 1992 came after wrestling The Mountie in a championship match earlier in the show. The Mountie was played by? Quebecer Jacques! Bret out-classes Pierre in the early exchanges and tags in Owen. They show some impressive tag team continuity. Jacques is forced to retreat to his corner for a shoulder rub from Pierre and some motivation from Johnny Polo which gets boos. He walks right into an enziguri headkick from Owen for a near fall and then a tandem backbreaker/elbow drop from the Hart brothers keeps the pressure on.

There’s more really cool double teams as when whipped into each other, Bret drops low so Owen can give over him into a roll up on Jacques for another near fall. Great stuff. The champions have to get outside and gather themselves but Bret is relentless and more quick tags and double teams leads to more near falls. It’s an important plot point that this is Owen’s first ever opportunity to become a champion in the WWF which he’s taking very seriously. The crowd chants “Go Bret, Go!” which is very 90s isn’t it? He’s countered into a big powerslam by Pierre and the Tag Team Champions finally build some momentum of their own, working over the former WWF Champion in their corner. He manages to tag out to Owen who comes in with an awesome flurry of offense and locks in the Sharpshooter but with the referee distracted getting Bret out of the ring, Pierre puts him down with a bulldog headlock and it's his turn to be worked over by the champions.

A nice double dropkick allows him to tag back out to Bret who comes in on fire and moves into his familiar five moves of doom combo which means the end is near. It’s all going so well until Johnny Polo holds open the ropes when Bret goes to run off them. He takes a tumble to the outside and lands hard, selling his knee. Bret is badly hurt and the Quebecers go right after it, hammering it inside and outside the ring. They even use a chair and Johnny’s golf club on Bret’s knee while the referee is distracted. In reality, Bret should have been counted out here but Owen eventually rolls his brother back into the ring to the wolves hoping he can make the tag.

Bret finally gets a break as he avoids the Quebecer’s double team but instead of going to tag Owen, he tries to lock in the Sharpshooter! He can’t do it and collapses so the referee rings the bell and ends the match, awarding it to Jacques and Pierre who retain the WWF Tag Team Championships via referee stoppage. They quickly leave so Owen can argue with the referee and check on Bret. The Million Dollar Man was very good on commentary here really putting over the plot point - Bret just had to tag but he was selfish and tried to hog the limelight. Vince defends Bret as best he can.

Owen is furious at Bret, yelling at him that he just had to tag out. Bret struggles to his feet using the ropes but can barely stand until finally an enraged Owen boots his brother in the back leg. The crowd goes nuclear with boos! Dibiase loves it and calls it the smartest thing Owen’s ever done! Vince is disgusted by Owen’s actions, as is the live crowd. Owen hammers home his two plot points - Bret is selfish, all he had to do was tag out. He repeats those two points over and over and over. Owen goes backstage as referees and officials (old men in suits) check on Bret in the ring. Will Bret be able to compete in tonight’s Royal Rumble match?

My boy Todd Pettengill catches up with Owen Hart in the locker room and asks him to explain himself - Bret is selfish, he wouldn’t tag out. We get it. He says his ego is out of control and now he only cares about himself. There’s a nice bit of camera work as Bret is taken out of the arena on a stretcher, forced to watch Owen’s promo on the big screen. Owen makes a famous gaff here as while he rants, he loses track of what he’s saying and tells Bret that he “kicked his leg out of his leg” which is a bit hilarious. Owen says that Bret deserves to be taken out of the Royal Rumble match and now Owen is going to win the Rumble and win the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania.

Back at ringside, Vince and Dibiase debate what we’ve just seen and the Million Dollar Man basically channels how Vince feels in real life - it doesn’t matter if it's your brother or your mother, you step on whoever you need to to be successful. Babyface Vince is appalled of course.

WWF Intercontinental Championship

Razor Ramon © vs. Irwin R. Schyster

Irwin doesn’t have theme music so he cuts a promo about how the fans need to pay their taxes as he walks to the ring. There’s a nice surprise for me as, for this match, the Radio WWF duo of Gorilla Monsoon and Jim Ross take over and rant about how disgusting Owen Hart is for doing what he just did.

Razor flicks his toothpick right into IRS’s face and gets slapped for it, so Razor loses his temper and hammers the challenger with punches to send him bailing to the outside amid “Irwin” chants. JR gets on IRS’s case for having stolen Razor Ramon’s golden necklaces and chains.

The match continues like that - Razor wins the brawling exchange and IRS goes outside to catch his breath - until IRS low-bridges the ropes and sends the champion tumbling to the floor. He runs him into the ringsteps and then slows things down with a sleeper and starts to chip away with legdrops and elbow drops.

Razor fights back and mounts his comeback with big right hands and slings IRS across the ring with a fallaway slam but a reversal into the corner gets the referee squashed. IRS tries to take advantage immediately and use his briefcase but it backfires when Razor blocks it and uses it himself! Razor has the match won but there’s no referee to count. Razor has this match fully under control and sets up for the Razor’s Edge but Shawn Michaels runs down to the ring and hits him in the back of the head with his own Intercontinental title belt!

Razor is out cold and IRS very, very slowly crawls into the cover. The referee wakes up and counts the three but tellingly, there’s no bell. IRS celebrates with the Intercontinental title belt as a second referee runs down and points out that there’s two IC title belts in the ring, and what happened with Shawn Michaels. While it’s being sorted out, Razor drills IRS with the Razor’s Edge and the referee counts the pin. Razor Ramon retains the Intercontinental title and celebrates with both his legitimate championship belt, and Shawn Michaels’ phony one. That’s a cool moment and I think someone was taking notes for Wrestlemania (no spoilers though, we’ll get there)

Another video package to get everyone up to date and excited for the WWF Championship match. Yokozuna is a monster who fears no one, except maybe The Undertaker and caskets! This also features The Undertaker very slowly saying “ho ho ho” which is funny if nothing else.

Build up to the Casket match

Casket match for the WWF Championship

Yokozuna © (w/Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette) vs. The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer)

After long, atmospheric entrances by both men, the early stages of this match are pure character work. Undertaker struggles to knock Yoko off his feet with running clotheslines but a big jumping clothesline does it. Yoko runs Undertaker’s head into the ringsteps which he no-sells and returns the favour.

Back in the ring, Undertaker hits the move eventually known as old school, jumping off the top rope with a sledge to the shoulder and then on the outside he hits him with a pair of steel chair shots to the back and then the head. Yoko finally gets a break, throwing Mr. Fuji’s salt into the challenger’s eyes to blind him and hits a chair shot of his own.

Undertaker is the first man placed into the casket but the lid can’t be closed and he starts his comeback with big uppercuts to the jaw. A near 600lbs belly to belly puts Undertaker down but he sits up and, with some effort, hits a messy looking chokeslam on the WWF Champion.

The Deadman can’t be stopped and draws from the power of Paul Bearer’s urn. He rolls Yokozuna into the casket and goes to close the lid but is attacked by Crush! Undertaker had this match won. Undertaker fights off Crush but more of Mr. Fuji’s stooges run to the ring - The Great Kabuki and Tenryu. He fights them off too but Bam Bam Bigelow joins in, presumably paid off by Cornette and Fuji. Mr. Fuji steals Bearer’s urn and with so many people helping, Undertaker is beaten up and loaded into the casket. Paul Bearer attacks both Fuji and Cornette and reclaims the urn, willing Undertaker to fight back which he does!

Even a four on one advantage is no match for the power of the urn! Adam Bomb is next but Undertaker continues to fight back, now using Fuji’s salt bucket as a weapon. Double J comes to help but Undertaker is fighting off all seven men single handedly! The Headshrinkers make it nine on one and that’s STILL not enough. Diesel makes it ten on one and that is finally too much, even for The Undertaker. Or is it? They can’t close the casket lid and he fights back AGAIN! The fans go nuts. Yokozuna attacks Paul Bearer and claims the urn and without that power to motivate him, Undertaker succumbs to the beating. Yoko pulls the lid off the urn and it begins to spew green smoke. The power of the urn is escaping, and Undertaker is fading. His power is leaving him as the smoke leaves the urn.

After an endless beating, Yokozuna rolls a limp Undertaker into the casket and closes to the lid to officially retain the WWF Championship but the story continues as Crush and the goon squad lock the casket and wheel it away from the ring. The same green smoke that left the urn begins to spew out of the casket itself and the lights go out, The Undertaker’s familiar gong songs. On the video wall, The Undertaker is alive! He speaks cryptically about how his spirit lives within all mankind and then, in a famous moment, Undertaker’s spirit ascends to the heavens! I can’t really do this legendary moment justice so here, watch it for yourself

I’ll be honest - I loved all of this. The match was too short to be bad and was all character work, which the crowd loved. All the campy supernatural stuff after the match only added to it for me personally. Wrestling needs silly stuff and I fully support it.

From there, we get some pre-recorded comments from a bunch of Royal Rumble entrants. They all say the same thing - they are going to win, and they are going to win the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania. Yes, even Doink.

The 1994 30-Man Royal Rumble match

After Howard Finkle’s traditional running down of the rules, we meet this year’s Number One, Scott Steiner. Number Two is another tag team wrestler, Samu of the Headshrinkers. Samu wins the opening exchange and hammers on Scott until Number Three, Rick Steiner arrives to make the save. Small point that annoyed me - the Steiners regularly wear totally mismatching ring gear while wrestling in Tag Team matches but here, where they’re competing as singles competitors their gear matches exactly. Come on guys. Samu is thrown around two on one and then eliminated by Scott Steiner just as Number Four, Kwang, heads to the ring. This is Kwang’s on-screen debut and he has Harvey Whippleman as his manager. He enters the ring by blowing green mist into Rick’s face which basically takes him out of this match. Scott does his best to look after his brother as Number Five, Owen Hart enters. He gets loud boos from the crowd after his actions earlier tonight. He confirms that he’s a heel now by going right after the visually impaired Rick Steiner, eliminating him. He teams up with Kwang to attack Scott Steiner until Number Six, Bart Gunn runs down to the ring. The entrants are only 90 seconds apart this year so it's moving at a rapid pace.

Lucky Number Seven is Diesel. He makes an immediate impact, hammering on everyone and throwing out Scott Steiner, Bart Gunn, Owen Hart and Kwang in rapid succession. With both Steiners gone so quickly, you might find yourself wondering why they’ve not been featured much since the Survivor Series, or losing their Tag Team titles in fact. That’s because Vince wanted to split them up and use Scott as a singles performer with goals to make him a main eventer. It’s an awesome idea because Scott was phenomenal but the Steiners refused, wanting to stay a tag team and so they were pushed down the card as punishment, eventually leaving the company to return to WCW as a tag team. I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of them on PPV or Raw moving forward. Number Eight Bob Backlund enters and goes right for Diesel’s legs to try and leverage him up and out of the ring but the big man elbows out of it and throws Backlund out too! Number Nine is Billy Gunn and Number Ten is Virgil and they both meet the same fate, being thrown quickly out of the ring by Diesel before the next entrant arrives.

One interesting note from Vince McMahon is that Virgil is an alternate entrant, replacing Kamala who has now left the company. I believe Kwang made his debut early to fill in for the injured Ludvig Borga in this match. There’s some out of the ring chaos as backstage, Mr. Fuji’s newcomers The Great Kabuki and Tenryu make their second impact of the night attacking Lex Lugar and leaving him badly beaten up!

Number Eleven is former WWF Champion, Macho Man Randy Savage! The crowd goes nuts to see him come up against the massive unstoppable Diesel. He does a lot better than the previous entrants and more than holds his own. He can’t eliminate the big man but does avoid being thrown out himself long enough for Number Twelve, Double J, Jeff Jarrett to arrive. He goes right for Randy because he’s a heel and puts him down with a jumping punch off the middle rope. He spends too much time strutting and showing off and pays for it when Macho Man launches him up and over the top rope. Jeff did a good job, kicking his legs as he went up and over so it looked like a really emphatic elimination. Number Thirteen is Crush and Macho Man sees him coming, rushing to attack him the second he enters the ring. Number Fourteen is Doink and amazingly, as the cameras focus on him and Dink, they miss Macho Man being eliminated by Crush, after a double team by himself and Diesel. Doink holds off the two giant heels with finger pokes to the eyes and kicks to the shins but messes up trying to bodyslam Diesel, which he can’t. Number Fifteen is Bam Bam Bigelow, with Luna to cheer him on. Bigelow goes right after Doink and launches him up and over the top rope with ease. That leaves just three big beefy heels in the ring so the crowd is quiet as Crush, Diesel and Bam Bam hammer on each other. Number Sixteen is even more beef - the 500lbs Mabel from Men on a Mission. The crowd loudly chants “Woomp there it is!” for him and he moves his girth around at a good speed to squash Diesel, Crush and Bam Bam in the corners. Number Seventeen is another new debut, Thurman “Sparky” Plugg! He’s another substitution, filling in for the 1-2-3 Kid who has an injured knee. That’s bad luck for both of them as Sparky gets no reaction from the crowd because they’ve never seen him before in person. Number Eighteen is Shawn Michaels, who Vince and Dibiase immediately assume will help out Diesel. The big man does tease attacking his man but they fist bump.

While Diesel is distracted, the other men in the ring all gang up on Diesel and with one final little push from Michaels, Diesel is eliminated after a very strong performance. The fans cheer him out of respect and chant his name - that’s the start of a couple of bigger stories that will pay off before the end of the year. Number Nineteen is Mabel’s partner, Mo. Men on a Mission do work together as best they can and control the ring until Number Twenty, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine comes out. A former Intercontinental and Tag Team Champion I have…no respect for Greg. By all accounts a horrible racist in real life. Number Twenty One is Tatanka who comes in with big chops and bounces Shawn Michaels all around the ring. The Rumble makes for strange bed fellows as Mabel and Michaels double team Tatanka. Number Twenty Two is The Great Kabuki. I know nothing about this guy apart from what we’ve been told - he’s a henchman for Yokozuna, brought in by Mr. Fuji. I don’t think we’ll see much of him. With the ring pretty full, all eight other men gang up to throw out the 500lbs Mabel. Number Twenty Three is Lex Lugar, showing no ill-effects from the attack earlier. He rushes the ring and goes right after Kabuki, throwing him up and over to eliminate him. He pairs off with Crush and they fight in the corner as Number Twenty Four, Genichiro Tenryu walks to the ring. Fuji’s other henchman goes right after Lex Lugar. He had a much more successful career than Kabuki as while we won’t see him in the WWF, Tenryu went on to win the IWGP title as well as many other world titles in Japan. Number Twenty Five is…no one. Vince makes the assumption that this was Bret Hart’s entry number but he’s obviously physically unable to compete and won’t be in this match. How heartbreaking for the Hitman. Number Twenty Six is The Model, Rick Martel. He just enters the fray which is now a big brawl, everyone in the corners shoving at each other. Number Twenty Seven is Bret Hart! He walks with a heavy limp and the crowd, as well as Vince on commentary, goes nuts for the Hitman.

So who was Number Twenty Five? Well that was Bastion Booger’s number, and he ate too much and was too sick to compete! That’s a funny way to create a red-herring for Bret and it worked a treat. Bret doesn’t fair very well against the massive Crush and he and Tenryu go after his injured leg. Twenty Eight is Fatu of the Headshrinkers. He and Samu’s numbers couldn’t have been much further apart could they? It takes a massive effort from both Lex Lugar and Bret Hart but Crush is eliminated, right as Number Twenty Nine Marty Jannetty heads to the ring. He goes right after Shawn Michaels - they’ll feud forever! They trade superkicks and then disappear into the mass to fight with other people as the final entrant, Number Thirty - Adam Bomb - comes to the ring. Vince McMahon confidently predicts that Adam Bomb will win the Royal Rumble and go to Wrestlemania. There must be 12 or more people in the ring for what is now basically just a battle royal. Interesting pairings include Shawn Michaels trying to eliminate Bret Hart and Bam Bam getting into it with Lugar. I am baffled that Greg Valentine is still in there. I must say, there haven’t been a lot of “spots” in this match but with the entrances only being 90 seconds apart, there was no time to get bored and it moved at a good pace.

The eliminations come slowly during all the punching and kicking - The Model eliminates Valentine, and is then eliminated himself by Tatanka. Lugar ducks a charge by Adam Bomb which sends him sailing up and over the top rope too. Bam Bam evens the odds from earlier tonight throwing out Tatanka but misses his corner rush at Lex Lugar and gets eliminated too. A double effort from Lex and Bret gets Tenryu out to leave a final four of Lex Lugar, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and Fatu of the Headshrinkers. One of these things is not like the others, am I right? Shawn and Fatu try to work together but it backfires and they’re both backdropped up and over to eliminate them, leaving Bret and Lex as the final two.

They go at it hard and Lex lifts Bret for a slam. They stumble towards the ropes and both go up and over the top, hitting the floor. Vince and Dibiase argue over who they think hit the floor first and the referees are just as confused.

There's confusion at the end here and referees go to see Howard Finkle. Lex Lugar is announced as the winner and his music plays. The music stops and then Bret Hart is announced as the winner and HIS music plays. The referees are not in agreement over who hit the floor first and therefore who won the match. The fans cheer for both Lex and Bret but its hard to ignore the fact that Bret gets a LOT more cheers. Both men have been declared the winner and as the referees continue to argue, WWF President Jack Tunney comes down to the ring.

Vince asks for a replay of the finish and while everyone argues, we see it from a few different angles. It is near impossible to tell which of their feet hit the floor first - great job by both men quite frankly. Back with the live action, President Tunney has decided that BOTH men won the 1994 Royal Rumble and so for the first and (to date) only time in WWF/WWE history, the Royal Rumble match has co-winners and both Bret Hart and Lex Lugar are owed a WWF Championship match at Wrestlemania X in Madison Square Garden. It gets a mixed reaction from the crowd and then the Wrestlemania theme song blares over the arena speakers to drown out the confused boos from the live crowd. A controversial and chaotic end to what I thought was a really good PPV. The casket match was miraculously good considering who was in it, and the Bret and Owen stuff was fantastic.

Monday Night Raw - January 24th 1994

Raw opens with Lex Lugar facing Austin Steel, who looks like a chubby Ric Flair. Commentary this week is handled by Vince McMahon and Jim Ross and they talk about Lex co-winning the Rumble match. The commentary was added after the PPV of course but this match was taped weeks ago. Lex picks up the victory here with a superplex as Vince and JR discuss Jack Tunney’s huge decision - both Lex and Bret won the Royal Rumble but which of them will face the WWF Champion at Wrestlemania? He’ll make that announcement at the weekend on WWF Superstars.
The Royal Rumble report recaps the big happenings from the Rumble PPV but you’ve just read my coverage of the entire PPV so I don’t need to belabour the point.
Double J takes on John Paul as Vince and JR, both life long right wing Republican voters make jokes about Bill and Hilary Clinton. I kind of love Jeff’s ring gear here. He wins this without his now trademark big swinging DDT and instead rolls him up and grabs the tights for illegal leverage to get the three count and drills him with the DDT after the match.

Men on a Mission’s Mabel and Mo battle The Headshrinkers. This match was announced last week as The Headshrinkers vs. Bret and Owen Hart but of course the Hart Brothers have split up after Owen’s actions at the Royal Rumble. Men on a Mission were called MOM by the commentators a lot when they first debuted but that’s been dropped, I assume because Vince realised it sounds naff. The commentators spend a lot of this match talking about Owen and Bret as the Headshrinkers work over Mo and denying him the tag. He finally gets it and Mabel blows through Samu and Fatu but then for some reason tags the exhausted Mabel back in. He’s put down with a double headbutt and then a splash off the top for the Samoans victory.
After a commercial break, Adam Bomb, who was number 30 in the Rumble match but eliminated very quickly, squashes Tommy Angel. He looks like a middle-aged trucker. Adam shows off a nice flying clothesline off the top and finishes with the Atom Smasher powerbomb.

Doink the Clown, with Dink and an invisible dog, takes on a guy who looks a bit like Paul Rudd, but chubby. Dink gets a big laugh out of Vince by giving the jobber a scare with the invisible dog lead before the match. Doink picks up the win with his big sitting down butt splash off the top rope.
After a commercial for the replay of the Royal Rumble PPV, Shawn Michaels (with Diesel) takes on Tyrone something-or-other in what is this episode’s main event. Michaels outclasses the jobber and shows off, posing and struggling between each successful move. Shawn continues to use the superkick in all of his matches as a signature move but it’s not his finisher. He’s abandoned the teardrop suplex and wins this match with a piledriver, which he’s done a few times lately.
There’s another video for Thurman “Sparky” Plugg. He’s not supposed to have debuted yet but we did see him in the Royal Rumble match making up numbers for the injured 1-2-3 Kid.

The end of Raw is a plug for next week’s show (including Kwang’s singles debut) and interviews with Bret Hart (on Radio WWF) and Owen Hart’s comments on All-American Wrestling (now hosted by Gorilla Monsoon and Johnny Polo, after the departure of Bobby Heenan). In other commentary changes, this is JR's last appearance for a while as he suffered his first Bell's Palsy attack in January and was fired from the WWF in February. We'll see him again later in the year.

Monday Night Raw - January 31st 1994

Raw opens with a Vince-narrated video package. WWF President Jack Tunney has ruled that a coin toss will decide whether Bret Hart or Lex Lugar goes to Wrestlemania to face Yokozuna for the WWF Championship. More on that later, of course.

Tonight’s commentary duo is the ever present Vince McMahon and Irwin R. Schyster. It’ll be interesting hearing Irwin talk like a normal person during this show but at the start, he continues to cut promos about money and taxes as normal. Even Vince looks sick of this gimmick.

In the opener, Marty Jannetty battles Johnny Polo. It was supposed to be Polo vs. the 1-2-3 Kid but the Kid comes out on crutches with a brace on his knee. He was injured badly enough to miss the Royal Rumble but they thought he’d be back for this week. He joins commentary instead. Polo bumps around for Marty like a comedy heel including taking a backdrop onto the concrete floor. In the ring he uses some dirty tricks like eye pokes and choking but more than holds his own against Marty Jannetty. Marty picks up the win and then IRS and the 1-2-3 Kid get into an argument about it. Kid mentions that IRS has Razor Ramon’s stolen gold in his briefcase and when he shoves him, Marty is quick to defend his tag team partner. The 1-2-3 Kid grabs Irwin’s briefcase and quickly hobbles to the back with it and after the commercial break, referees and officials calm things down and try to get IRS to rejoin commentary. He’s too focused on getting his briefcase back so leaves to look for that instead. Before he gets backstage he runs into Razor who has his gold necklaces back around his neck. Marty and the 1-2-3 Kid have returned Razor’s gold to him and Irwin backs down and does now rejoin commentary but he’s very angry about it.
Vince shows comments from Jack Tunney earlier this week and he clarifies that the WWF Championship will be contested twice at Wrestlemania. He says it’ll be the first time ever that’s been the case but the WWF title changed hands twice at last year’s Wrestlemania. Tunney explains how it’ll work; the winner of the coin toss will face Yokozuna first and then the winner will then face the loser of the coin toss. In either event, the loser of the coin toss will also wrestle earlier in the night so that it’s an even playing field for the second WWF Championship match and everyone will have wrestled twice. Finally, both WWF title matches will have special guest referees, agreed to by both parties. It sounds confusing doesn’t it? If only they invented the triple threat match a few years early.

Bam Bam Bigelow takes on a man with a silly haircut and a pot belly. The fans chant “we want Doink” at Bam Bam who wins this quickly with a slam in the middle of the ring. That was easy.
Vince and a bunch of officials, including Jack Tunney himself, are in the ring for the coin toss ceremony. Vince quickly recaps the ruling of Tunney and how this coin toss will work and the two of them have a little laugh about the coin and whether it’s Canadian (like Tunney himself). Jack was legit the president of the company in real life, close friend of Vince’s father and someone Vince had known his whole life. He was a terrible performer but it was at least legit. Lex Lugar is introduced first and he shakes everyone’s hands like a super babyface. Bret Hart is out second and he makes sure to do the same but interestingly neither he nor Lex makes any attempt to shake each other’s hands. Lex calls it and wins the coin toss - that gives us three matches for Wrestlemania X. Lex Lugar vs. Yokozuna for the WWF Championship, Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart, and then Bret Hart vs. the WWF Champion later on the same night. Lex wishes Bret the best of luck but Bret is distracted by the fact that he now has to wrestle his brother Owen. He says he wishes there was another way around it but fate has handed it to him. He wishes Lex luck too and says he hopes it’s the two of them in the final match of Wrestlemania X for the WWF Championship. What a nice segment, and the fans are happy. I’ll obviously talk a lot more about the booking of all of this at Wrestlemania itself.

Kwang, with his manager Harvey Whippleman, makes his singles match debut against Rich Myers. Kwang does the spitting of green mist gimmick to blind his opponents and was played by Savio Vega, but we won’t see him as Savio for a while yet. During this match, Owen Hart calls in to give his reaction to the coin toss. He calls himself the big winner because he gets to face his brother Bret and prove that he’s better and always was. Vince recaps what Owen said in his interview on All-American a few days prior, specifically that it felt good to attack and injure Bret at the Royal Rumble and he plans to do the same in their match at Wrestlemania, now that it’s official. Kwang kicks and punches Myers in a tedious display before winning with a straight martial arts kick to the jaw.

After a Wrestlemania Report where Todd talks about ticket sales and the three matches confirmed for the event tonight, Paul Bearer comes to us live from a graveyard to basically promise that The Undertaker WILL return and hopefully very soon. Why is Undertaker off TV? To heal and rest up a minor back injury, and to witness the birth of his first son and spend some time with the baby. That’s nice, but obviously insider knowledge!
In the main event, Earthquake makes his WWF return to face Cory Student. Earthquake is one of the better big men in WWF history so I’m glad to see him back, even though I don’t think this run lasted very long. We shall see. Quake crushes Student with the Richter Scale to pick up the win.

At the end of Raw, IRS challenges Marty Jannetty to a match next week after what happened earlier. Razor and Marty join them from backstage and accept the challenge but when Irwin is shown a replay of what happened earlier he realises it was the 1-2-3 Kid, not Marty, who stole his briefcase and returned Razor’s gold to him!