Monday Night Raw - March 7th 1994

• A pleasant surprise to start Raw this week; the return of Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase to work on commentary with Vince. Happy to see Ted. 
• The opening match is the big main event which Vince hyped up at the end of Raw last week; Crush and Owen Hart vs. The Smoking Gunns. Crush and Owen enter to Owen’s music because heel Crush doesn’t have a theme song - he usually comes out to Yokozuna’s. Crush waves around the Japanese flag to get loud USA chants as the camera shows Nikolai Volkoff sitting in the front row. He’s an old-timey heel who made being anti-America his gimmick but he turned face during his last stint with the company and so joins in the USA chants tonight. Crush and Owen work well as a team, isolating the Gunns and its finally Owen who wins it for his team with a Sharpshooter on Bart, wrenching back as hard as he can. Vince McMahon hops up to go and interview both men about their upcoming Wrestlemania X matches. Vince accuses them of being in cahoots and helping each other out. They are united and throw insults at each other’s respective opponents. Crush is facing Bret on the March to Wrestlemania special and says he’ll leave a little piece of him for Owen to finish off with the best Sharpshooter at Wrestlemania.

• This week’s Wrestlemania Report is heavily focused on all the various celebrities that will be at the show. I don’t care and I don’t think you do either. As relates to the matches, they’ve confirmed Alundra Blayze’s opponent for the Women’s Championship - Leilani Kei. Hardly a draw, I can see why they held off on announcing it. The two referees for the two WWF Championship matches still remains a mystery.

• Double J faces Virgil. Vince actually does bring up Ted Dibiase’s history with Virgil and he has a good laugh at what a loser Virgil has been since they stopped working together. Vince and Ted spend much of the match making fun of political figure George Stephanopoulos because Vince is physically incapable of keeping his heavy right wing political leanings off TV. They make fun of how difficult his second name is to say which feels a bit racist? This is a decent enough match thanks to Jeff who moves quickly and bumps his ass off for Virgil before finishing him off out of nowhere with his big swinging DDT. 
• Vince and Dibiase have a little bit of banter between matches with Ted showing off his doctored version of Country Beat magazine with Double J on the cover, and Vince holding up his little Doink mask. Hilarious. Probably. There’s also a commercial for the hair club for men hosted by Sy Sperling, who is the “official haircare provider” of Wrestlemania, whatever that means.

• Doink’s opponent is Iron Mike Sharpe who chases Dink around the ring before the match. He has a very hairy chest. Vince continually mixed up Doink and Dink’s names during this match as he talks about the mixed tag team match with Bam Bam and Luna at Wrestlemania. Doink wins this with his big sit down butt splash off the top rope.
• In the ring, Tatanka is presented with a ceremonial Native American headdress by the elder of the Lumbee tribe, which is the tribe which Tatanka belongs to in real life. He tears up and is clearly very emotional about it which is lovely. Chief Jay Strongbow and Chief Wahoo McDaniels who were wrestlers from back in the 70s and 80s. The fans are respectful of this, and Tatanka crying real tears as he heaps love and praise on these men and on the Lumbee tribe made this feel quite special. It’s a bit cheese and I’m not a big Tatanka fan but I liked it a lot. He’s over the moon and skips around the ring wearing his huge ceremonial headdress. Dibiase mocks the headdress and Tatanka for crying and is pretty disrespectful - I’m sure he doesn’t mean it but that would definitely have caused a fury online a couple of decades later.

• IRS faces one of the more muscular jobbers, Mark Thomas. Ted sings his former Tag Team Championship partner’s praises as he slowly picks Thomas apart. I’m not sure why he focused on his leg because he wins clean with the Write Off clothesline.
• At the end of Raw, Jim Cornette comes out with one half of the Heavenly Bodies to hype up Jimmy Del Ray’s match with Lex Lugar on the March to Wrestlemania special. He calls Mania Lex’s final WWF Championship match and says Jimmy is on a seek and destroy mission to soften him up and ruin his chances. This is technically the final Raw before Wrestlemania X and the closing moments are the hideous Jimmy Del Ray doing his body wave dance as Jim Cornette screeches about Lex Lugar. Amazing. 

March to Wrestlemania X - March 13th, 1994

• Commentary duties tonight are handled by Vince McMahon (in a lovely powder blue suit) and Johnny Polo, and Gorilla Monsoon and Stan Lane. Vince starts with some breaking news - Crush is in action against Bret Hart tonight and so Crush’s Wrestlemania opponent Macho Man Randy Savage is barred from “the arena”. The idea of there being an arena is a farce of course because this is a compilation of matches recorded weeks ago in two different locations, hence the need for two different commentary teams being green-screened in. 

Much like the other PPV pre-show type events, you can watch this whole thing for free on WWE's Vault YouTube channel

• The opening match is Gigalow Jimmy Del Ray (along with Tom Prichard and Jim Cornette) taking on “Made in the USA” Lex Lugar, who is still using Stars and Stripes Forever as his theme song. I had to google what this song is called. Johnny Polo introduces us to his gimmick for tonight - a comedy sound effects board which he’ll be using liberally. Lucky me. Vince spends much of this match recapping Lex’s journey to Wrestlemania. He slammed Yokozuna “for America” on July 4th and turned super babyface, went all across the US on a big bus begging fans to cheer for him which got him a title match at Summerslam, he won (by disqualification) and then played second fiddle to Bret Hart and The Undertaker. Lex had his moments but sadly his lack of natural charisma on the mic and Vince deciding he’d rather keep Bret Hart in the title picture cut him off at the knees. The original plan was pretty clearly for him to win the Rumble and then probably the title at Wrestlemania. We’ll see if Vince has totally given up on Lex on the next show. Jimmy puts up a good fight here and, thanks to some interference by Prichard, controls much of the match and focuses on Lex’s lower back. The crowd are SO loud, relentlessly chanting USA for pretty much the entire length of the match. I tend to believe it was legit because Cornette covered his ears to drown it out at one point. Lex guts it out and wins this match with the torture rack - it’s fine for him to steal that move from Ludvig Borga because he’s done, and that’s the move Lex used as his finisher for the rest of his career inside and outside the WWF. Jim Cornette tries to attack Lugar from behind with his tennis racket after the match but he’s disarmed and spanked on the butt for his troubles. Jim runs backstage and returns with Yokozuna and Mr. Fuji in tow and the WWF Champion wants to attack Lex and Lex is ready to go but a wall of referees is there to stop the fight. Lex parades around the ring with the US flag as the fans go nuts and Vince screams himself hoarse about how amazing Lex Lugar is. Here? It certainly feels like Lex is the next WWF Champion.

• After the commercial break, Bam Bam Bigelow (with Luna) takes on Ben Jordan. Gorilla is good at commentary here, really putting over Bam Bam and encouraging the referee to stop the match as Ben Jordan gets battered. Bigelow hangs Jordan up on the ropes which is somehow enough for the victory. Gorilla calls it a clothesline - man, I JUST complimented you.
• There’s another video promoting WWF Women’s Champion Alundra Blayze. It’s basically the same as the last one - music plays over her working out and running on the beach. She defends the title against Leilani Kei at Wrestlemania in a match which has had zero build, but I’ll talk about that at Wrestlemania, obviously.
• Vince mentions that there was a recent poll/article/TV special looking at the 50 greatest PPV events of all time and the WWF presented more than half of the ones on that list! That is pretty impressive. 
• Tatanka battles the WWF Champion Yokozuna in a non-title match later. Beforehand, Tatanka cuts a promo about how Yoko once tried to end his career so this is about his revenge, and he says he has to deal with Jim Cornette and Mr. Fuji too. Good luck to him.

• Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon goes one on one with Tony Devito. This is an exhibition match to give Gorilla and Stan Lane a chance to talk about the Ladder match at Wrestlemania with Shawn Michaels. I’m looking forward to that, and I’ve liked the story and build to it even if it has been spread out over four months. Razor stretches out Devito and finishes him off with a back suplex off the top rope and then a Razor’s Edge. 
• Back at the other arena, Johnny Polo is in the ring for a special interview with “the most underrated athlete in the WWF”, Owen Hart. He might be right to be honest. Owen has had so much more personality since turning heel. Owen says that if he had a little brother who was more talented than him, he’d have held him back too just like Bret did to Owen. He’s going to step out of his shadow and says the real reason Bret wouldn’t fight him isn’t because of the emotions, it’s because he’s scared of Owen. He shows there’s no fear in his eyes and tells Crush not to hurt Bret too badly later in the show because he doesn’t want his brother to have any excuses when Owen beats him at Wrestlemania. This was a good promo, and the fans were SO loud chanting “we want Bret” constantly.

• Earthquake battles The Executioner. That’s Duane Gill under a mask. This is a warm up match for Earthquake vs. Adam Bomb. Quake was a monster heel back in the early 90s but the time off and general good nature means he gets a warm, almost “welcome back you legend” type response from the crowds. The people seem to have a real genuine like of him, like a favourite uncle? Anyway he slams and squashes the Executioner for the win.  

• During a bumper edition of the Wrestlemania report with Todd Pettengill hyping PPV sales and all the celebrity appearances at Wrestlemania, he runs down the card and we get comments from Bret Hart. He’s all fired up and done playing nice with Owen - he’s the ring general, and he will win all of his matches at Wrestlemania and be the WWF Champion again. Many claim they’re going to beat Bret Hart but not many people actually do it. That’s a good line. 
• Back at the arena, Bret Hart is in action against the massive Crush. They spend a lot of time keeping their distance, teasing a lock up and a test of strength and milking the crowd’s very loud pro-Bret reaction. Johnny Polo calls Crush a karate wizard and master of martial arts. Ok then. Crush slowly works over the Hitman, focusing on his back and hits a nice diving punch off the top rope to the back of the neck which is one of those moves that, if done correctly, could kill a man in a real fight. Crush actually does some mat submission wrestling here which I feel like is new to his repertoire. Bret withstands the abuse and mounts a comeback with his trademark five moves of doom getting nearfalls from a backbreaker and side russian legsweep, as well as a couple of rollups. Bret is making Crush look the best he ever has in this match desperately trying to finish him off. Bret rolls up Crush into a small package but while the referee is distracted with Mr. Fuji, Owen Hart slips to the ring and reverses the hold. Crush gets the three and pins Bret Hart! That’s a huge upset, and Bret looks like he doesn’t even know what happened as Owen slipped out of the ring and to the back undetected.

• There’s a promo with Rhonda Shear who hosts a show called “Up all Night” and her gimmick is basically that she fancies everyone. She’s pretty hot, if a little mid-90s in styling (obviously). She has a thing for Lex, and will be the guest ring announcer at Wrestlemania. Exciting.
• The WWF Tag Team Champions The Quebecers face PJ Walker and Mike Bell. Walker didn’t get the same career boost from his upset win over IRS that 1-2-3 Kid did from his win over Razor Ramon. The champions dominate and Jacques turns Bell over with the Boston crab so Pierre can drop a leg off the middle rope across the back of his head. The Champions win.

• Vince McMahon conducted an interview earlier today with Macho Man Randy Savage. Macho is all amped up and cuts an awesome promo on Crush - His fury is now focused on being cost the WWF Championship on Raw. He mentions another former friend who stabbed him in the back before (he means Hulk Hogan) and says that Crush was his friend and knew how to get to him and knew how to hurt him and it was to cost him the title. Macho mentions his divorce and how much he’s been through and Crush knows all that and used it against him. He is so good, rambling and passionate and hammering home how much the WWF Championship means to him and how much Crush has wounded him by turning on him and using his personal knowledge against him. He is going to put all of his energy into the opportunity he has at Wrestlemania - to be all that he is, and to end Crush. I loved this.

• In the main event, WWF Champion Yokozuna clashes with Native American Tatanka. This is a slow match with Yoko working over Tatanka very slowly while Johnny Polo goes NUTS with his comedy sound effects. He keeps cracking jokes and then playing his own canned laughter. The fans loudly chant USA at Yoko as Cornette and Fuji pace around the ring, cheering him on. Tatanka mounts a comeback with chops and hits a big jumping chop off the top rope which finally knocks Yoko off his feet but then he stupidly goes for his Samoan drop finisher. He can’t lift the near 600lbs champion and so takes a belly to belly suplex and a Banzai drop and Yokozuna is victorious. 

• At the end of the show, Vince promotes Raw tomorrow night (it’s just a one hour edited version of this same show so I’m skipping it) and then he, Polo, Gorilla and Stan Lane say their goodbyes and give their Wrestlemania predictions (Gorilla thinks Yoko will beat both Lex and Bret, Stan thinks it’ll be Lex who wins both, Johnny Polo thinks that Yoko will beat Lex, but Bret will win the main event and be the new WWF Champion - interesting) and leave us with Men on a Mission’s Wrestlemania rap. I didn’t love it but if you really want to watch it, it’s the final few minutes of the video linked at the start of this show!

• I really enjoyed this whole show - the build to PPVs in this era is quite spread out, with months of shows between the PPVs to get through but shows like this where the whole card is distilled down and every segment pushes towards Wrestlemania are pretty enjoyable. 

And so, “ten years in the making” which would mean that they began prep for this a full year before Wrestlemania 1, Wrestlemania X is upon us. I’m happy with the card and there’s a few matches on there that I expect to be good. This show is historically well remembered, especially compared to Wrestlemania IX’s legacy so I hope it lives up to my memories. The final card as advertised heading into the show;

WWF Championship

Yokozuna © (w/Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette) vs. Lex Lugar

Special Guest Referee: Surprise

Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart

WWF Championship

(The Winner of the Lex Lugar/Yokozuna match) © vs. Bret Hart

Special Guest Referee: Surprise

Falls Count Anywhere match

Macho Man Randy Savage vs. Crush

Ladder match for the Undisputed WWF Intercontinental Championship

Razor Ramon © vs. Shawn Michaels (w/Diesel)

WWF Tag Team Championships

The Quebecers © (Jacques and Pierre w/Johnny Polo) vs. Men on a Mission (Mabel and Mo, w/Oscar)

Mixed Tag Team match

Bam Bam Bigelow and Luna Vachon vs. Doink the Clown and Dink the Clown

WWF Women’s Championship

Alundra Blayze © vs. Leilani Kei

Earthquake vs. Adam Bomb (w/Harvey Whippleman)

Ten Man Tag Team match

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)

Wrestlemania X - Madison Square Garden, New York New York, March 20th, 1994

Wrestlemania opens with a video focused entirely on the celebrity appearances at the first Wrestlemania and a surprise - the return of Jerry “The King” Lawler! He’s cleared up his legal troubles and is now safe to be back on TV. Honestly the company had more to worry about in 1994 - I’ll be talking a lot more about the steroid trial and Vince McMahon’s danger of going to prison at the King of the Ring. 

Little Richard performs America the Beautiful. I’m sure he’s a good singer given his long and successful career but he’s a bit horrifying looking - his head looks like a rubber mask - and his singing voice is so quiet you can barely hear him. 

Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart

This one opening the show is a bit of a surprise but it’s cool that it gets a video package of sorts - Todd Pettengill narrating the collection of clips is the 1994 version of a video package. This has been a great feud and story so far.

During Owen’s entrance we get a good look at the Wrestlemania X entrance. I love MSG, with the little tunnel coming through the people. Nice touch as the ring announcer begins announcing someone from Calgary Alberta Canada and the crowd picks up thinking it’s Bret, turning to boos when Owen’s music plays. 

Regardless of the outcome of this match, Bret will face the WWF Champion in the final match of this show even if he doesn’t know if it’ll be Lex Lugar or Yozozuna yet. Odd booking I know, but we’ll talk about that a lot more later. 

Lawler back on commentary is a mixed bag - personally I can’t stand him, but that’s mostly due to the sexual deviant character he played all through the Attitude era. He does add a fun element to this match, running down Bret and cheering on “the only good member of his family” Owen Hart. 

Bret and Owen lock up and go into some classic, clean wrestling exchanges with Owen obnoxiously celebrating his every escape and advantage over his big brother. Owen’s great. Bret outsmarts Owen sending him to the outside and the younger Hart responds by slapping his brother hard in the face! They go back to more wrestling exchanges with Owen maintaining the advantage. They quickly shift seamlessly from move to move and Bret focuses on Owen’s arm, frustrating him with a quick roll up when he escapes and then going right back to the armbar.

Owen seems to concede that he can’t outwrestle Bret and so moves it to brawling with an elbow to the face. Bret wins that too and clotheslines Owen out of the ring, but gets him back into the ring right away. Bret wants to keep this a clean wrestling match, which plays into his character. They shove each other and resort to slaps and Bret gets ANOTHER rollup before going back to the armbar. Vince and King bicker a lot on commentary about which of the Harts is the better wrestler, and which of the Harts is to blame for this big falling out. King is strongly pro-Owen, who finally gets the advantage with an elbow, clothesline and barrage of kicks. He slams Bret into the ringpost on the outside and seems more focused now on winning vs. proving he’s the better wrestler. Smart. Owen focuses his own attack on Bret’s back, grinding him down with submissions and kicks. The pace picks up briefly with Owen countering an Irish whip to the corner by hopping to the middle rope and coming back with a crossbody, but then goes right back to a club to the head and beats on his big brother.

Another quick exchange ends with Owen scoring with a tombstone piledriver on Bret. That might end it but he doesn’t go for the cover and heads to the top rope for a diving headbutt. Bret rolls clear and Owen crashes to the mat and both men are down. Owen is back up first but Bret rallies and goes into his five moves of doom combo - atomic drop and a nearfall, Russian legsweep and a nearfall, backbreaker and then his pin-point elbow off the middle rope for another nearfall. Next is the Sharpshooter but a kick to the back of the head puts Bret down and Owen goes for the Sharpshooter.

Both men are skilled with this move and battle to get it on but a rake to the eye from Owen ends that. It’s a very close match. Bret sends Owen flying outside with a kickout from a roll up and comes out with a dive over the ropes onto Owen which costs him as Bret grabs his knee after the landing and comes up with a heavy limp. Back in the ring, Owen goes right after the knee with kicks and wrenches, hammering on Bret’s now injured leg including using the ringpost as a weapon and locking in the Indian deathlock in the ring. He whips Bret around the ring with leglocks and leg-laces and locks in the Figure Four. He is laser focused on injuring Bret’s leg and not just winning this match but making sure he’s not fit to compete for the WWF Championship later in the night. Bret fights back with a kick to the head and then sends Owen HARD into the corner, chest first for a near fall. He gets another from a running bulldog headlock and then follows with a gorgeous piledriver. Owen is out but he kicks out AGAIN, as Bret heavily sells his knee. He brings Owen down off the top rope with a great looking superplex but is too hurt to get to the cover and when he finally does, Owen kicks out. 

Bret locks in a sleeper and a desperate Owen uses a blatant lowblow - undetected by the referee - and locks in the Sharpshooter in the middle of the ring. Bret is beat but he manages to power up and out of the hold, turning it into a Sharpshooter of his own but Owen is already in the ropes. It makes sense that only Owen and Bret would know how to counter that move. The finish comes out of no where as after a back and forth in the corner, Bret goes for a victory roll down from Owen’s shoulders - the move he used to win the King of the Ring finals - but Owen blocks it, sitting down on Bret’s chest and hooking the legs to get the three count! Owen Hart just beat Bret Hart clean in the middle of the ring. Owen is elated, and Bret looks like he can’t believe it. 

This was an incredible match. Watching these shows to review them is good because it forces me to look for the story within a match and Bret Hart in particular was always so gifted at layering a story and narrative throughout all of his matches. Owen rushes backstage and is interviewed by Todd Pettengill. Owen is so happy and brags about being the new best there is, best there was and best there ever will be! Just try to ignore all the saliva around his mouth as he rants like a mad man. Owen says he doesn’t think Bret will be able to compete tonight for the WWF Championship and seems really happy about that too.

There’s a bunch of classic Wrestlemania moments throughout the show - Wrestlemania 2 came from three venues and had a battle royal! All of these moments have a very definite “not Hulk Hogan” tone to them as the Hulkster was freshly signed with WCW. I won’t recap them all - it’s the moment’s you’d expect.

Mixed Tag Team match

Bam Bam Bigelow and Luna Vachon vs. Doink the Clown and Dink the Clown

This match weirdly might have the second most build on the card behind Lex’s WWF title pursuit - Bam Bam and Doink have been feuding since the summer of 1993! 

Babyface Doink sucks, I’m sorry. He sprays the people at ringside with water from his flower and Bam Bam jumps him the moment he gets in the ring. He shows off his speed with a dropkick and jumps really high for a legdrop but Doink avoids the contact. After a very brief exchange Doink tags in the tiny Dink who wants to fight Bam Bam but he’s forced to tag out to Luna. The two of them do comedy spots with Luna diving for Dink and missing and then getting kicked up the butt. She squashes him against the ropes which gets a big laugh from King, but misses her second one. After some more comedy lunges and misses, Luna misses a splash off the top rope and he tags out to Doink. He’s overpowered by Bam Bam who crushes Doink by sitting on him. Doink comes back with quite an impressive slam but misses his big butt splash off the top rope. This match is a lot of people just “missing their moves”. Bam Bam knocks Dink off the apron and then just hammers Doink with headbutts and finishes him with a big diving one off the top rope. Bam Bam and Luna win, just like that. They aren’t done and when Dink kicks Bam Bam, he pays for it being slammed by Luna. Bam Bam and Luna go for a stereo splash which was SUPPOSED to miss but Dink rolled the wrong way and Luna landed on him and had to pretend she didn’t. I’m not sure what else was planned for this spot but they quickly clear out of the ring and just move on. This was rubbish and a big come down from the previous match.

In the crowd there’s a Bill Clinton impersonator sitting with WWF President Jack Tunney and IRS, so that Vince can pretend the President of the United States has attended Wrestlemania. 

Falls Count Anywhere match

Macho Man Randy Savage vs. Crush (w/Mr. Fuji)

Macho Man and Crush’s issues started with Crush feeling slighted by his best buddy during his recovery, but snowballed very quickly into something intensely personal. I’ve spoken in glowing terms about both this feud and Macho’s amazing promos and I stand by it.

This match has odd rules where falls DO count anywhere, but after a pinfall, you have to make it back to the ring within 60 seconds to be declared the winner. Macho Man rushes Crush during his entrance, attacking with fury but he’s lifted high into the air and dropped onto the security wall. Crush pins Macho, and that leaves him with 60 seconds to make it back into the ring or Crush will be declared the winner. It’s a struggle, but Macho Man makes it to ringside. Mr. Fuji blasts him with his Japanese flag and so it ends up being way closer than it should have been. Savage gets back into the ring with two seconds to spare. Of course the rules of this match mean that you can’t pin your opponent in the ring, otherwise the 60 second stipulation wouldn’t work. Quite odd, sort of a hybrid hardcore/last man standing match really. 

Crush dominates Macho but when he tries to use Fuji’s salt, it backfires and is kicked back into his face. Macho comes off the top with an axe handle, then a slam, and then his top rope elbow. He rolls Crush out of the ring to the floor to pin him and now Crush has 60 seconds to wake up and get back in the ring - Fuji tries his best, slapping him and then pouring a pitcher of water onto Crush’s face. That was smart. 

Crush backdrops Macho out of the ring and fights with him on the outside, but Randy reverses Crush into the ring post. This is heated, and Crush fights back and tries to piledrive Randy on the floor. It’s countered into a backdrop and they disappear through some doors into the back. Randy slams Crush through some doors and that knocks him out enough to get the pinfall victory. Crush now has 60 seconds to get back to the ring and so Randy, like a genius, ties up Crush’s legs in a pulley and hangs him upside down in the backstage area. 

Savage heads back to the ring intending to leave Crush hanging upside down but his knot doesn’t hold and Crush collapses to the floor. That’s a shame. It is enough to keep Crush backstage for 60 seconds and Macho Man Randy Savage wins. This was alright, but too short to be good or bad really. It’s a shame that the finishing spot was botched.

This was Macho’s final televised WWF match. He wrestled on non-TV events and overseas tours a fair bit for the rest of 1994 but with Vince wanting to focus on younger talent and his “new Generation” he kept Macho firmly behind the camera in a presenter/commentator role. We will see a bit more of him on Raw and other PPVs but sadly this is the last of his matches I’ll get to watch during this era.

Todd Pettengill interviews “Bill Clinton” about whether he’s enjoying Wrestlemania X. This was all designed to mock Democrat Clinton - Vince can’t help himself. MORE importantly, Todd also introduced a video recapping the weekend’s Fan Fest in New York City which looked like awesome fun

WWF Women’s Championship

Alundra Blayze © vs. Leilani Kei

This is Alundra’s first proper TV appearance, not counting video packages. Leilani was around in the mid to late 80s and appeared at Wrestlemania 1. The entire women’s division is being built around Alundra. The challenger is a lot bigger and heavier than Alunda so slams and knocks her down as the champion goes for quick pins with rollups. King has nothing to say about this match so talks exclusively about the attractiveness of both women, pretending to have a crush on Leilani. After a short back and forth, Blayze hits a nice looking German suplex to pick up the victory. King says he wasn’t impressed, and a bunch of historical wrestling figures are shown at ringside cheering her on including Nikolai Volkoff, Lou Albano, Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young.

The WWF Women’s Championship has been around, in one form or another, throughout the 70s and 80s. Famously, Fabulous Moolah was champion for “26 years” even though that’s clearly not true, they just don’t want to acknowledge the women she lost it too in between, usually in other companies through talent sharing deals in the territory days of wrestling. Vince liked Alundra and wanted to build the division around her, but sadly didn’t hire any opponents for her to work with and so we see here with her squashing a woman from over a decade ago in a match that wasn’t really promoted. The women’s division will gain more prominence through the rest of 1994 as we’ll see but isn’t long for this world so don’t get too attached.

There’s some backstage comedy as Shawn Michaels makes the moves on Rhonda Shear, who seems into it. Then Burt Reynolds shows up and steals her from the Heartbreak Kid. They are REALLY proud of how many celebrities they have on this show. 

WWF Tag Team Championships

The Quebecers © (Jacques and Pierre w/Johnny Polo) vs. Men on a Mission (Mabel and Mo, w/Oscar)

Men on a Mission get MSG rocking during their entrance, chanting “Oh yeah” and “Woomp there it is!” along with Oscar who is, to be fair, a decent rapper. 

The Quebecers attack Mabel and Mo from behind before the bell but their two on one attack on the 500lbs Mabel doesn’t go far and he puts them down with a double clothesline. Mo and Pierre settle things down as the legal men from there. 

Men on a Mission hit a string of double teams like a tandem legdrop and a double elbow drop but Jacques breaks up the pin and after some sneaky cheating behind the referee’s back, they isolate and work over Mo in the champion’s corner. I love the Quebecer’s double teams as they’ll just suplex and backdrop each other, landing on their opponents. Pierre wows the crowd with a diving cannonball up and over the ropes onto Mo which gets a close nearfall back in the ring. Good stuff.

Mo avoids a top rope legdrop and tags out to Mabel (it doesn’t get much of a reason sadly for MOM) but the big man smashes through both Quebecers, crushing Jacques but he misses Pierre in the corner and then in the big spot of the match, they double suplex the enormous Mabel. They hit their big assisted top rope cannonball splash but Mabel kicks out and no one can believe that. 

Oscar and Johnny Polo get into a fight on the outside as Mo and Mabel crush Peirre with a double team splash on the floor. Polo has had enough and pulls Jacques out of the ring. The Quebecers bail out and Men on a Mission win by count out, which means no title change. Mabel and Mo celebrate with the tag team title belts anyway and with Oscar’s help get the crowd back on their feet after that flat finish. This wasn’t great. 

Before the next match, Howard Finkle introduces the celebrities. Rhonda Shear will serve as time keeper, and Donnie Wahlberg will act as special guest ring announcer. He has the honour of telling us who the first of tonight’s two special guest referees will be - the returning Mr. Perfect! I mentioned a few weeks ago but Donnie’s brother Mark was, at the time, an underwear model and dancer. He wanted Mark on this show too but Vince turned him down - hilarious in hindsight that Mark Wahlberg wasn’t big enough for the WWF, but Donnie Wahlberg was. He actually does a pretty good job here.

WWF Championship

Yokozuna © (w/Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette) vs. Lex Lugar

Special Guest Referee: Mr. Perfect

King assumes that babyface Mr. Perfect will be biased to Lex Lugar, but Vince says that all parties have agreed to his being the referee beforehand. I wonder if that will come into play. Lex has some new music here, finally dropping Stars and Stripes Forever in favour of a drum heavy, atmospheric instrumental which I don’t think I could hum if you gave me a million pounds. Lex has a TERRIBLE poker face and enters for this WWF Championship match looking absolutely miserable. I wonder what’s wrong? The crowd is certainly behind him. 

I’ll mention here that I really like the black and gold colour scheme of this show, and Jim Cornette has made an effort with his outfit - a long black coat with gold general/military leader details. Good stuff.

Lex and Yoko get face to face and talk trash before it gets physical with punches and slaps. Lex’s big clothesline doesn’t knock the champion down, but Yoko’s knocks down the challenger. Lex is amped up and knocks Yoko to the outside and keeps the pressure up - they’re just trading big blows. 

I wonder why this match didn’t open the show, so that whoever wins this would have more time to rest for the second match - it seems like either of these men would need more time to recover than Bret. 

They go back and forth, immediately resorting to slow offence and heavy selling while King calls all of Perfect’s counts biased in Lex’s favour. Yoko takes control and, after removing the turnbuckle cover undetected by the referee, grinds Lex down with a long nerve hold, pinching his neck. That lasts for an eternity and then Lex is dumped outside where Mr. Fuji gets a little cheap shot in. Lex struggles to get back into the ring to avoid a count out loss. The fans should be rallying behind Lex but they sound bored. Back in the ring, Yoko locks in his third long, long nerve hold of the match as Lex doesn’t even look like he's selling anymore, straight faced and staring off into the middle distance. 

Lex finally fights back..but is knocked down with a chop and locked in a fourth nerve hold. The fans start booing but Fuji waves his Japanese flag and that coaxes a USA chant out of them. Lex’s next comeback is stopped with a 568lbs belly to belly suplex. At least it wasn’t a nerve hold. He tries to ram Lex into the exposed turnbuckle but it’s blocked and Yoko tastes the steel instead. Lex turns Yoko inside out with a clothesline, then slams him, then hits him with the big forearm! Lex has the match won, but Cornette and Fuji hop up onto the apron so he knocks them out too. He covers Yoko but Mr. Perfect is too busy checking on Cornette and Fuji! Lex shoves him and tells him to count, so Perfect disqualifies Lugar! He quickly leaves, and Lex looks heartbroken as Yokozuna is declared the winner. Mr. Perfect screwed over Lex Lugar, but why? Will we ever find out? The fans chant “bullshit” while backstage, Todd interviews Perfect about what he did. Lugar rushes backstage to confront him and they have a screaming match as referees and officials keep them apart. 

And so ends the main event career of Lex Lugar. His legacy is as one of the great failed experiments of Vince McMahon, post Hogan as he scrambled to find a new megastar. Lex did connect with the crowd, but only ones who loved America and as a fairly average wrestler and one of the least charismatic promos I’ve ever seen, it was never going to work out. In my oh so humble opinion, the obvious choice from here is for him to turn heel again and feud with Bret Hart - he was way more natural in a heel role where he didn’t need to worry about being cheered - but that didn’t come to pass and while Lex isn’t going anywhere, this was his last sniff of becoming WWF Champion. He can’t even feud with Mr. Perfect now as he is barred from wrestling due to his back injury and didn’t step back in the ring until joining WCW in 1997. Poor Lex. 

Earthquake vs. Adam Bomb (w/Harvey Whippleman)

Before this match begins, Harvey Whippleman comes to the ring and insults Howard Finkle and his “Hairclub for Men” sponsored hairpiece. He tears the Fink’s suit and gets shoved on his ass for it, which brings Adam Bomb rushing down to defend his manager. Earthquake follows and after a belly to belly suplex, a slam and then an Earthquake sit-down splash, Earthquake beats Adam Bomb in 35 seconds. 

Backstage, Todd Pettengill interviews Yokozuna and his entourage about their title defence over Lex and their next match against Bret Hart. Jim Cornette is supremely confident - Bret lost to his brother, he’s got a bad knee and he doesn’t need to worry about winning the title, he needs to worry about whether he can even survive the match! 

Coming up next, this is not the first Ladder match. Bret actually got the idea from his dad’s Stampede Wrestling in Canada where they’d been having ladder matches for years. This isn’t even the first ladder match in WWF history as on an event in late 1992, Bret Hart defended the Intercontinental title against Shawn Michaels in a Ladder match. That made it onto one of the WWF’s compilation tapes (Smack ‘em, Whack ‘em, realised April 1993) but Bret was happy enough to let Shawn and Razor bring it to TV and PPV. What he wasn’t happy with was Shawn taking credit for coming up with the match, or claiming to have brought it to the WWF. I’ll get to/have to talk a lot more about their real life dislike for each other in the coming years but at this point in time, they were friendly enough and so there was no real drama. Yet. 

Ladder match for the Undisputed WWF Intercontinental Championship

Razor Ramon © vs. Shawn Michaels (w/Diesel)

The story coming into this one is pretty straight forward - Shawn was stripped of his title and so when he returned with his belt in hand, he refused to recognise the man who won the vacant belt in his absence and has launched sneak attack after sneak attack at Razor Ramon, with the belt of his massive bodyguard. Diesel has some nice new silver-heavy gear here. Wrestlemania is like seeing your family on Christmas day - you have to make an effort to look nice. 

Shawn avoided walking under the ladder but Razor isn’t superstitious and has no problem making his way under it. Much like the Bret and Owen match earlier, I think I’ll have a hard time doing this one justice but I’ll try my best! 

They start off with brawling - Razor is a lot bigger than Shawn so wins that - but a well timed side-step sends Ramon crashing to the outside. He’s mowed down by Diesel with a big clothesline and that’s enough to get him kicked out of the ringside area, escorted to the back by referees. 

Razor rocks Shawn with big punches and then on the outside, lifts the protective mats to expose the bare concrete. He tries to give Shawn a Razor’s Edge from inside the ring to outside - which would kill him - but Shawn counters with a backdrop and he splats onto the concrete. Shawn then goes to get the ladder for the first time to introduce it to this match. Razor stops him and tries to take it, but Michaels baseball slides from inside the ring into the ladder, driving it into Ramon’s ribs. 

This being a “first time ever” situation, the fans gasp and oo and ah for every ladder use, and Michaels drives it into Razor’s stomach and chest on the mat and then slams it across his lower back a couple of times. Brutal, and both men sell like it weighs a ton trying to move it around. 

Michaels is the first man to climb the ladder, making it to the top and getting his hands on the belts but Razor catches his feet and exposes his arse, pulling his tights down which gets a big squeal from the girls in the crowd. He kicks Razor off, drops an elbow from the ladder and then pulls his tights back up. He’s so cool.

HBK follows that with a splash from the top of the ladder, onto Razor on the mat. There’s moments in this match which have become some of the most iconic images in wrestling history and that’s one of them. 

Michaels climbs but Razor shoves the ladder over and he lands on the top rope, bouncing back to the middle of the ring. Both men run into each other, but then Razor reverses Michaels’ irish whip to the ladder in the corner and he crashes into it instead, bouncing up and over the top rope to the floor. Ramon isn’t done and takes the ladder out of the ring to use as a weapon, running it into Shawn Michaels again and again, basically chasing him around the ring with it. 

Back in the ring, Razor climbs the ladder but Michaels dives off the top rope with a sledge, knocking Razor off the ladder but then the ladder tumbles and lands on Michaels! They both set up the ladder and begin to climb and there's a shot from the overhead camera - I thought that was an Attitude era invention but here it is in 1994! Michaels throws punches but Razor backdrops him up and off the ladder, all the way to the floor. That was cool but the ladder buckles and tumbles. Razor struggles to climb back up as it's now badly bent out of shape. HBK dropkicks the ladder to stop him from reaching the title belts. 

HBK drops Razor with a superkick, and then a piledriver. Both looked fantastic. He climbs the ropes and then rides the ladder down, crashing onto Razor Ramon with all of his weight. Michaels climbs and this is his best chance at victory but Razor shoulder tackles the ladder, causing Michaels to fall into the ropes. He gets tangled up, leg between the ropes which leaves him stuck. Razor climbs and Michaels gets his leg untangled…only to get his arm tangled! He can only watch helplessly as razor Ramon pulls down both Intercontinental title belts to retain his championship in a fantastic match. The crowd went nuts! Amazing stuff, and another iconic moment as razor climbs the ladder and celebrates with both title belts. This moment also begins my life long hatred of referee Earl Hebner as he steps up onto the ladder with Razor and gets himself on screen. Earl was terrible at constantly being in the wrong place, forcing himself into special moments and being an attention seeker - the last thing a referee should do. 

But I’m losing focus, this was awesome and both men deserve a lot of love and credit. 

Next up was supposed to be the 10 man tag team match but the show was running short on time and so backstage, the heel team are shown arguing about who the team captain should be and because they can’t agree? The match is cancelled! In kayfabe, what a bunch of idiots but in reality, these poor guys getting cut from the show at the last minute. 

Yokozuna’s WWF title reign has had ups and downs. His feud with Lex and with The Undertaker were both enjoyable but his match quality is usually poor - his couple of good matches depending massively on who his opponents were - and he’s been an afterthought since the Royal Rumble with all focus on Lex, Bret and to a lesser extent, Owen. The original booking is easy to spot - Lex was going to win the Rumble and win the title from Yoko at Wrestlemania, and Bret was going to face Owen. Easy peasy. I mentioned at Summerslam that urban legend says that Vince changed the Summerslam booking at the last minute to have Lex lose because he mouthed off in a bar about winning the title but that’s blatantly not true - all of the booking from Lex’s “one title shot only” contract at Summerslam to having to fight to be in the Rumble match lays it on pretty heavy that this was always the plan. Lex overcomes the odds and wins the title after 6 months of build. What changed? Well Vince liked Bret more, and so did the fans. He basically did live popularity contests at the Rumble and on Raw and even with the Superstar of the Year award and the fact is, the fans wanted Bret to be their guy. The booking for Wrestlemania was tweaked so that Bret would end the night in a WWF Championship match and it was the right call. 

There’s a music video about Bret Hart, showing all his big moments and title wins. On this version of the show, the song has been dubbed by something generic so I didn’t bother capturing it. There’s one about Yokozuna’s path of destruction immediately after too. 

Much like the previous WWF Championship match, we need celebrities. Jenny Garth (from Beverly Hills 90201) and Burt Reynolds (who was too big of a star to be doing this but was going through a messy divorce at the time and needed the cash). Burt does a much worse job than Donnie earlier. He sounds bored, but starts by introducing the special referee for this match - Rowdy Roddy Piper! This was Roddy’s first WWF appearance since 1992 as he tried to make it as an actor. I love Roddy, hopefully I’ll get to see a bit of him during this 1994 run.

WWF Championship

Yokozuna © (w/Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette) vs. Bret Hart

Special Guest Referee: Rowdy Roddy Piper

Yokozuna comes out first as the big intrigue here - is Bret Hart even able to compete after the number his brother did on his knee at the start of the show? 

This was of course the main event of last year’s show too, and marks the second time Yokozuna has competed in two WWF Championship matches at the same Wrestlemania. He jumps Bret as soon as he enters the ropes, wasting no time but Bret, with a limp, throws punches. Yoko slams Bret and tries to finish him off quickly as the challenger looks immediately exhausted. He throws punch after punch at the massive Yoko, unable to knock him off his feet and collapsing after a headbutt. Yoko is staggered and falls over too.

Bret is far too worn out to capitalise and Yoko is just legit too tired to so much so hits Bret while they’re both on the mat, throwing wild punches and choking him until he’s admonished by Roddy Piper. King speculates that we’ll see another corrupt referee here, reminding us that at Wrestlemania 8, Bret Hart beat Roddy Piper for the Intercontinental title. 

Yoko dumps Bret to the outside, content to win via countout. Roddy gives a consistent count but Bret makes it back into the ring. There isn’t much to say about this one as Yoko just slowly works over Bret inside the ring and out. He pummels Bret with chops in the corner but misses his big corner charge and Bret capitalises with a diving bulldog headlock off the middle rope. Yokozuna kicks out at two. 

Bret jumps off the middle rope with a crossbody but Yoko catches him and turns it into a belly to belly suplex. That looked pretty awesome actually. He drags Bret to the corner and prepares to drop the match winning Banzai on him but as he bounces, whether because he’s tired or something else, Yokozuna collapses back into the ring taking a back bump from the middle rope. Bret covers and somehow that’s enough for the three count! What a terrible finish, but Bret Hart is once again the WWF Champion! 

Pyro goes off from the roof of Madison Square Garden as an angry Yokozuna chases Roddy Piper out of the arena. Bret lays alone in the ring with his hard earned WWF title belt until the ring fills with his fellow babyfaces. Vince says that this is the start of a new era and the blast off of the next decade of the WWF. He’s right. One could call it a “New Generation” in fact. Lex was out first to shake Bret’s hand and hug him, followed by Roddy Piper, Razor Ramon and a whole host of others. Even Burt Reynolds gives Bret a big hug and congratulations. Macho Man comes out too - this was his idea, apparently. The WWF roster anointing and celebrating Bret as the new leader and top guy. I was happy to see Gorilla Monsoon join in. as does Vince McMahon. With Bret on Lex and Razor’s shoulders, Owen Hart comes out and from the entrance ramp, silently mouths “what about me?”. He had the greatest moment of his career but less than 3 hours later, no one cares and Bret has stolen his thunder by winning the title again. 

This was a really good show. Bret vs. Owen and the Ladder match obviously stand out as the big highlights but nothing was truly terrible and I was into the various characters and stories enough that that carried me through the other stuff. A big step up from Wrestlemania IX and I’m very interested to see how much the New Generation branding takes off from here as up until now, there’s been no mention of it. I guess these couple of years, post-Hogan and pre-New Gen are known as the Unbelievable Era. 

Monday Night Raw - March 21st 1994

• The night after Wrestlemania. Unlike last year, I believe this episode was actually taped after Wrestlemania so it’s not an odd mismatch of matches with heavily edited commentary. Macho Man and Vince McMahon open the show and Macho taunts Crush about his loss last night, and they’re both excited to see the new WWF Champion later in the show. Vince also mentions the 10 man tag team match which didn’t take place, but it will in two weeks on Raw. 
• There’s a weird pre-recorded character video with IRS giving some rules for being a tax paying, law abiding citizen. This is the kind of stuff they used to slot in between matches on the special compilation VHS releases (Coliseum video in the states, Silver Vision in the UK)

• Butch and Luke, The Bushwackers take on WWF Tag Team Champions, The Quebecers. Butch and Luke attack them the moment they enter the ring and then corner manager Johnny Polo to tease licking his face but Jacques and Pierre make the save. The Bushwackers give the champions the run around with their comedy spots and actually show off some real wrestling. They have the match in hand, but a well timed distraction by Johnny Polo and a knee to the back from Jacques helps the retain the titles. After the match, Vince McMahon interviews Polo and The Quebecers but they’re interrupted right away by Captain Lou Albano. He’s been hanging around for weeks and every time he pops up, Vince reminds us that he is a legendary manager specifically of Tag Team Champions. He asks Polo and the Champs to accept his challenge from “any team he can put together” and they do accept. Vince says that hopefully we’ll see that Tag Team title match right here on Raw very soon. Interesting.

• There’s a video recap of Wrestlemania X, specifically the WWF Championship and Ladder matches so here it is; some footage to go along with my write-up above. No mention of Owen Hart’s victory over Bret though?

• Tatanka takes on a lanky jobber with blond hair. It’s an easy victory for the Native American who’s changed up his look a little - his hair is shorter, and he’s not wearing his usual facepaint. 
• In the final Wrestlemania Report, Todd Pettengill runs down all the events from the PPV where he focuses on - you guessed it - the celebrities! This is just the hard sell for the PPV replay next week.
• Diesel (with no Shawn Michaels who’s selling the effects of the Ladder match) takes on a big thick jobber. It’s a demonstration squash for the big man who drills him with a big sidewalk slam and other power moves. The fans actually chant for Diesel as Vince and Macho speculate that he’s now the next in line for a crack at Razor Ramon’s Intercontinental title. This match marks the debut of Diesel’s actual finishing move - the Jackknife powerbomb. The fans are really into this silent badass who’s booked super strong. I wonder why? 

• I thought Vince’s voice sounded off so far and it’s confirmed when Bret Hart comes out as he has a really hard time introducing the new WWF Champion - sounds like he hurt his throat and lost his voice a little at Wrestlemania! It’s nice to see Bret with the title again - the winged eagle really suits him. Bret thanks the fans for supporting him and he’s glad he didn’t let them down. Vince brings up Owen beating him at the start of the show and Bret makes no excuses and tells Owen that he won ONE match but thinks are different now because he’s the champion. I think Owen’s the number one contender personally, but then so is Crush because he beat Bret on the March to Wrestlemania! 

• In the main event, Double J battles the returning Koko B.Ware. This is Jeff’s first non-jobber opponent and he has a hard time, getting bounced around and complaining to the referee that Koko pulled his hair! Jeff picks up the win with a DDT and then after the match, goes to yell abuse at Macho Man who’s been running him down on commentary. Macho wants to fight Jarrett and Vince holds him back for a bit, but he won’t be contained and rushes the ring. Koko actually helps Macho out and the two of them send Double J packing.

• Another odd time capsule of a commercial from 1994 - WWF Greetings on Call! 

• After the final commercial break, Vince raises Macho’s arm so the crowd can give a big cheer for him, they promote next week’s big matches and we’re out! 

Monday Night Raw - March 28th 1994

• At the start of Raw, Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase in the front row offers cash to some fans in the front row and kicks them out of their seats so he can be ringside for tonight’s show. What is he up to? There’s been a few former and returning WWF performers in the front row recently, most consistently Nikolai Volkoff. Is this related? 

• Jim Cornette joins Vince McMahon on commentary and promises to provide the unvarnished truth of what’s happening in the WWF, specifically about Yokozuna losing the title, and Mr. Perfect seemingly screwing over Lex Lugar. That leads neatly into the first match which is Lex Lugar (with his new, non-descript theme song) vs. Rick Martel. Last week, Vince and Macho Man speculated that Lex would adopt a “no more Mr. Nice Guy” attitude after failing to win the title at Wrestlemania and we see a bit of that here with him working very aggressively against Martel. Cornette is a gifted talker but his long, relentless monologues where he doesn’t seem to stop for breath meant I had to turn the volume right down on this show. He was giving me a headache. The Model shows off his own wrestling skill - he’s very good - and controls the mid-section of this match working on Lex’s lower back but Made in the USA fights back and, with his new more serious attitude, wins this with his new Torture Rack finishing move. 

• Owen Hart cuts a little promo backstage about how after beating Bret Hart, he can beat anyone and that leads to his match with Mike Freeman. Never seen this guy before but his hair is absolutely ridiculous even by standards of 1994. During this match, Vince and Cornette speak to Ted Dibiase where he says that over the next few weeks he’ll have some surprises for everyone as he sets out to prove that EVERYONE has a price. Interesting. Owen snaps his sunglasses in half before the match rather than hand them out to the kids in the front row like Bret does. He takes his time picking apart Freeman and showing off before finally finishing him off with the Sharpshooter. Owen makes it very clear that he’s expecting a shot at Bret’s WWF Championship.

• Doink and Dink enter the arena and while doing a lap of the ring, Doink squirts water at Ted Dibiase at ringside and he looks furious! The match itself is Doink vs. some guy? It’s basically a handicap match as Dink screws around and kicks the jobber in the shins, getting chased around the ring. Doink wins with the big butt splash off the top which Vince calls the Whoopee Cushion, so it has a name now at least. 

• Jim Cornette interviews Johnny Polo and The Quebecers in the ring. All heels together, they all hug and embrace. Cornette congratulations them on having beaten every team in the WWF but before the promo can continue, Captain Lou Albano comes out and says he’s found his team to challenge them for the Tag Team titles - it’s the Headshrinkers! This is a face turn for the Headshrinkers which is poor timing as next week on Raw they’re scheduled to be on the heel side of the 10 man tag team match. Jacques calls the Headshrinkers his friends but Lou cuts him off and says they’re NOT his friends, they’re HIS friends. More confirmation that Fatu and Samu are good guys now. Captain Lou says that he’s going to speak to President Tunney and make sure they get their tag team title match or they’ll be stripped of the titles. Pierre and Jacques aren’t happy - they thought he’d bring out a babyface team that they’ve already beaten! 

• The 1-2-3 Kid takes on the Black Phantom. He dazzles with a string of kicks to the head and face before winning with the same moonsault he used to beat Razor Ramon once upon a time. 
• I mentioned at the start of this show that Nikolai Volkoff has been in the front row a lot lately. It’s not related to this Ted Dibiase business as he’s here again on the other side of the ring and has words with Crush and Mr. Fuji as he makes his entrance. Crush demolishes a no-name guy with an ugly moustache, showing off his “mastery of the martial arts” which means striking karate kid poses and saying hi-ya apparently.