Monday Night Raw - November 1st, 1993

Raw opens with Bastion Booger eating a huge pile of what he describes as Raw food. Disgusting. From there, Vince makes a joke about him shitting himself which is very much his sense of humour. He LOVES toilet humour. The opening match is Booger vs. Razor Ramon in non-title action. The fans are solidly behind the Intercontinental Champion so patronisingly slaps Bastion’s manboobs and jokes about his weight. Booger keeps this very slow but Ramon comes back with a bodyslam. He’s too big to get up for the Razor’s Edge so pins him with a roll up instead. Razor wins, obviously.

The big news coming out of the Survivor Series Report (hosted now by my boy, Todd Pettengill) is that Tatanka is no longer undefeated! On WWF Superstars, Mr. Fuji distracted the referee so that Borga could knock the native American out with a steel chair and pin him with a single finger on the chest. They obviously had HUGE plans for Borga but, spoilers, he’s gone by the end of the year. What a waste of Tatanka’s two year undefeated streak. Back in the arena on Raw, Vince McMahon is in the ring with the Foreign Fanatics. Jim Cornette and Johnny Polo do the bulk of the talking about the All-American team - mostly about how stupid they all are - and then Borga ruins things but droning on about how he’s going to end Lex Lugar specifically, and take out Scott Steiner in his match with him next week on Raw.

After a commercial for that very match, Mr. Perfect is in the ring for a match with The Executioner. He slowly works him over, stretching out his legs with various submission holds and showing off his mat skills. He finishes him off with the Perfect-plex. This is the last Mr. Perfect match I’ll get to see - he wrestled on the next episode of WWF Wrestling Challenge defeating Iron Mike Sharp but then sadly his back injury flared up and he was forced to go back into retirement. We’ll see Mr. Perfect hang around for a while, dipping in and out of commentary duties and so on but he next wrestled in 1997 for WCW. I’ll talk a little more about that at the Survivor Series as he’s currently slated to team with Razor Ramon, 1-2-3 Kid and Marty Jannetty.

There’s another video about Jeff Jarret’s country music ambitions. He runs down Billy Ray Cyrus and says he can’t sing. Rude.
The Smoking Gunns take on Well Dunn (that’s Tim Well and Steve Dunn) with their manager Harvey Whippleman. Well Dunn have been around for a little while but this is my first glimpse of them on Raw. They’re somewhere in between jobbers and a real tag team. After a lengthy back and forth, Harvey gets caught tripping Billy Gunn by the referee, giving the Smoking Gunns the victory via disqualification.
Macho Man calls in with a medical update. Bobby Heenan, who’s mentioned many times tonight that it’s his birthday, keeps mocking Randy for having injured his tongue. Macho Man has none of it and says he’ll be back next week and back on commentary. He refuses to be scared away and kept away from Raw by Crush.

Adam Bomb takes on Virgil. I honestly cannot believe Virgil is still with the WWF by this point. We’ve seen a lot of Harvey Whippleman tonight! Virgil actually holds his own and puts up a real fight but an Atom Smasher powerbomb gives Adam Bomb the victory.
Good bit of comedy at the end of the night as Heenan had continually mentioned that it was his birthday but just as he starts to sing happy birthday to himself, the show ends while he’s mid-sentence.

Monday Night Raw - November 8th, 1993

Raw opens with a crossfaded promo between Ludvig Borga and Scott Steiner. Borga curls his lip like Elvis. Scott Steiner says he’s going to shut up the anti-American Borga tonight.

Macho Man is back on commentary and he promises us that if Crush has the guts to show up tonight, all hell is going to break loose! Interestingly, there’s a fan vote to decide who will face Quebecer Pierre next week on Raw. They did the fan voting by telephone for Shawn Michaels previously. There’s lots of examples of this during WWF history - Vince trying to get fan voting gimmicks off the ground. Social media is exactly what he always wanted.

Ludvig Borga vs. Scott Steiner is the opener. Scott is a very good wrestler and Borga is an absolutely terrible wrestler so who knows how this will go. Steiner puts up way more of a fight than anyone else has against Ludvig so far, throwing him around with suplexes and slams but the “hellraiser from Helsinki” just no-sells everything. This is by far the longest match of Borga’s career - it’s sloppy, including Steiner totally missing a missile dropkick because Borga was out of position. The Quebecers come down to show support for their team mate at Survivor Series so Rick Steiner comes down to support his brother. Borga brings Rick into the ring and get suplexed. That ends the match via disqualification so everyone just fills the ring and brawls. Scott and Rick fight off the three foreign heels and stand tall.
For the fourth week in a row, Double J talks about his aspirations in the WWF. The Grand Ole Opry is dead, just like Undertaker who he is going to use to become famous and a country music sensation. It makes about as much sense as a wrestling clown or whatever Bastion Booger is supposed to be.

Men on a Mission’s Mabel and Mo crush a pair of jobbers as Oscar leads the crowd in a “WOOMP there it is!” chant. Vince doesn’t join in this week sadly.
My boy Todd hosts the Survivor Series report. The graphics for the event are pretty cool, and advanced for 1993! I’m sure you’ll see those in a video at the event itself. He runs through what a Survivor Series match is and what the rules are. I know what you’re thinking - what happened to Joe Fowler? He’s gone. Lasted 10 weeks with the company. I believe Vince McMahon himself is now co-hosting All American Wrestling with Bobby Heenan. Another match gets added to Survivor Series too - a Smokey Mountain Wrestling Tag Team Championship match.

The Model Rick Martel takes on John Paul (not the pope) and much of this match is spent discussing whether Macho Man will substitute for Tatanka at Survivor Series after Borga injured him. That was very much the plan, but not what happened. I’ll talk about it at the show. Martel wins this by submission with his boston crab.
Crush’s match is next so Macho Man gets up ready for a fight. He’s all amped up and Vince McMahon leaves commentary and does what he can to get him to come back to the desk, physically restraining him. Macho has been told that if he gets physically involved in the show he’ll be fired. Randy throws Vince down to the floor and rushes Crush, pouncing on him! He hammers at Crush like a maniac, having to be held back by an army of referees and officials. It’s a chaotic fight and they go all the way up the entrance ramp punching and tearing at each other. Macho wants Crush dead!

After a commercial break, Macho Man has been taken backstage and things have settled down for the next match which is Bob Backlund vs. Barry Horowitz. Macho rejoins commentary while this match is in progress. He’s still all fired up and dares Heenan to make fun of him to his face this week. A camera backstage shows Crush still raging, desperate for a fight and threatening officials so Randy wastes no time and sprints backstage to attack him again! We’ll never know what happened in the Backlund and Horowitz match. After a final commercial break, Vince says that Randy has been thrown out of the building and the situation backstage is finally under control. He also reveals the fan poll result - Lex Lugar won in a landslide and will face Quebecer Pierre in a match that the fans themselves made. It seems that Vince’s words about Crush and Savage were premature as outside the building they’re STILL fighting and that’s how Raw ends. I’m enjoying this Savage and Crush feud a lot so far!

Monday Night Raw - November 15th, 1993

After a recap of Macho Man’s wild attack of Crush last week, Vince and Bobby break the news that President Jack Tunney has removed him from commentary for the time being because he’s too volatile to be at ringside.

In the opening match, Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon battles the Brooklyn Brawler. During this match, Vince breaks two big pieces of news - Shawn Michaels suspension has been lifted and he’s back and targeting Razor Ramon, and that Shawn is replacing Jerry “The King” Lawler in his match against The Hart Family at Survivor Series. More on that later, obviously. Razor wins with the Razor’s Edge.

Crush has some pre-recorded comments about the Macho Man. He told him to stay out of his way or he’d pay and not only did he get beat up last week he’s lost his broadcasting job. He tells him that if he keeps messing with Crush he’ll lose a whole lot more. Sinister.

The Headshrinkers take on a pair of no-names as Bobby Heenan talks about his new broadcasting partner who’ll be replacing Jerry Lawler, Reo Rogers. That's Bruce Pritchard aka Brother Love in a cowboy gimmick. He didn’t last very long in that role. The Headshrinkers win, cheered on by Afa.
There’s a commercial for the Survivor Series Showdown which, much like Match to Wrestlemania and Summerslam Spectacular, replaces next week’s Raw. The main event is Bret Hart challenging Yokozuna for the WWF Championship which is marketed as a rematch from Wrestlemania 9.

On the previous WWF Superstars, Lex Lugar and the All-Americans revealed their new Survivor Series partner to replace the injured Tatanka - The Undertaker. An interesting choice for sure. He cuts a promo in his normal cadence - undead zombie - about loving America. Let freedom ring and let the Foreign Fanatics rest in peace. Alright then. I’m not sure what version of the US flag that is with the ring of stars but knowing Undertaker it’s probably something confederate and problematic.

Quebecer Pierre battles Lex Lugar in a match voted for by the WWF fans. Apparently whenever the WWF has done these fan vote gimmicks Vince was always very forceful that the results must be legit and upheld. That’s nice of him. Pierre is a brawler and actually dominates, focusing on Lugar’s lower back and running him into the ring steps and the ring post. It works and the fans rally behind Lex, but then getting Americans to chant USA is one of the easiest things in the world. This is pretty good, I enjoyed it. Pierre is a fun wrestler to watch with his heavy brawling style mixed with creative moves - he misses a big flipping senton off the top. Lugar mounts a comeback with clotheslines, slams and finally his big running forearm to knock out Pierre and pick up the win as Heenan protests that the forearm should be illegal. Vince used to say the same thing when he was a heel. Funny how they’re both hypocrites. After a commercial break, Pierre is still out cold and being tended to by Johnny Polo and Jacques and has to be loaded onto a stretcher.

The massive 300lbs Diesel takes on “his opponent” because I don’t think Vince knew this guy’s name. Diesel’s theme music is just the sound of a truck idling and blowing its horn with no music. It’s kind of annoying honestly. He smashes the nameless man with forearms, knees and a back breaker. He doesn’t have a proper finishing move yet so wins this with a big boot and elbow drop combo.
During the Survivor Series report, Todd Pettengill talks about card changes; Pierre got a concussion earlier so may be replaced in the main event. Undertaker has already replaced the injured Tatanka. Elsewhere, Jerry “The King” Lawler has been swapped out for the returning Shawn Michaels because Lawler has had to be removed from television due to some “legal issues”, specifically being accused of having sex with an underage girl. Lawler remained off TV for a few months eventually returning once the girl admitted she made the story up. It’s bad timing as he was involved in a heated feud with Bret Hart and the whole match only makes sense because The King has Knights? But now Shawn Michaels has Knights. There is one more card change to come because, as I mentioned a couple of shows ago, Mr. Perfect’s back injury had flared up and he was out of the ring until joining WCW in 1997.
Future WWF Women’s Champion and mainstay of the Attitude era Jacqueline makes her on screen debut in this week’s Jeff Jarrett video as his assistant. This pairing didn’t pan out sadly but seeing it here? I love it. Double J will finally make his in-ring debut very soon. That segment was effectively the main event of the show as after a final plug for Survivor Series Showdown and the Bret/Yokozuna match, we’re out!

Survivor Series Showdown - November 21st, 1993

The show begins with a recap of this week’s Superstars where, during a match between Bret Hart and IRS, Yokozuna and Owen Hart both got involved and it was pretty chaotic. In the arena, Vince McMahon and Bobby Heenan welcome us to the show and mention that Gorilla Monsoon and Jim Ross are at a second location, presenting this as a broadcast that’s split, live, between two arenas. In reality, that’s to cover up the fact that this show is a mismatch of matches taped in two different locations - all the commentators are on green screen here.

The opening match is Doink the Clown vs. Bastion Booger. This is a pure comedy match with Booger trying to ride Doink’s little scooter and falling over, and Doink spraying him with water which JR and Gorilla call the first wash he’s had in months. Doink gives him the run-around with comedy spots until Booger slows things down, crushing him against the ringpost on the outside. Booger slowly works over Doink in the ring as JR and Gorilla discuss the four Doinks at Survivor Series - they are selling the match as it literally being four Doinks but in fact we won’t even be seeing ONE Doink. More on that in the next show. Doink confuses Booger, tapping on his shoulder so he thinks it’s the referee and then rolling up the confused opponent. Before he leaves, the Clown throws a little tabasco sauce on the pizza which Bastion brought to ringside with him during his entrance. Booger eats it and then spits the pizza out because of the hot sauce. Oh that Doink, he’s a rascal isn’t he?
After a replay of Lugvig Borga ending Tatanka’s undefeated streak with a steel chair, and then Yokozuna injuring him with a Banzai drop, there’s a special interview with the All-Americans - Lex Lugar, The Steiner Brothers and The Undertaker. They all take turns talking and the basic gist is that they’re going to eliminate the foreign fanatics and then Undertaker is going to bury them all. Scott and Rick excel at “excited, shouty promos” which is very much what Scott became famous for later in his career.

Vince and Bobby recap the events between Crush and Macho Man so far, specifically that Crush has returned from his injury blaming Randy for not being a good friend and aligning himself with the man who injured him in the first place Yokozuna. He say Macho Man has been using him since the beginning and the two have had a couple of furious brawls getting Macho removed from his broadcasting duties until further notice. That leads into a singles match between Crush (with Master Fuji) vs. Virgil. Virgil puts up a decent fight and gets near falls with a couple of rollups but Crush’s Kona Crush head squeeze ends it via referee stoppage. “He’d cause brain damage if Virgil had a brain!” from Bobby Heenan made me laugh.
In a replay from Superstars, Razor Ramon defended the Intercontinental title against Rick Martel. Harvey Whippleman tried to help The Model but it backfired and he was shoved into the manager on the outside. They got tangled up and Rick Martel lost by count out. That brought out Havey’s client Adam Bomb to defend his manager and the two heels - who will team up at Survivor Series got into a skirmish. Their other partners IRS and Diesel came out too and it looks like Team IRS can’t get along!

In Reo’s Roundup (that’s Bruce Pritchard doing a Dusty Rhodes impression, which is just an inside shot at one of WCW’s top stars) goes to visit Stu and Helen Hart with Shawn Michaels. HBK has the Intercontinental title belt which he never lost, and is claming to be the REAL champion after Razor won the vacant belt. They go into a home where two people dressed as comically old portray Stu and Helen. Weirdly I think this would have been funnier if it had been Jerry Lawler doing it as originally planned prior to his own suspension. Michaels does have one important plot point here, pointing out the huge Bret Hart poster with a tiny little Owen Hart one next to it. Planting seeds that Bret is the favourite and Owen is in his shadow. I wonder if the Hart boys agree?

Irwin R. Schyster takes on former Intercontinental Champion Marty Jannetty. They’ll be on opposite teams at Survivor Series and IRS is one of two men pursuing Razor Ramon (along with Shawn Michaels). IRS wins a longer match than you’d expect with the Write Off.
It’s now time for the Foreign Fanatics to give us their thoughts ahead of Survivor Series. Jim Cornette does all the talking here because he’s the only one who’s any good at it (that’s harsh actually, Quebecer Jacques and Johnny Polo aren’t bad). Pierre has been taken out by Lex Lugar so they now have their own replacement - Crush. I’ll talk a little bit more about the replacements in these matches at Survivor Series once they’re all finalised. They just repeat their various points about crushing the spirit of America and so on.

In the main event, Yokozuna defends the WWF Championship against Bret “Hitman” Hart. Bret is really aggressive, hammering Yoko with punches but never knocking him off his feet. Yoko shrugs off a sleeper hold and slows things down (which is fair enough, the size of him). Bret mounts a comeback but with constant distractions by Mr. Fuji, Yoko is able to cheat by running Bret into the ringsteps and hitting him across the back with a steel chair not once but twice. Bret valiantly fights as the crowd chants USA to support him, even though he’s Canadian. The fans are really into this and I really enjoyed it too. It’s a solid story and despite how immobile Yokozuna is, Bret finds a way to work around it. With huge effort he locks him in the Sharpshooter and like an idiot, Owen Hart comes down to celebrate with Bret before the match is actually over. That for some reason distracts the referee and so he doesn’t see Mr. Fuji hit Bret in the back of the head with his bucket. Owen won’t stand for that so he rushes into the ring too and hits Yoko with the bucket too, defending his brother but ending this match via disqualification. Why did Owen come down? I’m sure his heart was in the right place.

The show closes with the two commentator duos giving the hard sell for the Survivor Series PPV. Long time fans will probably get a kick out of seeing Gorilla and Bobby Heenan interact, but also from seeing Vince McMahon and a young pre-cowboy hat Jim Ross interact as equals. Men on a Mission jump in with the “Survivor Series rap” which is just Oscar rapping their normal entrance while Mabel and Mo dance. The crowd enjoyed it so who am I to judge?

So the Survivor Series is upon us. The card is littered with card changes including one more big one that I’ll explain in the opening match. I have lots to talk about outside the matches!

Four vs. Four Classic Survivor Series match

The All-Americans (Lex Lugar, Rick Steiner, Scott Steiner and The Undertaker w/Paul Bearer) vs, The Foreign Fanatics (WWF Champion Yokozuna and Crush w/Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette, Ludvig Borga and WWF Tag Team Champion Quebecer Jacques w/Johnny Polo)

Four vs. Four Classic Survivor Series match

The Hart Family (Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Bruce Hart and Keith Hart) vs. Shawn Michaels and His Knights (The Black Knight, The Blue Knight and The Red Knight

Four vs. Four Classic Survivor Series match

Team Razor (WWF Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon, Mr. Perfect, The 1-2-3 Kid and Marty Jannetty) vs. Team IRS (Irwin R. Schyster, Adam Bomb w/Harvey Whippleman, Diesel and Rick Martel)

Four vs. Four Classic Survivor Series match

The Four Doinks vs. Bam Bam Bigelow (w/Luna Vachon), The Headshrinkers (Samu and Fatu w/Afa) and Bastion Booger

SMW Tag Team Championships

The Rock n’ Roll Express © (Robert Gibson and Ricky Morton) vs. The Heavenly Bodies (Jimmy Del Ray and Tom Pritchard, w/Jim Cornette)

Survivor Series - Boston Garden, Boston Massachusetts, November 24th, 1993

The show opens with Lex Lugar and his family teaching us about Thanksgiving and welcoming us to the show. He and Peggy separated in 1999 and divorced in 2003. Feels mean spirited of me to point that out but here we are! I edited out the American National anthem being sung.

Survivor Series Opening

Four vs. Four Classic Survivor Series match

Team Razor (WWF Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon, Macho Man Randy Savage, The 1-2-3 Kid and Marty Jannetty) vs. Team IRS (Irwin R. Schyster, Adam Bomb w/Harvey Whippleman, Diesel and Rick Martel)

The show opens with the news of another substitution already - Mr. Perfect is out, as I said, and Macho Man Randy Savage is in! The original booking plans had Macho Man subbing into the All-Americans later so that he’d be in the same match as Crush. Mr. Perfect’s legit injury has messed with plans for Tatanka’s fake one. The heels come out together to Diesel’s music (IRS doesn’t have a theme song) but the babyfaces get solo entrances because they’re the stars. Razor doesn’t explain Perfect’s absence but gives an introduction to their new surprise partner - Macho Man! The crowd goes NUTS!

Razor and Martel kick off for their teams and they go straight into big moves and strikes with nearfalls after each one. Martel is outmatched so he tags out to the massive Adam Bomb. He overpowers Razor who is forced to tag out to the 1-2-3 Kid. He doesn’t fare much better and is thrown around by both Bomb and Diesel.

Savage finally gets a hot tag and comes in like a man possessed, slamming everyone and beating up the entire other team single handedly. A bodyslam and a top rope elbow drop on Diesel makes him the first man eliminated! Rick Martel picks up where Diesel left off and also gets beaten up by the two time WWF Champion with ease. He tags out to Razor and he goes at it with IRS for a bit but Macho Man gets back in and looks like he has IRS beat. He slams him and goes to the top for the elbow job but then his hated rival and former friend Crush comes out. Randy is very distracted understandably and IRS takes advantage, rolling him up and eliminating Macho Man! He doesn’t seem too bothered and just gets out of the ring and runs after Crush, disappearing backstage. Marty Jannetty picks up the slack for his team and tags in Razor who quickly puts down IRS with the Razor’s Edge, eliminating him.

IRS gets his revenge though as he sets up The Model for another Razor’s Edge, IRS hits him in the face with his briefcase. The Bad Guy collapses out of the ring and is counted out to also be eliminated, thanks to IRS. From there, Adam Bomb and Martel isolate the 1-2-3 Kid, slamming him on the outside and grinding him down in the ring but a hot tag to Marty Jannetty gets the two smaller guys back into the match. The finish comes out of nowhere as Marty rolls up Martel to eliminate him and then immediately catches Adam Bomb charging with the same, pinning him too! Marty Jannetty and the 1-2-3 Kid survive and win this for Team Razor.

Backstage, Todd Pettengill interviews Shawn Michaels. He calls him the former Intercontinental Champion after being stripped of the title in October but Shawn still has HIS IC title belt and calls himself the undisputed Intercontinental Champion. Todd mentions Bret defeating Shawn at last year’s Survivor Series PPV and then throws to comments from Bret Hart, flanked by his three brothers and his dad Stu. Bret says that his family doesn’t care about the Knights, they’ve had enough of Shawn and his targeting his family - obviously this feud was originally intended to be with Jerry Lawler who actually has been targeting the family for the past few months. Jerry is gone for a few months, as mentioned previously but I have to say they’ve done an admirable job of transplanting Shawn into his spot with that segment on Survivor Series Showdown.

Four vs. Four Classic Survivor Series match

The Hart Family (Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Bruce Hart and Keith Hart) vs. Shawn Michaels and His Knights (The Black Knight, The Blue Knight and The Red Knight

So who are the Knights? Bret made a bit of a fuss about unmasking the Knights because originally, the plan was for the men under these masks to be people of note - Terry Funk, Jimmy Snuka and Greg Valentine. Things fell through with Funk and Snuka so they were replaced by Barry Horowitz and Jeff Gaylord (no idea who he is) so they didn’t bother unmasking any of them because with only Greg Valentine being a former “star” it would have been a huge letdown.

The match is hosted by Ray Combs, who was the host of Family Feud (that’s Family Fortunes for the UK fans) and he runs through some jokes mostly making fun of Shawn Michaels’ intelligence. The crowd gets restless and starts to boo him so he smartly moves on and introduces the teams.

When Shawn comes out he goes over and taunts the rest of the Hart family in the front row behind the commentators. There’s 20 Harts here in attendance apparently.

Owen, Bruce and Keith are all in matching black singlets with some pink detail, and Bret is in a bright pink singlet with some black detail so we all know he’s the team captain. I love that. Stu is at ringside, and Bruce and Keith are technically retired - Keith is actually a fireman!

Shawn starts with Bruce Hart - he famously had an enormous ego and would do things like try to steal focus during these appearances, wearing a pair of shorts over his singlet so that he stands out and pitching storyline ideas for himself to Vince McMahon whenever he was backstage. A legendary lack of self awareness. Keith is a decent wrestler and holds his own against Michaels and the Red Knight. Heenan is hilarious ragging on the Harts, yelling at Stu to wake up and saying he’s not worried about getting attacked because it’ll take him two hours to get around the ring. “There’s 20 Harts sitting right behind you Mr. Heenan” “THAT’s the smell….”

Annoyingly, the Knight’s outfits aren’t properly colour coded, don’t quite match and they’re all wearing the same non-descript black masks. They probably had to scramble to get outfits that fit the last second replacements.

The match breaks down and Owen Hart wipes out the Black Knight with a missile dropkick, eliminating him first. Owen and Bret work together on the Red Knight and the former WWF Champion goes after his leg. Shawn isolates Keith in his corner and he and the Knights work him over, focusing on his arm. Given that two of the Harts aren’t under contract and the three masked Knights are basically jobbers we’ll never see again, it’s odd that this match was so long. Long stretches of a masked guy vs. retired fireman shockingly didn’t set the world on fire. Bret finally tags in and wakes up the crowd, quickly making the Red Knight tap out to the Sharpshooter, eliminating him. The last remaining Blue Knight and Shawn Michaels work over Bret. Vince McMahon almost accidentally calls him Greg Valentine twice. The match is better when it’s Bret, Owen and/or Shawn in the ring obviously.

Shawn heads around the ring and gets in Stu’s face and gets rocked with a big right hand! Shawn wasn’t on bad terms with Bret yet so backstage he went to Stu and thanked him for that spot, calling it an honour to get punched by him. That’s nice of him. Owen locks the Blue Knight in the Sharpshooter for an elimination, leaving Shawn Michaels in a four vs. one situation with all the Hart Brothers.

Shawn does his best and fights off the Harts but there’s four of them so they can just tag out when they get tired. Shawn bounces around the ring and when Owen is in the ring there’s some miscommunication, running into Bret on the apron. He’s distracted and Shawn rolls him up, pinning and eliminating Owen Hart. Owen is furious, but at Bret.

He kicks the ropes and shouts abuse at his brother while the rest of the family tends to him. Owen calls Bret selfish and says “what about me?!” as he’s leaving. It’s still three on one for Shawn and after a few minutes, decides he’s had enough and walks out, being eliminated via count out. Bret, Bruce and Keith Hart survive, with Owen being the only Hart eliminated in this match.

A pretty dull match which was probably twice as long as it should have been, given the talent involved. The finish wasn’t great but the storyline developments are - Owen Hart comes back and angrily confronts Bret! The others try to calm Owen down but what is clear is that all of Shawn Michaels’ cracks about Owen being in Bret’s shadow have clearly landed and gotten under his skin. As the cameras get close we can hear Owen complaining about never getting any recognition, which is clever because that has nothing to do with what’s happened here tonight - hints towards there being bigger, deeper issues between the Hart brothers. Helen Hart is shown at ringside very upset at seeing her sons bicker. The crowd boos Owen for his actions, but he’s indignant. I’ll talk a lot more about the Hart Brothers and their fall out at the Royal Rumble.

Before the next match, the commentary team tags out swapping places with Jim Ross and Gorilla Monsoon. They’ve been hosting Radio WWF, basically audio only coverage of the WWF as you’d expect. The reason for the swap is so that Jim Ross can provide proper play by play for the next match but it gives everyone a laugh as Bobby Heenan and Gorilla have a funny run-in while switching announce desks. These two have been bickering and fighting for years - a hilarious commentary duo and real life best of friends.

SMW Tag Team Championships

The Rock n’ Roll Express © (Robert Gibson and Ricky Morton) vs. The Heavenly Bodies (Jimmy Del Ray and Tom Pritchard, w/Jim Cornette)

I am glad JR is on commentary for this match which is a good example of Southern Rasslin’. I commented on it before but while I should try not to judge performers by appearance, in the neon 90s WWF it’s hard to take any of these four men seriously or see them as anything other than talented undercard performers.

JR does give a little history of Smokey Mountain Wrestling which he calls a small, regional promotion. For some reason, The Rock N Roll Express’ theme song has been edited out of this version of the show. I’ve no idea what it was originally but I bet the electric guitar riff I got was better than the original.

They start out with some fast paced back and forth as JR does his best to make us care about this feud which he says has gone back ten years to when Jim Cornette managed the Midnight Express. So Gibson and Morton are feuding with Cornette rather than the Heavenly Bodies. They also mention the plot point that in Smokey Mountain Wrestling, throwing your opponent over the top rope results in an immediate disqualification. That’ll be important later. The Rock n’ Roll Express isolate and work over Pritchard. The action is good and technically proficient but the crowd aren’t interested in these four guys sadly. Neither am I, to be totally honest.

I did like the rowing boat spot involving all four men, stretching out the Bodies’ legs. Pritchard hits a really nice sit down powerbomb, and Cornette holds Morton in position on the outside so that Del Ray can springboard moonsault off the ropes onto him. Those both get near falls. Cornette’s ability to set up these talent sharing deals with the large companies also resulted in these same two teams having a match on a WCW PPV earlier in the year.

JR calls the Rock n’ Roll express “young men” but Morton was 37 and Gibson was 35 years old at the time. They both look older somehow.

The finish comes when Pritchard throws Morton over the top rope and Gibson celebrates assuming it’s a disqualification victory. He’s wrong because this is under WWF rules, not SMW rules. The confusion costs them and in the chaos, Cornette throws his tennis racket to Del Ray who knocks out Gibson and Pritchard gets the victory, winning the SMW Tag Team Championships in front of a disinterested crowd. I think they might have popped if they’d understood the rules and the confusion at the finish, but ultimately this was four short men who all looked like they were in their 40s and who had only appeared on TV a handful of times each.

Before the next match, they show a replay from Superstars with Doink taunting Bam Bam about his team for Survivor Series - the four DOINKS! It’s misleading because Doink himself isn’t even in this match. They had not promoted who would or wouldn’t be in this match but I’ll lay it out - it’s The Bushwackers and Men on a Mission all wearing Doink makeup and wigs.

Elsewhere, Todd Pettengill interviews Bam Bam Bigelow as his three partners (and Afa and Luna) furiously tear apart a cooked turkey in front of him. Disgusting.

Four vs. Four Classic Survivor Series match

The Four Doinks (Bushwacker Luke, Bushwacker Butch, Mabel and Mo w/Oscar) vs. Bam Bam Bigelow (w/Luna Vachon), The Headshrinkers (Samu and Fatu w/Afa) and Bastion Booger

The heels enter together to Bam Bam’s music and have a bunch of half chewed turkey all over their hands and faces. That’s repulsive, I wouldn’t wrestle these guys without them washing their hands first.

Luke is riding a scooter, Butch is dragging a wagon and the Men on a Mission Doinks have Oscar, who’s also in makeup and wig. Mabel looks genuinely terrifying, made up like Doink.

This is a pure comedy match and me describing the spots isn’t going to do them any favour. I really didn’t enjoy this but the live crowd did.

Samu is the first man eliminated when Butch throws a water balloon at him and he gets rolled up by Luke. Bastion Booger might have eliminated someone but gets distracted going to get a banana which leads to him taking a headbutt to the tummy and a Mabel legdrop, eliminating Bastion Booger. Heenan doesn’t even pretend to be following this, openly calling Bastion an idiot. The ring is a mess with the big water mark and banana peels in the corner. Mo starts riding his scooter around inside the ring. Fatu beats him up and splashes him off the ropes but once again Heenan calls him an idiot for not covering, getting distracted by a banana peel. He slips on the banana peel and Luke pins him to eliminate Fatu. It’s not four on one for Bam Bam but even the commentators aren’t paying attention anymore. Bam Bam slams Butch around but Luke throws a bucket of something at Luna which distracts him and the four Doinks dogpile on him to finally eliminate Bam Bam and thankfully end this.

This was the first clean sweep in Survivor Series history - legendary performance from all involved, but probably the wrong kind of legendary. The crowd liked it though so I can’t be too mad at it. As Bam Bam is leaving, the real Doink appears on the big screen and mocks him for his loss - Doink’s voice sounds totally different so I think that this is no longer Matt Bourne.

Earlier in the show there was a series of clips and promos bringing us to this match which does a better job of highlighting all the last minute card changes than I can

Build up to the main event

Todd Pettengill interviews the Foreign Fanatics before the main event but none of them say anything that isn’t covered in the above video package. Cornette is a good talker but I’ve listened to him go on eloquent five minute rants so many times in the past two months it’s hard to stay excited about them.

Four vs. Four Classic Survivor Series match

The All-Americans (Lex Lugar, Rick Steiner, Scott Steiner and The Undertaker w/Paul Bearer) vs, The Foreign Fanatics (WWF Champion Yokozuna and Crush w/Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette, Ludvig Borga and WWF Tag Team Champion Quebecer Jacques w/Johnny Polo)

There’s what some could call a botch at the start here as Yokozuna’s theme song plays when Crush is coming out, but then it shuts off after a few seconds and re-starts once he’s in the ring and Yokozuna is on his way out.

The logical thing here would be for Lex Lugar to smash Yokozuna and look really strong. They need to erase the embarrassment of him failing to win the WWF title at Summerslam and make sure fans are still excited to see him dethrone Yoko at Wrestlemania. By the end of this match however, people were more excited to see The Undertaker battle Yokozuna. After a short feeling out process, Rick Steiner dives off the rop rope at Ludvig Borga with a clothesline but it’s countered into a powerslam and Rick Steiner is the first man eliminated in about five minutes by Ludvig Borga. Vince McMahon protects him, pointing out his slight limp and making excuses for him having clearly hurt his leg.

Scott picks up Jacques and throws him at Crush, who catches the Quebecer and puts him back on his feet. They shake hands which got a laugh out of me.

As Crush dominates Scott Steiner, Macho Man comes out of the entrance wanting to get his hands on Crush. He’s held back by an army of officials and the big man is free to hammer on Steiner and keep him in the heel half of the ring. Macho’s second attempt to get to the ring isn’t successful either but Steiner throws Crush out of the ring and he goes after Macho, wanting to fight too. The two of them brawl and Crush gets counted out - Crush is eliminated thanks to Macho man! Jacques picks up where he left off, locking Steiner in a camel clutch with some help from Borga on the outside for extra damage.

Scott comes back with a big desperate clothesline and tags out to Lex who quickly finishes off Jacques with a bodyslam and a diving elbow off the middle rope, eliminating him. Ludvig Borga takes his place, but Lex tags back out to Scott Steiner for some reason. Considering how tired Steiner is, it makes even less sense.

Steiner almost wins with a big suplex on Borga but Yokozuna breaks that up and a giant 568lbs legdrop later, Scott Steiner is eliminated by Yokozuna. We’re down to two on two, Lugar and Undertaker vs. Yokozuna and Borga. Yoko and Luger pair off and the WWF Champion dominates. He misses a splash but shrugs off Lugar’s clotheslines to floor him with one of his own before tagging out to Borga. Lex sustains the abuse for a while but avoids Yokozuna’s corner splash and tags out to Undertaker.

He puts down Yokozuna with a big running DDT and sits up. The crowd goes nuts. He walks into a belly to belly and sits up. A clothesline and sits up. An over 500lbs legdrop and a Banzai drop - Undertaker sits up to avoid the second one! He got lucky - if he’d been a second off, Yoko would have come down with his full weight right on top of his head! Undertaker fights Yoko to the outside and he’s slammed into the ringsteps - Undertaker no-sells it! He can’t be stopped and Yokozuna looks terrified.

They brawl on the outside and both men get counted out, eliminating both Undertaker and Yozkozuna. That leaves this as a singles match between Ludvig Borga and Lex Lugar. Lex is in a bad way and Borga dominates him but the American hero just keeps kicking out. The fans aren’t very hot for this final two which is definitely more Ludvig’s fault than Lex’s. Borga works over Lugar for a bit until he mounts his comeback and puts him down with a running forearm smash. Lex Lugar pins Ludvig Borga to end his undefeated streak and win this match for his team, being the Sole Survivor.

He celebrates with the US flag and just like with Bret Hart last year, Santa Claus comes out? It fake-snows inside the arena and an instrumental of Jingle Bells plays while Lex poses with Santa. How odd.

This wasn’t a very good PPV. None of the matches were more than “fine” and there were lots of odd booking choices, like the Harts match going so long. The highlights were the tease for Undertaker vs. Yokozuna - a match I want to see - and the storyline between Bret and Owen Hart. I’m still enjoying the Macho Man and Crush feud too, and the return of Shawn Michaels can only be a good thing. None of that makes this a good PPV though.

Monday Night Raw - November 29th, 1993

At the start of Raw, Vince and Bobby welcome us to the show. Bobby makes a point of mentioning his run-in with Gorilla Monsoon at the PPV because that’ll be important next week I believe. Tonight we’ll find out who won WWF superstar of the year, as voted by the fans. Vince mentioned it at the Survivor Series Showdown and the PPV itself.
In the opening match, Scott and Rick Steiner battle Reno Riggins (who I think looks a bit like Will Ferrel) and a guy who’s name I didn’t catch. Scott and Rick murder them with the suplex into a piledriver called the Steiner Screwdriver and then the Frankensteiner. Jesus.
In this week’s Double J video, he goes into Buddy Lee’s talent agency where none of the staff know where he is and have security kick him out of the building. I’m not sure that makes him look like a megastar.

Diesel goes one on one with the Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon (in a non-title match). This is pretty historic - the first in-ring meeting between Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, who became best friends and synonymous with each other for the rest of their careers. Razor tries to hit the Razor’s Edge but we’ll never know if he could have lifted the huge Diesel as Shawn Michaels runs in and attacks him. He tries to piledrive Ramon onto his own Intercontinental title belt but the 1-2-3 Kid runs down to help out, taking out Michaels with a crossbody off the top rope and Shawn and Diesel are forced to retreat and lick their wounds as Razor and 1-2-3 hold the ring.

Bam Bam Bigelow beats up a no-name and in an awesome spot, throws him so hard across the ring he loses his footing and slides out under the bottom rope! President Jack Tunney has confirmed that Doink is no longer allowed to have multiple Doinks - they are banned! He’s still feuding with Bam Bam and Luna. Bam Bam wins and then there’s a clip from this week’s Superstars. Doink doesn’t mind not being able to have multiple Doinks because Santa has a present for him - a midget dressed as Doink. His name is Dink though, so there is only one Doink!

In the ring, Vince McMahon presents the Superstar of the Year trophy to the winner of the fan vote. He says that the vote was very close between the 1st and 2nd place Superstars so he brings out the runner up first - Lex Lugar. I know what they were going for here but after Summerslam (failing to win the title but then celebrating like a goof anyway), literally demonstrating to the fans that he’s runner up isn’t smart. Lex is very gracious in defeat and introduces the winner - Bret “Hitman” Hart. I have to imagine that Vince in reality was unsure who to go with as his top babyface to dethrone Yokozuna so if we assume that this vote was legit, this probably answered the question for him. Lex leaves so that Bret can soak in his special moment. He thanks the fans for their support and for never giving up on him and promises that he’ll become WWF Champion again. He dedicates the trophy to the fans who year in and year out never gave up on him, his friends and his family.

After that, there’s a replay of the closing moments of the Hart match at Survivor Series, specifically Owen being the only Hart eliminated, blaming Bret and their argument after the match. That leads into Owen Hart’s match tonight on Raw - he’s wearing the same singlet he was at Survivor Series which is a long overdue switch to his best known ring gear. He also comes out wearing a pair of Bret’s sunglasses and in Hitman fashion, presents them to a fan in the front row who screams her lungs out. Owen has no problems with opponent Chris Duffy obviously and ignores “we want Bret” chants to win with a Sharpshooter, just like his brother Bret. Owen had never used the Sharpshooter prior to the Survivor Series. Bobby Heenan mentions all of these changes in Owen’s attitude and style so gets up and tries to interview The Rocket. Owen refuses to speak to him or answer Bobby’s questions.

Ludvig Borga faces and crushes Scott Taylor with his torture rack submission. Borga won’t be around for much longer. He’s useless and the fans are not buying into him - if you can’t get a reaction mocking America in America, you’ll never get a reaction.
The 1-2-3 Kid and Razor Ramon join the commentators from backstage where the Kid accepts Michaels’ challenge to a match next week. He keeps calling him Mr. Michaels which is kind of goofy. The show then ends with a big plug for next week and Bobby Heenan promising to knock out Gorilla Monsoon if he’s brave enough to show up next week.