Monday Night Raw - September 12th, 1994

• The first Raw in three weeks because three weeks ago, it was just an edited version of Sunday Night Slam, then Summerslam was on a Monday night, and last week it was the US Tennis Open. Vince opens the show with “Tennis anyone? No, I don’t think so!” Raw also has some nice updated graphics. 

• Raw opens with Paul Bearer’s Undertaker - the one and the only REAL Undertaker - in his first appearance on Raw in 9 months against Kwang. They really leaned into the version of Undertaker we all know and love with the lights out, his classic theme song and the thunder and lightning. Awesome stuff. Undertaker no-sells all of Kwang’s offence but does let him last a while and get some shots in - Kwang, played by Savio Vega, was a member of Undertaker’s BSK in real life so he did his best to make his friend look good. See my Summerslam coverage for more on the BSK. Undertaker no-sells the green mist to the face and a big chokeslam gives him the victory. The fans loved this and went NUTS for everything Undertaker did. 
• Jim Neidhart has an exhibition match against some jobber in a blue singlet. Owen Hart is at ringside, yelling for Neidhart to hurt him even more because “he kind of looks like Bret”, which he doesn’t. The fans loudly chant “we want Bret” all through this, and Macho and Vince do their best to convince us that Neidhart might be even more of a threat to Bret than Owen was. His character is that he is a dangerous psycho, basically. A camel clutch gives Neidhart the submission victory, which he reapplies to keep the pain going after the match too while Owen celebrates for him.

• This past weekend on WWF Superstars, as Doink and Dink made their entrance heel commentator Jerry Lawler popped all of Dink’s balloons and had a good laugh about it. That leads to tonight’s edition of The King’s Court where Doink and Dink are The King’s guests. They also just promoted tha next week’s big match is Jerry Lawler vs. Duke “The Dumpster” Droese, following Lawler’s brutal assault with a trash can on The Dumpster. King says that President Jack Tunney has once again told him to apologise for something he did, in this case for popping Dink’s balloons. Doink and Dink come out wearing a paper Burger King crown to taunt him. They present The King with a huge gift wrapped box which contains…a trash can! King isn’t amused and kicks it, but hurts his toe and collapses in pain. Doink reveals it had weights inside it! Nonsense, but this is the sign that Lawler is moving on after his match with Duke next week and into a feud with Doink and Dink.

• The new WWF Tag Team Champions (they don’t have their belts with them for some reason, maybe because this was filmed before Summerslam? But Diesel doesn’t have his Intercontinental title belt either) Shawn Michaels and Diesel face two jobbers. The fans actually start to chant for Diesel - he’s been booked so strongly, and fans are desperate to see him turn on Michaels who keeps stealing his spot light and who cost him the IC title at Summerslam. He really is pretty cool, considering his nickname is Big Daddy Cool. Diesel lays him out with a Jackknife and Michaels actually stands on the big man’s shoulders to dive off into a splash for the victory. That was pretty awesome too. Shawn Michaels being great isn’t news to anyone though.

• This past weekend on Superstars, Ted Dibiase issued an open challenge on behalf of Bam Bam Bigelow. It was accepted by Adam Bomb who himself would not accept the Million Dollar Man’s money. Adam Bomb had no issues beating up Bigelow but the match didn’t get started and referees separated the two, I assume because it wasn’t a sanctioned match. That leads into Adam Bomb vs. Duane Gill on Raw. Bomb has some new high tempo rock music for his entrance and is wearing much brighter colours, now that he’s a babyface. Bomb has a new finisher too and uses a big pumphandle slam to win, rather than his Atom Smasher powerbomb. He gets a decent reaction from the crowd, especially the women. In fairness, he is kind of gorgeous. 
• There’s a new really quite funny New Generation commercial here which I really enjoyed

• In the main event, The Bushwackers battle Barry Hardy and Tony Devitio. Butch and Luke just waste time, play up to the crowd and do comedy spots. If you’ve seen a Bushwacker match before, you’ve seen this one too. They win and the show ends with them Bushwacker bouncing in the crowd. Macho Man joins in as Vince runs down all of next week’s card including the Lawler vs. Droese match plus Bob Backlund and Yokozuna in action.

Monday Night Raw - September 19th, 1994

• The show opens with a replay from that weekend’s Superstars where Ted Dibiase showed off his newest acquisition, Native American Tatanka. He now wears a suit and rides in a limo and taunts Lex Lugar about the millions of dollars he now has. Lex Lugar is in action at the start of Raw against the masked Executioner. Vince and Macho talk about how a young Native American girl wrote a letter to the WWF about how upset and disappointed she is in Tatanka’s actions. Heartbreaking, I’m sure. Lex wins this with the Rebel Rack for a submission. 

• A King vs. a Duke. Jerry Lawler vs. The Dumpster. This starts as a bit of a comedy match as King goes into a side headlock, Duke throws him across the ring and he cowers behind the referee. Good stuff. The match continues that way with Lawler being no match for the big man and needing to bail out the ring and get a breather. King uses dirty tricks like eye pokes and closed fists to get control of the match but when he gets out of the ring, he finds Dink hiding inside Duke’s trash can. He squirts King with water and so he chases the little guy around the ring, getting himself counted out. Duke wins and Lawler chases off after Dink, around and into the ring. He uses Droese’s trash can as a weapon to hold them at bay, but Doink comes out wearing a Burger King crown so he goes the other way, climbing into the crowd and leaving that way so that Duke, Doink and Dink can all celebrate together.

• The Heavenly Bodies face two jobbers. The Bodies show off and don’t even let one of the guys tag in, isolating and finishing him off with ease. 
• Vince McMahon interviews Bob Backlund in the ring. He points out all the boos and talks about Bob’s history as an amateur wrestling legend and straight shooter. Bob actually was asked to turn heel and feud with Hulk Hogan back in the day but refused to turn heel as he was a role model and decided to leave wrestling instead. That makes it funny to see him playing a heel now in this mid-90s comeback. Vince talks about Backlund snapping after Bret Hart proved he was the better wrestler. Backlund takes issue with the word former - he is STILL the WWF Champion. He never lost the title, his manager threw in the towel against his will. He also says he defeated Bret Hart and was cheated. He has the highest of standards, and the “plebians” can’t live up to his standards. The fans chant “hasbeen” at him and he tells the people that they are weak and he isn’t, bringing up obesity, poor education and laziness. Vince brings it back to his dangerous submission hold, the Crossface Chickenwing. There is an escape and a counter for every hold, but not his. He says if anyone can ever break the Chickenwing, he will retire. He takes his jacket off and dares Vince himself to try his luck. Vince won’t, but Backlund invites a little skinny guy from ringside who DOES get in the ring - he’s an editor for WWF magazine and friends with Backlund, according to Macho Man. Bob locks the hold in and after proving that it can’t be escaped, refuses to break the hold, swinging him around the ring. Vince screams at him to let the kid go and drops the mic to physically try to pull Backlund off of Louise. The camera drops his camera too to help, as well as Macho rushing the ring followed by referees. It takes a major effort to get Backlund to release the hold and poor Louie is helped to the back, heavily selling his shoulder. Bob Backlund has the last word “Ladies and Gentleman, my name is Mr. Bob Backlund and NO ONE can escape the Chickenwing. That’s what discipline is all about!” This was pretty awesome honestly. 

• Sparky Plugg faces a bald jobber who looks a bit like George “The Animal” Steele, but a lot less hairy. Vince and Macho are very distracted talking about Backlund’s actions rather than this match. Sparky wins.
• Yokozuna, with none of his usual ringside entourage, faces a jobber. He hammers him in the corner and finally squashes him with the Banzai drop like he’s nothing. Vince talks a lot about The Undertaker and how Yokozuna will likely meet him again soon. As Yoko celebrates, the arena lights go out and The Undertaker’s familiar gong sounds. Yoko looks terrified and quickly bails out of the ring and runs backstage! 

Monday Night Raw - September 26th, 1994

• Last week they mentioned that Tatanka will be in action tonight with Ted Dibiase in his corner but at the top of the show they tell us his opponent - Razor Ramon, in an Intercontinental Championship match. That match kicks off the show. It’s a long and quite dull match - Tatanka is a lot less interesting to watch as a heel. Razor gets distracted by Dibiase, Lugar comes to ringside but is attacked by Bam Bam, Lugar is beaten up two on one by Bam Bam and Tatanka until Razor saves him and the four men are split up by referees. It’s chaos but the official ruling is that Razor Ramon won by count out and obviously retained his title. 

• During “The Hart Attack Tour” which is the current live event tour going to Germany and the UK before returning to the states, the big match is Undertaker vs. Yokozuna. Undertaker and Paul Bearer have some ominous words for Yoko from the funeral parlor. Undertaker won’t rest in peace, but Yoko will. 

• The mighty Kwang faces Rich Myers. Kwang wins, who cares honestly?
• Jerry “The King” Lawler has the British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith as his guest. Bulldog left the WWF in late 1992 due to the building steroid allegations and spent some time in WCW but now he’s back and as another brother in law of the Hart family is thrust right into the Bret and Owen drama. King talks to Bulldog like he thinks he’s an actual dog, and makes dog joke after dog joke. Bulldog laughs, and when he throws a joke at Vince about how his wig is made of dog, Vince breaks character and laughs too while Macho pretends to hold him back. I enjoyed that. King makes the mistake of overstepping with a joke about Bulldog’s wife Diana and when he threatens Lawler, Jim Neidhart comes out. They both argue over which of them is and isn’t family. Bulldog was always popular but he’s a terrible promo, ranting about how Bret invited him to Summerslam to watch his back and he and Neidhart agree to a match next week on Raw. Bulldog’s music plays before Neidhart is done talking - they’re both rubbish promos so I assume that's production playing them off and telling the three men to wrap up the segment. 

• entrance now. He’s in action against some big chubby lad with a beard. The Kid defeats him with a leg drop off the top rope. During the match, Bob Backlund comes down to the ring and presents Vince and Macho with a gift - it’s a large dictionary, because Macho was complaining that he could barely understand any of the big words Backlund was using during his promo last week. 
• There’s a video promoting the return of King Kong Bundy. That seems like an odd choice given all of the New Generation branding, given that he main evented Wrestlemania 2. I loved this video though, funny stuff. 

• Shawn Michaels and Diesel face a jobber team, but one of them is a young Chris Kanyon, future WCW and WWF star, especially during the 2001 Invasion. Nice to see him. News during this match as Vince mentions that Michaels and Big Daddy Cool took out one of the Headshrinkers - that’s the storyline explanation for Samu leaving the company. He needed to heal up some injuries and wanted some time away. Michaels and Diesel win and as they celebrate they’re attacked from behind by Fatu and his new tag team partner, Sione. He’s Tongan rather than Samoan but fits the bill, but refused to wrestle barefoot so Fatu had to start wearing boots. They clear out the champions and after a commercial break, Captain Lou introduces us to the new man and cuts a funny promo about how Samu got ill after eating some tainted fish and had to return to Samoa to see a doctor there. Fatu and Sione are the new Headshrinkers. Raw ends with Michaels having to hold Diesel back from starting another fight.