Episode #64
May 23rd, 1994 | Struthers Fieldhouse in Youngstown, Ohio
We get told that during the WrestleMania Revenge Tour, Yokozuna and Crush took out Earthquake. That means that Earthquake cannot compete against Owen Hart in the King of the Ring Qualifying Match tonight. Vince McMahon and Macho Man are our hosts.
King of the Ring Qualifying Match
Doink the Clown vs. Owen Hart
This would have had a ton of potential if it was Matt Osburne. Owen attacks quickly and holds serve. When Doink sends him outside, Dink comes in to celebrate. Owen tells the camera that he has to deal with two and a half clowns, counting the referee. He chases Dink around the ring, allowing Doink to get in a clothesline. When Owen takes back over, commentary does a good job in explaining that Owen badly wants to win the tournament because Bret did it last year. It goes from technical to a bit of a brawl with the men trading shots. As Doink seems to pick up steam, Jeff Jarrett shows up and steals Dink. Owen rolls up to Doink to qualify.
Winner: Owen Hart in 8:30
Hey, look at Canadian Country helping each other. They’d be Tag Team Champions in five years. The match was like a lot of what I’ve seen on Raw in 1994 so far. Solid, but unspectacular. **
King of the Ring Report time! IRS will face Mabel in the first round, while Razor Ramon takes on Bigelow. Jeff Jarrett qualified over Lex Luger, who has fallen hard and Owen just qualified. Jimmy Del Ray faces Tatanka and the 1-2-3 Kid takes on Adam Bomb in the final to qualifiers. They also announce that the Headshrinkers will defend the Tag Team Titles against Crush and Yokozuna. Todd then bills Jerry Lawler vs. Roddy Piper as the “match of the century.”
Duke Droese vs. Barry Horowitz
IT’S THE RAW DEBUT OF THE DUMPSTER! Honestly, I feel like Horowitz is the superior worker. Duke does a tiny leap over a flat Barry and Vince is like “LOOK AT THE AGILITY!” Barry gets in some arm work, but Duke puts him down with a jumping elbow.
Winner: Duke Droese in 3:00
Duke’s first showing on Raw wasn’t the most impressive of squashes.
Time for highlights from the WrestleMania Revenge Tour. They had celebrities and everything on hand.
IRS vs. Gary Sabaugh
Before the match, IRS cuts the same tired promo he’s been cutting for years at this point. He is incredibly sweaty about 15 seconds into the match. Since he’s IRS and he can never do anything of interest, he applies a chinlock during a squash. Vince compares Shaq to Luger on commentary somehow. He wins with the Write Off.
Winner: IRS in 4:16
Too much time for an IRS squash. He’s quite possibly the most boring wrestler that I have ever seen.
Footage airs from Superstars, when Crush attacked Lex Luger during his KOTR Qualifier. The referee started counting Luger out and had he just laid there and lost, it would have been okay. Instead, he gets up and goes after Luger, getting eliminated from qualifying because he was too stupid to leap back into the ring.
Ugh, it’s King’s Court time. His guest is Lex Luger and Jerry Lawler spends time calling him a choke artist. I mean, Jerry isn’t wrong. Lawler reveals that Luger supposedly attacked him from behind in the city and Crush’s arm is in a sling. Crush appears in a bootleg looking sling. It looks like he took his bedsheets and just used that. Crush’s promo is pretty bad as he messes up several words. Luger clotheslines him outside and it is revealed that nothing is wrong with Crush’s arm.
Nikolai Volkoff vs. Matt Hardy
Matt Hardy has a flattop haircut that does not suit him. Ted Dibiase joins commentary to say that he is trying to communicate with the Undertaker. Matt sells decently for him but you know this is about Volkoff. He uses the Boston Crab to win.
Winner: Nikolai Volkoff in 2:32
Better than the IRS squash but still nothing worth checking out.
Jerry Lawler announces that his guest next week on the King’s Court will be the WWF Champion Bret Hart!
Overall: 3.5/10. These Raw episodes have kind of hit a plateau. I’ve given the same score three straight weeks. The marquee match is always decent at best and the rest of the show is either bad or barely watchable. That was the case here again.
Raw History
Episode #65
May 30th, 1994 | Struthers Fieldhouse in Youngstown, Ohio
The show opens with a recap of each person that has qualified for the King of the Ring. We see that the 1-2-3 Ki became the 7th person to do so on Superstars.
King of the Ring Qualifying Match
Crush w/ Mr. Fuji vs. Tatanka w/ Chief Jay Strongbow
Vince literally gives ZERO reason for why the change was made here. He’s just like “Jimmy Del Rey was scheduled but now it’s Crush.” Vince says that Crush also has the Tag Team Title match at KOTR, which meant that if he qualified, he could wrestle four times in one night. That would be atrocious. Crush dominates the early stages and has on the dreaded bearhug after a commercial. They fight outside after Strongbow chops Fuji and it leads to a double countout.
Double Countout in 7:08
Two of the worst people to watch since Raw started are given a match and they, as expected, put on a bad match. ½*
Vince McMahon calls the double countout “the worst thing that could happen.” Really? I’d rather someone get a bye than see one of those two in there. They continue to brawl after the match.
Todd Pettengill brings us the King of the Ring Report. His shirt is absolutely ridiculous. We get a promo from Roddy Piper who talks about how tough his neighborhood is. Owen Hart also chimes in to say that he should get a bye because Tatanka and Crush both got counted out. A year later, he and British Bulldog would fight to a double countout and neither man would get another shot in the tournament.
Ted Dibiase is shown in a funeral parlor (no, not the Paul Bearer talk show). He says that the Undertaker will soon be his property again.
1-2-3 Kid vs. George South
As noted earlier, this past weekend, 1-2-3 Kid qualified for the King of the Ring. Kwang accidentally spit mist into Adam Bomb’s eyes, leading to the win. Kid goes through some of his fun offense. Interestingly, Kid wins with the La Magistral cradle. Macho Man calls 1-2-3 Kid his new favorite wrestler.
Winner: 1-2-3 Kid in 2:33
As usual, Kid has an entertaining squash match that is given far too little time. Fine stuff though.
King’s Court time. Jerry Lawler goes through the same tired jokes he’s used on the Hart Family because he has no new material and hasn’t since the 90’s. Bret Hart comes out and Lawler continues to say nonsense. He brings up his attack on Bret after last year’s King of the Ring, leading Bret to prepare to fight. Lawler brings out his other guests for tonight, Diesel and Shawn Michaels. Diesel makes a remark about giving Bret the VIP treatment, which is very intense pain. Was that the best they could think of? HBK distracts Bret, allowing Diesel to hit him and nail the Jackknife. The three heels all stomp on Bret until officials show up.
The Smoking Guns vs. Austin Steele and Reno Riggins
Commentary spends the match advertising for the USA Network and discussing the Crush/Tatanka controversy. Vince acts like Owen Hart only wrestling two matches on the KOTR PPV is a big deal when Bigelow did that last year. The Guns dominate this match as expected.
Winners: The Smoking Guns in 3:19
Standard stuff here.
Todd Pettengill informs us that Jack Tunney has made a decision. Next week, we get a Crush/Tatanka rematch (oh joy) and it will be a Lumberjack match.
Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Hammerick
The future “Confederate Currency” of ECW is doing the job tonight. Jarrett talks smack to Macho Man beforehand, which, coupled with their issues a few weeks back, makes me feel like there may have been plans for a program. Jarrett goes through all of his offense, which isn’t very exciting and never has been. He wins with a figure four.
Winner: Jeff Jarrett in 3:53
Man, Jeff Jarrett is kind of boring. Not IRS bad but nowhere near Owen or 1-2-3 Kid levels of interesting.
Jerry Lawler informs everyone that his guest next week will be a Scottish man in a kilt with a “Hot Rod” shirt.
Overall: 2.5/10. The actual in-ring stuff was pretty horrible this week. Outside of the short 1-2-3 Kid match everything was kind of just there. The Crush/Tatanka match was pitiful and now we get a damn rematch next week. The only good thing about this episode was the King’s Court surprisingly. Lawler’s jokes were bad but at least it built the WWF Title match well.
Raw History
Episode #66
June 6th, 1994 | Struthers Fieldhouse in Youngstown, Ohio
King of the Ring Qualifying Match
Crush w/ Mr. Fuji vs. Tatanka w/ Chief Jay Strongbow
Oh my god. These poor Youngstown fans had to sit through this match twice in one taping. Good lord. Everyone nearly fights to start but Earl Hebner calms things down. The heels surprisingly don’t really beat on Tatanka when he goes outside. Maybe one cheap shot but that’s it. They fight through a commercial break and do nothing of interest. This is honestly one of the most boring matches I could think of. They are just wearing each other down with dull offense. Oh goodness, they go through a SECOND commercial break. Vince again hypes the possibility of four Crush matches on the PPV, showing that he wants nobody to purchase it. A big fight breaks out outside, where Lex Luger runs out and lays out Crush with the BIONIC FOREARM OF DOOM! Tatanka covers Crush and qualifies.
Winner: Tatanka in 17:09
Seriously? This takes up the majority of the show. This was BEYOND boring and one of the worst things Raw has done this year. Just all around terrible. DUD
King of the Ring Report time! There isn’t really any news of note, but there are some pretty out there Roddy Piper promos.
Bam Bam Bigelow w/ Luna Vachon vs. John Paul
Nothing of note really happens in here, except that Vince calls Luna the Wilma Flintstone of the WWF. Macho Man says he liked Betty more. Bigelow dominates and wins with an ugly splash.
Winner: Bam Bam Bigelow in 2:49
Typical Bigelow squash. He got to do some decent stuff and looked alright in doing so.
Jerry Lawler is out for the King’s Court. He teases bringing out Roddy Piper but it’s an impersonator. A skinny kid who is nailing the Piper impersonation for sure. Lawler throws insults and makes the skinny kid kiss his feet and crawl out of the ring on his hands and knees. It was a good idea but Lawler is pretty dire to watch at times.
Razor Ramon vs. Keith Davis
The jobber doesn’t sound familiar right? He looks familiar though because it’s Jeff Hardy. He leaps right into a fallaway slam. Jeff/Keith bumps pretty well as Razor wins with a Razor’s Edge.
Winner: Razor Ramon in 4:04
Fun to see Jeff Hardy. He made for a good jobber because he could bump around for the star.
Somewhere strange, Paul Bearer claims that Ted Dibiase will not be able to produce the Undertaker. Back to the arena, Ted Dibiase shows up and promises to produce the Undertaker this weekend on Superstars.
Overall: 1/10. The big match of the evening outright sucked. Whoever thought to give those two nearly twenty minutes should have been fired. The rest of the show wasn’t much better and this was all flat out horrible.
