Saturday, June 18, 2016

A Taste of the New Generation: Broken Harts: WWF Monday Night Raw: June 27th, 1994




We open Raw with a recap of Jerry Lawler's attack on Duke "The Dumpster" Droese on last week's edition of The King's Court. We cut to Jerry Lawler being forced by WWF officials to apologize. Turns out that's harder than making The Fonz admit he's ever wrong. Lawler fights against doing so, but after a few minutes of being told he has no other choice, he finally says that he apologizes.



Opening action for Raw tonight is a literal battle of the behemoths. It's Bam Bam Bigelow vs Mabel. Savage and Monsoon still at the table for tonight's show. Bam Bam starts with some fists and an enziguri. He follows with a snapmare and a boot to the back of the head. Mabel gets up and lands some rights before Bam Bam regains momentum. Mabel lands a boot out of the corner and a really gassed leg drop. He misses an elbow drop thanks to a distraction from Luna.



Bam Bam ends up whipping Mabel into Luna, knocking her off the apron. Mabel lands a clothesline and a body slam. Oscar checks on Luna as Bam Bam lands a collision that sends both men down. Bam Bam finally sees that Luna is down and shoves Oscar out of the way. Mabel hops off the apron, squashing both Bam Bam and Luna. Both men brawl outside of the ring. Mabel gets in before the ten for the win.

Quick and inoffensive match. Probably wise to make it quick before Mabel got too gassed too early. Hell, he was already losing a lot of steam only a couple moves in. But most importantly this was built as an angle more than anything super competitive.  Post match, Bam Bam is particularly pissed at Luna for costing him the match. Ted Dibiase enters the ring and begins to converse with Bam Bam and Luna. Perhaps he has a price for both of them.



Speaking of Dibiase, we get a recap from Superstars from the past few weeks that Dibiase has indeed bought the Undertaker. No matter how hard they tried, it's too easy to tell that's not the original Undertaker. We may get more of Ted Dibiase tonight with Lex Luger in action tonight.


IRS is in action next against Rich Meyers. Irwin gives us a tax cheats promo on a really bad microphone. He yanks the mullet of Meyers to start followed with a side suplex. Abdominal stretch with use of the ropes. Monsoon and Savage bring up Irwin's past with Ted Dibiase while he locks in a chinlock to Meyers. Lots of talk about Ross Perot while the resthold remains applied. Body slam and the penalty lock gets the win in a quick, dull squash.


Despite being reprimanded by the WWF officials, Lawler is still around to host another episode of The King's Court. He claims that the true leader of the Hart Foundation was his guest tonight, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart. Neidhart comes out to the Hart Foundation's old theme song. Loud "We Want Bret" chants as Neidhart stumbles through his promo to get to the point that he claims to have been the one behind the success of Bret Hart. Lawler has a second guest. It's the King of Harts himself, Owen Hart.



Owen believes that he is finally getting the respect he deserves while a small "queen of harts: chant breaks out. He thanks Neidhart and goes right into his victory over Bret Hart at Wrestlemania. He's done everything he set out to do so far. He says that Bret is scared because the reality is what he said it would be. Bret tried to keep him in his shadow, but Owen proved that he can beat him again. There's one more thing to do and that's beat Bret for the WWF title.



Up next it's the WWF Tag Team Champions The Headshrinkers in action against the Executioners (Barry Hardy and Duane Gill). Fatu starts with two powerslams to both Executioners and follows with a double noggin knocker. Tag to Samu as both men land a headbutt. Samu gets a spin kick ot the face and follows by ramming an executioner's head into the buckle. Fatu comes in and both men hit a double wishbone. Monsoon states that he hates wrestlers in masks. Not a lucha fan was Gorilla. Clothesline from Fatu, who covers but breaks his pin to bring in Samu. Samu lands a right to the head of the illegal Executioner.

Samu lands a DDT out of the corner and a nonchalant pin which he again breaks. I do kind of like that despite being a face team that are still acting heelish with their offense. Tag to Fatu as both men hit a double clothesline. Another cover break from Fatu. One more tag to Samu and a double facebuster. Tag to Fatu who hits the splash for a three in a long, but very effective squash match.



We cut to a backstage segment in the locker room involving Ted Dibiase, Bam Bam and Luna. Dibase sees the cameraman walk in and sics Volkoff after him.


Up next in action is Kwang against Mike Moraldo. Moraldo gets a cross body quickly for a two, but Kwang gets a super fast spin kick. He spews red mist, which offends Gorilla ("What a pig!").  Kwang hits a few chops as Savage shills this week's USA movie, Pump up the Volume with Christian Slater. Gorilla being Gorilla, thinks he said Pump up Your Body. Kwang gets a big spinning wheel kick out of the corner. He hits another kick to the face and, much like the Headshrinkers, covers and breaks his own pinfall. A strike to the throat and a stomp follow. Moraldo rams Kwang into the corner and tries a monkey flip, but gets met with a big spin kick to the head for the three. A decent squash match though I still find nothing truly spectacular about Kwang.



Our last match of the evening is Lex Luger in action against Mike Bell. Luger shoves Bell into the corner early. Headlock followed into a shoulder block follows. A second headlock turned into a hiptoss from Luger. While Luger stalls and adjusts his trunks...



Ted Dibiase is seen at the entrance way. He laughs and walks off as Bell gets some offense in on Luger. Luger hits a massive clothesline out of the corner and follows with a backbreaker. Luger finishes with the torture rack in a super quick squash. So quick that Luger wasn't completely gassed for once.



We end Raw with even more Ted Dibiase as he revels in the corporation he's building. He bought Nikolai Volkoff, he did what nobody thought he could and bought The Undertaker. And now he's also bought Bam Bam Bigelow. Which means that Luna has sold his contract , thus ending the era of Bam Bam and his main squeeze. Not the end of Luna right now, but it'll be interesting to see him without her going forward. Dibiase promises that it's only a matter of time for Lex Luger to join him because everybody's got a price for the Million Dollar Man.

Not much to this edition of Raw. The in-ring was nothing special, though Mabel vs Bam Bam was decent as it was just two big bodies colliding for a couple minutes. A lot of build on Ted Dibiase's Million Dollar Corporation which is good, but I think there was far too much of it on this one show. The King's Court was good this week as Lawler was a bit more subdued and the focus remained on the Bret/Owen feud. Other than that, I can't say much else. Pretty bland and by the books this week. A C- rating is fair enough.

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