What the World Was Watching: WWF Monday Night RAW – September 27, 1993

Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan, and Randy Savage provide commentary, live from New Haven, Connecticut. According to thehistoryofwwe.com, the show attracted a crowd of 5,500. 3,200 of those fans paid for their tickets. Having a bigger venue for RAW relative to where it has been all year makes the show look more important.

WWF President Jack Tunney gives a taped announcement that Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels has been suspended for failing to meet contractual obligations and appearances. As a result, the Intercontinental Championship is vacated and there will be a 20-man battle royal on next week’s show. The last two competitors in that battle royal will meet the following week to determine the new champion.

Opening Contest: Tatanka (33-0-2) wrestles Rick Martel (0-1) to a double count out at 10:47 shown:

Martel has not been seen since having an average match with Mr. Perfect on the March 8 edition of RAW. By this point wrestling was a side hustle for him to supplement real estate ventures. Even though these two had a lengthy feud the previous year, the announcers do not use it as a talking point. Some of the “smart” fans from the Manhattan Center find their way to New Haven, showering Martel with a “Let’s go Rick!” chant. The action is less than inspiring as Martel takes Tatanka to the mat, stalls, and Tatanka cannot find his footing when trying to hop on the second rope during a blind charge in the first five minutes. What also hurts the match is the crowd does not react to most of the action, failing to loudly cheer Tatanka when he turns the tables with an abdominal stretch or blocks a Martel slingshot splash from the apron with his knees. Tatanka goes on the warpath after getting out of a chinlock but Martel uses his momentum against him when he runs the ropes and tosses him to the floor. Tatanka pulls Martel to the floor and the two fight out there until the bell rings. The outcome is not good for Tatanka, who beat Martel like a drum in 1992. Not being able to beat his old rival decisively is a step downward, emphasized by McMahon who says that Tatanka was pushed to the limit and nearly lost his unbeaten streak. Rating: *½

Joe Fowler does an Update segment to announce the participants in next week’s 20-man battle royal. He talks about the match having a winner and a second-place finisher even though the match would theoretically end when two men were left. Those who will compete in the battle royal are Irwin R. Schyster, Randy Savage, Adam Bomb, Giant Gonzalez, Mr. Perfect, Owen Hart, Rick Martel, Jimmy Snuka, Bob Backlund, the Quebecers, Razor Ramon, Mabel, Diesel, MVP, the 1-2-3 Kid, Bam Bam Bigelow, Marty Jannetty, Tatanka, and Bastion Booger. Fowler’s inability to make this announcement exciting, especially when reading the participants, reinforced the poor job he was doing.

Ludvig Borga (9-0) beats Phil Apollo via submission to the torture rack at 3:16:

A fan has a Ludvig Borga sign near ringside. When Borga points to it, McMahon makes the funny claim that the fan is a plant. Most of the squash is Borga using punches to soften Apollo up for the eventual torture rack.

Jimmy Snuka pins Paul Van Dale after the splash off the top rope at 4:34:

Snuka was a big star in the 1980s but by the 1990s his star faded. He wrapped up a three-year comeback run in the WWF the year prior, wrestling bad televised matches against Shawn Michaels and Repo Man. After getting released for “unprofessional conduct” in the first quarter of 1992, Snuka wrestled on the independent circuit. He was a centerpiece for a new promotion out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania called Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW) and became the promotion’s first Heavyweight champion. In 1993, when ECW acquired television on SportsChannel, Snuka was a heel and part of Eddie Gilbert’s Hot Stuff International stable. At the time of this show he was the ECW Television Champion. Snuka also made an appearance in WCW for its Slamboree pay-per-view, teaming with Dick Murdoch and Don Muraco to battle Blackjack Mulligan, Jim Brunzell, and Wahoo McDaniel to a no-contest in a legends match.

The WWF hyped this as a one night only affair, but it may have been a disguised tryout because of the WWF’s pivot back to the Northeast. If that was the case it is a failed one as Snuka is much less nimble and slower than he was a year earlier. He works heel to match what he was doing in ECW. That confuses some fans, though, who are not used to seeing him act that way. Crush calls into the show, saying that he was not invited to compete in the 20-man battle royal despite getting into shape. Heenan suggests that Savage took his place. Crush buys into that conspiracy as Savage gets upset, becoming angrier when Crush hangs up rather than directly addressing him. The crowd only pops for Snuka’s trademark splash, set up after he barely gets Van Dale over with a slingshot suplex.

After showing footage of P.J. Walker upsetting Irwin R. Schyster on last week’s program, IRS does a taped segment from his office as two secretaries work beside him, saying that Razor Ramon has earned himself an audit. He says that he looks forward to going after Ramon in next week’s battle royal. McMahon messed up the transition to this segment by calling IRS “Mr. Rotunda.”

When the show comes back from a commercial break, Barry Horowitz is in the ring with Heenan. The Quebecers had scheduled themselves to wrestle Horowitz and Reno Riggins as part of their pledge to defend the Tag Team titles against a “worthy” team. However, Horowitz tells Heenan that Riggins has the flu. He asks the Quebecers and Polo if he can pick a substitute. They agree depending on who it is. And the champions laugh when he suggests the 1-2-3 Kid instead of someone like Bret Hart or Hulk Hogan.

WWF Tag Team Championship Match: The Quebecers (Champions w/Johnny Polo) (7-1) defeat the 1-2-3 Kid & Barry Horowitz when Pierre pins the Kid after the Kid misses a spinning heel kick at 9:54 shown:

To earn the crowd’s ire, Polo comes to the ring in a Harvard t-shirt and lacrosse gear. The Kid gets the biggest reaction of anyone on the show. After being in disarray at the beginning, the Quebecers run through most of their double team offense on the Kid but it fails to put him away. Jacques is knocked out of the match when the Kid sends him to the floor with a spinning heel kick, eventually taken from the ring on a stretcher. Pierre is forced to defend the titles alone but since Horowitz is an enhancement talent the handicap is more one versus one and a half than one on two. He does not struggle much, not caring when he beats up Horowitz and Horowitz tags the Kid. The Kid takes one too many risks as Pierre holds the top rope down when the Kid tries a spinning heel kick. The Kid crashes to the floor and Polo rolls him back in, allowing Pierre to crawl over, cover, and retain the titles. The babyface duo were never in a great position to win. And the match brought the Kid down to Horowitz’s level when it should have had the opposite effect. Rating: *½

Razor Ramon comes to ringside and tells Irwin R. Schyster that he is not going to be hard to find in the battle royal. Savage warns Ramon that they might end up being the last two in the battle royal and if so, the better man will win and become the new Intercontinental champion.

The Last Word: This was a big mess of a show since the WWF preferred to push back the 20-man battle royal to the following broadcast so they would have a week to hype it. Nothing on this episode clicked as Tatanka looked bad in the opener, Ludvig Borga and Jimmy Snuka had terrible squashes, and the Tag Team title match never let the babyfaces shine as underdogs. Even Razor Ramon’s promo at the end was bad because Randy Savage got inserted into it when the focus should have been on Ramon’s growing feud with Irwin R. Schyster. The WWF has lost a lot of momentum since SummerSlam and desperately needs to get things back on track.

Up Next: WWF Superstars for October 2!

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