What the World Was Watching: WWF Monday Night RAW – 11.28.94

Vince McMahon narrates picture of the WWF title change at Survivor Series and Diesel’s babyface turn. There is also footage of Diesel beating Bob Backlund in Madison Square Garden for the WWF Championship. McMahon proclaims Diesel as the leader of the New Generation.

McMahon and Jerry Lawler call tonight’s action, live from Poughkeepsie, New York. According to thehistoryofwwe.com, 2,500 fans attended. This is the fifth television taping held in Poughkeepsie this year. They would get a sixth as a WWF Superstars taping took place the next day.

Opening Contest: Owen Hart (40-4) beats John Paul via submission to the Sharpshooter at 4:01:

Owen is wearing Bret’s towel from Survivor Series around his neck as a trophy. Bret calls into the show, saying that he has some stretched tendons in his shoulder and will be back by January 1. He plugs the Survivor Series encore, saying he will watch it to learn more about what happened. Lawler adds a nice “Say hi to your mom for me!” in a nod to his aborted feud with Bret last year. Bret’s call causes the squash to drag out. Even though Paul has wrestled Owen twice this year, he is still unable to mount much offense. Owen opts to do a belly-to-belly suplex to set up the Sharpshooter. After winning, he throws Bret’s towel onto his opponent.

Irwin R. Schyster (w/Ted DiBiase & Druid) (31-3) defeats Adam Bomb (21-6) after a leg drop to the back of the head at 6:45 shown:

The druids have followed IRS from the graveyard to the ring. Before the match, IRS tells the Undertaker that he might be the master of the casket match but he will not rest before he pays his taxes. Instead of having IRS repossess a man’s casket and burial place the WWF should have had IRS repossess the Undertaker and Paul Bearer’s workshop. IRS draws a small bit of heat as the crowd chants “Irwin!” but that is short lived. Any excitement from the match comes from Bomb, who scores near-falls from a slingshot clothesline, body press off the ropes, and a small package. Late in the bout he tries the Neutron Bomb but a druid trips him on the top rope as DiBiase distracts the referee, costing him his fourteen-match winning streak in singles matches. Bomb deserved better than how he was being treated by the creative team. He had some cool moves and a great look but the WWF has opted to turn him into a glorified jobber to the stars. Rating: *½

When the match is over, IRS and the Druid beat on Bomb until Lex Luger makes the save. The crowd chants “USA!” as if that is an insult against IRS, who collects taxes for the U.S. federal government.

McMahon and Lawler narrate pictures of the Survivor Series casket match between the Undertaker and Yokozuna.

Bob Holly (28-5-1) pins Tony DeVito after a flying clothesline at 2:51:

Lawler talks about wanting to get his hands on Holly, even though he did a few weeks ago on The Action Zone. Holly needs to win the Snowball Derby in Pensacola, Florida because McMahon has spent the last few weeks talking about it. Winning could get him a push. DeVito surprises McMahon by slamming Holly and dropping an elbow. Holly fights back out of the corner, dazes DeVito with a boot to block a blind charge, and pins him for the second time this year with a flying clothesline.

Lex Luger (31-3-1) beats Bert Centeno via submission to the Rebel Rack at 2:10:

Luger has a young flag bearer. The exercise is silly when there’s a fan facing the hard camera with a big American flag and waves it during Luger’s entrance. McMahon announces that The Royal Rumble will take place in Tampa, Florida and that tickets will go on sale this weekend. That leads to hype of Luger as a contender. He makes a good case for himself, destroying the smaller Centeno. The WWF has added a “USA! USA!” chant to the beginning of Luger’s theme but it makes it look like he cannot get that chant going organically.

McMahon does an in-ring interview with WWF Champion Diesel. The new champion gets a fireworks show when he steps into the ring. When asked about Survivor Series, Diesel tells Shawn Michaels he was lucky to make it out of San Antonio alive. Despite being part of the new generation, he quotes Jackie Gleason to say “How sweet it is” that he has the WWF title. Diesel tells Bob Backlund that he will not get the crossface chicken wing on him in rematches. When McMahon asks about any words for Bret Hart. Diesel argues that Bret would not submit on his own at Survivor Series and that he would gladly give him a shot at the title. Aside from the Gleason bit, this was not a bad promo as it covered a lot of ground. However, it was painfully obvious that Diesel was not over enough to be wearing the gold.

The Heavenly Bodies (w/Jim Cornette) (18-1) beat Gary Scott & Buck Quartermaine when Jimmy Del Ray pins Scott after a Veg-O-Matic at 3:41:

Quartermaine was a Del Ray trainee who started wrestling in 1991 after playing football at Jacksonville State University. He learned his trade on the Florida independent scene, wrestling for Independent Pro Wrestling and NWA Florida. In 1993, he made an appearance in WCW, losing at a Worldwide taping to Yoshi Kwan.

Bob Backlund comes to ringside to do guest commentary, putting over the importance of reading the dictionary and how he will regain his title to bring morality back to the world. McMahon asks Backlund about him acting like the match with Diesel never happened at Madison Square Garden. Backlund says he had a traumatic response that Sigmund Freud wrote about. Quartermaine looks good doing some arm drags but that is all there is to report on in this long Bodies squash other than the nice Veg-O-Matic they do on Scott to win.

After the match, Backlund talks about how he will exterminate Diesel from the WWF like the T-Rex was exterminated when the dinosaurs perished. Backlund is shown footage of him losing the title. He promises to get the crossface chicken wing on Diesel and tells McMahon he will get it on him before he leaves the WWF. The last bit led to speculation that the WWF was planning a McMahon-Backlund program for WrestleMania. All of that was for naught, though, as Backlund was shooting from the hip. The other notable thing about this segment was the rows of empty seats over Backlund’s shoulders, showing that the WWF could not sell out an arena the size of the Mid-Hudson Civic Center coming off a pay-per-view.

Tune in next week to see the British Bulldog face Jeff Jarrett!

The Last Word: This was a flat, uninspired live episode. The Diesel-Bob Backlund program, which is meant to keep things going for Diesel until something better comes along, is dead out of the gate as Backlund nor Diesel could sell it as something interesting. IRS needed to win the feature match but Adam Bomb looked like a goof in the way he lost and how he was getting beat up when the match was over. With Bret Hart gone for a month and Shawn Michaels out of action with a hand injury, the WWF is not in a good place for in-ring quality and it is highly doubtful that other stars are going to be able to fill in during their absence.

Up Next: WWF Supertars for December 3!

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