We have one in the books and to be honest that was a long forty five minutes the last episode and maybe because I had matches with Max Freakin’ Moon and Damien Freakin’ Demento. I did notice that from the first Raw they leaned heavy on interview segments to progress stories and not everyone wrestled every week. The first thing I notice here is that we have a gigantic “Headlock on Hunger” sign. That’s pretty cool of the WWF to do, say what you will about Vince McMahon and Stephanie McMahon however he always seems to be doing good things for society. Raw opens up with Rob Bartlett ripping a picture of Bobby Heenan and the Repo Man attacking Randy Savage. Yes if you have Repo Man on your bingo cards you can go ahead and mark that.
Our first match starts with a woman in the ring in a one piece bikini holding a sign that says “Get Raw!” Terrific Terry Taylor is out first and does that make him Triple T? Triple T is taking on Mr. Perfect in the opening match of this Raw and if Conrad were reviewing this he would ask “is this a rib”? I will say Triple T looks like a classic eighties heel here too bad it’s 1993. Triple T is actually having a really good match here and maybe it’s because he’s in the ring with Mr. Perfect. Midway through this match they have Bobby Heenan calling in to put over Ric Flair and put down Mr. Perfect. Some classic back and forth action after the phone call and Triple T maintains control. Mr. Perfect finally gets in control and starts with vintage Perfect moves. Ric Flair walks down to the ring at and Triple T knocks Perfect out of the ring and Flair attacks him. Triple T gets perfect back in the ring and Perfect gets the Perfect Plex from a reversal and takes off after Ric Flair.
We are in the Ring with a lady in a two piece green bikini holding a sign that says “Raw!” Up next we get a promo with Bret Hart and IcoPro and Randy Savage with Slim Jim. This leads us to an in ring interview with Vince McMahon and Bret Hart. Bret has an awesome black jacket with some sweet pink shoulder fringe. He says he doesn’t have respect for Razor Ramon because he’s attacked his family. Hart goes on to say he’s going to “kick him down to Unconscious Street”. Hart says he will be keeping his title at Royal Rumble which leads us to a Paul Bearer and Undertaker Headlock on Hunger for Somalia promo.
We have Marty Jannetty up next against Glen Ruth and yet another “Raw Girl” in the ring with a sign before this match. The amount of pattern and colors in this match between Ruth and Jannetty is an eye sore. We get a low “We Want Shawn” chant in the audience, don’t we all audience don’t we all. Shawn Michaels has called into commentary during this match and he takes credit for Jannetty ever being related to success. Shawn Michaels makes an awful “Shake Rattle and Roll” joke. Marty Jannetty is working a very slow paced match here with Ruth and its as good as it sounds. Michaels makes some references about Sherri that is related to “Raw” things. More rest holds and mat wrestling from Jannetty here with Ruth and boy this would not fly in today’s WWE. I will say that both Ruth and Jannetty have really good looking working punches. Jannetty hits the Rocker Dropper out of a rest hold and gets the win.
Next we have a Royal Rumle promo and I really miss these types of cheesy promos. Vince says that Crush will likely not make it to the royal rumble and they go to a video package of Doink beating Crush with a prosthetic arm. They show a girl in the front row who is absolutely mortified by Doink beating Crush with the arm. We come back to a commercial of “WWF Mania” which has everything you could want but caffeine. They now throw to Sean Mooney outside who I guess isn’t allowed in the building. He runs into Repo Man who has Randy Savage’s hat. They absolutely love showing Sean Mooney outside in the cold don’t they? Repo Man brags about having Savage’s hat and Savage is upset that Repo Man has his hat, moving on. We get Mean Gene Okerland next with a Royal Rumble update and again I absolutely love these segments. We go back outside where Randy Savage is playing in traffic trying to get the Repo Man and his hat. Yep that actually happened.
In the main event tonight we have El Matador Tito Santana vs. Ric Flair. Rewind a few years prior and this would be a major opportunity for Santana. You have to wonder with some of these guys that got saddled with silly gimmicks what would have happened if they didn’t. This is a pretty standard Ric Flair match and the commentary is still atrocious. I would rather have David Otunga than Rob Bartlett on commentary. They are all about their rest holds and mat wrestling on this raw wow. After the break we come back to some high flying offense from Santana (Jannetty take notes). We get a nasty bump to the floor after a missed flying forearm from Santana. It’s crazy to think that fifteen years later Flair would still be around tearing the house down. This match ends in a disqualification when Perfect interferes and after the match we get an awesome brawl, especially for 1993. This is pretty awesome they get dragged apart multiple times once in the back and then again around ringside. We have a career vs. career match for next week after Perfect accepts the challenge.
[irp posts=”30361″ name=”Monday Night Raw Episode 1 Review – RawViews”]
That concludes episode two of Monday Night Raw. Another decent and balanced episode and I will applaud them for pushing the guys that are in feuds going into the Royal Rumble. We also setup a match for the next week with meaning which is always a good thing. The first match is actually a pretty good match with Triple T and Mr. Perfect and the last match isn’t bad. Whoever decided on Marty Jannetty doing rest holds an entire match should be fired, including Jannetty if he made that decision. Another episode in the books and until next time be awesome.
