On This Day: April 26, 1993 – Monday Night Raw 1993: With A Marriage Proposal

Monday Night Raw
Date: April 26, 1993
Location: Manhattan Center, New York City, New York
Attendance: 1,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan, Randy Savage

We’re a few weeks after Wrestlemania IX now so Hulk Hogan is world champion. Not that he’s here on the show or anything but he’s world champion. Other than that though there isn’t much going on around here. The main event tonight is heel Luger vs. face Crush which would be completely flipped in just a few months. Let’s get to it.

We open with Bobby Heenan now on commentary instead of Rob Bartlett. Bartlett tried but he just wasn’t the right fit on Raw.

Damien Demento vs. Mr. Perfect

Savage goes on a mini-rant about Bartlett before we get down to a lot of circling each other by the guys in the ring. Perfect starts off with a dropkick to send Damien out to the floor as things continue to go slowly. Back inside and Demento throws him out to the floor, knocking out the cameraman in a cool visual. Perfect gets back inside and is thrown to the floor for the second time in thirty seconds. Back in and they slug it out in the corner with Damien taking over again. Perfect comes back with some chops and the Hennig Neck Snap to set up the PerfectPlex for the pin.

Rating: C-. Not much here but Perfect was still solid in the ring. Demento was one of those guys who was around for awhile and then was never mentioned again after he left. At this point we were already hearing about Mr. Perfect vs. Shawn Michaels, which wouldn’t happen until Summerslam. I’m not sure why they were building up a match for that long but it turned out being a bit underwhelming after the buildup they had to meet.

We get a poem from a kid called There’s No Hope With Dope. You can figure this one out for yourself. Undertaker pops up to say don’t do drugs, which is strange to see when you watch it.

Heenan tells us about a guy who is going to propose to his girlfriend tonight. Bobby says he’s going to make sure she says no.

Lex Luger vs. Crush

Luger is still the Narcissist and Crush is the Hawaiian in purple and orange. They lock up to start with Luger being shoved into the corner. Crush wins a test of strength but Luger kicks him in the ribs to take over. The Hawaiian comes back with kicks of his own and a gorilla press slam to send Luger to the floor. After a break we come back to see Crush suplexing Luger down for two.

Luger comes back with a knee to the back which sends Crush out to the floor. Crush has his back rammed into the post and we head back inside for some stomping on the ribs. Off to a bearhug which Crush is too busy to sell. A powerslam puts Crush down for two but Crush comes back with a pair of suplexes to take over. Crush puts on his head vice and gets Luger down to the mat, but Doink pops up in the rafters to distract the Hawaiian. There’s another Doink on the other side of the rafters as Crush is apparently seeing “double vision”. Luger blasts Crush with the forearm to send him to the floor for the countout.

Rating: D+. Slow match with a bad finish. The Doink feud did nothing for Crush as he was one of the most popular guys in the company but he was feuding with a clown. Luger would get the Superman push soon after this as the new Hogan once Hogan was crushed by Yokozuna at King of the Ring. Nothing to see here for the most part.

King of the Ring qualifying matches begin soon.

Mr. Hughes vs. Jason Knight

Hughes is a big black man who was a bodyguard character for like 12 years straight. Knight is kind of almost sort of famous as Justin Credible’s lackey from ECW. Heenan messes with a computer for the whole match as Hughes destroys Knight and wins with a Boss Man Slam. Nothing to see here at all.

We look at the couple in the proposal again.

Here’s Shawn with something to say. We hear about his title defense next week against Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Shawn insults the crowd a lot. The fans think Shawn is gay. Heenan: “If they only knew.” Shawn goes on a rant about the fans as Vince wants to know how Shawn can ignore the fans. We get a clip from Wrestlemania with Shawn attacking Perfect so Shawn says that Grover lives in a trashcan on Sesame Street. Perfect will not stand with the misrepresentation of his Grouch Oscar so he chases Shawn off.

We look at Tatanka beating up Bam Bam Bigelow to save Sensational Sherri. Later in the night Bigelow jumped Tatanka. He also cut Tatanka’s hair. Ok then.

Von Krus vs. Typhoon

You might remember Von Krus as Big Vito in WCW. Krus pounds away to start and has some good energy to him. A backdrop puts him down almost immediately and we get a phone call from Jim Duggan to talk about the title match next week. Krus pulls on Typhoon’s face but Typhoon comes back with a quick splash in the corner and the regular splash for the pin. Krus dominated this until the end.

Heenan pesters the couple but the chick accepts the proposal anyway.

Overall Rating: D. Yeah not much here but that’s how the early editions of Raw goes for you more often than not. The lack of Yokozuna, Bret and Hogan hurt the show a lot here as the main feature was Shawn and the Intercontinental Title, which doesn’t really do much for the fans as Shawn wasn’t a big deal yet.

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