Monday Night Raw – May 24, 1993: You Wouldn’t Expect This
Monday Night Raw
Date: May 24, 1993
Location: Manhattan Center, New York City, New York
Attendance: 1,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Randy Savage, Bobby Heenan
Something tells me this one won’t be as memorable as last week. We’re less than a month away from King of the Ring and the tournament is mostly set but the big story continues to be….well non-existent really. Most of the stories feel like they’re just there instead of one thing being miles ahead of the rest. To be fair though, that makes for some more interesting shows as you don’t know what you’re getting. Let’s get to it.
Doink the Clown comes out for his match and hides underneath the ring (hiding as much as you can with a camera on you) but we cut to outside where Lord Alfred Hayes is with….DOINK THE CLOWN! See, it’s an illusion, which is code for WWF announcers being too stupid to realize more than one person could wear a clown suit.
King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Doink the Clown vs. Mr. Perfect
This is the third try at this match as both previous attempts had gone to draws. Doink throws a towel at Perfect to get in some cheap shots but Perfect easily takes him down and works on the leg. Back from a break with Doink limping around but still beating Perfect down on the floor.
Perfect comes right back with a headscissors to keep Doink on the mat. It turns into an amateur match with Perfect getting the better of it and stomping on the knee again. Perfect puts on a leglock with Doink’s shoulders down and slaps the clown every time he gets up before getting pinned. Doink takes him right back down though and we hit a top wristlock of all things.
We take a second break and come back with the two of them slapping it out until Perfect is pulled face first into the middle turnbuckle. That’s fine with Perfect, who clotheslines the heck out of Doink and sends him outside. That means we play switching clowns (somehow the referee doesn’t notice the missing makeup but Vince of all people catches the problem) but the fresh Doink is caught in a quick PerfectPlex to send Perfect to the tournament.
Rating: B. This was an entirely different kind of match than you would have expected as heel Doink was a fascinating character who could wrestle a rock solid technical match and be all evil at the same time. Of course Perfect can keep up with anyone on the mat and he was on some amazing fire in this face run. It’s a shame he didn’t get to do it more often too as he was excellent around this time.
Post match Perfect gets double teamed until Crush comes in for the save.
King of the Ring Report with the now complete brackets:
Bret Hart
Razor Ramon
Mr. Perfect
Mr. Hughes
Tatanka
Lex Luger
Bam Bam Bigelow
Jim Duggan
Hulk Hogan, looking probably forty pounds lighter than usual, is ready for Yokozuna and brags about his barely existent physique.
Money Inc. vs. Mike Bell/Tony DeVito
Non-title and DiBiase offers $100 for a shoe shine, meaning Heenan has to be held in his seat. A kid comes in and does the shining but IRS says that’ll be $70 tax. The kid doesn’t seem to mind making $30 for about forty seconds of work and leaves smiling. Of course Vince and Randy freak out about how humiliating that was for him. DiBiase sends Bell face first into the mat so it’s off to DeVito as the fans get on IRS’ case. Not his literal case but you get the idea. The squashing continues as we hear about the 1-2-3 Kid winning last week. Ted’s powerslam sets up the Write Off clothesline to put Tony away.
Rating: D. Just a squash here (with Vince saying DeVito was squashed after the match) and that’s all it needed to be. DiBiase always felt a little bit out of place in 1993 as he didn’t have the same fire he had a few years earlier. Then again it might be the whole tag team thing as Money Inc. was fine but not exactly inspiring.
Crush vs. Bobby Who
Crush throws him into the corner and we’re already in the bearhug as the announcers make WHO jokes. The head vice wraps this up after far longer than it needed to go.
Rating: D-. There’s only so much I can say when a match runs over three minutes and there are two extended holds. Crush really did seem ready to jump through the ceiling but it never quite happened. Maybe it was the color scheme but it just didn’t work for some reason. Either way, this was longer than it needed to be and the WHO jokes didn’t help.
Here’s Razor Ramon to talk about his loss to the 1-2-3 Kid. He’s not exactly happy as you might expect and has an idea: he’ll face Kid again next week and is willing to put up $2,500 to get Kid in the ring. Vince shifts things over to the first round of the King of the Ring with Ramon facing Bret Hart. Cue Bret as the fans chant 1-2-3. Bret makes fun of Razor for losing to one of the underneath guys and Ramon is livid as the Canadian leaves.
Heenan does his watching TV bit when Johnny Polo (Raven) pops up on his screen to say don’t change the channel because Adam Bomb is next. Eh clever enough.
Adam Bomb vs. Phil Apollo
Apollo would wind up playing Doink when the original (Matt Borne) left. We hit the beating in a hurry, which might be taking place due to Phil’s trunks being WAY too small. Adam throws him outside for a bit before hitting him with a top rope clothesline. The Adam Smasher (powerbomb) is good for the pin.
Bam Bam Bigelow is ready to win the Intercontinental Title and isn’t worried about Sherri Martel in Marty Jannetty’s corner. She was in his corner?
Overall Rating: C. That opener does more than enough to carry the rest of this squash heavy show. It’s quite the drop from last week but it’s still better than watching Shawn Michaels vs. Jim Duggan in a long, boring match. It helps that I like some of the wrestlers on here like Bomb and Crush so this wasn’t the hardest thing in the world to sit through.
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the History of the WWE’s Big Four Pay Per Views, now in PAPERBACK. Check out the information here:
https://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2017/01/27/kbs-reviews-now-available-in-paperback/
And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:
Recent Comments