Monday Night Raw – May 3, 1993: What Passed for a Big Match
Monday Night Raw
Date: May 3, 1993
Location: Manhattan Center, New York City, New York
Attendance: 1,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Randy Savage, Bobby Heenan
It’s another fresh month here as I’m hoping to start doing more of these. This is very early in the show’s run as we’re not even going to hit episode twenty by the end of the month. It’s also coming up on the first King of the Ring but there’s a good chance a lot of the tournament will take place on Superstars, which was still the major show for the most part. Let’s get to it.
Opening sequence.
Intercontinental Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Jim Duggan
Duggan is challenging and is in his weird singlet phase here. Shawn bails to the floor to start as the stalling is very obvious here. Back in and we hit some clotheslines before Shawn goes over to mess with Duggan’s board. Duggan won’t let him walk out and we take a break.
Back with Duggan getting his throat snapped across the top rope, followed by a few kneedrops. Some elbows get two and it’s off to the chinlock. Shawn cuts off a comeback with a knee to the ribs as this is in need of some caffeine. What it doesn’t need is a snapmare into another chinlock. Duggan fights up again and hits a few big right hands. A very spinning slam sends Shawn out to the floor and they walk around a lot for the double countout.
Rating: D. Far too much chinlockery here which is so often the case around here. Yeah it was an eleven minute match but that doesn’t mean it’s the right idea. It made for a very long and dull match as Duggan wasn’t about to win the title and his offense was almost all brawling. Shawn is a borderline miracle worker but he needs a little more than this.
Duggan doesn’t think this is fair and wants a rematch so he sits in the ring.
King of the Ring Report with a look at the updated qualifying matches. Not much to see here but I miss these things.
Doink the Clown vs. Kamikaze Kid
Now this is an interesting one as the Kid is making his debut after being one of the hottest indy acts in the country. However he’s been tweaked a bit as he was better known as the Lightning Kid (with his tights saying L. Kid) but now he’s under a new name. You would know him better as the 1-2-3 Kid or X-Pac. Doink runs him over to start and grabs an STF. A few elbow drops set up the Stump Puller (Doink sits on his neck and pulls back on the leg) for the submission.
Apparently Duggan is on the phone with President Jack Tunney. I’m as riveted as you are.
Bob Backlund vs. Dwayne Gill
They slowly circle to start with Backlund tripping him down a few times. That goes nowhere so let’s talk about Duggan getting his rematch against Michaels next week in a lumberjack match. Gill hiptosses him down and grabs the shortarm scissors so Backlund can do the power up spot. A bridging cradle (with two thumbs up) gives Bob the pin.
Rating: D+. Not much you can say here but it could have been worse. I know Backlund has won a lot of matches in his day but he just beat GILLBERG. This was fine enough as a way to kill some time but I don’t think anyone was buying Backlund as anything interesting at this point.
Duggan says he’ll beat Shawn in a fight instead of a match. This leads to an explanation of a lumberjack match for the really slow fans.
The Smoking Gunns are coming and like to shoot things in the desert. These vignettes need to come back, albeit in a slightly less cheesy form.
Headshrinkers vs. Jim Bell/Jay Savage
Lou Albano comes out for commentary as a surprise and goes on a rant about how he doesn’t trust Heenan. Bobby: “I’m not a demented halfwit where you put his brain in a pigeon and he flies upside down!” Sledge gets tossed into the air for a big crash and now we talk about the lumberjacks to ignore the match even more.
A spike piledriver only draws an OH NO and it’s back to Albano bantering. Normally I would make fun of this but what else is there to talk about during a squash? Albano speaks…..whatever language the Headshrinkers speak and tries to get them to follow the rules. The destruction continues and it’s a double Stroke into Fatu’s Superfly Splash for the pin.
Rating: D. This was all about the angle with Albano wanting to turn the Headshrinkers towards the light and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’d much rather they take a squash and turn it into a story instead of just wasting our time like most matches such as this one. Then again it might just be because I’m a Headshrinker fan.
Home improvement with the Bushwhackers from Smack Em Whack Em, which is pretty easily the best Coliseum Video ever.
Kamala vs. Rich Myers
Kamala’s manager Slick isn’t here this week for no apparent reason. The tossing around begins and we hit some choking. A superkick sets up the big splash and the fans remind Kamala to turn the jobber over for the pin.
Shawn is annoyed to end the show.
Overall Rating: D. The chinlocking in the Intercontinental Title match really hurt things here but it could have been a lot worse. 1993 just isn’t that interesting and there’s really not much of a way around that. There isn’t much to say here as there’s over a month before the next pay per view and that doesn’t leave a lot to talk about week to week.
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