We open Raw for April 18th, 1994 with Jerry Lawler's spill from last week. We continue our run through Utica with VInce and Savage at the table. Macho Man thinks Raw should change its name to Bleeper's Bloops and Blunders after Lawler's hilarious pratfall last week. Speaking of Lawler, he's interviewing Alundra Blayze tonight for the King's Court.
Starting action tonight is the WWF Champion Bret Hart taking on Kwang. Kwang is such a credible opponent that he gets a jobber entrance. After giving a fan a pair of his shades, Bret is blindsided by Kwang in the early part of this matchup. Kwang hits a roundhouse kick and spews some mist in the air. Bret dodges an attack in the buckle and starts laying in rights and works the arm with some wringers. Bret gets a roll up on Kwang for two, which he quickly follows with another arm lock.
Bret gets a shoulder block on Kwang, but his momentum leads him to be tossed through the rope. Bret may have landed on right wrist as he sells the pain. Kwang attacks on the outside. He tries for a kick to Bret's head on the post, but misses. When we return from the break, he gets a wheel kick on the corner to Bret. Cover for two. He locks in a nerve hold as we go to Owen Hart via telephone. Bret ducks some clotheslines and lands a cross body for two, but is met with a throat thrust by Kwang.
Owen doesn't say anything we don't expect from him. Bret is beatable, he'll beat Bret at the Wrestlemania Revenge tour. Kinda feels a bit too scripted. Bret breaks a nerve hold and dodges a wheel kick. Clothesline for two follwed by a roll up for two. Bret follows with his patented backbreaker and elbow off the second rope for two. Another throat thrust by Kwang, but Bret gets a Russian leg sweep and follows with a Sharpshooter for the win.
Not a bad match at all. Definitely the most effort we've seen from Kwang since he came in, but then again we've seen how Bret can make nearly anyone look good. The match never felt too slow, even with the few resthold spots in the match. Definitely an enjoyable Bret match.
We cut to footage the past weekend of a charity event at Rye Playland Skating Park. The EveryBuddy Inc. Hockey event for handicapped kids in the area. We even see Doink and Dink there, along with Dink taking his turn as goalie. I can't stand face Doink and Dink, but hell with it. It was a charity event and at least they were having some fun. Also Vince gets in his weekly Tonya Harding jokes.
Jeff Jarrett is in action next against P.J Walker. Vince suddenly talks about Dudley More, Roseanne and Tom Arnold because when I want my celebrity news, I go to the Vin Man. Jarrett gets a few fists into the face of Walker followed by a whip and an elbow. He rakes the eyes as he yells at Bret to give him a title shot. Body slam by Jarrett and an elbow. He goes for a second, but misses.
He stomps down Walker for the insulence of avoiding his elbow. He locks in an abdominal stretch as Vince makes his weekly Clinton dig. Both Bill and Jarrett like peanut butter and banana sandwiches and Arkansas beauty queens. Walker gets a roll up for two. He whips Jarrett to the corner, but misses. Jarrett lands an elbow off the rope and follows with a running DDT for three. Not a very solid squash, but nothing too offensive.
We cut to Captain Lou Albano backstage, and he's quite irate with Jack Tunney, who has been waffling on giving the Headshrinkers a tag team title match. He wants an answer and he wants it next week.
Holy crap, it's the Steiner Brothers! The last time we even saw them on this blog was the 1994 Royal Rumble over four months ago. Their opponents tonight are Mike Khoury and Barry Hardy. Scott starts with Khoury and gets a fireman's carry quickly followed with an elbow to the fact. Headlock from Scott followed by a shoulder block and a full nelson suplex. He tosses Khoury to Hardy, who makes the tag in only to get a suplex of his own. Tag to Rick who follows with a clothesline.
Vince makes a Christy Brinkley and Billy Joel reference and then right back into Nancy Kerrigan jokes. Jeez, this really was the only thing people talked about in 1994, wasn't it? Well, that and whatever the hell Bill Clinton did that week. Scott tags in and chokes Hardy on the Tree of Woe. Rick is tagged back in and lays forearms to the face. He sets Hardy on the top turnbuckle and lands a beautiful belly to belly overhead suplex. Rick locks in a camel clutch with another forearm to the face. Tag back to Scott while Macho Man shills Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, a movie so bad, even Vince doesn't want to shill it for USA Network. Steiner lands a samoan drop to Khoury off the second rope. Khoury comes in only to get some forearms and a double underhook slam. A Steiner Screwdriver from Scott gets the three.
Not a bad squash, it's good to see the Steiners again, as you always get to see some innovative offense and some great suplex spots. Definitely a far more aggressive match than their usual fare as well with more focus on just straight killing these two jobbers. Their mannerisms definitely made it come off as the duo were preparing a heel turn.
Unfortunately just as soon as we get them back, this is the last time we'll see the Steiners in the WWF. Scott will lose a King of the Ring qualifier on a Superstars episode, and both men will leave the company shortly after that. They'd wind up in ECW for a spell before returning to WCW. From there, Scott would completely reinvent himself to the Big Poppa Pump persona we all know and love. A persona that would land him several WCW Championship wins.
Scott would have one more run with the WWF in 2002-2003, which would wind up disasterous with two terrible title matches with Triple H and a feud with Test
Where this would be the defining moment of his 2nd run with the company.
Scott would make several runs in TNA, while Rick retired and found success in real estate. Scott is now in better spirits and is currently running his own Shoney's restaurant, so I guess it all went well. I'll miss the Steinr brothers as they had some great matches with the company and offered some very fresh tag team style that you never really saw much of. Though I guess the jobbers in the company are happy they never have to take another Frankensteiner ever again.
We get our first vignette for Duke "The Dumpster" Droese. Oh yes, we are balls deep into the "2nd profession" wrestler gimmicks now. I guess a wrestling trash man makes more sense than a wrestling monk, but still it's very bizarre to think that this was even an idea that came out of a staff meeting. Duke doesn't take trash from anyone, except yeah, he does. That's his job. But the superstars better watch out, because Duke Droese is on route to the WWF.
It's time for the King's Court. Jerry thankfully makes it to the ring intact this week. He asks if the people like women's wrestlers, which is met with an okay pop I guess. Then it's classic rapid fire puns like "she spent three hours at the beauty parlor today and that was just to get an estimate" and "the last time he saw a face like hers it was on a bag of oats." His guest of course if the WWF Women's champion Alundra Blayze, making her Raw debut.
She comes to the ring with a Burger King crown complete with a (hopefully intentionally) mispelled "Lalwer is a Loser" sign attached. Jerry tosses the crown and finally welcomes her to the court. She compares the King to one Humpty Dumpty, which means it wasn't just Roman Reigns making horrible nursery rhyme jokes. Blayze calls the King's Court a cheap version of Piper's Put and that he should be paying royalties to the Hot Rod. The crowd chants for Piper as Lawler notices the women's title isn't with her. Blayze thinks that lawler would want to wear this belt as this segment just gets awkward as hell. Lawler says he has a surprise for Alundra Blayze. Someone who would look great with the belt...
Luna says that there are two things she is not. She's the princess of mayhem and authoress of evil. But she's not a thief, or the WWF champ. She accuses Alundra of losing it, and then Alundra accuses her of theft. She challenges Luna to a match right there and now, but Lawler kicks her out of the King's Court. Oof this was a painful segment. Mainly from Alundra who tried her best with comedy and it falls flat. Everyone, even Lawler felt a little lost by the end too. Just messy, messy, messy.
It's Earthquake in action next against Mike Bell. Vince starts setting up a match with Quake and Yokozuna, mentioning both having sumo backgrounds. Trust me, We'll get to that soon. Bell goes to the top rope to grab the hand of the Quake, but gets tossed off the second rope for his troubles. Quake chases Bell, but Bell gets the offense with boots. Quake reverses Bell and lands a dropkick.
He adjusts his tights and lands another dropkick. Quake lands a belly to belly and fixes his pants even more. Body slam and a leg drop follows from the Quaker. Vince clarifies that Quake was not in the Boston Maration, in case you were curious. Quake lands an avalanche and another big powerslam. He finally finishes it with the aftershock for the three. Not a bad squash, but nothing amazing.
We go back to Superstars as IRS distracts Tatanka during a match with Kwang by playing with the headdress. This leads Tatanka to be sprayed in the face with Kwang's green mist, leading to a beat down on the Native American. Irwin has some fun racism by mocking Tatankas Native American roots and continues to assault him by slapping with the headdress. He tears up the headdress and shoves fathers in his mouth. This leads to Chief Jay Strongbow to show up and chop Irwin. But Irwin comes back and beats the crap out of Strongbow. He finally finishes off the headdress as officials come in.
It's IRS in action for our last match of the evening against Major Yates. And as is customary with any IRS match, he berates everyone for being tax cheats. Well, that's all well and good, but you kinda committed a hate crime, dude. He rams Yates into the buckle and follows with a hard whip to the other buckle. He works the legs for a bit and tosses Yates out of the ring as the "Irwin" chants are in full force.
He brings Yates back in for an elbow drop. He rams Yates into the buckle, but he doesn't have the magic powers of Tatanka, so he doesn't no-sell. He locks in an abdominal stretch while working the ropes. IRS lands a nice double underhook suplex and a leg drop. He locks a chinlock as the "Irwin" chants get louder. Yates gets a sunset flip, but only gets a two count. IRS regains control as he lands a suplex while Macho tells us that "Major Yates is cool!". Cool enough to be locked in an STF, which is called "the penalty". Overall, a basic IRS squash.
OMG! this Raw still has an ad for NBA Jam attached. I legit marked out for this!
We get a quick interview with Johnny Polo who is none too happy that Lou Albano is trying to get the Headshrinkers a title match... not that he has any concerns that they'll lose of course ;).
We end this rather large Raw with a rundown of the card next week. Bam Bam Bigelow, 1-2-3 Kid and Owen Hart are in action, plus Jeff Jarrett takes on Razor Ramon. Lawler promises that next week he's going to interview Nikolai Volkoff. So I guess we're finally getting some answers as to why the hell he's been at damn near every Raw for months.
This was a packed edition of Raw. Definitely the most content in an episode that I've seen in a long time. A Bret Hart match, a whole King's Court segment, three squash matches, vignettes, segments building a tag title match. Definitely a lot to take in, and for the most part it was good stuff. Highlight was the Bret Hart vs Kwang match easily. Lowlight was the King's Court that felt like it lost its footing fast. The squashes were fine, far from offensive and we've officially entered a world with Duke Droese. Can't complain about much. This Raw gets a B+. Give it a watch, then fire up your Sega Genesis or SNES for a round of NBA Jam. Stockton/Malone all the way baby!