The SmarK Rant for Monday Night RAW – 08.08.94
Taped from Youngstown, OH
Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Randy Savage
“The Undertaker” v. Butch Banks
Good jobber name. At this point Vince’s commentary track is “You’ll only see Undertaker v. Undertaker one time!” because they had already realized how lame and ice-cold the feud was and decided to kill it after Summerslam. Undertaker does as little as possible for a crowd that could not give a shit, and a chokeslam finishes at 2:00. I think it was pretty clear even to the marks that this wasn’t the same guy.
Meanwhile, Leslie Nielsen continues his search for the real Undertaker.
Lex Luger v. Chad Miller
I’m in the same camp as others on the blog, who wonder why they didn’t pull the trigger on the Luger heel turn when they clearly needed top level heels and had nothing for months. Luger works on a hammerlock for a while, but Miller stomps on his leg to get his shit in, which riles Luger up enough to finish with the STAINLESS STEEL FOREARM OF DEATH at 3:00.
Summerslam Report with Todd, as he runs down the entire card with three weeks still to go! When does that ever happen today?
Doink the Clown & Tatanka v. IRS & Bam Bam Bigelow
Apparently the IRS/Bigelow team was going to get the tag titles from the Headshrinkers at Summerslam before Vince called an audible and switched them to Shawn & Diesel a couple of days before the PPV. Never got the timing of that one. It would have helped the Corporation a hell of a lot more than Shawn & Diesel, who were only getting the belts so they could split up. Tatanka controls IRS by the tie and the bayfaces work him over, but Bigelow comes in and Doink outsmarts him and drops an elbow for two. Tatanka hits some clotheslines for two, but Bigelow dumps him and we take a break. Back with IRS chinlocking Tatanka, and Bigelow comes in for the collision to put both guys out. Tatanka makes the…hot…?...tag to Doink, who runs wild for roughly 10 seconds before Bigelow clocks him with the enzuigiri and IRS finishes him with the Write-Off at 12:00. This was like every boring Coliseum video dark match exclusive that Sean Mooney ever shilled for. ** Luger and Tatanka have more words afterwards due to a wacky misunderstanding with Luger stealing Dibiase’s cash.
The King’s Court with Owen & Bruce Hart. Owen talks about beating Bret in cage matches back in the Dungeon, but this time it’s for the title. Also, his entire family is behind him now, which brings out Bruce to make a fiery comeback on him. Owen is a disgrace to the Hart family, it seems, and they’re all disgusted by his actions and they all hate Neidhart too. And then Bruce finally puts out the motivation they had been missing for weeks, as he accuses Neidhart of being jealous of Bret for carrying the Hart Foundation for years. THANK YOU! Someone should have said that long ago. Great job from Bruce, although they abruptly cut away from the segment for some reason.
Bob Backlund v. Kevin Krueger
Bob was still refining the Mr. Bob character at this point. Backlund controls the jobber on the mat and works the arm, and Vince feels like Backlund is not above cheating. Harsh words from a guy who just escaped 20 years in federal prison for steroid distribution. Bob finishes with the crossface chickenwing at 4:00 out of nowhere. Bob snapping and staring at his hands was a great touch that he managed to turn into a World title run.
Next week: Owen Hart v. 1-2-3 Kid! We’re getting closer to the point where my family bought a giant C-Band satellite dish and I was able to watch these live on USA, actually.
"Bob snapping and staring at his hands was a great touch that he managed to turn into a World title run"
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that could even be classified as a run; perhaps a brisk walk?
I don't know. Shawn and Diesel didn't do much as a tag team, but having the titles kind of put them over as a pair/individual, if that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteDiesel already being IC Champ and Shawn's reign at the top of the midcard made them too important for the titles, IMO. Bam Bam and IRS were thrown together, but their place on the card wasn't in question: They were solidly in the midcard and the tag titles could've done them well.
ReplyDeleteAs a 10 year old, it was very obvious it wasn't the "real" Undertaker. I still don't know what the point of it all was, especially since they kind of wrote it off as a failure at least a month before the match even happens/the real Undertaker returns. Was it even acknowledged AFTER Summerslam?
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of people look down on Bruce's talents because he's not as talented as Bret and Owen, but from the very little I've seen of him on WWF tv he seemed talented enough to get over. Bruce even stole he show in the Canadian Stampede 10 men tag despite only getting 10 seconds of screen time.
ReplyDeleteSometimes there is no point, there's just throwing stuff against the walls to see what sticks. That's how you get things like Team Hell No and BookDust, concepts that work despite being things that you would never logically plan out.
ReplyDeleteA quick dump?
ReplyDeleteWhat about the Kane/"Kane" Stuff? It was almost the same thing. A lot of weird stuff that was never explained, a DREADFUL match (it was still better than Taker vs. Taker, but only barely), and then it was over with and ignored like it never happened.
ReplyDeleteAs odd as it was for BookDust or Hell No to get over like it did, neither could've bombed as hard as angles like those.
I can see the argument going either way. On one hand Diesel/Shawn holding the tag titles was pretty cool, but on the other Bam Bam/IRS needed it more. I think what hurt most of all was Diesel/Shawn simply vacating the belts before they could have put a team over in a big way.
ReplyDeleteThat's the thing with that approach. You have to accept the 90% crap to 10% gold ratio that you're likely to get.
ReplyDeleteI've long said that a heel Luger in his USA gear and railing against dirty foreigners like Bret Hart would have been $$$$$.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what the WWF wanted us to think, but it was very clear it wasn't the original Undertaker.
ReplyDeleteAs for why the ran this angle, I think the honest answer sometimes is, "We didn't have any better ideas."
I've been saying for years. that they should have turned Luger at WM, or more realistically, the night after on RAW. That would give you a Summer of Hart defending the belt against Owen, Lex, plus Diesel.
ReplyDeleteHe's a sprinter, not a marathoner, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAs a young mark, I could only wonder why Lex Luger never publicly stated in any promo that he was never with Ted DiBiase, since all it would take to dissuade any suspicion would be (at least) a simple denial.
ReplyDeleteToday, I realize that if he had simply denied the whole thing, then there would have been no story.
"Bob snapping and staring at his hands was a great touch that he managed to turn into a World title run."
ReplyDeleteNow, Scott, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe at one point you said the original idea was that this was leading to a Papa Shango return where he had clearly rewired Backlund's brain? He was staring at his hands because even he knew he didn't act like that.
So this promo was basically the only quality thing that Bruce ever did in his worthless career?
ReplyDelete