Raw #18 - May 24th, 1993

We start off the eighteenth episode of Raw (available online in WWE re-relase and VHS rip forms) with a re-re-match of Mr. Perfect vs. Doink for the final spot in the King of the Ring tournament. Adam Bomb makes his debut tonight, while his future WCW tag team partner Crush is in action tonight, as well. Doink comes down the aisle only to crawl under the ring. Outside the arena, Lord Alfred Hayes is with Matt Borne-Doink, who tells him that he's not standing out there, it's an illusion! Borne squirts Hayes in the eye and runs off. The referee checks under the ring and pulls out Borne-Doink, who faces Mr. Perfect.

"The evil clown Doink" jumps Perfect and chokes him with his towel. "You live by the towel, you die by the towel," quips Heenan. Just ask Randy Orton. Perfect fights back, whipping Doink to the ropes and clotheslining him with the towel. Perfect retains the advantage over the commercial break, but Doink shifts the momentum, conveniently right as the cameras start rolling again, tossing him over the top rope and taking the beating to him outside. Despite a leg injury, Doink executes a Maneuver (#1), slamming Perfect's head into the ring post. "There's no questioning the wrestling ability of Doink," says Vince, in an assessment bound to confuse modern fans who have only heard of Doink through embarrassing montages of the gimmick-riddled New Generation era. This Raw is unbelievable, uncut, uncensored, and underachiever (says Heenan about Mr. Perfect). Heenan continues to insists that there is only one Doink. "Doink is like Jell-O: there's always room for more." Mr. Perfect tries to counter a Doink takedown with a Maneuver (#2 - attempted toehold), but Doink slaps an armbar on him. Perfect escapes Jericho's favorite move and works Doink's legs with an Indian deathlock (not the forty-minute Triple H version). Each time Doink sits up, Perfect slaps him in the face until the clown manages to break free with an eye gouge. The action spills to the outside, with Doink slamming Perfect's arms against the posts. After working the arms for some time, Doink nearly scores a three-count as we go to commercial.

Pictured (left to right): Doink, an illusion

Back from commercial, the two opponents are slugging it out until Doink lands a Maneuver (#3) on Hennig, pulling him by his singlet into the turnbuckles. No cameramen are hurt this time. Perfect bounces back, clotheslining the evil clown over the top rope as Skinner-Doink climbs under the ring. Heenan claims that they're just watching a replay of before the match when Doink first crawled under the ring. Borne-Doink rolls under the ring and performs Twin Magic with Skinner-Doink, whose makeup is fresh. Vince McMahon notices that this Doink still has all of his face paint on, while Heenan claims that it's re-sealable makeup, and referee Mike Chioda doesn't notice a thing. Regardless, Perfect hits the Perfectplex and pins Skinner-Doink, leading Borne-Doink to re-emerge from under the ring to double-team Hennig. Crush enters the fray to kick out the two Doinks. "He beat the wrong Doink!" shouts Heenan, before correcting himself: "I didn't mean the wrong Doink. I meant, it was wrong for him to beat Doink." Mr. Perfect advances to the King of the Ring tournament.


Mean Gene announces that the brackets are complete for June 13th's KOTR tournament. It's Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan, the winner of which faces the winner of Tatanka vs. Lex Luger. The winner of Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon faces the winner of Mr. Perfect vs. Mr. Hughes (who defeated Kamala over the weekend). We get a taped word from the Hulkster in which he claims to be in New York at Monday Night Raw. Hogan puts over the Hulkamaniacal qualities of manager Jimmy Hart as well as the importance of the Five Demandments which, if you recall, now include "belief in Hulk Hogan." Surprisingly, The Hulkster has not yet taught his fans to repeat the 24-Inch Python Creed. He does, however, refer to his detractors as "non-believers." Forget Kevin Sullivan or CM Punk or The Undertaker; Terry Bollea is the #1 cult leader of all time in wrestling. In this promo, which is edited out of the WWE Classics on Demand version of the episode, Hulk promises to pick "that big fat wad of sushi up" and slam him to the mat. "Sayonara!" he growls to end the promo.

The Five Tenets of Hulkamania: Jingoism, racism, self-aggrandizement, politicking, and tanning.

 
As Money Inc. enters the ring, Ted grabs the mic and offers $100 to any fan to shine his shoes. Astonishingly, despite the chants in past weeks of "Mr. Hughes, shine my shoes," the big man does not cash in on this golden opportunity. They bring in a fan, whom Bobby Heenan calls a "little girl," but who is actually "a young man," clarifies Vince. I side with Heenan on this one. Vince insists that the fan is being humiliated by Money Inc., but really the commentary about his gender is the only thing embarrassing. IRS gives only $30 to the fan, keeping $70 in taxes. Get it? High taxes? Democrats? Clinton?

 
When we return from commercial, DiBiase is taking it Mike Bell. Don't go too hard on him, Ted, or you might end up talking to a mop for the next year. Vince announces an eight-man tag match for King of the Ring, with the Steiners and the Smoking Gunns taking on Money Inc. and the Headshrinkers. Razor Ramon will be interviewed tonight, and Vince dubs his opponent from last week, "The 123 Kid." Money Inc. make frequent tags and wear down the future Baldie, Tony DeVito. Heenan is apparently watching TV, but the cameras do not show him, as this episode was taped after last week's episode and a look at the TV screen would reveal the 10:30 programming from last week. If anyone has a TV Guide from May 1993, check to see when "championship fishing" aired.

 

During the commercial for WWF Mania, I notice a shot of Yokozuna wearing black tights with a red mawashi, rather than vice versa. All this time, I thought the designers of WWF Royal Rumble for SNES had just made a careless error of palette switching. Owen Hart takes on Mr. Hughes in a Mania-exclusive match. This would be the only time Mr. Hughes even got close to any wrestling event called "Mania."



 

With a Raw girl in the ring, Heenan whistles and calls out, "Hey toots!" "Are you talking to Crush, Heenan?" quips Macho. Crush takes on Bobby Who, whose only redeeming quality in the eyes of Vince McMahon (his last name) was co-opted by Jim Neidhart. "Obviously his mom used to date band members in the '70s," says Heenan. Vince McMahon explains that Shawn Michaels and Crush had a double-countout in a KOTR qualifying match this weekend, allowing Mr. Perfect to advance tonight. Heenan speculates that earlier tonight, when Crush appeared to be beating up two Doinks, that the action was moving so fast that it's possible that there only appeared to be two Doinks. Crush wins with the head vice, known in WWF Royal Rumble as the Cranium Crunch. Vince says that the man from Kona, Hawaii is head straight to the top, and "speaking of the top, we wanna talk about Mean Gene Okerlund and All-American  Wrestling..." I don't understand your segue, Vince.

 

McMahon brings Razor Ramon to the ring. Vince asks Razor how it feels to have been humiliated by The Kid last week. I think you answered your own question, Vince. Razor, playing a Cuban long before Armando Alejandro Estrada, tells the crowd, "Silencio. Everybody... listen... to me." Ramon denies that the "stick mang" really beat him.  The crowd starts their first "1-2-3" chant as Ramon offers $2500 to the "little cock-a-roach" for a match "otra vez... one more time." When the topic of the King of the Ring tournament comes up, Bret the "Hitmang" Hart comes to ringside and questions how a King of the Ring contender could get beaten by "one of the bottom guys, the underneath guys" (Is he talking about Steve Lombardi?). Bret claims that it will be "1-2-3" for Razor Ramon at the King of the Ring because Razor hasn't done his homework. That's the same reason Dean Douglas would feud with The Bad Guy in 1995.

 

Bobby Heenan once again flips through the channels, finally landing on C-SPAN. "Nothing's more boring than that!" says Vince. This was before Raw was three hours long, of course. The signal gets interrupted by Scott Levy, the man introduced to the WWF as Johnny Polo, to promote Adam Bomb's debut. Stock footage of a mushroom cloud replaces the Raw feed.

One of these men is a future world champion.

In truth, Vince acknowledges, Bomb already wrestled on Superstars this weekend. His opponent for the night is Phil Apollo. As Adam Bomb demolishes Apollo, Vince promotes the USA world premiere movie Duplicates. Bomb hits a top-rope clothesline and follows it up with a driving powerbomb (later dubbed the "Atom Smasher") to get the victory.

 

"It's perfect*!"
*except for the grapple system

Next week, Bam Bam Bigelow challenges Marty Jannetty for the Intercontinental Title. The Steiner Brothers, Razor Ramon, Mr. Hughes, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan will also be in action. We see commercials for new WWF figures and WWF Royal Rumble for SNES. Bigelow has picked his future main squeeze Luna Vachon to be at ringside to neutralize Sensational Sherri, who will be in Marty Jannetty's corner. There is no suggestion yet that Luna is Bam Bam's girlfriend (nor should there be, as she never would be his girlfriend, but his "main squeeze"). None of those people, it should be noted, are in the new WWF Royal Rumble video game.

Final tally:

1 Uncut, uncensored, uncooked (Cumulative total: 31)
3 Maneuvers (Cumulative total: 85)