Raw #90 - December 12th, 1994

Bob Backlund opens tonight's Raw ranting about extinguishing Doink for besmirching the fans in a sea of hypocrisy. In response, Doink tells Mr. Backlund in his New York accent that he has an amateur background, as well. Tonight's Raw emanates live from Liberty, New York, with Vince and Shawn Michaels on commentary again.

Raw #87 - November 21st, 1994

It's the last Raw before Survivor Series, and team captains Razor Ramon and Diesel square off in the opening, non-title match. Razor steps out of Gorilla position and spends an awfully long time standing right in front of the entranceway. The Teamsters take advantage of this inexplicably long pose-down by attacking The Bad Guy from behind. "Razor Ramon being hammered," says Vince McMahon before that phrase would become a sick pun. Raw cuts to commercial as officials try to break up the five-on-one beatdown.

Raw #85 - November 7th, 1994

Tonight's Raw is a mixed bag. On the plus side, it's live. On the minus side, Macho Man is gone and will never return. In his place is Jerry "The King" Lawler, Vince's broadcast colleague on Superstars. Looking back, Jerry Lawler is not nearly as funny as I remember him, while Randy Savage is a comedic genius. Lawler hosts King's Court tonight, as well.

Raw #82 - October 17th, 1994

Raw opens up with a series of outdoor clips from Burlington, Vermont, which hosts tonight's live episode. A confused Macho Man (at his last ever WWF taping) says, "This isn't The Learning Channel!" and he's right. The main difference between Monday Night Raw and TLC is that for the past decade or so, Raw has had provided more culturally enriching programming than the cable network known for fashion, decorating, and Honey Boo Boo. Speaking of cultural enrichment, Doink comes to the ring with Dink and the newest addition to his entourage, Wink. They josh around with the Spanish announce team before the Raw intro, over which a Stridex logo is plastered as Todd Pettengill hocks the acne treatment. This is the most disgraceful act of commercialism since Pepsi bought South Korea.

Raw #81 - October 10th, 1994

Bam Bam Bigelow comes to the ring on tonight's Raw to take on Lex Luger. He doesn't come alone, though; he is followed by the other members of the Million Dollar Corporation, except IRS for some reason. Vince McMahon calls this Ted DiBiase's own "Columbus Day parade." I hope he teaches us some more fun facts about Christopher Columbus like he did last year. Instead, Macho Man gives us this quote from Columbus: "One if by land, two if by sea!" Actually, that was Paul Revere in Longfellow's famous poem, but at least this time the misinformation is intended as a joke. Also, "Longfellow" is a great last name.

Raw #78 - September 19th, 1994

The cold opening for the September 19th episode of Raw centers around Tatanka, who fooled us all by having sold out to Ted DiBiase all along. The exact purpose of this deception will never be explained, but he certainly fooled a lot of people, and that's all that matters! Vince McMahon would later take the lessons learned from this angle and incorporate them into the Corporate Ministry angle, revealing himself to be the Higher Power so that he could fool Stone Cold Steve Austin at great personal expense.

Raw #77 - September 12th, 1994

Monday Night Raw returns tonight for the first time in nearly a month after one recap episode of Summerslam hype, Summerslam itself the next Monday, and a pre-emption on the USA network for the U.S. Open of tennis. "Tennis anyone?" asks Vince. "No, I don't think so!" Tonight's episode is from Lowell, Massachusetts, and a lack of the word, "Live" suggests that this episode was taped a month ago after the previous episode. The real Undertaker, who had not made his return at Summerslam as of this taping, wrestles Kwang, according to the new blue Raw graphics.

Raw #70 - July 4th, 1994

It's a Fourth of July edition of Monday Night Raw! On this day last year, Lex Luger turned face and bodyslammed Yokozuna, and look how far that has gotten him in the past year! Why, he almost made it to the King of the Ring. Raw kicks off with a battle between two King of the Ring entrants who lost in the first round, Tatanka and Jeff Jarrett. Hopefully this match will end better than that other match between two King of the Ring entrants who lost in the first round, Bam Bam vs. Mabel, which Mabel won by countout last week.

Raw #64 - May 23rd, 1994

After his face-stealing victory over Yokozuna last week in sumo competition, Earthquake looks to win a berth in the King of the Ring tournament... or does he? Our announcers wonder where exactly Earthquake has gone, since he is not at the arena tonight. He was Banzai-dropped by Yokozuna at a house show in Anaheim, which is used to explain his absence. What a strange run for Earthquake; he returns to the WWF ring, squashes Adam Bomb at Wrestlemania, goes undefeated, beats the former champion, then is gone from the Federation for the next four years. Owen Hart comes to the ring to face a mystery opponent on this first-ever Raw in Youngstown, Ohio. Vince, however, calls it "Struthers, OH," which is about five miles away from Youngstown. Somebody is wrong here.

Raw #62 - May 9th, 1994

What decade is this? Oh right, the 90s.

Tonight's cold opening features a replay of Earthquake's challenge to Yokozuna from last week's episode.  The former champion is the guest on The King's Court. Also, Razor Ramon takes on his future long-time friend, Savio Vega, who is currently masquerading as a martial arts expert from "The Orient," in the "first" 1994 King of the Ring qualifying match to be aired. If you've memorized Art Donovan's commentary like I have, you'll know who wins this qualifier.

Raw #56 - March 28th, 1994

Eight days after Wrestlemania X, the former champion Yokozuna's manager, Jim Cornette, is at ringside to commentate. He vows to tell the "unvarnished truth" on tonight's Raw. Lex Luger comes down to the ring to his new, less patriotic entrance theme, which sounds just like the beginning of "Eye of the Tiger," with a hint of "My Obsession."

Raw #49 - January 24th, 1994

It's the first Raw after the Royal Rumble, so expect to hear the shocking results of Saturday's pay-per-view... that is, as long as the announcers aren't on camera. This episode was taped two weeks earlier, you see, so any would-be spoilers have been dubbed into the show in post-production. Lex Luger, who co-won Saturday's Rumble with Bret Hart, is in action first. Joining Vince on commentary this week is Jim Ross, who I predict will say the word "brudda" 35 fewer times than Crush did last week. This 49th episode of Raw is Jim Ross's first.

Raw #45 - December 27th, 1993

It's the last Raw of the year, and the WWF is pulling out all the stops, even going so far as to show some clips from a Women's Title tournament final! Vince is joined by the Quebecers on commentary tonight. We also get to see a manager wrestle a match (though in this case, the "manager" is future ECW champion Raven). Pierre takes advantage of his new media platform by speaking French (which might be awesome if he's slipping something completely off-color under the radar).

Raw #42 - December 6th, 1993

Tonight's Raw is Bobby "The Brain" Heenan's last. Unlike Rob Bartlett's last episode, there will be no celebrating here at How Much Does This Guy Weigh? For the record, Bobby never was a weasel.  We kick off tonight's show with Shawn Michaels coming to the ring wearing an Intercontinental belt, which Vince says he has no business wearing. I would like to congratulate Shawn for at least remembering to wear the correct-colored belt, as earlier this year the strap was blue, then white. He probably has a whole closet full of IC belts of all colors of the rainbow, like John Cena and his official T-shirts. Vince says that Razor earned that title the old-fashioned way. By this, he means that Razor co-won a battle royal then beat the other co-winner. I don't recall a title ever being awarded that way before. Isn't "the old-fashioned way" beating the reigning champion?

Raw #41 - November 29th, 1993

The forty-first Raw comes live from a brand new arena for the cable program, White Plains, New York. Razor faces Diesel in a non-title match, while Ludvig Borga and Owen Hart will be in action. The "Superstar of the Year" trophy will be awarded tonight; the revival of Slammy Awards would still be two and a half years away.

Raw #29 - August 9th, 1993

Lex Luger and Winston: A winning tag team for America!

Raw's twenty-ninth episode again takes place in Alexandria Bay, New York. We kick off the episode with a series of clips from Lex Luger's Lex Express tour, including footage of his visit to the Chicago White Sox's Comiskey Park. Luger throws out the ceremonial first pitch, not only wearing one of those ridiculous fanny packs that wrestlers would wear in the 90s to carry their pills, but in full view of a giant cigarette billboard.

Raw #28 - August 2nd, 1993

Episode twenty-eight emanates from "waaaay upstate New York," Alexandria Bay. Vince and Bobby are at ringside, but not Randy, who is competing tonight against Doink, who last week appeared with two other Doinks in the Manhattan Center. Randy tells us he is "jacked up and pumped up to the max" in Alexandria Bay, "land of a thousand islands." Too bad Raw would stop holding shows here once Vince found out that the Land of a Thousand Islands was actually just the Land of Ketchup and Mayonnaise Mixed Together. Macho Man promises a "little surprise" for Doink.