Raw #52 - February 21st, 1994

Monday Night Raw is live after a two-week absence due to the Westminster Dog Show. The show returns to the Mid-Hudson Civic Center and features the Macho Man back on commentary. Vince introduces him as "a man who one day will be in the WWF Hall of Fame." This, of course, is before Savage committed that unforgivable deed. You know the one I mean. Obviously, Vince is not going to let Savage into the Hall after he left the WWF abruptly to go to WCW. What did you think I was talking about?

Figure Friday: Giant Gonzalez and homemade wrestlers

As I explained in the Doink the Clown article, after Hasbro stopped producing WWF figures, toy stores were left with only the less popular figures that had yet to sell out. As a result, parents of the mid-90s had slim pickings when it came time to buy an action figure for their kids' birthdays or Christmas. That would explain how over the years my household acquired not one, but three Giant Gonzalez figures.

Raw #51 - February 7th, 1994

We start off the fifty-first episode of Raw with a recap of last week's events, which set up tonight's main event of Marty Jannetty vs. IRS. Joining Vince McMahon tonight is... Bastion Booger? I did not see this coming. Booger says he has some gas for Sparky Plugg, who makes his Raw debut tonight, and that, like "The Rocket" Owen Hart, he feels like he's ready to blast off. It looks like this week's theme is "fart jokes."

Raw #50 - January 31st, 1994

This week's Raw is the first one filmed after the Royal Rumble, meaning that they're finally going to advance the post-Rumble storyline. The Wrestlemania title picture will be decided by the flip of a coin, apparently one with Lex and Bret's faces on either side. Considering Luger's patriotic mega-push this past summer, I'm surprised that Vince didn't petition the U.S. Mint to actually put Lex on a real coin.

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.

The lost Royal Rumble of 1994

It's a little known fact, and one that WWE will never acknowledge, that there have been more Royal Rumbles than the ones shown on pay-per-view or television. One such house show Royal Rumble took place on January 17th, 1994 at Madison Square Garden, just five days before the Royal Rumble PPV and occurring at the same time as a taped Monday Night Raw was being aired. Thanks to some bootleg camera work (which couldn't have been easy in 1994, given the size of camcorders of the day), this Rumble is preserved for posterity. After being traded on VHS for years, it has made its way onto the Wild West of video hosting sites, Dailymotion.

Figure Friday: Get Bent

The closest thing to standing these guys can do.

This week's Figure Friday focuses on the travesty that was the WWF Bend-Ems (Series I, specifically). These toys, manufactured by JusToys, were for people who tired of the old Hasbro line of wrestling figures and their pesky ability to be posed, to have their body parts moved without ripping apart, and to stand on their own. How bad were the Bend-Ems? For years, this would be Kevin Nash's only WWF figure, and it couldn't even do him justice in terms of replicating his move set.