January 11th, 1993. Live from the Manhattan Center in New York City, it's the first episode of Monday Night Raw.
Sean Mooney is outside the Manhattan Center and has to give Bobby Heenan the bad news that he's been replaced on commentary. Heenan's replacement is comedian Rob Bartlett, a man who knows nothing about wrestling.
Sex jazz music accompanies the opening montage and then we get the commentary team for the night: Vince McMahon, Rob Bartlett, and Randy Savage.
Vince felt that Savage was getting too old and wanted to lessen his role as an active wrestler. Bartlett immediately shows off his wrestling knowledge by wanting to see "Yokozuma" and he gets his wish; the first match of the night is Koko B. Ware vs. Yoko.
Bartlett makes me yearn for Gorilla Monsoon or Jesse Ventura. Vince clues us in on Yoko's weight, which is 505 plus pounds; somewhere, Art Donovan is smiling.
The crowd gets a USA chant against the evil Samoan Japanese and both men work heavy on the stalling. At one point, Yoko stands in the middle of the ring and Koko bumps around him.
This squash ends with Yoko hitting the Banzai drop for the 1-2-3.
Up next is a video package from Bobby Heenan and he's hyping the debut of Narcissus, who turned out to be Lex Luger. Luger came over to the WWF in 1992 and was the coverboy to Vince's bodybuilding fed, The WBF, which is where his alliance with Heenan began. One motorcycle accident later and he re debuts as Narcissus,later changing it to the Narcissist.
Luger also had a loaded forearm gimmick,stemming from his accident. He'd have a decent match with Mr. Perfect at Wrestlemania 9 and then go on to become Hulk Hogan 2.0.
Second match of the night is The Steiner Brothers,Rick and Scott, taking on the masked team of the Executioners.
The Steiners left WCW in November of 1992 and Scott had to vacant the TV title when he made the jump, they didn't last long in the WWF and had a two year stay with two tag title reigns, both were wins over Money Inc.
Third match of the night is Max Moon, ribbed for her pleasure and straight from Uranus, taking on Shawn Michaels for the Intercontinental (Heavyweight) Championship (of the World).
Moon is being played by Paul Diamond, who is no stranger to filling in and wearing a mask; He also replaced Akio Sato in the Orient Express as the masked Kato.
Sensational Sherri was split from Michaels by this time, but he was still using the Sherri version of his theme song. Bartlett makes a reference to Amy Fisher, even though the WWF was still very kid friendly at the time. It baffles me that Bartlett mentions a case that involved attempted murder, first degree assualt, and statutory rape, but I guess it was funny to him.
The match has a good back and forth to it, with Michaels playing the chicken shit heel and what better way to ruin a decent match than more "humor" from Rob Bartlett. This time he does a terrible bit that he's Mike Tyson calling in live from prison, he just sounds like a tiny man with a New York accent and Tyson, as you may remember, was in prison for RAPE.
Michaels wins with a superkick and side suplex.
Main event time. "Not a Jobber" Damien Demento goes one on one wit da Undataker. Vince verbally kisses Don Imus' ass and audio picks up on Paul Bearer doing his Mickey Mouse sex voice.
Demento looks a little bigger than Taker,maybe not as tall, but he still gets his ass kicked as Taker goes through the motions: Old School, corner choke, jumping clothesline, and no selling.
The episode closes with a confrontation between Doink the Clown and Crush. The big man is tired of Doink making kids cry. This feud would explode at Wrestlemania 9 and ended up being a 5-Star match, along with two hearts, and three smiley face suns.
