WWF Monday Night RAW (October 4, 1993)

Original Airdate: October 4, 1993 (Taped September 27)

From New Haven, Connecticut; Your Hosts are Vince McMahon and Bobby Heenan.

Opening 20-Man #1 Contender's Battle Royal: The last two men standing battle for the vacant Intercontinental Title next week. We've got: Razor Ramon, Rick Martel, IRS, Diesel, Tatanka, Mabel, MVP, Bastion Booger, Marty Jannetty, Mr. Perfect, 1-2-3 Kid, Randy Savage, Adam Bomb, Jacques, Pierre, Bob Backlund, Jimmy Snuka, Owen Hart, Giant Gonzalez, and Bam Bam Bigelow. Everyone gangs up on Gonzalez for a quick elimination, and the usual punch-kick battle royal picks up from there until we get down to Ramon, Martel, and The Quebecers. The three Canadian heels gang up, but Razor stops short to dodge a triple-team dropkick, and unloads on everyone. He gets overwhelmed and triple-teamed, but the heels get arrogant, and Pierre ends up accidentally clotheslining Jacques out. Ramon takes advantage of the miscommunication and tosses Pierre as well, and that leaves him and Martel as co-winners at 21:40. Way too long, and why the fuck did they go with Martel? He was so far removed from relevancy at this point anyway. Why not just go with IRS, since they'd been building to a match with Ramon, and there was no reason to bleed that dull feud all the way out to the Royal Rumble. Or better yet, why not do Ramon/Savage, and let Randy put him over big to kick off the title run. It's not like Vince had bigger plans for Macho and needed to protect him, anyway. ½*

The Heavenly Bodies v Mark Taylor and Scott Thomas: Tom Prichard starts with Thomas, and tries a full-nelson, but Thomas thrusts his ass aggressively into Tom's groin, and Prichard breaks. Hey, that was sexual assault, brother. Thomas offers to let him try the hold again (Dude... be less desperate. He's clearly not into you that way), so Prichard clips the knee, and side suplexes him. Tag to Jimmy Del-Ray for a double-team, and Del-Ray gutwrench suplexes Scott. Tag to Taylor, but he gets caught with a slingshot clothesline, and Del-Ray pops him with a diving backelbow. Prichard tags back in for a spinebuster off the middle rope, and a hanging vertical suplex follows. Enzuigiri, and the Bodies double-suplex the jobber before Del-Ray DDTs him at 3:23. Just a squash, but the Bodies were dead in the water already, since they jobbed them to the Steiner Brothers at SummerSlam, in what was effectively their debut effort. I know it's been said before, but that's even more reason to do Steiners/Money Inc in a cage at SummerSlam, and then build up the Bodies match for later. ¼*

We take a look at Superstars over the weekend, where Doink threw a bucket of confetti in Bam Bam Bigelow's face, and then dumped another over Luna Vachon's head. Luckily, they lived. Though, all three are dead now, so maybe there were delayed aftereffects. In that case, they really shouldn't highlight that, for liability reasons

Cute RAW Girl Sign of the Week: When Was The Last Time You Got RAW

Doink v Corey Student: McMahon nearly has an aneurysm shilling the latest USA Network show ('Linda') on commentary as we get started. Never saw it, but I heard it was good. Apparently, about a North Carolina woman who meets the man of her dreams, move to Connecticut, and then spends years turning a blind eye to his infidelity before turning her life around and running for Senate. Anyway, onto the match, Doink chops Student into the ropes, then backdrops him and dropkicks him, before finishing with the Whoopee Cushion at a brisk 1:56. Afterwards, Bam Bam Bigelow comes down, and destroys Doink's red toy wagon in response to confetti-gate. Doink finds it hilarious though, only further infuriating Bigelow. This was just background for the goofy Doink/Bigelow angle that ran seemingly forever in those days. DUD

BUExperience: Not a good episode this week, as half of the runtime was the battle royal, and Bigelow/Doink wasn’t really enough to bring things up. We crown a new Intercontinental Champion next week though, so we have that to look forward to, at least.