WWE Monday Night Raw Episode 4 (01/02/1993)

If you thought that once Raw got itself going properly following the Ric Flair/Mr Perfect match on episode 3 and that after that point it would be all must-see television, you would be sadly mistaken. Episode 4 of the show rattles through 5 almost entirely pointless contests with very little to offer- the most competitive of these is a 3-minute match between Typhoon and Doink The Clown, which believe it or not, Vince McMahon had taken the time to advertise ahead of time. Of the other bouts on the card only one goes more than 4 minutes and none are particularly satisfying (with the possible exception of watching Yokozuna run through the set of 3 or 4 awesome big-man moves that he delivered in all of his matches). This show is almost entirely focussed on the return to the promotion of Brutus ‘The Barber’ Beefcake ahead of the storyline that would lead to Hulk Hogan’s contribution to the upcoming Wrestlemania 9- firstly, with a long interview segment featuring Vince McMahon asking ‘The Barber’ about what had happened to him to keep him away from WWF for nearly a year, and secondly when Ted Dibiase and IRS respond to Beefcake’s story and set the scene for the following week’s main event. While this set up isn’t the most enthralling television, it does at least give this episode of the show a reason to exist.

WWE Monday Night Raw Episode 3 (25/01/1993)

In episodes 1 & 2 of Monday Night Raw, WWE had presented a show with a faster pace and a grittier feel than its other broadcasts of the period, with episode 3, it delivered, for the first time, a show that felt important, vital even. That’s because on the show, Mr Perfect and Ric Flair were set to do battle in a match where the loser would have to leave the company. This was the calibre of match, and level of importance that had previously been saved for pay-per-views or the occasional Saturday Night’s Main Event but instead, WWE was giving it away, for free (in front of a crowd that, even at capacity, would only have numbered a thousand) on network television.  It is matches and moments like this that has provided Raw with its reputation as the king of pro wrestling television, even today, some 27 years after it was first broadcast, and even as its importance has dwindled over time. This history means that most wrestling fans still view WWE’s successes and failures through the prism of Raw, the metronome of WWE’s product, to the point that it feels almost impossible to imagine the promotion without it. It is therefore not unfair to say that, without this kind of moment taking place in the early days of Monday Night Raw, the wrestling business would not be the same as it is today.

WWE Royal Rumble 1993

When you look at the WWE at the beginning of 1993 you are seeing a promotion in the midst of an enormous period of change. The most obvious example of this was the debut of Monday Night Raw (a review for which you can read here) a new prime time television show on USA Network that was conceived to be grittier and more dramatic than what had come before which required not only a change to the overall presentation and booking of the show, but also came with a relatively hefty logistical price, as (at least at first) WWE committed to providing a live broadcast once a fortnight (something they had never done before). While they were getting to grips with this new format and schedule, the company were also attempting to overhaul their main event picture as a number of their top stars had either left, or were about to leave, the company. Toward the end of 1992, Ultimate Warrior and Davey Boy Smith had been released for being found to be in receipt of shipments of Human Growth Hormone then, Ric Flair decided that after 18 months in the company, he was ready to return to WCW, so the wheels were set in motion to write ‘The Nature Boy’ out of WWE’s storyline (which would culminate the following night where he would face Mr Perfect in a loser-leaves-WWE match).