Friday, June 9, 2023

Monday Night Raw 2-27-95 Review

Monday, February 27th, 1995
Macon Coliseum
Macon, Georgia

Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork2

Is this the debut of the "For over 50 years..." intro? We're getting closer to my sweet spot of fandom. Vince hypes up that we will hear from Lawrence Taylor. We're also getting some technical difficulties for whatever reason. 

We get pre-recorded comments from Lex Luger about his match with Tatanka. He says that it all started at SummerSlam and how Tatanka sold out and shoved money down his throat. He talks about the attack from Tatanka on Raw and then Tatanka attacking Chief Jay Strongbow on Action Zone. Luger says Chief Jay will be in his corner to keep an eye on DiBiase. 

Tatanka vs. Lex Luger

Luger chases after Tatanka to start and although Tatanka suckers him back into the ring, Luger hits him with a clothesline. We get some big stalling by Tatanka, before he comes back in and chops Luger down. Luger quickly fights back and unleashes on Tatanka. It's so weird that I like Luger the wrestler as much as I do during this period. After the commercial, Tatanka is stomping away on Luger in the corner. Tatanka slaps on my favorite hold, the bear hug. Luger battles out and hits a back suplex. Tatanka ends up outside and rips the headress off of Strongbow. Strongbow hits him with some chops and Luger is in control. Luger hits a knee lift and we got to another commercial. After coming back, Luger hits a big clothesline when we come back and Tatanka walks to the back. Luger goes after him and brings him back in the ring. Luger hits a slam ang Tatanka again ends up outside the ring. Luger suplexes him back into the ring. DiBiase distracts Luger while Tatanka rolls out of the ring and again leaves for the back. This time he's counted out and Luger gets the empty win. Luger decides to spring to the back before we go to promotional consideration paid for by the following. The match was solid enough, but they should have just given Luger the clean victory.

Match Rating: **

Lawrence Taylor is shown waiting in the WWF studio. 

They show clips of that prestigious battle royal from Superstars. 

Owen Hart vs. Larry Santo

They talk about Owen looking for a tag partner to challenge the Smoking Gunns. Jim Cornette then claims that Larry Santo is the son of El Santo. Owen has some fans in the front rows here. Owen hits his beautiful missile dropkick and slaps on the Sharpshooter to put Santo away. Classic Owen with him pretending to not be able to hear the referee tell him to break the hold.

Match Rating: 1/4*

They show Bam Bam Bigelow in another studio getting ready. 

Vince and Cornette address the rumors about LT fighting Bam Bam before showing us the highlights from their Royal Rumble altercation. LT says that he didn't show any disrespect. He said that Bam Bam disrespected himself by losing to a 13 year old. Did they really need to bury 1-2-3 Kid here? Taylor says that he didn't go after him because he decided they could get back at him in other ways. They ask if he is scared and he says that if he was scared, he would call the police. They pull in Bam Bam and he sticks up for 1-2-3 Kid. They start arguing and Taylor leaves. This was pretty good, although Taylor struggled here and there. I would have liked to have had more interaction between the two. They will be at the Harley Davison Cafe for the WrestleMania press conference.

Doink vs. Bob Cook

Doink puts on a half crab and Dink comes in and shakes his but in Cook's face. We are getting so close to no more dorky Doink. I mean if there's anything people want to see, it's a clown doing basic submission holds. Doink hits the Whoopee Cushion and puts us all out of our misery.

Match Rating: 1/4*

We get a fairly lengthy hype video for next week's main event in Shawn Michaels vs. British Bulldog. I'm game.

Kama vs. Ken Raper

The crowd is still not reacting to Kama so far. They honestly should have just had him mimic Vader matches. He just keeps hitting moves and saying there is no competition. Well, I assure you there are better competitors than Ken Raper. He slaps on the STF and makes Raper submit. Why in the world do they keep letting there be a guy named Raper? 

Match Rating: 1/4*

Vince and Cornette interview Bulldog about his match against Michaels. He wants revenge and he's going to take a bite out of the Heartbreak Kid. They then shift to the press conference and pass it off to Todd Pettengill. He lets us know that he's hosting and all of the media outlets covering the event. Don't forget to waste $1.49 a minute on hourly updates from JR.

This was a fine enough episode of Raw for the era. I can't wait until they get rid of some of the squashes, but I still love the one hour format. The LT stuff is being built nicely, but the rest of WrestleMania is kind of just off to the side for now.

Overall Rating: 42%

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