Monday Night Raw
January 25, 1993
New York City
Manhattan Center

The current WWF champs were as follows:
World Champion: Bret Hart (10/12/1992)
Intercontinental Champion: Shawn Michaels (10/27/1992)
World Tag Team Champions: Money Inc. (10/13/1992)

SIDENOTE: Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about the last Raw of April 1997. It’s coming.

Sean Mooney catches the Repo Man driving up to the Manhattan Center in his tow truck. He’s got Randy Savage to deal with tonight since last week he stole Macho Man’s hat. Is the Macho Man ready for the Repo Man? Because the Repo Man is ready for the Macho Man. LET’S GET RAW!

Your hosts are Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan, and Rob Bartlett. They let Heenan in the building this week since Randy Savage is a little busy.

• Randy Savage vs. Repo Man
  

Repo Man brings the hat with him. He’s REALLY asking for it, folks. Savage foregoes his big entrance and attacks Repo from behind. REVENGE~! It’s all Savage until Repo smashes his head off the ring steps a couple times. Back inside, Repo runs Savage into the corner and works a body scissors while Heenan wonders where Rob Bartlett came from. Good question. Commercials! We come back and Repo is still in control. Savage elbows out of a chinlock, but Repo fights back with a backbreaker. Savage catches Repo with a clothesline coming off the second rope. There’s the slam and there’s the MACHO ELBOW for the 1-2-3. (9:58 shown) Savage hurls Repo to the floor and puts back on the hat to celebrate. DIG IT! *

• Kamala (w/Reverend Slick) vs. The Brooklyn Brawler
  

Brawler gets annihilated all the way to the end as Kamala hits the RUNNING SPLASH. He does this great bit where he doesn’t know how to pin, so he keeps turning Brawler over and over until Slick instructs him how to pin somebody and he finally understands. (3:33) That man is IMPERATIVE to his success. ¼*

Vince McMahon grabs a word with the Reverend Slick and Kamala (to a lesser extent). Slick credits the people for Kamala’s conversion. Whatever you do, stay out of the way of the Ugandan Giant!

• Ric Flair vs. Mr. Perfect – Loser Leaves the WWF
  

Perfect paintbrushes Flair down on the mat to send him out to the floor. Heenan calls Flair over to feed him a foreign object in his knee pad. Back in, Perfect works a hammerlock, but Flair elbows him in the corner and chops away. Perfect spins Flair around for some chops of his own. Flair Flop! They trade chops again in the corner. Perfect starts throwing punches, so Flair throws him out and grabs a chair. He looks to nail Perfect, but Hebner dives on the chair to save Perfect. Now we JIP back in with Flair sending Perfect in the corner, only Perfect oversells the bump and flies out to the floor. Perfect hits his head on the ringpost, which explains the blading. Back in again, Flair pounds away and whips Perfect hard into the corner for several nearfalls while Flair has his foot on the rope. Flair cheats just a tad more by placing his shin over Perfect’s throat while he argues with the ref. Out of nowhere, Perfect reverses a whip and nails Flair in the face. Jackknife rollup gets two. Then Perfect blocks a hiptoss and counters to a backslide for 1-2-NO! Flair begs off into the corner as Perfect follows him in for a ten-count corner punch, so Flair brings him out with an atomic drop. Rollup gets two. Flair rolls to the apron, allowing Perfect to bring him back in with a suplex for 1-2-NO! Flair goes low to slow down Perfect, setting up a sleeper. Perfect’s arm drops twice, but not three times! Perfect fights up and runs Flair into the corner, and then applies a sleeper of his own! Flair escapes with a back suplex and grabs the FIGURE-FOUR! That’s right, Ric. You grab those ropes. This gets several nearfalls when Flair has hold of the ropes, but Hebner finally catches him and makes Flair release the hold. Flair kicks at the knee and heads up top, but Perfect is there to slam him down. We JIP one more time to Flair rolling towards the ropes to slip the foreign object on his hand. WHAM! Perfect never saw it coming. Flair gets rid of the evidence and covers Perfect after an elbow drop for 1-2-NO! Perfect got his foot on the bottom rope. Flair pounds away on the cut some more and chops Perfect, but he NO-SELLS and scares Perfect off into the corner. He chops on Flair and sends him in for the ride followed by a backdrop. He whips Flair in again, but he flips out onto the apron and runs up to the top turnbuckle. Flair comes down on Perfect, but he gets caught on the way down. Cover, 1-2-NO! Flair begs off into the corner again and trips Perfect up for the corner pin while using the ropes, but Hebner catches Flair cheating again and kicks his feet off the ropes. Perfect counters to a cradle for two. Flair sends Perfect off into the ropes, but he ducks low and receives the PERFECTPLEX for 1-2-3. (17:34 shown) That does it for Flair in the WWF until WCW gets eaten up by Vince in 2001. I think they tried too hard to make this match great, and while it is good, I really don’t feel that it was one of those epic matches. I guess overrated is the word I’m looking for here. I don’t know, maybe I’ve just seen too many Flair matches from the ’80s. ***½

Unless I’m mistaken, I heard nothing on the Royal Rumble PPV.

NEXT WEEK ON MONDAY NIGHT RAW: Typhoon vs. Doink the Clown. I’M SOLD!