WWF RAW January 31 1994 Review (The WrestleMania 10 Coin Toss)

Tomás Cunha
3 days ago
7 min read

WWF Monday Night RAW January 31 1994 custom poster design featuring Bret 'The Hitman' Hart and Lex Luger in a coin toss

Date: January 31, 1994

Location: Fernwood Resort & Country Club (Bushkill, Pennsylvania, USA)

Announced attendance: ca 1,600

TV rating: 3.3 (USA Network) [down 5.7% from the previous week's 3.5 rating]

Welcome to another Monday Night RAW review. This week's show features a coin toss between 1994 Royal Rumble co-winners, Lex Luger and Bret Hart, to determine who will be the first one to challenge Yokozuna for the WWF Title at WrestleMania. Marty Jannetty faces The Quebecer's manager, Johnny Polo. This is also a night of debuts and returns, as Kwang will be making his RAW debut while Earthquake will compete in his first WWF match in one year.

WWF's champions heading into this episode of RAW:

WWF Champion: Yokozuna [232nd day of his 2nd reign] - previous champion: Hulk Hogan
WWF Intercontinental Champion: Razor Ramon [126th day of his 1st reign] - previous champion: Shawn Michaels, before it was vacated
WWF World Tag Team Champions: The Quebecers (Jacques & Pierre) [14th day of their 2nd reign as a tag team; Jacques' 2nd individual reign & Pierre's 2nd individual reign] - previous champions: Marty Jannetty & The 1-2-3 Kid
WWF Women's Champion: Alundra Blayze [36th day of her 1st reign] - previous champion: Rockin' Robin, before it was deactivated

Title reign lengths are calculated as of the episode's air date

Note: in title matches, the names of the defending champions are underlined

Enjoy the review!

Your hosts are Vince McMahon, Irwin R. Schyster & The 1-2-3 Kid

The show begins with a short video package narrated by Vince McMahon hyping up tonight's coin toss.

RAW's intro plays and the commentators talk about the coin toss some more.

Marty Jannetty vs. Johnny Polo

An injured The 1-2-3 Kid, who was supposed to be wrestling Polo here, joins IRS and McMahon on commentary. Johnny Polo cuts a promo before the match, saying 1-2-3 Kid is scared of facing him. The bell rings and Jannetty ties the microphone cord around Polo's legs to get an advantage. Johnny Polo wants nothing to do with this unfair fight and tries to walk away, only for Jannetty to put him back inside the ring and hit a flying bodypress for two. Marty hits a superkick and almost wins, but Polo puts his foot on the ropes to stop the count at the last possible second. Johnny Polo kicks Jannetty from behind and sends him flying to the outside as we take a break.

Commercial break

We're back with Polo applying a chinlock in the middle of the ring. Marty escapes the hold, takes Polo down with a shoulderblock and then they mess up a backdrop spot. Polo attacks Jannetty outside the ring, puts Marty back inside the ring and hits a double axehandle for two. Back to the chinlock goes Johnny Polo. Marty escapes the hold again and tries to make his comeback, but their heads collide and both men go down, with Polo landing outside the ring. Johnny Polo gets up first and returns to the ring to cover Marty for a nearfall. A sunset flip by Jannetty gets two. Polo sits on Marty's chest for an arrogant cover that Marty turns into another sunset flip for a two count of his own. Side headlock by Johnny Polo. He releases the hold and goes up top, but ends up eating Marty's boot on the way down. Jannetty hits a flying shoulderblock and he's all fired up. He rams Polo's head into the buckle numerous times, with the crowd counting along. Jannetty is thinking superplex, Polo shoves Marty off the top but Marty crotches Polo and follows it up with an atomic drop. That was really nice! Jannetty misses a blind charge, hitting the post shoulder-first. Johnny Polo drops a knee and goes for a backdrop, but Jannetty reverses it and turns it into the Rocker Dropper for the win at 9:36.

Winner: Marty Jannetty

Rating: A solid and competitive TV match to kick off RAW, but not as good as their first match from the December 27 1993 episode of RAW. **1/2

Meanwhile, IRS attacks 1-2-3 Kid after the match ends. Marty Jannetty runs in to make the save, which allows the injured Kid to walk away with IRS' briefcase. IRS goes after him looking to get his briefcase back... but Razor Ramon's music plays! Razor shows up with Kid and Jannetty by his side and his gold back around his neck, which was inside IRS' briefcase since he had stolen it leading up to their IC Title match at Royal Rumble 1994.

Jack Tunney talks about the coin toss: This tape is from this past weekend's episode of Supertars. Because of the 1994 Royal Rumble Match's controversial ending, the WWF Championship will be defended twice at the same event for the first time in WrestleMania history. I guess Mr. Tunney was taking a nap at WrestleMania 9.

If Lex Luger wins the coin toss, he'll challenge Yokozuna first and Bret Hart will wrestle Owen Hart before challenging the winner of the first WWF Title match in the main event.
If Bret Hart wins the coin toss, he'll challenge Yokozuna first and Lex Luger will wrestle Crush before challenging the winner of the first WWF Title match in the main event.

Also, both championship matches will have special guest referees.

We're back to live action with IRS still complaining about what just happened to him. He challenges Marty Jannetty to a match next week on RAW.

Bam Bam Bigelow (w/ Luna Vachon) vs. Miguel Rosado

Bam Bam overpowers his opponent to start. Bigelow misses a corner splash though, and Rosado throws a couple of kicks but Bigelow cuts him off without breaking a sweat and hits a huge slam. Bigelow continues to destroy Rosado while saying he wants Doink. An enziguiri puts Rosado down and Bigelow finishes him off with a falling headbutt at 2:18.

Winner: Bam Bam Bigelow

Rating: Just a squash to put Bam Bam over and promote his match with Doink on that weekend's episode of Wrestling Challenge. Bam Bam looked very dominant here. 1/2*

Coin Toss - Bret Hart & Lex Luger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YdXpOdW-8I

Vince McMahon is hosting this coin toss. Jack Tunney is also in the ring with the coin in his hands. There are a bunch of other 'WWF officials' in the ring as well, including Dave Hebner. McMahon goes over the rules one final time before introducing the participants. Lex Luger comes out first and Bret Hart joins them in the ring immediately afterwards. They all shake hands and McMahon asks Luger to call heads or toes when the coin is in the air. Wait... how does McMahon have the power to decide that? Where's Jack Tunney when we need him!?

Luger calls heads, and heads it is. It's official: Lex will face Yoko for the title first at WrestleMania while Bret Hart will have to wrestle his brother, Owen. Luger says he won't take Yokozuna lightly and he plans on making it to the main event. Bret talks next and says he wanted to avoid this fight with his brother, but it was inevitable. As far as the main event goes, Bret says he wishes Luger all the luck in the world because he wants to meet Luger and not Yokozuna for the title. Luger and Bret shake hands to close this segment.

Kwang (w/ Harvey Wippleman) vs. Rich Myers

Kwang no-sells a few moves, chops away on Myers and hits a spinning wheel kick in the corner. Meanwhile, we have Owen Hart live on the phone. Owen says he's the real winner of the coin toss, since he finally has the chance to fight Bret. Owen will humiliate his brother at WrestleMania and Bret won't even be able to challenge for the title after their match. Meanwhile, Rich Myers misses a high crossbody and Kwang hits a superkick for the win at 3:13.

Winner: Kwang

Rating: Not a good debut at all. The focus was all on Owen Hart, as it should've been. DUD

WrestleMania X Report: Todd Pettengill hypes up Yokozuna vs Lex Luger and Bret Hart vs Owen Hart, as well as the second championship match. Pettengill reminds us all three participants (Yoko, Luger and Bret) agreed to an extra rule: both WWF Title matches will have surprise special guest referees.

Vignette: Paul Bearer is desperately trying to speak to The Undertaker's spirit and promises Undertaker will be back.

Main Event

Earthquake vs. Corey Student

Quake is back in the WWF as a face. Corey Student attacks Quake before the bell for some reason, and that earns him a belly to belly suplex from Quake. Earthquake takes Student down with a backbreaker. Quake applies a submission and hits a running clothesline. Quake refuses to pin Student, and instead chops the hell out of him in the corner and follows it up with a corner splash. A big legdrop destroys poor Student, but Earthquake isn't done yet. He picks Student back up, slams him and the Earthquake Splash puts him away at 3:20.

Winner: Earthquake

Rating: A watchable squash to reintroduce Earthquake. 1/4*

Marty Jannetty & Razor Ramon are in the back and they cut a promo on IRS.

Next week: Owen Hart in action, The Smoking Gunns in action and IRS vs Marty Jannetty is the featured match.

END OF THE SHOW

Final thoughts: Not a very good episode of RAW. While they did establish what's going to happen at WrestleMania, the return (Earthquake) and the debut (Kwang) were nothing special. Also, Marty Jannetty and Johnny Polo had a better match the previous month. It's not a bad show per se, but you could watch only the coin toss and you wouldn't miss anything at all. 4/10