WWF RAW June 28 1993 Review (Who Will Step Up To Yoko?)

Tomás Cunha
Jul 2, 2023
5 min read

June 28 1993 Taped show (on June 21 1993)Location: Poughkeepsie, New York, USA (Mid-Hudson Civic Center)Announced attendance: N/ATV rating: 2.9 (USA Network) [down 6.7% from the previous week’s 3.1 rating]

Hi everyone, welcome to yet another RAW review here on the blog. Coming off a very hot episode last week, tonight we have an Intercontinental Title match with Kamala challenging Shawn Michaels. We will also see the RAW debut of the controversial Bastion Booger, who faces Crush in the main event.

Here is the list of champions in the WWF heading into this week: considering air date (6/28)

WWF Champion: Yokozuna [15th day of his 2nd reign] – previous champion: Hulk Hogan
WWF Intercontinental Champion: Shawn Michaels [22nd day of his 2nd reign] – previous champion: Marty Jannetty
WWF World Tag Team Champions: The Steiner Brothers (Rick & Scott Steiner) [9th day of their 2nd reign] – previous champions: Money Inc. (Ted DiBiase & Irwin R. Schyster)

Note: in title matches, the defending champions appear underlined

Enjoy the review!

Your hosts are Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan & Randy Savage

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WWF Intercontinental Championship – Shawn Michaels (w/ Diesel) vs. Kamala

Shawn Michaels vs Kamala WWF WWE Intercontinental Championship RAW June 28 1993 Match Card

Shawn Michaels starts off with a cheapshot after luring Kamala to shake his hand. Kamala reverses a whip into the buckle, however, and catches Shawn with a clothesline. Shawn offers a handshake yet again, and this time Kamala bites his hand. Shawn bails, but Kamala catches Shawn in midair with a bearhug as we take a break.

Commercial break

We come back with Kamala pinning Shawn for two. Shawn leaves the ring and runs away to cause a pursuit, and Shawn catches Kamala on his way back inside the ring. Kamala ducks a clothesline, but misses a blind charge and hurts his knee on the turnbuckle. HBK goes after the leg as he stomps away. Kamala pulls the hair to block a figure four attempt, but Michaels remains in control. Kamala keeps trying everything to avoid submission holds, finally ramming Shawn into the post. Kamala makes the comeback with the wild chops despite the bad leg, and eventually splashes Shawn… but he still doesn’t know how to make the cover. Diesel gets up on the apron to distract Kamala, though, allowing Shawn to superkick him in the back of the head to retain in 11:00.

Kamala goes after Shawn afterwards, but Diesel gets involved and Shawn eventually joins him for the beatdown. This would turn out to be Kamala’s final WWF appearance, only competing on house shows until leaving in July.

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Rating: Pretty good given the limitations. Shawn was great as expected, but Kamala more than held his own and sold the leg great. Pretty solid match. **1/4

A video promoting Yokozuna’s Stars & Stripes Challenge this coming Sunday airs.

Vince McMahon interviews Yokozuna & Mr. Fuji

Vince asks them about the upcoming challenge, which Fuji issued as Yokozuna’s way to celebrate his WWF Title win over Hulk Hogan at King of the Ring. Fuji says they will embarrass America this Sunday on July 4. Vince thinks someone should be able to slam Yokozuna, but Fuji reminds him even Hulk Hogan couldn’t do it at King of the Ring. Vince gets angry after they keep mocking America, shows great passion and eventually leads the crowd into a loud USA chant. Fine little TV segment to build heat for Yokozuna’s bodyslam challenge a few days later. McMahon was great in this segment.

The Smoking Gunns (Billy & Bart Gunn) vs. Iron Mike Sharpe & Barry Horowitz

Sharpe takes Billy into his corner, but hits Horowitz by accident and Billy clears the ring. Iron Mike misses a clothesline and Bart cradles him, but Horowitz breaks up the pin at two. Horowitz manages to hit a couple of knees on Bart, but Bart comes back with a crossbody for two. Horowitz ducks a second crossbody, and says now it’s time to go to school! Hard to find a better jobber. Mike Sharpe is one of the best ever too. Horowitz actually hits a northern lights suplex for two. Double-team attempt by Barry and Sharpe is blocked by Bart with a forearm before making the hot tag to Billy. The crowd doesn’t react at all, but Billy runs wild regardless and the Smoking Gunns finish Horowitz with a double-team flying move at 4:26.

Rating: The squash was a lot of fun given who did the job, but the crowd couldn’t care less. Anyway, it was a solid squash. 1/2*

We see a recap of the finish of last week’s Razor Ramon vs. The 1-2-3 Kid rematch, with Kid running away with the money.

Vince McMahon interviews Money Inc.

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Vince wants to know how it feels to be the former tag team champions. IRS tries to speak but the ‘Irwin’ chants cut him off. IRS says they’re good businessmen and only accepted the title match with The Steiners because they added an extra clause in the contract, stating they’d get a return match with The Steiners. DiBiase adds they know how to do business unlike Razor Ramon, or Razor ‘Jabron’ as IRS puts it. Vince wants to know what Razor Ramon has to do with this. DiBiase says he’s totally stupid and let a nobody beat him on television. And just like that, the crowd is chanting ‘Razor’ and there’s a babyface turn. Vince thinks Razor won’t like these comments, but DiBiase says they’re not shaking their boots and are not hard to find. The crowd chants ‘Razor’ some more.

That was a brilliant promo, particularly by DiBiase, who’d recently given his notice to Vince, wanting to retire that year after a final tour of Japan, and thus Money Inc. were quietly broken so DiBiase could create a new babyface star in Razor on the way out.

Adam Bomb (w/ Johnny Polo) vs. PJ Walker

Bomb slugs away to start. Walker tries a sunset flip, but Bomb easily blocks it and picks Walker up into a two-handed chokeslam. Adam Bomb proceeds to dump Walker outside, turning him inside out with a clothesline on the floor. Bomb takes him back inside, meeting him there with the diving lariat before finishing with the Adam Smasher (powerbomb) at 2:13.

Rating: Short and to the point, albeit skippable. 1/4*

Main Event

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Crush vs. Bastion Booger

Booger rakes the eyes to start and takes over with the SLOW CLUBBING BLOWS OF DOOM. Crush is unable to slam Booger due to his massive weight, but Booger just stands there doing nothing and allows Crush to “backdrop” him. That was bad. Real bad. Crush follows it up with a dropkick and takes Booger outside, but ends up getting rammed into post and squashed onto the post by Booger. Crush tries to fight back on the apron, but Booger rakes the eyes again and brings Crush back inside to put him in a bearhug. Crush finally escapes the hold, suplexes him and slams him three times in a row for the win at 5:37.

Rating: The final 20 seconds were fine to hype Yokozuna’s slam challenge some more, but the 5 minutes were an absolute pain in the ass. DUD

Randy Savage & Joe Morris of the New York Giants cut a promo on Yokozuna in the Meadowlands Stadium to promote the Stars & Stripes Challenge once more.

END OF THE SHOW

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Final thoughts: RAW’s streak of good-to-great episodes finally comes to an end this week. The episode had its moments and did a fine job of building up the Stars & Stripes Challenge as well as a babyface Razor Ramon, but everything else was either skippable or bad. Michaels/Kamala was decent, but nothing you should go out of your way to see, and the main event was the drizzling sh-ts. 4/10