WWF RAW October 18 1993 Review (The Savage & Crush Summit)

October 18, 1993 Location: Poughkeepsie, New York, USA (Mid-Hudson Civic Center) Announced attendance: unknown TV rating: 3.0 [up 3.5% from the previous week’s 2.9 rating]

Hey there everyone. Welcome to another RAW review. After Razor Ramon’s Intercontinental Title win last week, RAW continues its run of stacked shows in October. This week, we have the highly anticipated confrontation between Randy Savage and the returning Crush. Plus, we have The Steiners, Bam Bam Bigelow, Tatanka and more in action.

Here is the list of WWF champions heading into this episode:

• WWF Champion: Yokozuna [127th day of his 2nd reign] – previous champion: Hulk Hogan

• WWF Intercontinental Champion: Razor Ramon [7th day of his 1st reign] – previous champion: Shawn Michaels, before it was vacated

• WWF Tag Team Champions: The Quebecers (Jacques & Pierre) [35th day of their 1st reign as a team (Jacques’ 1st individual reign & Pierre’s 1st individual reign] – previous champions: The Steiners (Rick & Scott Steiner)

Note: in title matches, the defending champions are underlined

Enjoy the review!

Your hosts are Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan & Randy Savage

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The broadcast begins with an over-the-top video package narrated by Vince McMahon comparing recent WWF events (including this week’s Savage/Crush summit) to historic summits like Reagan/Gorbachev. You can feel the energy in Vince’s voice doing these packages!

RAW’s intro plays and the announcers discuss tonight’s show.

The Steiners (Rick & Scott Steiner) vs. Tony DeVito & PJ Walker

Scott overpowers DeVito rather easily to start. Scott with a dragon suplex and he forces to tag to Walker. Rick comes in for The Steiners as well, and he hits a just incredible powerslam to Walker. Scott destroys poor Walker with the Steiner Screwdriver before bringing DeVito back in. Scott continues to have fun with a tilt-a-whirl slam. The Steiners finally put DeVito away with the Doomsday Bulldog at 3:08.

Winners: The Steiners

• Rating: Energetic squash from The Steiners as always. 3/4*

  
  

Meanwhile, the WWF hosts a voting on whether Shawn Michaels should be reinstated or not. Diesel gives us the reasons why we should vote “yes” while Mr. Perfect encourages us to do the opposite.

Irwin R. Schyster vs. Scott Taylor

The announcers tells us Crush is close to the arena and as soon as he arrives we’ll see the summit. IRS hits a suplex early into the match. Taylor nearly steals the win with a sunset flip, but IRS is back in control with a chinlock. IRS releases the hold due to the ‘Irwin’ chants and he applies an abdominal stretch instead. The referee catches him cheating on the ropes, and IRS immediately puts Taylor away with the Write-Off clothesline at 3:30.

Winner: IRS

• Rating: This was quite boring, especially after the explosive squash from The Steiners. 1/4*

We see the first WWF RAW vignette of the debuting Jeff Jarrett. Wrestling comes easy because he was born in the business, but his real love is actually country music. He plans on using the WWF to become a successful musician.

Tatanka vs. Iron Mike Sharpe

Tatanka is still undefeated. They show up a clip of Tatanka’s confrontation with Ludvig Borga this past weekend. Iron Mike Sharpe pisses the fans off before the match begins. Tatanka outwrestles Sharpe, who grabs the ropes to break. Meanwhile, Randy Savage talks about hoping his friendship with Crush doesn’t go south like his friendship with that “backstabber” Hulk Hogan did. Anyway, back to the match. Sharpe with a few shots, Tatanka GOES ON THE WARPATH, makes the comeback and finishes with the Not Samoan Drop at 3:00.

Winner: Tatanka

• Rating: The highlight was Randy Savage talking about Crush and Hulk Hogan. This match was really just there while that happened, to be frank. Tatanka’s undefeated run had lost its appeal at this point. 1/4*

  
  

Survivor Series Report w/ Joe Fowler

• Fowler explains the rules of Survivor Series

• He announces the main event of the PPV – All Americans (team captain Lex Luger, The Steiners & Tatanka) vs. Foreign Fanatics (team captain WWF Champion Yokozuna, WWF Tag Team Champions The Quebecers & Ludvig Borga)

• In the co-main event, The Hart Family (Bret, Owen, Bruce & Keith with Stu Hart in their corner) vs. Jerry Lawler & His Knights

Meanwhile, Crush has arrived and he’s with Bobby Heenan. Nothing screams heel turn more than that!

Main Event

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Bam Bam Bigelow (w/ Luna Vachon) vs. Dennis Diamond

Just as the match begins, Bobby Heenan comes back to ringside and the announcers talk about Crush the whole time. Bigelow drops Diamond with a suplex. Bigelow beats him up some more while Vince McMahon announces 65% of the fans don’t want Shawn Michaels’ suspension to be lifted. Bam Bam hits an enziguiri followed by a corner dropkick. Bam Bam’s slingshot splash finishes Diamond at 3:01.

Winner: Bam Bam Bigelow

• Rating: Another meaningless squash while the announcers talked about everything but the in-ring action. 1/4*

Diesel pleads with the fans to vote “yes” whether they want to see Shawn Michaels back or not.

Crush comes to the ring for the summit accompanied by Mr. Fuji. Macho Man can’t believe it when he sees it.

Randy Savage/Crush summit

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Bobby Heenan is interviewing Crush in the ring while Savage is on the announce table at ringside. Crush starts by saying they were great friends and he listened to Savage word for word. When the student passed the teacher, Savage couldn’t handle it. People like Heenan and Master (not Mister) Fuji made Crush see the light. Crush says Savage encouraged Crush to get into the ring with Yokozuna and promised to be there if anyone interfered. There was outside interference in that match and Savage did nothing despite being on commentary that night. Yokozuna delivered several Banzai Drops on the injured Crush, and still Savage did nothing.

READ & WATCH: Yokozuna Vs. Crush (WWF RAW, July 12, 1993, Review)

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When Crush was injured, Master Fuji made him see the light and now he realizes Savage wanted Crush out of the WWF for good. Savage finally gets up and enters the ring to confront Crush. Macho Man says Crush is making a mistake and he wants to talk about this somewhere else without the “two goofs” around. Savage offers a handshake and they milk the hell out of it. When Heenan tells Crush not to do it, Crush shoves Heenan and tells him to shut up, which gets a pop from the crowd. Crush finally shakes Savage’s hand and Savage’s theme song starts playing. Bobby Heenan joins the announce table and immediately starts insulting Crush right away! Crush raises Savage’s hand at ringside and… Crush clotheslines Savage.

The heel turn is official now. Crush delivers a gorilla press slam onto the railing. Meanwhile, Yokozuna & Jim Cornette come down to the ring. Crush continues the beatdown all over ringside as Savage bleeds from the mouth. Then, Crush drags Savage into the corner so Yokozuna can destroy him with the Banzai Drops, much like it’d happened to Crush a few months earlier.

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McMahon announces the results of the voteline: 64% of the fans don’t want Shawn Michaels reinstated.

Next week: Marty Jannetty vs. The 1-2-3 Kid (that will probably be great), Diesel, Ludvig Borga and Crush will all be in action as well.

Finally, McMahon announces Savage suffered a tongue laceration. Heenan makes fun of it as we go off the air.

END OF THE SHOW

Final thoughts: This episode was all about the summit, and that segment did deliver. With that said, though, the squash matches on this program were sacrificed since the announcers talked about nothing but the summit as well as the Shawn Michaels voteline. Still, the summit was well done and Crush’s heel turn moments after shaking Savage’s hand caught the people off guard. Overall, this was a decent episode of Raw that could’ve been better with more intense squashes such as The Steiners’. 6/10

POINT SYSTEM

Click here to know more about the point system and how it works.

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That’s all from today’s post. Make sure you don’t miss the WCW Halloween Havoc 1993 review, which is coming up next here on the blog. Also, don’t miss any of the Raw reviews coming up soon. Thank you all for reading. See you next time!

Written by:

Tomás Cunha