18 years today

[nicholasjackson]

monday night raw 17/3/93

 

janetty comes out the crowd to take the open challenge put out by heartbreak kid shawn micheals and wins i-c title with help from mr perfect

 

also sean waltman/sixx/123 kid caused a massive upset over razor ramon

 

really enjoyed this period especially tag teams headshrinkers,steiners,qubecers etc even laterin year i enjoyed evil crush with yokozuna, and bret hart rising back to the top

 

your thoughts and memories?

[Reznor]

1993 was great.

 

A very underrated year which gets an undeserved bad rep because the PPVs generally weren't as great as the previous years, and there wasn't so much established star power in the main events causing the crowds to drop and arenas got smaller.

 

On a week-to-week basis, TV in my opinion was better than 1992 which is generally considered a great year for the WWF.

 

Mental to think that it was all so long ago, Jannetty winning the IC title was probably my greatest wrestling moment of the 90s.

[nicholasjackson]

smart move by vince with hbk cause i always liked janetty more in rockers, wasted talent

[The Miz]

This was a month or so after I started watching wrestling. Good times, great memories.

[Reznor]

It was a bit strange, i don't know if there was any backstory to it, whether it was planned for Jannetty to only have it for a few weeks, drop it just prior to the PPV then have Crush take the #1 contender spot. Then jannetty was jobbed out and pretty much buried after KOTR until he joined forces with the 123 Kid around Survivor Series time. In hindsight, it certainly looked like it was rushed at the last minute, and was some kind of punishment for him. It was a shame that he couldn't seem to hold himself together for any extended period.

[Kaz Hayashi]

It was indeed a quality era period in time, i know lots crap on it for its silly antics, but was a very fun time for me, still great to watch that year on dvd (ahem nic)

[air_raid]

It was a bit strange, i don't know if there was any backstory to it, whether it was planned for Jannetty to only have it for a few weeks, drop it just prior to the PPV then have Crush take the #1 contender spot. Then jannetty was jobbed out and pretty much buried after KOTR until he joined forces with the 123 Kid around Survivor Series time. In hindsight, it certainly looked like it was rushed at the last minute, and was some kind of punishment for him. It was a shame that he couldn't seem to hold himself together for any extended period.

 

I have a feeling that Marty had gotten his act together just about enough for the WWF to give him another chance but they only really did the two title switches for the following reasons, not especially because they wanted Marty to have a run :

 

A) Perfect's interference added fuel to him and Shawn's existing fire, which of course would culminate at SummerSlam ;

B) The switch back was a really good way of introducing Diesel ;

C) The switches added a dose of unpredictability to Shawn's reign which may have otherwise been pencilled in to last uninterrupted until a planned feud with slow-burning face-turning Razor. They really did think that far ahead at the time ;

D) It was a chance to tie up their feud.

 

Things may have worked out differently had Marty stayed sober long enough at the turn of the year - they might have pulled the trigger on him at WMIX, we'll never know. Either way, I'm largely glad the way things panned out the way they did - the Shawn/Marty stuff was a lot better with the symmetry of the Sherri/mirror angle and the surprise comeback on the Raw in question, and subsequent run of Razor/Marty v Shawn/Diesel matches - than the original plan. I refer to the planned Michaels/Jannetty match that would have taken place at WrestleMania VIII had Marty (again) not fallen off some kind of wagon. Their matches had so much more meaning once Shawn was established than if Marty had been gunning for revenge on the Michaels that ended up pinning El Matador by flukey suplex reversal at the aforementioned spectacular in the Hoosier Dome.

 

Personally I enjoyed 1993 a great deal - the telly was largely good and they seemed to add to their use of genuine wrestling talent even if the star power was lacking. In terms of what's available to view, Owen got a lot more action in 1993 than 1992, we had a plethora of great TV matches from the Steiners, the Kid, Shawn, Hitman, Razor, Mr Perfect, Marty, Doink and others. While as Reznor suggested, the PPVs suffered in comparison (1992 was stunning on PPV) there is still plenty of joy to be had from the efforts of the aforementioned, and personally the five matches Bret had between King of the Ring and SummerSlam really cemented him as the "iron man" of the WWF. Or just "the man," to be honest.

 

On it's own merit, 1993 is fairly good. In fact, I might just take it over 1995, all things considered. Maybe even 1994 at a push.

[Tom Zenk]

For me 1993 was when WWF seemed to not look as "big league" as it did in earlier years. I think is part to them using the Manhatten Centre for RAW tapings.

[JNLister]

smart move by vince with hbk cause i always liked janetty more in rockers, wasted talent

 

He certainly did.

[Reznor]

It was a bit strange, i don't know if there was any backstory to it, whether it was planned for Jannetty to only have it for a few weeks, drop it just prior to the PPV then have Crush take the #1 contender spot. Then jannetty was jobbed out and pretty much buried after KOTR until he joined forces with the 123 Kid around Survivor Series time. In hindsight, it certainly looked like it was rushed at the last minute, and was some kind of punishment for him. It was a shame that he couldn't seem to hold himself together for any extended period.

 

I have a feeling that Marty had gotten his act together just about enough for the WWF to give him another chance but they only really did the two title switches for the following reasons, not especially because they wanted Marty to have a run :

 

A) Perfect's interference added fuel to him and Shawn's existing fire, which of course would culminate at SummerSlam ;

B) The switch back was a really good way of introducing Diesel ;

C) The switches added a dose of unpredictability to Shawn's reign which may have otherwise been pencilled in to last uninterrupted until a planned feud with slow-burning face-turning Razor. They really did think that far ahead at the time ;

D) It was a chance to tie up their feud.

 

Things may have worked out differently had Marty stayed sober long enough at the turn of the year - they might have pulled the trigger on him at WMIX, we'll never know. Either way, I'm largely glad the way things panned out the way they did - the Shawn/Marty stuff was a lot better with the symmetry of the Sherri/mirror angle and the surprise comeback on the Raw in question, and subsequent run of Razor/Marty v Shawn/Diesel matches - than the original plan. I refer to the planned Michaels/Jannetty match that would have taken place at WrestleMania VIII had Marty (again) not fallen off some kind of wagon. Their matches had so much more meaning once Shawn was established than if Marty had been gunning for revenge on the Michaels that ended up pinning El Matador by flukey suplex reversal at the aforementioned spectacular in the Hoosier Dome.

 

Personally I enjoyed 1993 a great deal - the telly was largely good and they seemed to add to their use of genuine wrestling talent even if the star power was lacking. In terms of what's available to view, Owen got a lot more action in 1993 than 1992, we had a plethora of great TV matches from the Steiners, the Kid, Shawn, Hitman, Razor, Mr Perfect, Marty, Doink and others. While as Reznor suggested, the PPVs suffered in comparison (1992 was stunning on PPV) there is still plenty of joy to be had from the efforts of the aforementioned, and personally the five matches Bret had between King of the Ring and SummerSlam really cemented him as the "iron man" of the WWF. Or just "the man," to be honest.

 

On it's own merit, 1993 is fairly good. In fact, I might just take it over 1995, all things considered. Maybe even 1994 at a push.

Disappearing and returning in November '92 and May '93 did work out ok. I guess you could say we got 2 or 3 great matches with more heat and build within a couple of months that we never would have got if he hadn't been fired at new year '92 and after the '93 rumble. Whether those few months of great stuff made up for over a years absence during his peak, i dunno.

 

I've rattled on about Jannetty before. I think i've got a bit of a fixation, but even if he had stayed with the WWF for all of '92 and '93, i don't think the Michaels feud would have been blown off quickly at WM8. Both guys were over as hell, the fans loved their stuff, they even used to headline some house shows with guys higher up the rankings working further down the card. Imo, that feud potentially had a lot of mileage in it, and could have feasibly been stretched out (on & off even) to around KOTR93 like when it ended anyway.

 

What did really annoy me was the Diesel debut and title change being lost on a house show. That was almost criminal and there was no need for it not to have been recorded. The show was basically on the WWF's back door too. I understand the idea of trying to attract fans to house shows by making them unpredictable and showing that titles really can change hands, but there were 2 tag team changes on similar shows all within that same month.

 

Bam Bam Bigelow was also a big attraction in 1993 who you could add to that list, his stuff was usually great. KOTR, his run through all the other fatboys, his feud with Tatanka, plenty of RAW matches. D'you also remember that one vs your man with Lawler up on the balcony ripping Stu and Helen one? that was all great stuff too. The King was great in '93 as well, his gags were class, shame he wasn't in the ring as much.

 

The tag team situation was pretty fresh and entertaining also. As you say, the Steiners gave a lot of good stuff and were no doubt the centrepiece, but you had a good mix of established teams throughout the year like Money inc, Headshrinkers, and even the Beverlies, High Energy and Nasties for a few months. But it felt like there was a tonne of teams appearing, with the Quebecers, Heavenly Bodies, Rock n Rolls, Well Dunn, MoM, Gunns and singles guys like Jannetty and the Kid teaming up. It wasn't always brilliant, but it was infinitely better than the dire and stale division throughout most of the previous year.

 

As you say though, it probably was the year of the Hitman, even though he was taken out the title scene after WM9. I actually just found out a little while ago that he was nursing an ankle injury from the previous night throughout KOTR, which makes his performanc all the more remarkable. I loved all the Hogan/Warrior/Savage larger than life stuff in the early 90s, but i was just as happy with the Hitman being at the top come 1993 and into the mid 90s - he was just as convincing and entertaining in that position as a straight talking, hard working "fighting-est" champion (was that even a word?) who worked his way to the top, as the cartoony superheroes of a few years before.

[air_raid]

Agree completely, the tag division pissed on 1992. Triple B was awesome whether it was against a relative non-entity or a comparative superworker like Bret or the much-lauded (it seems) Jannetty - their match on Raw was tidy. Your description of Bret is bang on too, in the error of Hogan/Warrior, when Bret got to the top you thought "he's worked fucking hard to get that far."