Manhattan Center - New York, NY
Attendance: 1,200
Commentary team: Vince McMahon, Randy Savage and Bobby Heenan.
RAW returns after a four-week hiatus due to SummerSlam and tennis. Your winners that year? Pete Sampras on the men's side and Steffi Graf on the women's side.
Match #1: The Steiner Brothers (c) vs. The Quebecers - "Quebec Province" Rules - WWF Tag Team Championship.
This would be the first appearance of The Quebecers on RAW. "Quebec Province" rules means titles can change hands via disqualification or countout, piledrivers are illegal, throwing your opponent over the top rope is illegal and top rope moves are illegal. Just to enforce the psychology of the match rules, Scott has to tell Rick to stop when he attempts to piledrive Jacques. This was a great match featuring power moves and suplexes from the Steiners and some terrific double-team tactics from the Quebecers. Midway through the match, Johnny Polo appears ringside (armed with a hockey stick) and has sided with the Quebecers as their new manager. The finish comes when Polo's hockey stick ends up in the hands of Jacques, but Scott blocks and uses it in clear view of the referee, who calls for the bell and the DQ. **** (22:00-ish) It was a lame finish to a great match, but it works within the context of the special rules. It may have worked better if the Quebecers broke their own rules but the Steiners needed protecting, I guess. Your NEW WWF Tag Team Champions are The Quebecers.
Match #2: Mr. Perfect vs. Tony DeVito.
Perfect is coming off a disappointing countout loss to Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam and now has a beef with Diesel. The crowd has turned on Perfect for this one, using "Perfect Sucks" chants and chanting "We Want Shawn". Perfect seems legit pissed at this. Perfect-plex finishes the no good greasy bum at 2:47.
We get the footage of the post-match shenanigans in the face locker room immediately after SummerSlam with Ludvig Borga storming in and declaring that he is going to break America's backbone in Lex Luger.
Match #3: Razor Ramon vs. The Executioner.
The crowd digs Razor so I guess it was just a case of them not caring for Perfect anymore, who they usually pop for. This one is all Razor and he varies up the finisher as he uses the back suplex from the middle rope for the three count (2:36). Post-match, he hits the Razor's Edge anyway as the crowd approves.
Vince is in the ring as he brings the new tag champs out along with Johnny Polo. Vince declares that the Steiners are due a title rematch, with the Quebecers doing their heel waffling on that idea. The Steiners come out to protest but are cut-off from actually getting in the ring by officials, and Johnny states that if one of the Steiners can beat one of the Quebecers one-on-one, then they get their rematch. We later figure out that it will be Scott Steiner vs. Pierre with the title shot on the line.
Match #4: Doink vs. Rich Myers (w/ mullet).
Doink is coming off a SummerSlam that saw him sub for Jerry Lawler against Bret Hart with that plan backfiring on Lawler. Since then, Lawler has been calling Doink an idiot (hint hint). Doink douses the crowd with buckets of harmless confetti, then proceeds to beat on Myers while thankfully leaving the mullet unscathed. Whoopie Cushion finishes at 2:10. Post-match, Heenan suggests that Doink go after the Macho Man with a bucket of water, but Doink turns around and dumps it on Heenan instead. There is the face turn that no one asked for.
THE FINAL WORD: This show is a turning point for the WWF. Not only did they get the tag belts off the Steiners but Matt Borne is basically done as Doink (in the WWF, anyway), the Steiners get de-pushed and we're about to get another big piece of news in regards to another superstar in just another couple of weeks. The tag title match was a great match with an ending that made sense but still could have been booked differently. Everything else was squash-tastic.
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