Retro Raw Blog: January 1993 The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

By Haydn Gleed

So you are planning on buying the WWE Network, and you’ve read my retro reports from the very first three WWE Raw shows, but with so much content available you don’t know what to watch and what to stay well clear of. Below are my thoughts of what you should watch out for and what you should avoid.

I’ve also picked out some wrestlers which were on the shows who you may not be familiar with. I’ve written a brief biography on each to give a bit of a background on who they were before January 1993 and what they would become afterwards.

Finally, I know, that like me, there are people who love stats and facts, so every month, after reviewing that month’s Raw, I will be providing a "Stat Attack" which will show who had the longest match, who wrestled the most and so and so forth.

What you should watch from Raw’s in January 1993:

My favourite part of Raw from this month, was the short but intense rivalry between Ric Flair and Mr Perfect. From the excellent promo from Flair on the 18th January Raw, to their match on the 25th January, everything for a good short program was here. The simple premise that I don’t like you, and I want to end you to I’m better than you and I’m going to prove it. Simple but effective.

If you are an older fan, you will remember Bobby Heenan, and he gives you a good reminder of why he was so good. For the newer fans, who have only heard of Bobby Heenan through their own history studies on professional wrestling, you will enjoy his work this month.

The two promos hyping the Royal Rumble main event were really effective. Razor Ramon oozing with confidence and machismo, to the laid back Bret Hart who just knows in his own mind he’s better than this rookie. Really good build to their PPV match.

In 3 episodes of Raw you get to watch The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Randy Savage wrestle…..need I say more.

What you should avoid from Raw’s in January 1993:

Anything involving Rob Bartlett. I don’t mean to be harsh on the guy, but in the very first RAW he is trying too hard to be funny, and to be the quirky clever guy. On the 18th January RAW, he is very quiet and only makes an odd comment which usually seems out of place (see his reaction to Ric Flairs awesome promo). In the last episode, his interaction with Bobby Heenan made him more likable, but still if you can zone out his commentary, then I would.

Anything involving Crush and Doink. I personally like Doink as a character, but this was at it’s cheesiest worst, and Crush…..well it was clear during January 1993 why he would never become a top act.

Who is that wrestler?

Damien Demento: Damien, real name Philip Theis was trained by Johnny Rodz in 1987 and wrestled on the indy circuit for a number of years before being spotted by WWF in 1992. He made his debut in October 1992, and was hailed to be "from the outer reaches of your mind." His gimmick was a crazy man who heard voices telling him what to do. Unfortunately, despite competing in the main event of the very first Raw, he didn’t last very long in WWF, and was released late 1993. After retiring from wrestling in 1994 not a lot is known about what he did, but in 2008 he popped up on an indy show as the Damien Demento character.

Glenn Ruth: Glenn was trained in 1990 by Larry Sharpe who would later go on and train The Big Show. During the early 90s, he made infrequent appearances as a jobber in WWF. Glenn is better known as one half of the tag team The Headbangers who made their debut together in 1996. They won the tag team championships when the straps were vacant, and fought in a fatal four way match at the Ground Zero PPV in 1997. The three teams they beat were the Legion Of Doom, The Goodwins, and The British Bulldog and Owen Hart. Glenn also won the Hardcore championship for 37 seconds in the infamous match at WrestleMania 16. After Glenn was released, he wrestled on the independent circuit up until 2002, but then retired and became restaurant manager. The Headbangers reformed 2011 and wrestle on the indy scene to this day.

Stat Attack:

-There was a 114 minutes and 49 seconds of Raw when you take out the commercials during the month of January 1993

-Roughly 84 minutes of the Raw shows in January 1993 was taken up by wrestling matches.

-There were 10 matches in total, with the first Raw on the 11th January featuring 4 of those 10.

-Mr. Perfect and Ric Flair were the most active wrestlers as both wrestled twice, with Perfect wrestling the longest amount of time at 33 minutes and 10 seconds in total. Perfect and Flair also had the longest match at exactly 23 minutes.

-Four of the 10 matches were squash matches involving jobbers.

-There was only one screwy finish with Mr Perfect interfering in the Ric Flair vs. Tito Santana match. The other nine matches had clean finishes.

If you have any feedback at all I would love to hear it. Send me an email to haydn.gleed@gmail.com , hit my up on twitter @haydngleed or look for me on Facebook.