Kennedy / Kruschev. Reagan / Gorbachev. Savage / Crush.
Wait, what?
JFK was so over as a babyface.
On today’s episode, the mysterious one-way feud between Crush and Randy Savage will come to a conclusion when the two men meet to discuss the ongoing hostilities. You know, like the Cold War. At least, that’s the angle the WWF is taking. This is a pretty far cry from the United States and the USSR’s summits over the years. And besides, with the size of both men’s biceps, I don’t think we’ll be seeing any Strategic Arms Limitation Talks happening any time soon.
Our first match of the night is the Steiner Brothers VS PJ Walker & Tony DeVito. At this point I have no idea what the deal is with the rematch clause for the Steiners. I guess they’re just not going to get their tag team titles back. The Steiners must have realized this too because they are in rare, murderous form tonight. Twice during the match after beating the crap out of one of their opponents, they drag their lifeless body over to their opponents’ corner so that the other one can tag in and receive their beating. Just look at these guys:
He's just so gleeful about it.
Scott says "Macho Man! This is for you buddy!" and then proceeds to murder a dude.
Holy crap, Vince. Just give them their championship back already.
Speaking of giving someone their championship back, Vince informs us that we can call into the show using one of two phone lines set up to vote on whether or not we want to see Shawn Michaels’s suspension lifted by WWF President Jack Tunney. To help us decide, we get a little point/counterpoint with Diesel and Mr. Perfect. By the end of the show, the votes show that only 36% of respondents said that the suspension should be lifted so I guess that’s the way it goes. It’s worth mentioning that I literally have no idea if this is even real or not.
99 cents per call?! Jeez, I don't like Shawn Michaels that much!
After this we get a really long promo by a newcomer to Raw named Jeff Jarrett. Apparently he wants to use wrestling to jumpstart his country music career. To highlight this, the entire promo is delivered in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame. The WWF has this weird thing where all the guys they’re trying to push as faces I hate and all the guys they push as heels I love. Maybe I’m just out of touch with what was going on in 1993. How am I supposed to feel about Nirvana?
After some other lackluster matches, we finally move on to the summit between Randy Savage and Crush. Crush looks like he’s been hanging out with the kids from the other side of the tracks and smoking cigarettes behind the school. Gone are the colorful wrestling singlets, replaced instead with combat boots, jeans, and a leather jacket. The goatee he’s sporting only reinforces that this is Evil Crush. For some reason he’s being accompanied to the ring by Mr. Fuji. As Crush confronts the Macho Man, he asks why Randy told him to get in the ring with Yokozuna even though he knew that Crush’s back wasn’t at 100% after the Body Slam Challenge on the USS Intrepid. He says that there’s only one reason Savage sat there and watched Crush take four Banzai Drops: he wanted Crush out of the WWF. He ends by telling him to “stay out of my life, stay out of my business, but most importantly stay out of my way.”
Fun group of guys right there.
The Macho Man has tears running down his face. He tells Crush he’s making a big mistake by trusting Mr. Fuji and listening to agitators like Bobby Heenan. He implores Crush to shake his hand and then go somewhere else privately and hash out their problems man to man. After some hesitation and a lot of crowd encouragement, Crush takes Randy’s proffered hand. The crowd erupts and Macho Man’s entrance music plays triumphantly. They make their way together towards the locker room when all of a sudden Crush clotheslines Randy Savage and proceeds to beat the tar out him. He gorrilla press drops him straight into the crowd barrier and it looks pretty nasty. At this point Jim Cornette and Yokozuna come out. Crush exchanges bows with Yokozuna before throwing the bloodied Savage back into the ring where he receives a devastating Banzai Drop before the officials are able to pull the Macho Man out and get him to the hospital. Holy cow, this is actually crazy. If the WWF actually runs with this storyline, it could be awesome. Given their track record to this point though, I won’t be holding my breath.