You might have missed it, but WWE just celebrated its 1,000 epsiode of Raw. I mean, yeah, you may have missed it (it wasn’t like the company beat you over the head with its impending arrival for months on end), but I sure didn’t. With such a monumental event upon me, I decided to go back and take a look at the very first Raw, a show that I remembered being pretty bad.
But over the years I often wondered…could that have something to do with the fact that Raw replaced my favorite wrestling show ever, Prime Time Wrestling?
Perhaps.
Or maybe this show just sucked.
SPOILER ALERT: It was the latter.
I mean, sweet Christmas.
Sean Mooney.
That’s the VERY first image we saw on what would become the longest running blah blah thingamajig in made up television history.
SEAN MOONEY.
Everyone remembers him right? Not sure I ever inducted the guy, but he was pretty atrocious.
Let me put it to you this way: when the thing I most remember about you is that you were on a Coliseum video wherein you played Captain Kirk to Lord Alfred Hayes’ Scotty, well sir, that’s a bad sign.
Oh and that tape?
Something else I’ve never inducted.
If you ever wanted to know how I’ve been running this site for 12 years and am still able to find old stuff to induct, the fact that I’ve failed to induct Mooney or that abysmal tape would give you an idea of the absolute dump truck full of junk that we’ve all been subjected to over the years.
One thing that is decidedly NOT junk, however, would be the first Raw intro and theme song, the ultimate mishmash of eras.
It sounds like someone went to Jim Johnston or whoever was doing music for the company at the time and said, “Ok, take the Wrestling Challenge theme and try to hard rockify it. But don’t make it TOO hard rockified, just slightly rockified. And isn’t it cool that I just made up the word rockify?”
Maybe, just maybe, this show wasn’t as horrible as I remember it being.
No, wait, it may have even been worse.
Seriously, kids, this was the first Raw announce team: Randy Savage, Vince, and Rob Bartlett.
So that crap about Jerry Lawler being there since day one? Completely fabricatd. You are shocked, I know. He wasn’t even on the show.
That out of the way, let’s look at this announcing crew.
Randy Savage was great in the ring, and one of my favorite promos ever. His stuff between his arrival in the WWF and his babyface turn he was just completely out of his skull are my current favorite promos ever.
But he was…umm…not so good as a color commentator. His nonsensical ramblings (wherein he was not talking about himself) weren’t good over an hour long show.
Vince as a good guy commentator was fine. He was a goofball with his constant “Whatamaneuver!“, but the dude always had oodles of charisma. Unfortunately as a lead commentator, his natural heel charisma was all bottled up. Suffice to say that was corrected in the late 90’s.
Rob Bartlett, on the other hand, was a comedian that Vince found on a New York radio station and he was all kinds of horrible. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. I have inducted him, but it was in the early days and I probably wrote all of 100 words about him.
Suffice to say we’ll be visiting him throughout the night.
And a real quick recap for you younger viewers.
In a very short period, we went from Bobby Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon, my favorite commentary team ever…
…to this.
Yep.
Speaking of Heenan, he is outside the building, unable to get in.
And really, I guess he was unneeded. Why would you need the Brain when you had the comedy stylings of Rob Bartlett?
No answer.
I agree.
Raw historical fun fact: the first superstar ever to enter a Monday Night Raw ring would be one Koko B. Ware.
Yes, Koko B. Ware in his horrible, horrible High Energy (inducted!) outfit.
This was the man to introduce Raw to the masses, to get people to watch not only this show, but 999 more after it.
Him being a Hall of Famer all makes sense to me now.
Jeez, I thought it was bad when Jesse just to call the poor guy Buckwheat.
The somewhat non-politically correct insults weren’t just reserved for The Birdman, but also dished out to his opponent, Yokozuna, whom Randy Savage called “the world’s biggest eggroll.”
I somehow doubt such commentary would fly these days.
As you would suspect, Yoko flattens poor Mr. Ware.
Yes, kids, back in the day, the word “ass” on television was indeed considered edgy.
I guess it is today as well as Road Dogg couldn’t even say it on Raw 1000.
Oh, and you know, they bust on Yoko being fat here, but he is downright svelte compared to what he would become.
I mean, seriously:
If that dropping of the A-word had viewers uneasy, one can only imagine what the early Raw ring girls had folks thinking.
I bet it would be something like, “Man, these girls look not only skanky, but almost annoyed to be here.
Still, her hair is pretty cool. I sure hope girls still wear their hair like that in 2012.
That would totally rule.”
Now if you were like me and hating this lack of Bobby Heenan on the show, rest assured we do get some Brain throughout the show. Here we get a pre-tape of him talking about his newest charge, Narcissus.
Still, that was a bad gimmick, and eventually was inducted here at the Crap as well. So there’s THREE inductions already from this show, with more to come.
I mean, seriously, I almost want to induct Rick Steiner’s outfit here.
That giant mall hair the ring card skank had may have been cool to maintain its popularity to our present time, but this outfit, not so much.
And this guy?
This would be Scott Steiner.
Yes, THIS Scott Steiner.
To this day I still watch old Steiner Bros. matches totally mystified, constantly trying to convince myself that this is the same man.
Oh, and the Steiners’ opponents (well, victims) for this epic night would be the legendary Executioners, who would be legendary in absolutely no sense of the word.
The Steiners make short work of the Executioners, in large part due to the fact that the masked men are so clumsy that they can’t even run across the ring without falling down.
999 more episodes followed this.
Have I mentioned that yet?
If the Steiners squashing a pair of jobbers isn’t enthralling enough for you, here comes Dork the Clown.
For the record, I’ve never inducted Doink the Clown as a character. I thought the original evil clown bit was actually pretty great, and Matt Borne was brilliant in the role.
Had he been named DORK THE CLOWN, however, I am pretty sure I would have had no choice.
Outside, The Brain attempts to sneak in under the guise of being Rob Bartlett’s mom.
Going out on a limb and guessing that Pat Patterson wrote this bit.
Back in the ring, we get a Razor Ramon interview, with Scott Hall looking at least 19 years younger and more sober than he does today.
I’d make further tired jokes at Hall’s expense, but seriously…look at Vince.
Bow tie.
Bug eyes.
I love this image so much that that I propose it be the cover of his autobiography, and that it should be the title: Bow Ties and Bug Eyes: The Vince McMahon Story.
I’ll even offer to ghost write it.
Max Moon, in the outfit I have long described as being ‘ribbed for her pleasure’, enters the ring following that, upping the WrestleCrap inductee list yet again. In fact, I am going to go out on a limb and guess that we’ll have more WrestleCrap inductees than we do WWE Hall of Famers on this program.
But hey, here comes Shawn Michaels to try to stem the tide. He’s great.
But hey, this is WrestleCrap, and I am RD Reynolds, so let’s nitpick, shall we?
HIs entrance music is the absolute dirt worst version ever, as it is the one where Sherri Martel does the vocals.
Main event time, and as you’d expect, err, hope at this point, we do get another all-time legend in the form of the Undertaker.
His opponent for this first ever Raw main event?
Yes – Damian Demento!
But before we get to that, we go back outside where Bobby is still trying to sneak in, this time as Morty Feldman, Bartlett’s Jewish uncle, as Mooney give a fart-smell face.
I love this image so much that that I propose it be the cover of his autobiography, and that it should be the title: Fart Smell Face: The Sean Mooney Story.
I won’t offer to ghost write it, but maybe his brother Ian will.
So to the main event we go…wait, no.
First we get a recap of Kamala turning babyface.
And for those of you keeping score, that’s ANOTHER inductee here at the Crap. I’d knock it some more, but it did give us Kamala bowling with Slick, which is a good thing.
Because if you pay close attention, you’ll note that all wrestling and bowling segments are great.
See also, Perfect, Mister.
Ok, so to the main even we go, finally, and yep, there’s our old buddy, our old pal, Damian Demento.
You know what was one of the weirdest, most fun things we did during the whole run of WrestleCrap Radio? The stuff with him. Because he just showed up one day blasting us, we blasted him back, and all of a sudden, he took over the show out of the blue.
None of that was planned. Just happened. And he was a great guy to work with once we stopped shooting on each other and actually talked to him.
Still, we inducted Damian Demento. Because, you know, we’re jerks like that.
I’ve lost count of how many inductees are on this show. In hindisght, it may have been the inspiration for me to start WrestleCrap.com.
Yeah, you know...the WrestleCrap guy. Been here since before day 1, I have. You can hang out with me on Facebook. (I'm on there quite a bit) or follow my exploits on Twitter (I'm on there not quite so often).
Thanks, and Keep on Crappin'!
“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH yeah freak out!!!!!!! Freak out!!!!!!!!! Vince hadn’t realized yet that I had been using the Max Moon outfit to take Stephaine on a trip to Uranus. Need a little excitement? Then snap into the bosses’ daughter. And Rob Bartlett still sucks.”
Now that I have archives access, I can double-check, but I thought Sean Mooney was one of the earlier inductions? There was an run on terrible early WWF announcers getting inducted, so he might just have been included in one of their inductions.
I’m a wrestling nerd. I woke up, saw the date on my cell phone, and INSTANLY thought “Raw’s 1st episode was 21 years ago today.” I am amazed I’ve ever had female sexual partners without having to pay for it.
God, how much juice, er I mean weight training did Scott Steiner do when he turned into Big Poppa Pump? He put on about 50 pounds of muscle, so much so he could not do half his moveset anymore.
The Steiners left the next year and when Scott returned to the WWE, he was put into the main event. What a trainwreck.
Out of all of the interchangeable goofs we’ve had (Marc Lloyd, Todd Grisham, that other dude named Todd, Coach, Chris Leary, Adamle, Striker, etc) Mooney was actually one of the better ones…
You know, now that we have the WWE Network, I love going back and watching these early Raws. It is like Wrestlecrap.com threw up or something and not enough words are used here to express how bad Rob Bartlet and this commentary team were.
I believe it is Raw #3 where Macho Man’s hat was stolen by the Repo-man because I guess Macho missed a couple of hat payments. Bartlet asks Savage to check on his car because he couldn’t find a parking space…this all happens while Terry Taylor is coming to the ring. Then his opponent for the evening comes out and Vince McMahon describes him as a man who needs no parking space…that man, Mr. Perfect. Bartlet responds that he needs 2 parking spaces and I have no idea what this means.
That’s Episode 2, and yeah- the early RAWs are ROUGH. Kind of fascinating, though, from a historical perspective- so many jobbers you have never heard of before and never will again.
And Rob Bartlett is really just inexplicably awful. Like, there is no reason for him to be there at all, and he clearly does not give a damn himself.
I saw this twenty three years ago. I didn’t remember a lot of it, though. I have to ask, was there a storyline reason why Bret Hart wasn’t on the show? He was the WWF champion at the time…. I know the champ wasn’t on every show back then. He didn’t have to be on every Raw, at least not while champion, but Bret should’ve been on the first one. Was Razor’s interview about his match with him at Rumble ’93?
Remember that early on, Raw wasn’t really as big of a deal as it would become later. It was really just a radical new concept (a sometimes-live wrestling show on Monday nights with a new format). They probably didn’t think they needed to bother with Bret for the show.
Correct – Raw at first was from my memory meant to be a WWF answer to MTV Unplugged – less frills more wrestling. Sort of. It was mainly squash matches and rougher commentary (ish) until WCW Monday Nitro forced Vince to upgrade, and even then it took WWF around a year longer (circa 1996) to show good bouts. Heck Raw did not even take place in an arena st first – the venue was an NYC ballroom if I recall correctly.
There was one major match on an early Raw: Mr Perfect beating Ric Flair clean in a loser leaves town match.
I know I’m probably the only guy in the world who thinks this, but I thought Rob Bartlett was pretty funny. One time on Raw, he did a Vince impression throughout the show, I thought it was hilarious.
Will Mr. Demento be making an appearance on the “R.D. and Blade Show” anytime soon?
Raw debuted 21 years ago today! I feel so very old…
“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH yeah freak out!!!!!!! Freak out!!!!!!!!! Vince hadn’t realized yet that I had been using the Max Moon outfit to take Stephaine on a trip to Uranus. Need a little excitement? Then snap into the bosses’ daughter. And Rob Bartlett still sucks.”
I DIED LOL
I actually didn’t mind Sean Mooney. He was 10 times better than that fool Todd Pettengill
Now that I have archives access, I can double-check, but I thought Sean Mooney was one of the earlier inductions? There was an run on terrible early WWF announcers getting inducted, so he might just have been included in one of their inductions.
I’m a wrestling nerd. I woke up, saw the date on my cell phone, and INSTANLY thought “Raw’s 1st episode was 21 years ago today.” I am amazed I’ve ever had female sexual partners without having to pay for it.
The first RAW inducted? By RD? Yes, please!
God, how much juice, er I mean weight training did Scott Steiner do when he turned into Big Poppa Pump? He put on about 50 pounds of muscle, so much so he could not do half his moveset anymore.
The Steiners left the next year and when Scott returned to the WWE, he was put into the main event. What a trainwreck.
Yeah, I’m always amazed at the… uh.. unique transformation he made from the early 90’s to what he became in the late 90’s..
Must have been all the unsold ICOPRO that Vinnie gave him. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
HEY! He could still do the Frankensteiner kinda. And don’t you DARE call it a Hurricanrana!
The biggest trainwreck out that would be the Rumble ’03 match with Triple H. Has that been inducted? It should be.
RAW is Wrestlecrap.
You have to induct Sean Mooney….and his identical twin brother Ian Mooney. Btw, Sean Moooney became a news anchor in Boston for a short while.
Sean Morley started the trend of bland, young announcers that Kevin Dunn seems to like. Todd Pettengill was at least wacky…
Sean Mooney. Morley was Val Venis. Ironically, I was channeling MIke Adamle…
My brother works with Mooney now. He’s a really nice guy, very funny actually. I have been interviewed by him a few times. I have always liked him.
I’d much rather have Sean doing interviews and Update segments than.. well.. anyone we’ve gotten since he left the WWF.
Hey, cool. Get me an autographed pic. That would rule. Shoot me an e-mail at fearandloathing702@gmail.com.
Wow… Not even a “please”?
Out of all of the interchangeable goofs we’ve had (Marc Lloyd, Todd Grisham, that other dude named Todd, Coach, Chris Leary, Adamle, Striker, etc) Mooney was actually one of the better ones…
Vince said that Paul Bearer was part of the famous Bearer Family. Who are these other members???
I don’t seem to remember any!!!
Don’t forget about his brothers Ring and “Bad News”
WOW! I forgot just how terrible Sherri’s version of Shawns’ theme song is.
Thanks, for the reminder, RD. NOT!!!
I love the site, so I promise not to sue you later for irreversible physiological damage.
I have to say, I love the classic inductions, with the grid and everything. There’s something about the old format that felt … cosy. Ahh, nostalgia. 🙂
You know, I’d take these 1 hour Raws over the 3 hour ones we’re getting now any day of the week.
You know, now that we have the WWE Network, I love going back and watching these early Raws. It is like Wrestlecrap.com threw up or something and not enough words are used here to express how bad Rob Bartlet and this commentary team were.
I believe it is Raw #3 where Macho Man’s hat was stolen by the Repo-man because I guess Macho missed a couple of hat payments. Bartlet asks Savage to check on his car because he couldn’t find a parking space…this all happens while Terry Taylor is coming to the ring. Then his opponent for the evening comes out and Vince McMahon describes him as a man who needs no parking space…that man, Mr. Perfect. Bartlet responds that he needs 2 parking spaces and I have no idea what this means.
I love this show!
That’s Episode 2, and yeah- the early RAWs are ROUGH. Kind of fascinating, though, from a historical perspective- so many jobbers you have never heard of before and never will again.
And Rob Bartlett is really just inexplicably awful. Like, there is no reason for him to be there at all, and he clearly does not give a damn himself.
Its almost sad seeing Scott Hall looking so young and clean back then.
Yeah but he’s looking a lot healthier these days than he was 7 or 8 years ago at least. Glad he got his life turned around.
I’m watching the first Raw on the WWE Network right now, and after five minutes I’m already sick of Rob Bartlett.
Seriously, they thought that could replace Heenan with this gobshite?
I just realized Randy Orton aped his whole “hearing voices” gimmick from Damien Demento. Arguably Bray Wyatt, for that matter.
I saw this twenty three years ago. I didn’t remember a lot of it, though. I have to ask, was there a storyline reason why Bret Hart wasn’t on the show? He was the WWF champion at the time…. I know the champ wasn’t on every show back then. He didn’t have to be on every Raw, at least not while champion, but Bret should’ve been on the first one. Was Razor’s interview about his match with him at Rumble ’93?
Remember that early on, Raw wasn’t really as big of a deal as it would become later. It was really just a radical new concept (a sometimes-live wrestling show on Monday nights with a new format). They probably didn’t think they needed to bother with Bret for the show.
Correct – Raw at first was from my memory meant to be a WWF answer to MTV Unplugged – less frills more wrestling. Sort of. It was mainly squash matches and rougher commentary (ish) until WCW Monday Nitro forced Vince to upgrade, and even then it took WWF around a year longer (circa 1996) to show good bouts. Heck Raw did not even take place in an arena st first – the venue was an NYC ballroom if I recall correctly.
There was one major match on an early Raw: Mr Perfect beating Ric Flair clean in a loser leaves town match.
I know I’m probably the only guy in the world who thinks this, but I thought Rob Bartlett was pretty funny. One time on Raw, he did a Vince impression throughout the show, I thought it was hilarious.