WWF Monday Night Raw, New York, NY
A request! This match stems from the prior week’s Raw, where at the top of the show, Repo Man blindsided Randy Savage, a commentator for the show, and stole his toy cowboy hat. This put Savage into a pit of psychic chaos, as he was forced to sit ringside and call the show with that ridiculous hat head he’d get when he took that stupid thing off in this period.
Honestly, Savage had a worse reaction to that than Undertaker ever did to losing the mystical urn.
(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)
Savage was being actively sidelined as an active wrestler with the WWF at this point, as they looked to turn him into the lead color voice on Raw. Savage still worked a busy house show schedule, but not many matches on WWF TV in ’93-94, before jumping to WCW in late ’94, when it was made clear to him that he’d be welcomed with open arms as an active wrestler, which is what he wanted.
It’s easy to understand McMahon trying to move away from the tried-and-true stars of the 80s boom, because that boom was over and the returns had badly diminished. But Savage wasn’t Hogan, either. Hogan was without question a bigger star, don’t get me wrong, but at this point, Savage’s pure desire to still be there made him far more valuable as a WWF roster member than Hogan, who was checked out and suffering his own psychic damage, as even one of history’s most willfully delusional men had to fully admit he was simply not going to be an actual movie star.
Hogan’s limitations as a performer also made it easier for the WWF audience of the time — many of whom remained from from his peak years but had grown out of “Hulkamania” — to get sick of him, whereas Savage still had a lot to offer as a “performer.” He could work with the veterans and the rising stars and do well with either.
The top of this episode of Raw, a show coming exclusively to Netflix in 2025, which is repulsive news, features Sean Mooney outside when the Repo Man pulls up in his repo truck. (He is in fact a passenger in a tow truck.)
I admire Darsow’s commitment to the bit, but it’s clear how badly this does not fit what McMahon wanted to do with Raw. It’s not his fault, he’s just doing the OTT children’s wrestling caricature he has been told to do since he started doing it.
It hits me now that this is about as big a match as Repo Man ever had, as “Repo Man,” obviously, Darsow worked title matches at WrestleManias and Starrcades for the love of Pete, but this and a Superstars Intercontinental title shot in ’92 against the Bulldog is about as big as it got, not counting him being in the ’92 Rumble for a little over six minutes.
Repo wears Savage’s hat a little bit, which must have been seen by Randy, as he rushes in from behind, furious and going after Repo, taking the fight to the floor immediately and dropping a knee on him out there. Vince tells us the two went at it in the Royal Rumble the prior day; Savage came in runner-up, before being eliminated by Yokozuna.
The studio commentary dubs sound awful, particularly Heenan who has an echo the other two don’t whenever he raises his voice.
The match goes out into the short entrance aisle for a moment, Savage continuing to control the action in typical TV style. Babyface starts hot, dominates, and then something will happen to give the heel his opening. The something this time is Repo blocking Savage trying to smack his head into the steps, and doing it to Randy instead, a couple of times.
Randy now breaks out his 90s TV match special approach, getting An Injury when his shoulder gets smacked into the post, and that will mean Repo can slowly brawl and probably ground this. Savage in ’95 WCW on Saturday Night was truly incredible, he’d just kinda hang out while, say, Bunkhouse Buck kinda sat on him for a while, and then Randy would land a shot, hit the elbow, go talk to Gene, and hit the showers.
Yeah, here we go, Repo grabs a chinlock with the legs wrapped around Savage’s midsection, and the crowd goes dead. One thing I’ll say for Rob Bartlett is he wasn’t afraid to be the butt of the joke. Savage rallies going into a break, but is again reeling a bit when the show returns.
Bartlett and Heenan take a shot at Bill Clinton, recently inaugurated as President, and someone McMahon would set the Topical Raw Commentary Laser Beam on for the next few years, along with his terrible wife they all really fucking hated, particularly McMahon and Jim Ross. Heenan doesn’t get a “writing a letter to Jodie Foster” joke from Bartlett.
Some awkward rolling around on the mat, then Savage takes a hard bump on a short, nothing clothesline from Repo, and then it’s back to more lazy ass nothing from these two veterans, cashing checks in sleepwalking form mostly, but Repo will now and again do something decent enough before killing more time.
Bobby Heenan wants to bone Hillary Clinton. Bartlett does a Rush Limbaugh impression.
Savage cracks Repo with with an awkward clothesline, but that’s all he does before Repo takes over again, only to jump into another awkward clothesline. Scoop slam, flying elbow, that’s that. Randy tosses Repo out of the ring, then finally gets his hat back.
Typical lazy Savage TV match of the mid-90s, honestly. He had a lot more he could do, but he was a veteran with star power and knew when something was worth it and when something wasn’t. He knew when a match was just to get him out there and give him a win. And this was one of those, time-killing at the top of the episode.
I’m gonna say this, too: Heenan’s the only guy who ever found any sort of chemistry with Bartlett, and a big part of it was just him making Bartlett laugh on occasion.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 