Vintage WWF Review: September 1993

Finland produces some scary characters

NOTE: Sorry this took me so long to get up. My sister got engaged last week so I ended up taking a trip to Chicago to visit her and celebrate. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the internet and didn't want to watch vintage wrestling as part of the celebration (shocking, I know), so I was out of  touch for a while. I'm working today, but I will have the rest of the year up in the next two days. Thanks for your patience and enjoy!

Coming off of the success of August's Summer Slam, the WWF had a bit of a drop off in the month of September. While the month as a whole was still entertaining, many of the feuds that had been running throughout the summer had come to a close at the August pay-per-view, so the company is in the process of building some new feuds to lead into November's Survivor Series. The seeds of such feuds were planted as early as the end of Summerslam, when Ludvig Borga, the Finnish Nightmare, confronted Lex Luger after his Summer Slam victory. As mentioned earlier, Borga hates America and takes a special exception to Luger's pro-America gimmick. This seems to be leading to a confrontation at Survivor Series, if my memory serves right.

One of my favorite things about this month was the match between the Steiner Brothers and the Quebecers for the WWF Tag Team Titles. This match was fought under "Quebec Province Rules," which made the match more entertaining than I was expecting. For those unfamiliar with how wrestling is supposedly fought in Quebec, here's a summary of the rules:

1) Piledrivers are illegal
2) Top rope maneuvers are illegal
3) Throwing an opponent over the top rope is illegal
4) Titles can change hands in the even of a countout
5) Titles can change hands in the event of disqualification

Quebec: Awesome wrestlers, terrible rules

These ridiculous rules led to a very entertaining match between the two teams that the Quebecers would eventually win due to disqualification. I'm glad they won, partially because they get  the titles of the godawful Steiners (love 'em in the ring, but they're annoying on the mic) and also because Johnny Polo is their manager. Everybody likes Johnny Polo!

September saw quite a few changes in the WWF landscape. New champions, wrestler debuts, and character shifts are just some of the surprises in store for viewers this month, and it made for a pretty entertaining month of wrestling, if not as entertaining as the few months prior. Anyway, let's get to some awards for more thoughts on this month in WWF history:

Awards:

Superstar(s) of the Month: The Quebecers. There is absolutely nothing I don't enjoy about Jacques and Pierre, the Quebecers. This is the first time I've seen the Quebecers on RAW (though they debuted in July), so I am also awarding them with Debut of the Month. Older fans will remember Jacques as one of the Fabulous Rougeau Brothers with his brother Ray, as well as his stint as the Mountie. He's basically still the Mountie in this gimmick, but he found a fatter French Canadian with whom to pal around. The best part about this gimmick is that the Quebecers sing their own theme song and it is hilarious. Seriously, if you don't love this you suck:



Match of the Month: Scott Steiner v. Pierre. After losing the titles in controversial fashion due to some funky French Canadian rules, Scott Stiener was huffin' and puffin' until he got the chance to put a hurting on Pierre of the Quebecers. This match gave us all of the spots their "Quebec Province Rules" match denied us earlier in the month, as Scott hit a piledriver, threw Pierre over the top, and hit a nice top rope maneuver. Add that to his impressive arsenal of power moves and throw in the presence of Jacques, Rick and Johnny Polo and you've got a great match filled with entertaining characters.

Promo of the Month: IRS. To be fair, there really weren't many memorable promos this month, so IRS wins by default. I think he was calling out Razor Ramon, but I honestly wasn't paying that close of attention. All I know is, Rotunda was hanging out in some sleazy office crunching the numbers and talking shit, and that's good enough for me.

Jobber of the Month: PJ Walker. PJ Walker wins this month's dubious distinction for pulling off an upset victory over IRS. What the fuck is happening to my WWF when IRS is losing to PJ Walker?

Bullshit Face Turn: Doink. Doink's evil clown gimmick has, sadly, come to end. It was fun while it lasted. He turned by predictably throwing water on Heenan, who sold the turn brilliantly, slipping on the water and pretending to have a cold the next week on RAW. This looks like the beginning of the end for the Doink character, and I for one will miss his zany antics and solid wrestling skills.

Jack Tunney Sucks Award: Jack suspends Shawn Michaels. As I've discussed before, Jack Tunney is the WWF president and occasionally makes idiotic rulings. This month, Tunney decided to suspend Shawn Michaels and strip him of his WWF Intercontinental Championship. This is an outrage for all of us fans. Tunney is obviously on some sort of strange power trip after threatening to suspend Jerry Lawler for apparently being a heel at Summer Slam, so now he's moving onto bigger fish. I don't know what Shawn did in real life to get suspended, but I'm going to assume it's some combination of drugs and behavioral issues. Hopefully he'll be back soon to claim his spot as the real Intercontinental champion.

Random Appearance Award: Rick Martel. While it was definitely nice to see Jimmy Snuka show up this month, "The Model" Rick Martel is even more awesome than the "Superfly." I haven't seen Martel in a while and I was always a fan as a kid. I really enjoyed he and Tito Santana as Strike Force and thought he was hilarious in his model persona. For those who never got to see Rick in this incarnation, here's a clip of what you missed:



Bump of the Month: 1-2-3 Kid. Waltman took another nasty bump this month in a match with immortal jobber Barry Horowitz against the Quebecers. Waltman attempted a running spinning heel kick, but one of the Quebecers pulled down the top rope and Waltman sailed over, essentially spinning his way to his death. What a great bump!

Quote of the Month: "If you want to do something to work up a sweat, honey, why don't you do the dishes or run the vac?" - Bobby Heenan on females

Reflections: This month was definitely a little slower than the months past, and suffered from a lack of big-name stars, but the company still did a good job of recharging from an action packed summer and planting the seeds for feuds to finish out the year. Hopefully October and November will pick things up for what I remember to be a really great Survivor Series, at least in my memory.