[1993-08-02-WWF-Raw] Randy Savage vs Doink the Clown

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The Macho Midget bites Doink on the butt! What else can I say?

[Zenjo]

This was so horrible. They obviously got the idea from the Lucha minis. We should all be thankful that it stopped here (until Hornswaggle anyway).

[Kevin Ridge]

McMahon doesn't understand why Doink wasn't hooking the leg during a pin attempt. Monsoon must have been yelling into Vince's headset on that one. Doink ends up losing as he gets distracted by Macho Midget. He's biting him on the keister!

[PeteF3]

Doink had challenged Savage at the desk the previous week, then dazzled us with THREE Doinks--another in the ring, and a third in the balcony--in an awesome moment. This isn't the greatest possible followup, but it's pretty much the first time Doink had been decisively outsmarted and beaten and humiliated. Doink biting Savage to sucker him into going for a chair and then clobbering him was a fine transition, and Doink's constant mocking of Savage, even when Savage counters him, is also great. I was fine with this result from a booking standpoint but there was still so, so much more that could have been done with Borne in this role. Keep him strong and you'd have intrigue in a Doink vs. Undertaker, Joker-Batman mind-games feud.

[soup23]

Fun match which is about the best possibility for Savage from 92 onward as I have seen on these yearbooks. Him outsmarting Doink was fine as Savage was presented like a legend here and one upped him. The Macho Midget gag did make me laugh and Doink was good looking flustered overall. **

[garretta]

What garbage.

 

I've officially run out of patience with the way Vince has treated Savage lately. He gets stomped flat by Lawler at MSG, now Borne handles him like a rookie, all while Vince is paradoxically calling him a legend and a future Hall of Famer. Look, I'd have no problem with Randy being an actual JTTS (although I suspect he ​would), but even those big-name guys who you know are going to lose before the match even starts get more offense than Randy has in the last two bouts we've seen. To top it off, he has to be saved by a midget with the most awful makeup job I've ever seen in my life. I know Randy has at least one major feud left (Crush) before he leaves the WWF, but I'm not looking forward to it. How is feuding with someone who can barely muster any offense whatsoever going to get Crush over as a heel?

 

This confirms in my mind something I suspected for a long time: Vince saw Liz, not Randy, as the true star of their act. Sure, he had to push Randy hard as a wrestler, but how else was he going to give Liz what he thought was her appropriate showcase? Randy just happened to be one of the most skilled and charismatic performers in WWF history, so he took his share of the spotlight, and it didn't hurt that Liz was both legitimately shy and a mediocre performer at best. Still, I don't think it's a coincidence that Randy was suddenly "done" as a wrestler in Vince's eyes just about the time that he (Vince) got it through his head that Liz was gone with no hope of returning. Even so, to get almost ​no offense whatsoever​ in his two most important matches of the year thus far? That's worse than being buried and forgotten, considering all that Randy's done in the WWF.

 

Unlike in most reviews of this type, I want to actually acknowledge just how good Borne looked here. He's done wonders with a character that should have been total wrestlecrap from day one, both with the character and in the ring itself. I get that he was an unstable drug addict and needed to be let go, but why couldn't Vince have found someone similar and continued with the character almost as-is? I guess Steve Keirn wasn't available, and I don't think Steve Lombardi was skilled enough as a wrestler to fit this incarnation. My personal out-of-the-box choice for the next Doink: Bob Backlund.

[JKWebb]

Savage still had it in him, but the WWF didn't utilize him.  He could have had a much bigger impact in 1993 for them.  As a huge Savage fan, it's a bummer. 

[Superstar Sleeze]

Randy Savage vs Doink The Clown - WWF RAW 8/2/93

I knew I should temper my expectations with a baby face Randy Savage match but Doink has such a killer 1993 I thought maybe just maybe this would be great but no it is just fine. The Randy Savage baby face formula is take a ton of heat and come back with 2-3 big moves for the win. We didn’t even get the Elbow Drop. 
 

It does start promising with Savage revved up bringing a chair in the ring but in the chaos Doink takes over. He works a great Boston Crab using the ropes and working the leg. He works some more holds. He misses the Whoopie Cushion and Savage rolls to the floor and goes under the ring and the Macho Midget appears. Savage gets a body slam outside the ring and an inside cradle to win. Predictably the Macho Midget bites Doink’s ass and he sells it well.

There are two things that could’ve easily made this match better. If Dink or another Doink (Doink promised three Doinks the week prior on RAW) interfered then the Macho Midget makes sense to even the odds. Without that, I don’t understand the point of the Macho Midget. The heel needs to cheat first to necessitate the baby face throwing it back in his face. I think a more climatic finish would be the other thing that would help. It was a solid match but not as great as it could’ve been.