Monday Night Raw
Date: August 10, 1998
Location: Omaha Civic Auditorium, Omaha, Nebraska
Attendance: 7,601
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Back to 1998 as my trip into all the short shows is done. We’re getting very close to Summerslam at this point with I believe three weeks to go. The main event tonight is a four way for the tag titles with Kane/Mankind defending against a bunch of people. Other than that we have the other Brawl For All Quarter-Finals. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Mankind to open the show. He says he’s tired of being lied to and deceived. He wants the truth and only one person has ever given him that: Vince McMahon. Mankind sits and waits for Vince to get here and pulls his hair out to pass the time. Vince finally gets here and Mankind says he needs his help.

Vince says this must be humiliating for Mankind and that he detests people that need help. The truth hurts, like when Kane was swinging for Mankind last week. Undertaker hit him with a chair too. Vince is calling him Mick now. Last night Undertaker disguised himself as Kane but it might as well have been Kane himself. The brothers are in collusion against everyone in the WWF. They’re one in the same you see.

Cue Kane and Bearer with Paul yelling at Vince, saying that Vince is the real manipulator of the WWF. Vince isn’t going to get into his mind or Kane’s mind either. Vince: “Are you done venting your spleen?” Vince says that that’s Undertaker under the Kane mask and demands it be removed. There go the lights but when they come back on Taker is in the ring in his regular gear and there’s no Kane. Taker grabs Vince by the throat but Mankind saves Vince.

Val Venis and John Wayne Bobbitt are having a joint press conference tonight.

Undertaker goes into his locker room and Kane can be seen inside.

Cue Sable to introduce Luna and the Oddities. Kurrgan dancing is still funny.

Luna vs. Jacqueline

Luna slams Jackie into the mat to start and Sable takes Mero down on the floor. Kurrgan glares Mero down when he comes after Sable and the match grinds to a halt. Jackie goes up top but gets crotched. A neckbreaker puts Jackie down and Luna goes up for a splash. Her hip kind of almost hits Jackie’s face but it gets the pin anyway. What a mess.

Highway to Hell Summerslam video. This is still awesome, even with Jerry talking to the director over it.

DX arrives. Oh wait it’s just the Outlaws.

Brawl For All Quarter-Finals: Savio Vega vs. Darren Drozdov

Droz is replacing Hawk who he injured. I’m not even going to waste my time with this. Droz wins and Savio was injured during this, meaning he never wrestled for WWF again.

Chyna tells Cole to Suck It and shoves him into a car. There’s a rumor that DX is splitting tonight.

Legion of Doom vs. Southern Justice

Hawk falls down the ramp. After a break the suits won’t let Hawk compete so Droz replaces him. Thank goodness Tennessee Lee got dumped last night. There’s no match as Jeff Jarrett comes out and breaks the guitar over Droz’s head in retaliation for a loss last night. Jeff cuts Droz’s hair.

X-Pac arrives.

Here are the Outlaws in serious mode. Pac comes out alone, followed by HHH and Chyna. HHH says everyone wants to know where DX stands but Pac cuts him off, saying he’s had enough of this. He says HHH and Chyna are jackoffs, so HHH calls Pac a jackoff. The Outlaws are jackoffs too. JR declares DX dead, and since no wrestling announcer has EVER jumped to conclusions it must be true! Everyone agrees that they’re all jackoffs and HHH says they’re not sure if they should split. HHH says it’s time for the split so they all start to take down their pants. Chyna stops them and takes her’s down. Not bad.

Austin throws Cole in the shower in the back. Not a good night for him.

Vader vs. Godfather

Bart Gunn pops up at the announce desk and wants respect from JR instead of hearing about how Williams had a bad knee. Godfather offers the ladies to Vader, most of which are flat out ugly. This takes awhile and Vader takes the girls. Bart Gunn knocks out Vader and takes Godfather down. Yes, this whole thing was a build up to the Brawl For All next week.

Dustin Rhodes says read the Bible and watch the Discovery Channel. He is coming back. This segment was sponsored by Evangelists Against Television Movies and Entertainment. Man when Vince wants to drive something in he doesn’t stop does he?

Here are Val and John Wayne Bobbitt (dude that got a rather specific area cut off by his wife. It was reattached and he made an adult movie about it. This was in 1993 so why they’re doing this now I’m not sure) for a press conference. He has an ice pack between his legs. He makes some expected jokes in a sad voice but then reveals that he’s fine. Lawler makes his own jokes and Val dumps Mrs. Yamaguchi-San for causing him all this trouble. He throws her a battery in a funny bit.

Edge is here.

Brawl For All Quarter-Finals: Bradshaw vs. Marc Mero

Bradshaw wins by points in overtime. Next.

Taker says he’ll explain his actions in the ring.

Tag Titles: The Rock/Owen Hart vs. Undertaker/Steve Austin vs. New Age Outlaws vs. Kane/Mankind

You can’t pin your partner, which is called the Outlaw Rule. During the Outlaws’ entrance, Ken Shamrock comes out and puts Owen in the ankle lock. It turns into a big brawl with HHH coming out as Owen taps to the ankle lock. The Nation fights DX and we take a break. D’Lo is replacing Owen. There’s no Mankind with Kane and Bearer. Oh wait he’s just behind them. Austin and Taker are the champions if that got lost in the shuffle.

In case you’re keeping track, every champion in the company other than Taka is in this match. Austin and Mankind start things off with Mankind getting a fast Mandible Claw which is broken up quickly. Neckbreaker gets two for Foley. He heads to the floor to avoid a Stunner though and walks up the ramp. Rock vs. Austin now and Mankind is back. Brown comes in and hits a spin kick as I think Lawler is losing his voice.

Brown takes a Thesz Press and Austin tags Kane. Kane tags Billy as this is moving very fast. Fameasser puts Brown down as does a gorilla press which gets two. Roadie comes in with the shaky knee for two. Mankind comes in to beat Roadie down but the pulling piledriver is countered. Back to Brown as these tags are almost impossible to keep track of. Finally we get to the important part though as Austin and Taker have to tag and they take turns killing Billy Gunn.

Gunn finally falls into a tag to Austin, making the partners legal. They wisely bring Road Dogg in because they can’t pin each other so there’s nothing to gain by fighting. Old School takes Road Dogg down and Taker tags in Brown. D’Lo hooks a chinlock and things finally slow down. There’s the Low Down but Billy makes the save. Rock comes back in and drops the People’s Elbow to a ROAR. Things slow way down as Mankind comes in. He spits at Austin and Taker but walks into a Russian legsweep from Road Dogg to put him down.

There’s the tag to Undertaker and everything breaks down as we’ve expected it to do the entire match. Kane hasn’t been in the match yet and is standing on the apron during the big brawl. Taker knocks everyone down and Mankind tags Kane. He chokeslams Undertaker very easily and wins the titles.

Rating: C. This was a mess and that’s all it was designed to be. It’s not like the titles meant anything here so changing them is fine. Russo was booking at this point so having everything be crazy like this is one of his trademarks. Still though, for a TV main event this was pretty huge and it worked pretty well.

Overall Rating: C-. Not the best show but it wasn’t bad. The Brawl For All ends in two weeks and I couldn’t be happier. It stops the show dead every time and with these little three minute fights, no one is going to be able to get into them. Anyway, ok show here but it’s clear they’re counting the days until Summerslam.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: December 27, 1999
Location: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Another request that I don’t remember. This is the final show of the year 1999 and the main event is Big Show, who I think is WWF Champion at this point. Also there’s a Pink Slip on a Pole match between Mankind and Rock. I’m not sure if you would want to win that or not based on the name. This was during the McMahon-Helmsley Era so HHH is in charge on Raw. Let’s get to it.

Here’s DX to open the show, which includes HHH and Steph. HHH says they’re running the show and they want something right here and right now. This is when the big screens that usually say RAW have pictures of HHH and Stephanie. They talk about the near perfect plan and that the only thing missing is HHH being WWF Champion. Tonight it’s Show vs. HHH for the title.

Stephanie looks and sounds so much younger here. She’s 23 here so you know she looks good. X-Pac vs. Kane tonight. HHH yells about Foley trying to raise a revolution and that Foley needs to accept that they’re the power now. Cue Mankind….er Mick actually. Tonight there won’t be a union or mutiny. He talks about how he used to think DX was pretty cool. 364 days ago (a rare admission that Raw is taped) they carried him around after he won the world title.

Now he sees a lot of young children running around and trying to hide from their mom and dad. He asks Roadie how it felt to have Test drop an elbow on him. How did it feel when Kane choked Billy down. As for Pac, he’s being thrown to the wolves tonight. HHH only cares about winning the WWF Title. Mick is in the ring now. As soon as HHH wins the title, he’ll drop DX. DX jumps Foley and Rock makes the save.

HHH says he’s sick of this and that the WWF isn’t big enough for the two of them and DX. Stephanie whispers to him and HHH says the Rock N Sock Connection will never team up again. Tonight it’s the two of them in a pink slip on a pole match. One of them is gone after tonight.

Kane is waiting for Tori to get here. Last week the Outlaws threatened Tori, costing Kane the world title. DX kidnapped Tori.

Chyna vs. Crash Holly

The Kat is with Chyna during their implied lesbian S&M period. Crash has been talking trash about Chyna so Chyna wants to fight right here. This was probably a little after Chyna’s peak. Hardcore sits in on commentary. Crash jumped Chyna to start but gets punched in the ribs and DDTed for two. A sleeper drop ends this very quickly.

Tori gets back and says she loved Christmas. She says Pac was a gentleman and Kane isn’t happy. She could have left but stayed to honor his commitment. Kane is puzzled.

During the break Tori ran into Steve Lombardi. They chatted and nothing was wrong. Test came in and put his arm around her and she freaked and backed away.

For some reason, the Mean Street Posse are doing the ring announcing, time keeping and refereeing for this.

Godfather/D’Lo Brown vs. Dudley Boys vs. Acolytes vs. Edge/Christian

The Dudleys have only been around since late August so they’re new and on fire at this point. JR still has to say which is which. Joey Abs is guest referee and Pete Gas says that the Posse is good friends with the Acolytes. D-Von and Christian start things off. This is one fall to a finish. Brown replaces Christian and Bubba does the same with D-Von. Sky High out of nowhere gets two. Back to D-Von who gets Farrooq. The Posse jumps Bradshaw and the Dudleys hit a reverse 3D on Farrooq for a fast count pin. Too short to rate but it was pretty bad. The Canadians were never in the match.

Bradshaw KILLS the Posse with chair shots post match. Pete takes a double spinebuster and double jackknife.

Tori is crying and Kane asks what’s wrong. She says Test touched her. It was innocent but she’s acting like he groped her. Tori says he violated her so Kane GROWLS.

HHH has bought Stephanie a diamond. Speaking of Rocks (that’s their transition, not mine) he might be out of them tonight. HHH also wants Angle to lose his undefeated streak tonight. Stephanie doesn’t like that but Kane and Tori come in and Kane demands a match with Test. Gee, that certainly gets X-Pac out of trouble doesn’t it?

Kurt Angle vs. Headbangers

Angle is still a goofy idiot and YOUR American hero so he makes sure to tell us about his Three I’s. I love this version of him as he was hilarious. He says that even though Greensboro isn’t that smart, but if they stick with Integrity and Intensity, they’ll do just fine. They have to tag. Not that it matters as Steve Blackman comes out, hits Mosh with a kendo stick and puts Angle on top for the pin. I think this was where Blackman wanted to end Angle’s streak. Depending on how you determine it, that would have been either Tazz (Angle passed out but didn’t tap) or Rock who pinned him clean.

HHH isn’t happy with Blackman’s interference. Stephanie had told him not to do that but he must have forgotten. Stephanie seems to think Angle is cute.

Mankind says that he’s sorry but tonight he’s going to have to do some unpopular things because he’s not ready to be fired yet.

Here’s Snow for some ranting. Snow is a heel here due to being shunned by Mankind for Rock. He says he’s not here for your entertainment. He’s been in this business for 17 years and he’s sacrificed a lot of things. And for what? These people? He won’t make any more sacrifices…but here’s Chris Jericho. Chris tells Snow to shut up to solve his problems.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Jericho vs. Al Snow

Sunset flip gets two for Jericho and they trade pinfall reversals. Snow slaps him and Jericho gets all mad. They go to the floor and Jericho rams his knee into Snow’s head. Jericho tries a rana but gets powerbombed instead. Snow Plow puts Jericho down but Chyna runs in and hits Snow in the head with Head to save the IC Title. Chyna leaves all smiley. Chyna would get a title shot on Thursday which would result in co-champions. Snow’s heel turn lasted about two more weeks until the company realized they were trying to push Al Snow as a heel and came to their senses.

Mark Henry tells Harvey Whippleman that he has a lot of sexual frustration built up and he needs to be alone with Mae. However he needs Harvey to take Moolah. Harvey says no way so Moolah grabs him by the ear and chokes him as she demands they go. This can’t end well.

The Rock vs. Mankind

The loser gets fired. They’re friends so no one wants to start this off. Foley hits a quick shoulder block and goes for the pole but gets pulled down. The same thing happens with Rock but Mankind pulls him down too. DX is watching on a very small monitor in the back. Rock puts him down with a DDT but Al Snow runs in and knocks Rock out with the Head. He wakes Mankind up and tells him to go up but Mankind won’t take it that way and drills Snow, throwing him to the floor.

Mankind turns around and walks into a Rock Bottom. Snow yells at Foley and says he’ll never help him again. Rock goes up but Mankind gets a low blow to stop it. They slug it out but Mankind ducks the clothesline and puts Rock down with a double arm DDT. There’s Mr. Socko and Rock is in trouble. Mankind goes up but Rock stops him. They fight on the corner and Rock rams Foley’s head into the pole and shoves him to the floor. Rock wins and Foley is fired.

Rating: C+. This was an interesting match. The idea is that you can’t really criticize them for being tentative because that’s character driven. They’re friends so they don’t want to hurt each other but they have to do what they have to do to survive. This worked pretty well I thought although it wasn’t that exciting.

Foley gets a standing ovation and says he’s not ashamed to lose to Rock. He’s ashamed as to how it happened though. He was going to retire in the year 2000 but it’s still 1999. What just happened kind of sucks. He loved everything he’s done and please pop in a Mankind tape and know he loved this. Just don’t watch this match because DX sucks. His firing lasted like a week.

The boys thank Foley for everything in the back.

Ivory/Prince Albert vs. The Kat/Val Venis vs. Gangrel/Luna vs. Jacqueline/Viscera

Kat is Women’s Champion. Why this match exists is beyond me. Val and Albert start this off. Val gets caught in a chokebomb and a slam. He tags in….Luna? Albert runs over her so she hits him low and brings in Val to face Viscera. Gangrel comes in illegally and takes a spinebuster. There’s the Money Shot but Teddy Long (referee) says that’s not the right referee. Bicycle kick from Albert pins Val quickly. What a mess.

Time for comedy! Harvey/Mark/Mae/Moolah are at dinner. Mark reads Mae a poem and wants her in bed. Harvey doesn’t know a poem for Moolah so he makes one up that insults her breath.

Foley says goodbye to the guys in the production truck.

X-Pac vs. Jeff Hardy

Hardy means nothing at this point so this should be a show stealer. Not that it would be hard but you get the idea. Matt comes out with Jeff, as does their valet Terri. Jeff avoids some suplexes and dropkicks Pac down. Out to the floor and Jeff hits a sweet baseball slide. Whisper in the Wind to a grounded X-Pac misses and Pac takes over. Jeff comes back and a headscissors sends Pac to the floor. He runs the railing but X-Pac hits him in the ribs on the way down. Terri comes in and helps Jeff with Poetry in Motion. Swanton (called a Senton here) gets two. Jeff tries a moonsault but Pac kicks him low and hits the X-Factor for the pin.

Rating: B-. It was good but not as good as you would have expected. Jeff had nothing to lose here so he went up in the air as much as he could. That being said, he was still really young here (22) so he wasn’t quite ready to do all the flying and flips that he was supposed to be able to do here. Good high flying match though.

Back to the date and a fan asks Henry for an autograph. Harvey tries to help him spell it and the fan asks Henry why he’s such a loser. MAE HITS THE GUY IN THE CHEST! Moolah chokes him until Henry saves the guy. Mae and Mark leave to cuddle.

Kane vs. Test

Test tries to explain to Test what happened but then says give Tori Prozac or Midol. However he’ll fight if that’s what Kane wants. Kane hammers him into the corner and Tori eggs him on. Test gets some offense in but goes to the floor for some reason. Kane hits Test in the face with the steps which isn’t a DQ somehow. Now he shoves the referee and that’s the DQ. This was a beating, not a match.

Tori slaps Test post match.

Foley is still saying goodbye so HHH and Stephanie are going to send security to get rid of him.

Big Show says everything is a game anymore and the game is being run by HHH. He’s squashed everyone he’s been against and tonight, it’s Game Over.

Tag Titles: New Age Outlaws vs. Too Cool

Rikishi comes out for moral support. Road Dogg and Scotty start and Scotty speeds things up to start. Here comes the Worm (centipede according to Lawler so maybe it’s not perfected yet) but Dogg pops up and punches Scotty down. Off to Billy (in a sky blue t-shirt) who is in for about 5 seconds. Roadie misses a middle rope legdrop and here’s Grandmaster. Scotty and Billy fight on the floor as Rikishi takes Billy out. Sexay hits what we would call the Skull Crushing Finale and a top rope legdrop to Roadie but X-Pac comes in with an X-Factor to let Road Dogg get the pin. Short and average.

Rikishi piledrives Road Dogg post match and destroys X-Pac with a belly to belly. The Outlaws save him from the Banzai Drop though. Too Cool does get to dance though.

HHH and Stephanie have Foley thrown out.

Mae and Mark are in bed while Moolah and Harvey are in the other one. No clothing can be seen anywhere. COMEDY!

WWF Title: Big Show vs. HHH

Show still has long hair here. HHH makes this no DQ and tells DX to stay away but doesn’t sound that serious. HHH slugs him back into the corner but Show throws him in even harder. HHH knocks him to the floor and counters Show, ramming him into the post. Back in and Show Shows Up. There goes the referee and here comes DX. Roadie hits him low and Billy hits him with the belt.

That only gets two though and here comes Big Show. He knocks everyone down and powerslams HHH for two. Here comes Stephanie as it’s already 4-1. Show takes the Outlaws down with a flying clothesline and chokeslams X-Pac. Steph gives HHH a chair which caves his head in but Mankind runs in and hits HHH with the chair. Chokeslam ends this.

Rating: C-. Vince Russo may have left a few months earlier but his style was still firmly in place. This was a Russo main event with added gimmicks and run-ins galore (5 in a 6 minute match. That has to be some sort of record) on top of two chair shots and a ref bump. The match was nothing of note and Show winning capped off a bad night.

Overall Rating: C-. I have no idea if this show was any good or not. That’s due to 1999’s major strength/flaw (depending on where you sit): everything goes by so fast that you can’t tell if something was good or not because you’re busy looking at the other stuff. As for the stuff happening on this show, most of it didn’t matter as HHH would win the title the following week and Foley would be reinstated the week thereafter. That’s 1999 booking for you in a nutshell, and it was the most successful year WWF ever had by about a mile. Ok show, but not if you want in ring action.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: July 20, 1998
Location: Broome County Arena, Binghamton, New York
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

It’s the go home show for Fully Loaded and that means we’re six weeks from Summerslam. That’s really all that matters at the end of the day, because this PPV certainly didn’t. There are two more Brawl For All matches because someone hates me. We also have a title match and a title change which I have a story about. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Vince to open the show. He says he wants to talk about what happened when Taker became #1 contender. We get a clip of Undertaker dressing up as Kane, which makes Vince wonder where Kane was and where Undertaker got that outfit. Last week he asked and was given no answer. Now we get a clip of the ending of last week’s show where Undertaker saves the pinfall on Kane. We also get clips of the brawl to end the show.

Vince calls Taker out and wants to know what’s going on. He blasts the dead man for thinking he can do everything on his own and that he won’t take the disrespect anymore. Undertaker still won’t answer if he’s with Kane or not. Since he won’t answer, Vince makes it him vs. Kane/Mankind tonight. Before Taker leaves, Vince tries to tell Taker where to go but it’s a chokeslam instead. The Stooges come out and are beaten up too.

European Title: D’Lo Brown vs. HHH

Brown takes over early on but HHH takes him down with a quick clothesline. Rock is watching from ringside. Trips ducks his head and takes a kick to the face. Pedigree is countered but HHH clotheslines Brown to the outside. He gets in Chyna’s face and has his blocked knocked off. Back in D’Lo takes over for a few moments but HHH hits the jumping knee to the face to take over. Suplex by the Game looks to set up the knee drop but Rock trips Trips. Chyna takes care of Rock as HHH hits a powerslam. Henry comes out and Chyna meets him with a chair. Rock comes in with a Rock Bottom and D’Lo wins the title.

Rating: C-. Quick story about this match. This show was taped on the 14th. Sometime over the weekend I went to a house show where Brown was already acknowledged as champion. Based on that, I already knew that HHH was going to lose the title when this show aired. That’s probably my first experience with a spoiler. The match was nothing of note at all but it advanced the DX vs. Nation feud.

The Nation celebrates the title win.

Sunday Night Heat is coming.

Brawl For All First Round: Quebecer Pierre vs. Steve Williams

Doc destroys him and the referee calls it with seven seconds to go.

We get a clip from Val’s movie last week with Yamaguchi-san’s wife.

In the arena, Yamaguchi says that his wife is going to be punished. He treats his wife like a slave and she has to crawl through his legs and get paddled. Val runs in to make the save and leaves with Yamaguchi’s wife.

Animal vs. Skull

Oh dear. There’s no Hawk. Animal won’t get in the ring when it’s 3-1 but the DOA comes after him. Animal goes into the steps and beaten down. No match. Ellering tries to run over Animal with the motorcycle but Hawk makes the save. He gets beaten down also and the DOA stand tall as well as bald.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Steve Blackman

Blackman sees that he’s up against four guys so he goes to the back and comes back with Shamrock and Severn. Blackman takes him down quickly and hits a backbreaker for two. Shoulder block gets the same. A middle rope headbutt misses so Jarrett goes for the leg. Blackman kicks it off and the bicycle kick ends this. Basically a squash.

Owen runs out and sends Shamrock into the steps then runs back into the crowd.

Taker has his stuff with him and is walking out.

Cole says Taker has left. He said he’ll see us Sunday.

Here’s Austin for an interview with JR. Austin throws JR out quickly and says he wants to know which side Undertaker is on this Sunday. Vince comes out and talks about screwing, so it’s Austin taking Vince’s place tonight. Austin says there’s no point to it so he’s not fighting. Vince says if Austin doesn’t do it then Taker gets the title without a match. Austin says after he beats the monsters, Vince is next.

We get a clip from last week of Jason Sensation. That Shawn impression is scary good.

Owen Hart vs. Farrooq

Farrooq tries a quick backbreaker but Owen slips down the back and speeds things up to take control. Owen hooks a Boston Crab as this has been much closer to a squash than you would expect. Owen beats him down and grabs a mic to tell the fans he is not a nugget. Enziguri gets two. A powerslam by Farrooq gets two but Owen comes back with a missile dropkick. Farrooq actually goes up but gets crotched, setting up the Sharpshooter for the quick tap.

Rating: D+. I didn’t exactly expect a squash here. It’s not a terrible match but it being a squash was very surprising. Farrooq wouldn’t do much until forming the Acolytes (called Hell’s Henchmen at the time) with Bradshaw later in the year. Owen looked good here and would have a Dungeon Match on Sunday with Shamrock.

Shamrock runs out post match and chases Owen through the crowd.

Bearer won’t quite say whose side Taker is on. Mankind says kicking Austin in the teeth gives him pleasure.

Here are Mero and Jackie. Jackie trash talks Sable and offers her a chance to come out here and forfeit the bikini contest. Sable comes out in a maternity dress. She takes it off to reveal a bikini. Since she’s been in Playboy, this doesn’t do much. Edge comes in through the crowd and hits Mero with a Downward Spiral.

HBK comes out for commentary again.

They finally come to their senses and just show highlights of 8-Ball and Scorpio’s Brawl For All. Scorpio wins by decision.

The Nations says Rock will keep the title.

Intercontinental Title: The Rock vs. X-Pac

DX runs in and a big brawl starts. We take a break and come back with the bell ringing. Chyna comes out as the only person at ringside. It’s power vs. speed here which isn’t something you often see with Rock. He’s a big guy but he’s never been one to use power to excess. Rock takes X-Pac down but Pac comes back with right hands. He speeds things up but Rock LAUNCHES him in a release hot shot which sends Pac to the floor.

Samoan Drop gets two as does a swinging neckbreaker. A quick chinlock sets up the People’s Elbow which only gets two. Pac grabs an X-Factor out of nowhere but he’s too spent to cover immediately. Bronco Buster hits but Pac charges into a powerslam for two. X-Pac throws him to the floor and grabs his knee to distract the referee. Chyna hits Rock with the title which gets a VERY close two. Rock’s clothesline misses and down goes the referee. A spin kick sends Rock down but here are D-Lo and HHH. HHH Pedigrees Rock after crotching Rock but a second referee runs out to say what he saw and it’s a DQ.

Rating: B-. This was a pretty rocking match before the overbooked ending. These Nation vs. DX brawls happened every week and it was cool to see a feud like this getting time, but I was hoping to see an ending to that match. Rock is a guy that isn’t big enough to make Pac’s offense look ridiculous, which means the match is a lot better. Fun stuff.

DX and the Nation get pulled apart again. The Nation is pulled to the floor and HHH gets a hot girl in the crowd to flash him. In other news, Jerry Lawler has volunteered to serve HHH for the rest of his life.

Kane/Mankind vs. Steve Austin

Austin hits Mankind with the title on the way to the ring. The tag champions don’t have to tag. Vince is watching in the back and is pleased. Austin manages to clothesline Kane to the floor and sends him into the steps. Back in a clothesline gets two on Mankind. He gets caught in the Claw though and they stumble to the floor.

Austin rams Mankind into the post but Kane is back up again. Back in and Austin hits the Thesz Press but Mankind pulls him to the floor. Back in again and a Stunner to Kane is countered. Here comes Undertaker with a chair. Mankind is now on the apron in a corner so maybe they do have to tag? Taker is in Austin’s corner and it’s back to Mankind. Foley hits Austin with a chair on the outside but his running knee in the corner misses. Austin grabs a Stunner to Mankind but Kane makes the save.

Kane tries the chokeslam but Austin kicks him low to escape. Taker pulls the chair up and swings it down but it hits Kane. Taker looks annoyed but it’s hard to say. Austin hits them all with the chair to end the show. If it wasn’t announced already, the match on Sunday is for the titles.

Rating: C+. All things considered, this was pretty entertaining stuff. The idea of Austin having to fight everyone on the planet at once was a good idea because that’s what he was best at: wild brawls that resulted in him being able to hang in there. The ending adds even more questions to the title match on Sunday, which is what the whole thing is built around.

Overall Rating: C+. I liked this one better than last week’s as the idea here was to have the PPV pushed even harder, which they certainly did. If you add that to one of the Brawl for All matches being clipped to highlights, there wasn’t much wrong on this show at all. It’s not great, but it did what it needed to do which is all you can ask for most of the time.

Here’s Fully Loaded if you’re interested:

In Your House 23: Fully Loaded
Date: July 26, 1998
Location: Selland Arena, Fresno, California
Attendance: 9,855
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

So King of the Ring has come and gone and as I’ve gone over, we know what the double main event was and I’m sure you all know what happened in those matches so I’ll spare you the details. Ken Shamrock is your new king and that went absolutely nowhere. Not a lot really happened other than the main events but the Raws were the big deal for your buildup here. The main thing going on at the time was Austin feuding with just about everyone with Taker slowly becoming a tweener.

Your main event is Austin and Taker trying to get the tag titles from the new champions Kane and mankind. It was all leading up to the big feud with Taker and Kane against Austin, eventually being revealed as being masterminded by Vince himself. In reality, this show was more of a catalyst than a big show, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Let’s see if it is or not.

Oh I almost forgot: a guy that walked the streets and subways, screaming because he was bordering on being completely psychotic and beating up random people had debuted about a month before this. His name was a strange one: Edge.

The intro more or less just talks about how Austin has been facing everyone and somehow still has the title. Nothing special here at all but it gets the job done I suppose.

Val Venis vs. Jeff Jarrett

Jarrett now has the Godwinns, now known as Southern Justice, as his bodyguards. Venis was controversial to say the least as he is likely the most envelope pushing character in company history as he jumped WAY over the line many times. However, he was a very  good wrestler that is often overlooked. Kaientai of all people come to the ring with their boss doing commentary and clearly doing an impression of a Japanese accent.

Their feud was over his wife sleeping with Val and appearing in one of his “videos.” This would end up with Val allegedly being castrated on Raw which was freaking creepy at the time and actually ended the show which was odd indeed. It also involved Taka turning heel and completely killing the division. Jarrett hits a DDT and the comments are great from both guys.

Ross says that anyone would go limp from that, which Lawler says he planted him like a geranium. What kind of a comparison is that? Venis really was underrated in the ring. He’s got a nice variety of offense which is a rare thing to see and he rarely made any noticeable mistakes. Apparently Austin thinks Taker is going to turn on him and that it’ll be 3-1 in the main event.

Val eventually wins it with a roll up as Yamaguchi continues to say that he’ll never be the same after Raw tomorrow. He’s really short so he gets a lot of jokes for that. Val gets on the mic and says that Yamaguchi is small and his wife says so.

Rating: B. This was a very decent match as both guys can really go in the ring when they’re given the chance. Val was the hot shot rookie and he showed why he was here. He had a nice variety of offense, a very unique gimmick a good look, size, strength and agility. Put him in there with a good technician like Jarrett and how could this be bad?

We see a shot of the Hart Family Dungeon where there will be a match tonight.

D’lo Brown vs. X-Pac

This is just a continuation of the DX/NOD feud but the real match would have been later tonight between Rock and HHH in an Iron Man match. Brown beat HHH for the European Title on Monday for no apparent reason as the Iron Man was supposed to be title vs. title. I was at a house show the Friday before that Raw so 10 days before this where D’lo was already billed as champion despite not winning the title until three days later.

Kama is now the Godfather of the Nation and is dressing like a pimp. This is non title for no good reason. There’s a bikini contest tonight with Sable and Jackie so King simply will not shut up about it. Other than that, this match is painfully boring. I can’t stand X-Pac but this is just bad no matter who is in it. The crowd is completely dead and in a ten minute match you should not need three rest holds. Godfather interferes and D’Lo hits the Sky High for the pin.

Rating: D. This was a very boring match. It wasn’t any good at all and while I can’t put the blame on either guy more than the other, I’m going to blame X-Pac because I hate that little bastard. This really was just a bad match and the non-title didn’t help it. It just gave us even less of a reason to care here so why should this be any good at all?

Apparently the Undertaker isn’t here yet.

Farrooq/Scorpio vs. Terry Funk/Bradshaw

Anyone that can find the point to this match will receive a free ham sandwich. As the other team heads to the ring, Funk says that this will be his last match in the WWF for at least six months, thereby ticking off Bradshaw. From what I can find, this wasn’t actually told to Bradshaw until just then so his reaction was legit. It pretty much left him without anything to do but he and Farrooq would join up around November.

The amazing part is that Funk actually did leave after this and wasn’t seen on a mainstream show until he showed up in WCW about two years later. The main thing here is all about Taker not showing up yet and Funk leaving soon. Other than that, this match is bad. The fans agree apparently as they start the boring chant which is actually acknowledged.

It’s just nothing of note at all here with a powerslam by Farrooq when Bradshaw jumps from the ropes being the only thing decent at all. Funk won’t tag out and in the big brawl Scorpio pins him after a 450. Bradshaw then beats all three of them up as he turns heel.

Rating: D. This was just bland as heck and no one was interested at all. It would have been fine on Raw I guess, but this had no business being on a PPV. The wrestling wasn’t that good, there was no story or build and no one really seemed to care that a 54 year old man was leaving. Can you blame them really?

Vader vs. Mark Henry

Apparently they had a tug of war or something on Shotgun Saturday Night which is a show I should review in a lot more detail someday. I just do not get what Vince’s problem is. Mark Henry is described by JR as still being raw and a rookie when he’s been in the company and a professional for over two years at this point. Vader has been a three time world champion in WCW.

The crowd is chanting VADER for the majority of the match. So how does the booking go of course? Henry gets his head handed to him for the majority of the match and hits two moves to win it. He kicks out of a move that more or less is the Vader Bomb, hits a bad powerslam and a splash to win it. WHAT THE HECK IS YOUR PROBLEM VINCE MCMAHON???

Why in the world would you not push a guy like Vader but have Mark freaking Henry still be a big deal? It’s been 13 years and he’s the same worker he was back then. Why in the world was he kept around when he gets hurt every five minutes while Vader is getting cheers but can’t keep a job?

Vader is clearly getting in better shape too as he’s visibly not as fat but more muscular and maybe a hair faster, while Henry’s chest looks rather horrible. Seriously, Vince needs to get his head some fresh air.

Rating: C. Vader of course does all the work and makes Henry’s level of suck reach only that of a vacuum and not a tornado. Henry botched a slam at the beginning of this match. Do you realize how difficult it is to botch a slam? It’s the most basic move there is after a punch. The sad thing is he could still botch it today and likely has. This just had me shaking my head and making me a bit angry. There was no sense at all to do this to Vader.

The Outlaws say they’ll be watching this next match closely.

LOD vs. DOA

Dang was there a spelling bee coming up with all of these abbreviations or something? Anyway, this is the convergence of two storylines in one as Paul Ellering, LOD’s mentor and the only person that’s ever been able to control them left them for the DOA a few weeks ago.

This was combined with the beginning of Hawk’s alcoholism storyline which evolved into a drug problem which evolved into him falling off of the top of the big screen one night which evolved into a storyline that a lot of people got a bad taste in their mouths because of. It just never felt right. Once again, Vince runs down another very over team in exchange for a copy of them, in this case the DOA. Anyway, this one is short and we don’t really see any effect of Hawk’s “condition.”

It’s fast for the most part with a standard tag team formula of faces dominate, heels take over, hot tag, finish. There’s nothing wrong with that and it works pretty well here. Animal even uses a dropkick and a pretty good one at that. He always was the more polished of the two. Anyway, the finish here is fairly simple: switch after the Doomsday Device leads to the pin. The main thing here was DOA’s manager being crazy according to Ross, but he really just acts like a normal heel manager. There’s nothing really all that crazy about him when you watch this match, so I guess there was a promo or something like that where his craziness was more explained. Either way, this was what you would expect from two teams like this.

Rating: B. Not bad but given the four guys out there, this was as good as it was going to get. Hawk gets beat up, tags Animal who cleans house, and then since the LOD was dominant in the 80s, Vince says screw you to the fans and pushes another team to the moon who never did anything in the company.

Dungeon Match: Owen Hart vs. Ken Shamrock

This is in the famous Hart Family Dungeon for absolutely no reason at all. In something else that there’s no point to, Dan Severn, Shamrock’s UFC rival is the referee. He wrestled as the NWA Champion forever and has a four year reign to his credit, but it was during the time when the company was completely dead. He was at an MMA tournament in Japan when he was called on to defend the title at a PPV called TNA.

He had to forfeit and Shamrock became the first TNA Champion. Anyway, Owen and Shamrock are apparently feuding so we’re having a match in Owen’s basement. This seriously looks like a homemade wrestling project that would be thrown on YouTube or something. Severn just leaning against the window when Shamrock makes his entrance amuses me for some reason. Anyway, this is submission only.

This looks dangerously close to a shoot with how hard they’re hitting each other in there. You get some very stiff shots into the wooden walls and they use the water pipe to get in the air. I’m really not sure if this is terrible or awesome. Anyway, they beat on each other for a bit until Owen, and I wish I was making this up, lifts Shamrock into the air and his head goes through the ceiling.

Anyone else thing that just sounds funny? Anyway, they brawl a bit more but Shamrock kicks Severn in the head, allowing Owen to grab a dumbbell and smash Shamrock in the head. He locks on a crossface and then taps Shamrock for him as Severn is waking up to declare Owen the winner. Owen goes through the dungeon (which is one room) and into the garage to leave. This didn’t last five minutes.

Rating: C. I gave it a C because I have no idea what to say about this. It was a cross between wrestling, UFC and backyard fighting. The whole thing was meant I think as just a way to have a novelty but it was somewhere in between sweet and terrible. Really just a weird thing.

In the back, Vince says that he has a replacement partner in case Taker doesn’t show up: Brooklyn Brawler.

Recap of HHH vs. Rock, which was supposed to be title for title as previously mentioned.

IC Title: HHH vs. Rock

This is two out of three falls. One thing I’ve never liked about 2/3 falls: pretty much whoever wins the first fall should be the champion shouldn’t they, at least if it’s by pin or submission? I mean, they beat the champion in a title match in a way by which the title can change hands. Also, for some reason I love HHH’s tights here.

This is yet again a match where DX and the Nation are there and have no real point of being there other than to act as a bunch of seconds. After the 37 other people clear out of the ring it’s time to get going. Slaughter sends off a bunch of people and only lets Chyna stay out there because she has a legit manager’s license. I’d love to take that test.

Crotch chop by HHH and it’s on. We have a thirty minute time limit which is likely going to come into play here. Chyna drills Rock behind the referee’s back as you can tell they’re in for a long one here. We brawl up the aisle a bit and HHH controls. Jerry asks an interesting question: if they’re both counted out is that one fall apiece or just the first fall?

Game gets sent into the steps and Rock starts dominating. The fans think Rocky Sucks. Back in the ring the momentum changes again. These two are far better at emitting emotion in a match than most guys are today. You get the feeling that this could end at anytime rather than just killing time until the finish.

With Rock distracting the referee Mark Henry comes down and splashes HHH. Billy Gunn comes out for the save and Henry heads to the back. Rock gets a belt shot for two. We hit a chinlock as Rock gets to run some time off. All Rock at this point. Dang Rock looks like he’s roided up something huge here. I mean he’s always been a big guy but he looks muscular here.

Back to that chinlock as we’re probably about 15 minutes into this. HHH gets some comeback offense in and hits the knee to the face. Rock grabs him and throws him at the top rope for a hot shot. Here comes Godfather but the Outlaws run out before he can even make it to the mats at ringside.

Rock keeps shoving the referee but it’s a distraction so that D’Lo can come in with the European Title but HHH stops him. He walks into a Rock Bottom to make it 1-0 Rock though. We have a one minute rest period now. Rock beats him up for awhile but gets sent into the railing. He pops off of that and KILLS Rock with a clothesline.

People’s Elbow hits as Brown is getting back up for two. HHH gets a big clothesline and both guys are down. We’re under 10 minutes to go here and Brown is getting back up. Chyna takes him out and while she’s being reprimanded, X-Pac runs down for an X Factor for two. Rock brings in a chair but accidentally pops the referee with it.

With no referee Chyna runs in for a low blow and a DDT on a chair. You might notice the high level of the term RUN-IN here. That evens us at one fall with about 5 minutes to go. After the rest period other referees have come out to help their fallen official so there’s no referee there. We only have two minutes left.

HHH gets all fired up as Hebner is here now. Facebuster sets up the 6th crotch chop and a big clothesline for two at a minute left. Samoan Drop puts HHH down for two as they were moving there for a bit.

They slug it out and Rock sets for the Rock Bottom but HHH counters into a SWEET Pedigree as the time is up. Oh man the fans are not happy. The Nation and DX come out for the big beatdown. HHH would get one last shot at the title in August at Summerslam and to say it blows this away is an understatement.

Rating: C+. I HATE the ending here. Who in the world books a 2/3 falls match to end in a time limit? That makes absolutely no sense at all to me. They’re getting close to the big blowoff to this match next month which is light years ahead of this, so this was fine I guess. It kept us from having a definitive end to the feud and it makes HHH’s win next month all the sweeter because we now know he can beat the Rock.

The main issue here is the amount of run-ins. Everybody comes in and the announcement of the time limit at the start more or less gave it away. This feud was the one that made both of these guys stars but it is NOTHING compared to what they would do two years later. I can’t wait to get to that iron man match.

Bikini Contest: Sable vs. Jackie

See, I told you Sable would be back. Before this starts, Dustin Rhodes comes out and leads us in a prayer, asking for forgiveness for those that watch what’s coming. This was a really weird period in his career that he was more or less a preacher. He would eventually start saying He is coming back, inferring Jesus but of course meaning Goldust.

Lawler is your moderator of this. Jackie is the annoying woman that allegedly is hot but no one else has ever seemed to see that in her. She’s with Mero now and no one could care less. She’s in a robe, Sable is in a t-shirt. Jackie goes first and has a red one piece on that’s more or less a pair of suspenders. Definite nip slip here as it’s easily visible and she covers it up after she’s done dancing badly.

Sable takes hers off and has on a half shirt and a thong. She says that Vince, who apparently is the way she got back into the company, said she should wear something more conservative. I think that was supposed to be a kind of sleeping with the boss story or at least an implied one but nothing ever came of it.

Anyway, she says it’s live TV and there’s nothing Vince can do so she pulls her half shirt off to reveal painted handprints with pasties over the nipples. Of course she wins and of course Vince comes and covers her up with his coat. The next night they reversed it, saying that wasn’t a bikini because we have to waste some time on all Raws.

Rating: F. This was freaking stupid and not even a decent contest. This was just bad.

Recap of the main event feud that is complicated to say the least. It was Russo’s magnum opus as it was a year long storyline that culminated with the swerve to end all swerves as Vince goes so far as to terrorize his own family due to his obsession with making Austin’s life a nightmare.

That would come later though as at the moment the main story was that Vince, Taker and Kane were part of a conspiracy against Austin. This started because Austin hit Taker with a chair by mistake when Taker was trying to help Austin against Kane and Mankind. After that Taker was seen going into his own locker room with Kane standing in it. That led to the theory that Taker was in on it.

Tag Titles: Taker/Austin vs. Mankind/Kane

The heels won the titles from the Outlaws on Raw a few weeks ago. Taker comes out to new music after getting there twenty minutes ago apparently. This is exactly what you would expect from a main event tag match with these four, but it’s given nearly half an hour. All four guys beat on each other and the tension between Austin and Taker is clear. They brawl on the floor, in the ring and all over the place.

It’s very hard to comment on a match like this because the first 15-20 minutes or so are just what you would expect in a match like this with very little of note. Austin keeps hitting stunners but there are kickouts every time or someone interferes. It’s a good match, but I really don’t get why the titles had to be involved.

Putting two guys that are big singles stars as tag champions rarely if ever works and it didn’t here, as the faces win but lost them back I think either the next night or 8 days later. Taker wins it with a tombstone on Kane.

Rating: B+. This was fine, but it made no sense to change the titles back so fast. It was Russo 101 to make them just a prop, which I’ve always hated deeply. Seriously, what’s the point in just making the belts a thing to advance a storyline? They should be on the top tag team, which they did about two weeks later when the Outlaws got them back. The wrestling was top quality with four great workers in there at the top of their game. Great match, but I’m not wild on the storyline.

Overall Rating: D+. This show is bad. There are two matches on it worth anything and one is a horrible ending. The main event is solid but it certainly can’t save the show. Aside from that and the opening match, the show is just a waste. Nothing of note happens and the two good matches certainly can’t save it.

The rest of the card is just random filler that few cared about. It would get a lot better soon though as the real glory days of the Attitude Era were on the horizon. Skip this for sure though and go grab Summerslam which is light years better and a very solid show.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: July 13, 1998
Location: Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey
Attendance: 17,569
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Shawn Michaels

Well we have two Raws to go before Fully Loaded which is just a big preview for Summerslam anyway, which the company more or less admitted to. That strategy wound up working as Summerslam was huge that year. The main event tonight is the tag title match with Kane/Mankind challenging the Outlaws. Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip from the end of last week’s show where Undertaker impersonated Kane and became #1 contender.

Raw opens up….and my goodness Shawn Michaels is here. He hasn’t been seen since Wrestlemania. He sits in on commentary and even kisses Lawler on the cheek. Shawn is going to be here for the rest of the night too. That’s something he’d be perfect for today actually.

Vader vs. Undertaker

Imagine this match if they were both in their primes. My goodness. Austin vs. Taker is officially announced for Summerslam. Kane comes out as well after the guys in the match do. He shoots the fire out of the corners and Taker jumps Vader. Vader slugs Taker down and pounds him down in the corner. I kid you not: Taker hits a Fameasser for two. That sounds like something out of a video game. Out to the floor with Bearer and Mankind out with Kane. Back in Vader powerslams him (minus most of the power) and a splash gets two. A middle rope splash gets two on Taker. He pops up, chokeslam, tombstone, pin.

Rating: C. This is exactly what guys who are over the hill like Vader should be doing. Vader was still a big enough guy that he could be considered a threat so having him lose to big names is a good way to keep the big names looking strong while not wasting big matches. Guys like Vader at this stage of his career don’t exist nearly as much anymore and that’s a real shame.

Mankind goes to hit Taker with a chair but Kane stops it for unknown reasons. Another reason JR is awesome: he points out the two possibilities of Kane either wanting to do it himself or saving his brother. That’s what a commentator can be great at: being a guide.

Brawl For All First Round: Bart Gunn vs. Bob Holly

The New Midnight Express collides! Cornette has resigned as their manager because of this. The announcers spend the intros absolutely burying WCW for their horrible Bash at the Beach PPV the night before with Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman in the main event. I gave it a rating of not acceptable if that tells you anything. Bart Gunn was the surprise in this tournament but it doesn’t make this interesting. Bart wins by decision. They get in a fight post match.

We get some clips from the DX Nation parody last week.

The guy that played Owen does some of him impressions on commentary. His Shawn is GREAT. So is his Austin. The Nation pops up on screen and says they’re looking for DX. Jason (impression guy) does some more Owen until the real one comes out and puts him in the Sharpshooter. DX comes out for the save as does the Nation.

Rock/Owen Hart vs. HHH/X-Pac

It’s a brawl to start with HHH and Owen staying in the ring. Rock vs. HHH in a 2/3 falls title for title match is announced for Fully Loaded. Rocky and Pac start us off and a Samoan Drop gets two. Owen hits a top rope elbow for two. Pac tries to speed things up but Owen can go step for step with him. Back to Rock and X-Pac can’t do anything with him either. A slam sets up the People’s Elbow for two. Owen distracts the referee so Rock can hit X-Pac low, but it lets HHH get a belt shot to put him down. Rock breaks up a tag but walks into an X-Factor for the surprise pin. HHH was never in the match.

Rating: C-. This wasn’t bad but the ending was kind of surprising. I like that it came out of nowhere because it’s not something that you see coming. Most matches today are structured and go on the same formula so it’s very nice to be able to have a match that is nowhere near the formula but still works.

Marc Mero vs. Steve Blackman

Sable comes out for commentary. She still can’t comment on her relationship with Vince. Shawn calls Jacqueline Sexual Chocolate. Blackman takes over to start with slams and strikes. He keeps control and the girls get into it. Mero low blows Blackman and a Samoan Drop, but Jackie and Sable distract him and a bicycle kick gets the pin for Blackman.

Tag Titles: New Age Outlaws vs. Kane/Mankind

Undertaker comes out as well. Mankind and Billy start but it’s quickly off to Road Dogg. Billy hammers on Mankind as the champs have tagged twice in just a few seconds. Chyna hits Mankind in his bad shoulder with a belt to give the Outlaws the advantage. Billy jumps off the middle rope into the Claw but Roadie saves him. Here’s Kane and Billy’s punches have no effect at all.

Kane shoves Gunn down and the beating begins. Billy is sent outside and Mankind throws him knees first into the steps. Taker has done nothing at all in this so far other than watch. Owen and Rock come out as Mankind comes back in. Mankind charges into Billy and they ram heads. Road Dogg and Kane come in but Roadie can’t hurt him either. Piledriver takes Mankind down as DX comes out to fight the Nation. Fameasser puts Kane down as does a Russian legsweep, but D’Lo comes off the top with the Lo Down to Road Dogg. A tombstone gives the monsters the titles.

Rating: D+. This was Attitude Era 101: total insanity ending with a run-in to change a title. The monsters would only hold them for a few weeks but would then get them back. It would lead up to Summerslam and the rematch where someone turns on someone else. It’s not a great match but if you’re watching for the wrestling in this one, you really don’t get the point.

HHH complains to Vince about what just happened.

Kai En Tai vs. Too Much/Taka Michinoku

Too Much starts fast and hits a Hart Attack on Funaki. Off to Togo who gets suplexed by Scotty. Taka comes in to speed things up and calls for the Michinoku Driver. Kai En Tai continues their speed stuff to stop Taka but he makes the tag to Brian. A powerbomb puts Togo down and Too Much uses some double teaming to get two. Scotty uses the Worm’s grandfather but Togo moves. A moonsault gets two for Dick. Taka and Scott get in an argument, resulting in Scotty taking a senton backsplash to end this. Not enough to grade but it was mostly a mess.

Too Much throws Taka to the floor….and here’s Val. He didn’t like being slapped by Yamaguchi-San but it made him realize he was wrong about something. No man should ever mess with another man’s wife. Val apologizes and offers a gift: a special viewing of his latest video entitled Land of the Rising Venis. Val is in bed and stuff is censored. And it’s with Yamaguchi’s wife. Val says sayonara and cuts the camera. He says that once they taste Valbowski, they never come back.

Here’s Vince to address a few things. He says we’ll discuss the tag title situation in a minute and calls out Undertaker. Vince talks about King of the Ring and how Taker fooled him last week. What Vince wants to know though is did Taker have help or was he acting along last week. He demands an answer and Taker refuses. Vince starts to back off and here comes Austin.

Austin tells Vince to get out. As for Taker, he and Austin are on the road to Summerslam. Austin respects Taker for challenging him face to face. However before they get there, they have to go through Fully Loaded. Austin wants to know if Taker will be his partner or another opponent at the PPV. Taker won’t answer him either…..and here’s DX?

HHH says he wants answers too and says that tonight, the Outlaws get their rematch. Somehow that means we’ll find out if Taker and Kane are in cahoots. There are going to be three referees: one on the inside, and Taker and Austin as guest enforcers on the outside. Vince says ok so HHH tells him to suck it.

Brawl For All First Round: Godfather vs. Dan Severn

So this is the reason Severn left the tournament. He easily takes Godfather down over and over but for some reason that no one but the people running this crap gets, they don’t count. The fans HATE this and Severn wins. He bailed on it because he had nothing to prove (true) and it made no sense (double true).

Tag Titles: New Age Outlaws vs. Kane/Mankind

Austin and Undertaker are referees on the floor. It’s a brawl to start and I don’t think it’s going to change from that very much. Road Dogg and Kane fight in the ring as Gunn hits Foley in the face with the steps. The Outlaws double team every chance they get but it doesn’t really work. We actually get to a tag format with Mankind vs. Roadie. We’re just waiting on the big brawl with the main event guys to start here. Road Dogg has been being beaten down the entire time here.

Billy comes in and there goes the referee. Roadie low blows Kane and hooks a small package. Austin comes in for the count but Kane pulls Austin out. DUN DUN DUN!!! Kane chokeslams Road Dogg but Austin stops Taker’s count. The brawl begins and here’s the Nation and DX. Stunners and chokeslams all around (Shawn said those exact words a second after I thought of them) end the show.

Rating: D. I can barely rate this so I’ll keep it brief: if you’re looking for wrestling here, go read a book instead, because you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Overall Rating: C-. This show is one where your taste will vary depending on what you’re looking for. The wrestling here is nothing of note at all, but it did a lot of the heavy lifting that had to get done to get us to Fully Loaded. Most of the card is set now so we don’t have that to worry about. That being said, the Fully Loaded stuff wasn’t really all that interesting because it’s just a buildup PPV to Summerslam. Not a terrible show tonight, but this would be a great show to read about instead of watching. Make your own jokes about that in the comments.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: June 22, 1998
Location: Frank Erwin Center, Austin, Texas
Attendance: 10,891
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

This is the go home show for the King of the Ring and the first set of KOTR matches, so we’ll have four of those tonight. Other than that expect more as far as the C-o-n-spiracy and the whole fallout from that. We also have Kane and Mankind vs. an Outlaw apiece. This looks like a very standard go home show, so let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the end of last week’s show with Taker destroying Bearer. Kane will break his silence tonight.

Theme song.

The Cell is above the ring again.

Here’s Vince to open the show. He brings out the next WWF Champion, Kane. Bearer is watching on satellite. The fans immediately chant for Austin. Vince says this will be the greatest day of Kane’s life on Sunday. Kane has apparently requested a special kind of match. There’s no pin, submission, DQ or countout. It’s first blood. Vince wants to know how confident Austin is. Kane (who hasn’t said anything until now) says that if he doesn’t win the title, he’ll set himself on fire. I can’t help but laugh at this.

King of the Ring Quarterfinals: Ken Shamrock vs. Mark Henry

The Nation is sent out again as they’ve been for the last few weeks. Shamrock makes Henry miss and fires off the kicks. He walks into a powerslam to take him down though. Legdrop gets no cover for Henry, which is chalked up to a rookie mistake by JR. Henry hooks on a bearhug and then a splash to the back of Kenny. Back to the bearhug. Shamrock tries to come back with a sunset flip but Henry drops down onto him. And now bearhug #3. FEEL THE ELECTRICITY BABY!!! Shamrock fights back and manages to hit the rana, sending Mark to the floor. Vader runs out and drills Henry. Belly to belly by Shamrock wins this.

Rating: D+. Henry somehow didn’t get any better for about 12 years. I mean dude, by the laws of averages and muscle memory you would think that somehow he would get better. That belly to belly was pretty impressive. Shamrock had a lot of talent but was only going to be an upper midcarder at best given the way his character went. Plus injuries on top of that.

Edge is in the audience.

X-Pac vs. Dustin Runnels

Dustin, the newly religious man, offers a handshake but gets a crotch chop for his efforts. The move known as the X-Factor takes him down but it doesn’t mean much yet. Dustin crotches him to counter a bulldog but Pac sends him to the floor. Chyna hits him low and momentum shifts again. Pac hits some of those very fast legdrops of his. I’ve always liked those. Off to a chinlock and we talk about how Austin could make Kane bleed. Dustin makes a comeback and a cross body gets two. One armed suplex gets the same. He loads up the bulldog but Chyna trips him. Pac kicks his head off for the pin.

Rating: C-. It’s amazing how much less annoying Sean Waltman is when he’s against someone who isn’t a giant. Dustin is a good sized guy but they didn’t have to make him look like an idiot here to have Pac beat him. That’s what gets on my nerves about small guys like Pac and Mysterio: if they’re fighting giants, the giants have to look like idiots for the small guy to win. This has nothing to do with the match. I’m just kind of rambling now.

Pac won’t shake his hand again post match.

We talk to Bearer at his home in….wherever it is. He promises to be at Kane’s side on Sunday.

Here’s Jerry Lawler to rant about Al Snow some more. Snow has apparently stolen the cleaning lady’s dress. Jerry has some papers for Snow, and here comes Snow out of the crowd in a dress. Head has the King’s Crown. Jerry offers a meeting with Vince for the crown. Lawler gets the crown back and Snow is handed a contract, signed by Vince McMahon. Snow and Head have to team up and face Too Much at King of the Ring. If they win, Snow gets his meeting with Vince.

Snow drops to the mat and says pin me and pay me. Why wait until the PPV apparently? Jerry calls out Too Much but Snow pops up and beats them up with Head.

Edge is now sitting on the stage.

King of the Ring Quarterfinals: Marc Mero vs. Jeff Jarrett

Jarrett knocks him to the floor quickly as the fans are cheering for Sable. There’s a gag order on the Sable issue which translates to me that they have no idea what they’re doing with the story but they have to have her back. Mero powerbombs Jarrett and hits a moonsault press for two. He might have hurt his knee jumping but still manages a small package for two. Jackie trips Jarrett and Tennessee Lee goes after her. That lets Mero hit Jeff low and hit the TKO but there’s no referee. Cue Sable for a distraction and Jarrett grabs a DDT to advance.

Rating: C-. Match was okayish but this was about Sable. I don’t think they ever actually revealed what the reason was for her coming back, but that’s par for the course in this ear. Anyway, decent match and a weird thing to see Jarrett as the face in one of these, especially after that character totally bombed as a face for the Horsemen.

Jarrett says he’s seen the light and will be king.

Kane vs. Road Dogg

I don’t see this lasting long. Billy is sent to the back. Roadie tries to stick and move but there’s too much Kane. A big boot puts Road Dogg down and there’s the smother that Kane has been using on Cena lately. Road Dogg takes a beating but manages to get in some punches and a clothesline to send him to the floor. And never mind as Kane takes over again quickly. Chokeslam is loaded up but Roadie hits him low….to no effect. The chokeslam hits and Tombstone finishes.

Rating: D. Just an extended squash here but it made Kane look unhurtable going into the match on Sunday. That’s the point of this and it also pushes the tag title match which is coming eventually. See how easy it can be to efficiently book a show? Why don’t people get that more often?

Bearer talks about the Conspiracy and Taker wanting to shut him up last week. Screams are heard and Taker comes in and destroys Bearer again. Various stuff is destroyed and the feed cuts out.

And now, it’s time.

Edge vs. Jose Estrada

All that is known about Edge is that he’s a tortured soul from Toronto. He comes in through the crowd and Estrada jumps him. Edge comes back with a spear and sends him to the floor. Edge hits a flip dive over the top onto Estrada….and breaks Estrada’s neck, putting him out for months. Edge wins by countout. The replay shows that Edge’s leg landed on the top of Jose’s head. It only lasted about 30 seconds.

And that’s how Edge debuted.

Kane is freaking in the back as Foley tries to calm him down. There’s a buzz from Kane’s voicebox.

Jose is taken out on a stretcher. Based on the replay, it’s hard to say who’s at fault. When you flip forward like that, it’s hard to control where you land. Probably a combination of both.

King of the Ring Quarterfinals: Dan Severn vs. Owen Hart

Severn is in that t-shirt of his. He spears Owen down and you know he wants it on the mat. The American hits a German on the Canadian but gets caught in an enziguri. Fisherman’s suplex gets two for Owen. Severn comes back but gets caught in a neckbreaker. Owen rolls outside and grabs a chair. Severn grabs it and in the distraction, X-Pac comes in and cracks a chair on Owen’s back. Severn’s submission ends this. Too short to rate but the match was fine.

The Nation runs Severn off.

Post break Rock calls out DX for a fight and here they come. Remember that it’s still HHH vs. Rock in the tournament later. DX comes out but suits hold them back.

King of the Ring Quarterfinals: HHH vs. The Rock

Just Chyna out there with either person. Winner gets Severn at the PPV. Rock takes over to start and hammers HHH down. He ducks his head though and HHH grabs a swinging neckbreaker. HHH takes over and drops the Flair Knee for two. Rock takes over and hits a suplex for two. There’s the People’s Elbow but HHH kicks out. Rock punches HHH, HHH punches Rock, HHH hits the facebuster to take over. Rock sends him to the floor but as he poses, Chyna DDTs him for two. They trade sleepers and Chyna tries to interfere for some reason. The distraction lets Rock hit a low blow and win with a fisherman’s suplex.

Rating: D+. How was that 8 minutes long? Usually the rule of thumb I use is that each paragraph of text is about four minutes of video. How in the world was this an 8 minute matches? It was mainly punching for one thing and nothing at all stands out about it. Definitely one of the weakest I can remember from these two, but their big one is coming.

DX and the Nation run out and it’s a big brawl.

Here’s the semi-finals for the KOTR:

Shamrock
Jarrett

Severn
Rock

Kane is still freaking out. Mankind says stay here because he has to go have a match.

Mankind vs. Billy Gunn

Mankind talks about being a history fan and having a picture of men from Gettysburg near his bed. As he’s talking about this, the Cell is lowered. The story was about time healing all wounds, but he doesn’t want to heal the wounds with Taker after what Taker did to Paul Bearer last week. They’re not going to prosecute him though because it’s a family matter on Sunday at the PPV.

Here’s Billy and the Cell is still down. All Mankind to start including the running knee in the corner. He takes Billy to the mat with a body scissors and the Cell is up. Billy tries to fire off some punches and they go to the floor. Chyna’s interference doesn’t really work at all. She gets ejected and they stay on the floor. Billy drops him onto the railing and into the post but it doesn’t really do anything. Billy dropkicks the steps into Mankind’s face and hammers away but Mankind keeps getting up. Fameasser (called the Rocker Dropper) doesn’t do anything and a piledriver is countered. Mandible Claw ends this.

Rating: D. The problem here was that the ending was inevitable. I mean, did anyone think Billy Gunn was going to win this? The match just went on and wasn’t all that interesting at all. The Outlaws were good at just about everything, except for that whole having matches thing. They were more of an act than a team, which makes things like this a bit annoying.

Mankind can’t find Kane.

Here’s Sable of all people with about 5 minutes left in the show. She brings out Austin in the white baseball jersey which never really worked for him. He wants Sable to go flip Vince off for him. Austin looks around for anyone wanting a fight and then accepts Kane’s challenge. In one of the funniest lines I can ever remember, Austin says if Kane lights himself on fire, he’ll be there with marshmallows, hot dogs and beer and we’ll have a big campfire. Here comes Kane but blood flows from the ceiling onto Austin. Now the white shirt makes more sense. Kane says on Sunday the blood will be real.

Overall Rating: D+. I really didn’t like this one as much as I did last week’s. This was more about getting all of the things that we had to get done before Sunday done. The lack of Vince has been hurting the shows as he’s only been in the opening segments lately. The wrestling here continues to be weak, but seeing Edge debut, even though it was shot, was very cool.

Here’s King of the Ring if you’re interested:

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King of the Ring 1998
Date: June 28, 1998
Location: Pittsburgh Civic Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 17,087
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Ok, so here it is: by far and away the most famous match in both the King of the Ring and in the careers of Mankind, Taker and Kane. It’s the Cell tonight, with Taker and Mankind redefining what hardcore is in both the WWF but in the mainstream wrestling world.

Aside from that, we’re in uncharted waters here as the WWF is finally in the lead in the Monday Night Wars thanks to Hogan vs. Sting being the biggest disaster in wrestling history and Austin being the biggest star ever. The rest of the card is forgotten here for the most part other than the double main event and I think there’s good reason for that. Let’s see if it holds up 11 years later though.

Your main story here is that Kane is getting a shot to “claim his destiny” of being champion by facing Austin in a first blood match. It’s a big part of the Austin McMahon feud. If Kane loses, he’ll set himself on fire. The video opening focuses on the two big matches of course nothing at all about the tournament.

Headbangers/Taka Michinoku vs. Kaientai

Taka is dressed like a Headbanger, meaning a skirt. As for a story, there isn’t one. The announcers say that this is the first of two matches that weren’t advertised and were thrown onto the card earlier in the day. That means I’ll be lighter on them as there’s no hype to lead up to and it’s a bonus. Free extra wrestling is never a bad thing so let’s get to it.

It should be noted that at least part of this is being written during the Little People’s Court episode of Raw so I might sound a bit annoyed and likely will be. Also expect a few jokes about it. Some of these guys were at Barely Legal just over a year before this and they had a decent match. Taka is Light Heavyweight Champion here and is failing in the division as the whole thing failed completely.

He’s split from Kaientai obviously and is feuding with them for no apparent reason. Like I said there’s no story here so we’re going on wrestling alone. Lawler is totally anti-Taka here as he beat his son for the title in the finals of a tournament. Not a lot happens in this seven minutes of a match as the faces win after a Michinoku Driver.

Rating: D-. Wait this was on the PPV? I honestly thought this was a dark match. Nothing at all happened here and there was nothing resembling a story. If nothing else give us a stupid backstage segment or something, but give us a reason for having this. I had no reason to care about it which made the sloppy wrestling even worse.

Sable comes out looking somehow conservative (for her at least). She was brought back after being released in storylines. Her pop is epic. She introduces Vince and the Stooges, who won’t have music for another 8 months. The fans want Austin obviously. Sable slaps the TAR out of Patterson, drawing a semi hidden gay joke from Ross. Vince runs down the crowd and says its their faults that their lives suck. He says he’s preparing the audience for the new champion tonight.

We FINALLY see the brackets for the tournament, nearly half an hour into the show.

Shamrock
Jarrett

Rock
Severn

Maybe they made the right move. So I don’t have to do it later: Shamrock beat Henry, Jarrett beat Mero, Rock beat HHH and Severn beat Owen.

King of the Ring Semi-Finals: Jeff Jarrett vs. Ken Shamrock

This was when Jarrett was the world’s greatest singer or something like that. He has Robert Parker with him and no one cared. Shamrock gets a very solid pop. Jarrett gets…nothing. Apparently Shamrock has an ankle issue which is great irony. In the battle of future TNA Champions (somehow that’s in 4 years), Shamrock more or less massacres Jarrett.

It’s 5 minutes so there’s not a ton of time to do much, but they manage to get in a very decent little match considering the time. In five minutes, they manage to get in Shamrock dominating, the manager helping change the advantage, Jarrett working on the knee and injuring it further, Shamrock botching a move, and the ankle lock.

Considering the length of time they were given, that’s VERY impressive. They put together a nice little match with even a hint of a story in there. That’s not bad at all. Like I said, Shamrock wins easily with the tap out though. Shamrock says he’ll win again later. Thanks for that Ken.

Rating: B. Like I said in the description, the match was good for what it was considering that the match had 5 minutes to work with. They managed to get in some decent stuff and had a little flow to the match. That’s just awesome and very impressive for what would have been considered a short TV match.

We see the brackets because we can’t remember one of three matches.

King of the Ring Semi-Finals: Dan Severn vs. The Rock

Either one of these would work, but that would involve Severn actually wrestling twice in one night. Although if there was anyone on the planet that could get anything decent out of him, it’s Shamrock. Severn had been NWA Champion for about three years now. What does that tell you about that company? The Nation is sent to the back. Rock had already broken through the ceiling and it was realized that he would be a big deal, but like Austin two years earlier, no one knew how big.

Oh and D’lo has been injured by Severn here and is channeling his inner Bob Orton with his chest injury. I think Servern’s mustache could take Kama in a good match. Severn’s tights are swallowing him whole I think. Sever keeps using various submission holds that never work. About two minutes into the match we get the graphic telling us that this is the semi final match. Severn likes to use joints apparently.

Make your own humorous lines here. After a relatively boring 4 minutes, Henry comes out and D’Lo debuts the chest protector with the frog splash to let Rock get the pin. Well that was short at least.

Rating: D. This was just a waste of time. It was sloppy and boring and everyone knew Rock would win. Oh and the IC Title is apparently superior to the NWA Title. Brown’s interference made sense at least so I can’t complain about something like that. The match was boring though. We’re really just treading water before the main events.

Too Much vs. Al Snow/Head

Yes Head, a mannequin head, is Snow’s partner. Too Much would later be known as Too Cool. We kept hearing about Snow wanting to stay but it wouldn’t work. Snow kept getting in trouble but blaming it on Head. That’s smart at least. This is in the video recap but I don’t feel like going back and editing this to make it right. Head stole the crown and they get a meeting with Vince if they win tonight.

Scotty looks weird with short blonde hair. Christopher looks stupid no matter what. Snow is in the back and Lawler talks to them and he makes fun of them and it goes nowhere. This is pre cool music but post peak of Snow’s powers. There are however a bunch of guys with Styrofoam heads bobbing them back and forth though. Jerry is announced as the guest referee to make it three on one. Oh sorry. Three on two.

Snow’s talented enough to count I guess. Oh oddly enough, Snow used to be a character called Avatar, a genie. How sad is it that Snow is more talented than all three heels combined by about 100 miles? Taylor tags in Christopher, only a master sexay at this moment I guess. Lawler has his crown on by the way. More or less this was designed to let Snow show off, which really was a good idea and something they needed to do more often.

Snow reaches for a tag and Christopher bites his hand. I’m not sure if I want to see him in the indys or not. He was terrible in the mainstream so how bad were they in a territory based company. Ross wonders who picked Lawler as the referee. My guess would be a combination of the writing team and Vince McMahon but what do I know?

I love that wheelbarrow suplex that Snow likes to use. Snow tags in Head and Ross has lost it. Snow covers Taylor as Lawler goes to the announce table and grabs something. Christopher covers head with a bottle of Head and Shoulders for the pin. Oh it was to make sure that the shoulders were down.

Rating: D+. Well it was a cute idea I guess and Snow got to show off out there, but seriously, Too Much being on my screen more than 5 minutes just makes my head hurt so this just failed completely for me. This wasn’t much and it was really just a comedy match so take it for what it is I guess.

We recap X-Pac vs. Owen. That translates to DX vs. Nation in their never ending feud. Ok so it ended at Summerslam 1998 in the ladder match but whatever.

Owen Hart vs. X-Pac

Well these two had a 4 minute CLASSIC at the 94 show so let’s see if this is even close. Something tells me no as this is around the time where Pac sucks. Ross complains that Lawler has no refereeing license. That cracks me up. Ross, of course, is ticked off. Yeah I’m right as it’s just decent. Hart never clicked in the Nation but they ran with it anyway.

Anyone that says Owen never would have gotten the world title is an idiot to me. He was consistently working hard and was talented. Owen apparently is a big deal in South Africa. Ok then. Pac takes a GREAT throw through the timekeeper’s table. That looked awesome. He freaking destroyed that thing. We go back in the ring and this is quite a physical match.

If you’re ever looking for a working definition of chemistry, this is a good place to start. After some more hard hitting stuff, we have Mark Henry, because this match was begging for a run in of course. He hits a splash on Pac on the floor to crush whatever he had in his ribs. Chyna comes out and looks hot and gets in Henry’s face.

This results in Vader of all people jumping Henry. Vader would be gone in a few months and was worthless here but whatever. In the ring Owen has the Sharpshooter on Pac who of course taps to further his tough guy image but Chyna hits a DDT for him to get the pin with. We get a nice thong shot out of that if nothing else.

Rating: B. More good stuff from this pair as they never fail to have a solid match. The ending was overbooked but that’s what happens in stable feuds I guess. This wasn’t bad, but it was nothing compared to what they did four years prior. It was more about the Nation and DX than the guys, but that’s the point I suppose.

And here’s Paul Bearer for no apparent reason. He somehow got more annoying than he was last year. He was beaten up by Taker in his house on Raw and is here to see Taker get beaten up. Oh and he wants Kane to win the title.

Ad for Mania.

Tag Titles: New Age Outlaws vs. New Midnight Express

The New Midnights, a remake of perhaps the best heel tag team of all time, are comprised of Bombastic Bob and Bodacious Bart. In other words: Bob Holly and Bart Gunn. God save us all. The Outlaws are insanely over here. The heels’ theme music sounds like a theme song from a bad 80s cartoon. Naturally Cornette is with them and they’re the NWA tag champion. Oh I got their names backwards.

It’s Bodacious Bob and Bombastic Bart. I hate my life. They leave out the brotherhood of two of the wrestlers here. Oh they both also have long mullets. This is the other unadvertised bonus match. Oh dear. We get a South Park reference which was in I think its second season at this time. Lawler goes on a REALLY long rant about how this is what’s in today and it’s nothing that no one hasn’t heard before.

Apparently this match already happened on Shotgun Saturday Night once. The announcers more or less try to avoid talking about the match itself, with my guess being over boredom. What’s with the Outlaws’ and DX’s fascination for that matter by being orally copulated by men? Somehow Road Dogg is the best worker in this match and that’s a scary thought. We haven’t even been told which Midnight is which and we’re five minutes into this.

Yeah even Ross isn’t sure who is who out there. The names suck too. How did we go from Lover Boy to Bombastic? Cornette is freaking loyal to that freaking NWA man. Lawler tries to keep track of the names as I’m guessing Vince said something to them along the lines of talk about what I freaking want you to talk about or you’re fired. Either that or I know they suck but we were short on time.

Apparently the Outlaws didn’t know about this match until this morning. Why do I find that stupid? Ross finally gives up and calls him Bob, who drops an F Bomb on Billy.  Cornette finally does something and the match is starting to get better as a result. Billy goes for a piledriver and gets a belt to the back of the head from Cornette for two. He tries it again but Chyna hits him low for the save. Outlaws win with a hot shot. Chyna should have worn her hair up more.

Rating: C-. This was just painfully bad at times but for some reason I kind of liked it. If it was thrown on there, you can only get so mad at it. The Outlaws were ok here and far better than their challengers. This got them another successful title defense which is never bad for champions. It’s not bad but I’ve seen far better matches.

HHH comes out to do commentary on the finals as last year’s King. Better than no reason at all I guess. He feels the need to rip his shirt off too.

King of the Ring Finals: Ken Shamrock vs. Rock

HHH hates Rock here as you likely guessed as it’s sometime between the beginning of their careers and the present. Shamrock is in his zone as HHH is far less obnoxious than he is now. Lawler doesn’t like Rock for some reason. Rock is still having the name Maivia thrown around. Oddly enough, Chyna does the Spanish commentary. That’s rather cool.

HHH says this is a family show. What the heck isn’t a family show then? Rock has the character and personality down but he doesn’t have the in ring stuff down yet. HHH spits water in Rock’s face to tick him off but Shamrock gets the advantage because of it. HHH threatens Rock for later. Two months from now, they certainly would in the awesome ladder match at Summerslam. Shamrock’s leg is allegedly hurt but he’s showing no signs of it.

HHH makes me stop the match by saying it doesn’t matter who you kiss up to but rather who can go in the ring. Note that he hadn’t married Stephanie yet, but that’s just absolutely hilarious. Rock gets the People’s Elbow. I haven’t talked about the match much, but HHH is far more interesting than the in ring stuff. It’s not bad, but you can tell that things aren’t really being focused on these matches as they’re saving for the two main events.

That would likely be the best thing in the long run. Ross says that the handicap that Lawler refereed earlier in the night set the business back 20 years. That would work as Ross is 20 years behind us anyway. We get a double count as Ross suggests that would mean overtime, which would mean the count out means nothing at all since there has to be a winner.

Rock counters a rana into a hot shot which was a cool looking spot. Just after that though Shamrock hooks the ankle for the tap out and the crown. We hear about how tough he is for the 100th time tonight.

Rating: B-. This wasn’t that bad. HHH was hilarious as the incredibly tough sounding guy. They had a good match here but Shamrock should have won. Rock was already the IC Champion so that’s fine. I don’t think Rock has ever beaten Shamrock clean actually. This wasn’t great or anything, but it did what it was supposed to do.

The Cell is lowered and we get the sound bytes that are now famously associated with the Cell itself. This is one of the most quotable matches ever, right up there with Hogan and Andre. They don’t even bother with a recap as it’s just known that these two hate each other.

Undertaker vs. Mankind

Now this was an interesting case for several reasons. First of all, this had been done once before so people knew what it was like, but instead of having Shawn who would run from Taker in there, Foley was crazy and no one knew what he would do. Foley brings the chair to the ring, and in his own words or as close to his book as I can remember, makes his first big mistake of the match and starts the match on top of the cage like Terry Funk suggested.

That should have been a bad omen right there. In case you don’t like insane violence, I would advise you to leave. Once you go that, I would advise you to get over it and grow a set of balls. You’re a wrestling fan blast it now act like one. Even 11 years later I’m uneasy watching this match. There’s an eruption for the gong and when the lights go out the lighters go up which is always cool.

This was right around the time when Taker was becoming demonic thanks to Vince, leading to the Ministry period which Taker wasn’t incredibly fond of. And there goes Taker and you know what’s coming next. Foley punches him on his way up there, which is dangerous in its own right. Foley has a chair up there with him. The wide shot of this is just awesome looking.

Taker is grabbed by Foley and steps through the Cell a bit, which is bad sign number two. That gets a noticeable gasp from the audience. You could feel that something huge was coming and they’re setting up for it. And there it is. Taker grabs Foley from behind and throws him off the Cell where he falls 15 feet to land, actually make that crash, onto a table and then to the concrete.

Ross’ legendary shouting of As God as my witness, he is broken in half and They’ve killed him make the moment that much better. This bump changed wrestling forever, as this easily becomes the biggest bump in history and is still to this day the standard that everything tries to live up to. No one saw this coming and it scared the heck out of a lot of people, myself included.

I mean seriously, he got launched 15 feet to the floor. He does that even slightly wrong and he’s dead. Not injured or out of action. Dead. Taker legit thought he had killed him for a bit there and I can’t say I blame him. Ross and Lawler are STUNNED. You have to remember that Foley isn’t a small man. He’s about 6’2 and 300lbs going easy on him. That’s just completely mind blowing when you think about it.

Terry Funk is here and he takes the table off of Foley as Taker is still standing on top of the cage. I’ll even excuse Ross’ stupid line of this might be the shortest Cell match ever, as it’s the second of all time due to the situation at the moment. On the constant replays you can see the crowd rising up for it and it’s a completely awesome sight. Now something that isn’t notmally taken into consideration is Taker during this part.

Think about what he’s going through here. His character is that of an emotionless killing machine, and he’s possibly just killed a man or crippled him. He now has to stand up on top of the Cell and wonder what he’s just done. They raise the Cell to get Foley out as Taker is going even higher up in the air. To scare me to my core, Taker gets cheered for this. Attitude Era fans were bloodthirsty man.

They lower the cage and it hits the steps because they’re kind of stupid but whatever. And now just to blow whatever remains of the minds of everyone on the planet, Foley gets up and while smiling, climbs the cage again. His left shoulder is completely out of socket or he’s a great actor, and here we go again.

Taker is STUNNED. And now in the spot that allegedly did the majority of the damage to Foley and was COMPLETELY unplanned, Taker chokeslams Foley through the Cell to the mat and the chair falls with him, slamming into Foley’s head on the mat and knocking him completely out cold. Foley has said that the cage was loosened but not to that extent.

The idea had been to have it sag in the middle but not break and then have him fall from about 8 feet instead of what happened here. He also said he doesn’t remember most of what happened after that and didn’t remember it until he watched it on tape and still doesn’t remember all of it. Those two bumps both made Foley famous but also ended his active career eventually as he never completely healed from them.

Ross and Lawler again make the match with their calls of That’s it he’s dead and Will somebody stop the match! Again, remember that Taker didn’t expect his. Taker hops down to the mat and beats up Funk and then goes after Foley. They were supposed to end it almost immediately after that but Foley refused. Now somewhere in here, Taker breaks his ankle or he had it broken coming in so he goes really slowly.

Granted that helps Foley a lot because Taker goes a lot more slowly than usual so Foley can try to get something together. We get the famous shot of Foley with his tooth in his nose and him trying to put his tongue through the hole in his lip for some reason which makes him look like he’s smiling in probably the defining shot of the Mankind character.

Foley is somehow on offense here and knocks Taker to the floor, which I think is where he breaks the ankle. Somehow that’s a tiny injury. No he’s still walking around fine.

Taker’s shirt is ripped to pieces here. Taker dives through the ropes for Foley but Foley collapses and Taker eats cage and now he’s bleeding. Yeah the foot/ankle is messed up now. Foley hits a piledriver on a chair for two. Foley’s arm might have popped back in as it’s looking better. Since this match hasn’t been insane enough, Foley goes under the ring and gets out a bag, comtaining thumbtacks.

You can hear in Lawler’s voice that he thinks this is insane. You also have to remember that this was something that hadn’t been done before. Abyss hadn’t made this a standard thing yet so this truly was shocking at the time. Taker counters into the Tombstone but Mankind counters into the Mandible Claw. Somehow Taker stands up with Foley on his back and there they go as he goes back first into them.

You could see a slight bit of padding under Foley’s shirt, but none over his arms. After the match in the locker room when they were being looked at, Foley asked if he got to use the tacks. Taker replied “Mick, look at your arm.” Then he gets a chokeslam on them. In a moment that’s overlooked, Foley more or less no sells the chokeslam and is up in about 3 seconds. The Tombstone mercifully, at least I guess you could call it that, ends it.

Jerry says that just after I type it so I win there. Foley’s wife more or less insisted that he retire after this but of course that didn’t happen. To say this was insane would be an understatement. It’s the most violent mainstream match in history and I don’t think it’s ever going to be topped. Yeah there’s more violent stuff in indy companies and in Japan, but that’s designed to be like that.

This was the WWF more or less saying screw WCW, we can go to a place that no one is ever going to top and then they went out and did it. Also, the fans cared and weren’t in it for a freak show. That’s why this is different. Foley WALKS OUT. There’s being tough and being stupid and he passed stupid a few miles back. The fans give him a standing ovation and Foley is a legend.

Rating: A-. Now I’ve heard a lot of people criticize this match and say it’s garbage and what not, and the reply I always give is the same. Look at the name of the match: Hell in a Cell. Hell. Does that sound like a pleasant, old school, Lou Thesz vs. Dory Funk special? No not really. It sounds completely insane and violent. That’s the point of this and that’s what it was.

It was supposed to be completely over the top and crazy. You can’t grade this on the same scale you grade a traditional match on. Violence like this is effective as all hell when it’s in moderation, which is what ECW never learned. The violent matches are fine, but they need something to balance them out. Anyway, this was a classic in a sense, and it made both men all the more famous.

We recap Austin vs. Kane which started when Kane beat Taker to become the number one contender. This was around the time when the massive conspiracy was coming out as more or less everyone was against Austin but no one knew what was really going on. It was some combination of Vince, Mankind, Taker and Kane against Austin but no one was sure whose side Taker was on or why Mankind was on one side or another.

The paranoia and the sneakiness were awesome here as it had us all glued to our seats. Vince makes it first blood which helps Kane a lot as he wears a mask. This is reminiscent of Lex Luthor vs. Superman as Vince couldn’t beat Austin on his own so he kept sending his minions after him. It was freaking amazing stuff and is the main reason why they won the Monday Night Wars.

WWF Title: Kane vs. Steve Austin

I remember a buddy of mine once saying he wondered why Austin didn’t come out with a needle or something and poke Kane for the win. They covered that and it’s a good thing they did as it was a great point. Crowd pops like CRAZY for Austin. He had a staph infection in his elbow so it’s incredibly taped up. Austin is in the air for the Thesz Press before the bell finishes ringing. Naturally this is no DQ so the belt shot in the first few seconds is fine.

The only skin on Kane that’s visible is his left hand. I beat Lawler to that line again! This is reminiscent of the tables match with Cena and Sheamus as Kane doesn’t actually have to get a clean win on Austin but he can get the title, which is brilliant. And here comes the Cell. The cage stops about 8 inches above Austin’s throat which is kind of scary when you think about it.

I really hope that’s padding on Austin’s elbow and not a result of the infection as it’s probably the size of a brick or so. Austin’s back is bleeding a bit which is why I think they put in the it has to be a lot of blood clause into it, just in case of something like that. Now the Cell is going up just as Austin is in control. In a cool looking spot, Kane is caught on the door frame and is raised into the air.

That’s really awesome looking. We see Vince in the luxury box with Sable which gets a lot of heat. Dang the crowd loves Austin. Austin is dominating here and he hits Kane in the face with a fan. That has to hurt. There goes the referee which is pointless as it’s no DQ. Kane hits that top rope clothesline to put Kane down. Vince apparently can see from a box perfectly well. That strikes me as odd.

We keep hearing that if Kane loses he’ll set himself on fire, more or less confirming that he’s winning. However, the body suit could say otherwise. Here’s Mick Foley of all people. And here’s the Cell again. Yeah that’s a pad on his arm as some of the tape came off. Kane takes a Stunner and here’s Taker with a chair. He swings for Foley but hits Austin who is also holding a chair, knocking it into his face.

And Austin is bleeding as Taker throws the referee back in. Taker, ever the nice guy, pours the gasoline at ringside on the referee to wake him up. Austin gets a SICK chairshot to Kane and the referee rings it and as the fans see his face they almost go silent. The booing for Kane being announced as the new champion is insane. We cut to Vince who mouths the words I told you so to Sable as we go off the air.

We get bonus footage of after the show and I mean right after it as Kane’s music is still playing when it starts. The referee is out cold, I’d assume at the hands of Austin and Mankind is coming back. The fans voices their disapproval and I mean LOUDLY. Foley gets beaten up even more as Austin’s music plays and he leaves.

Rating: B+. Again, this isn’t something you can grade on a regular scale. It was mainly furthering the conspiracy and on that level it did very well. Obviously Austin would get the belt back the next night as Kane was champion less than 24 hours.

The title would eventually be held up and after a bunch of complicated stuff the Deadly Game tournament happened where Rock became the big heel after becoming the big face over the fall. This was a complete insane fight which was what it was supposed to be. For a gimmick match like this, it came out great and the interference here is fine. The Cell part was a little bit much but it worked very well.

Overall Rating: B. This show is very overlooked due to the Cell and with good reason. The rest of it is pretty good though and the main events both deliver very well, making up for the earlier weak stuff. Definitely check this out as it might play as big of a role in the Attitude Era as anything other than a Mania. This was a good show and is heavy on Attitude stuff, which is what makes it all the better. Definitely check this out, if nothing else for the historical aspects of it.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: June 15, 1998
Location: Freeman Coliseum, San Antonio, Texas
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We’re just a few weeks away from the King of the Ring and the main event tonight is an unannounced Hell in a Cell with Austin/Taker vs. Kane/Mankind. This is the forgotten Cell match and for the life of me I don’t get what WWF was thinking when they put it on. There’s also a tag team battle royal which will probably be boring. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Sable to open the show, making it about two weeks that she was actually gone. She brings out the person responsible for her being back: Vince. Even kids are flipping him off. He wants to clear up these conspiracy rumors. Vince gives Sable a statement to read which basically says he had nothing to do with Austin getting beaten up last week. And that’s it.

Oh wait never mind as here’s Austin. He has Sable leave and then says he doesn’t buy anything Vince just said. Austin comes after him and Vince says for once in your life, don’t react in a physical and violent way. Austin asks if that’s what the fans want to see and slow motion chases Vince. Vince blames the Undertaker, swearing on his grandmother’s kittens. It was Undertaker that challenged him remember?

Austin loads up the belt to drill Vince but Vince keeps talking about Taker. He says remember that Taker is from the Dark Side. I wonder if he’s neighbors with the Midnight Express. Cue Taker in ring gear, who says he challenged Austin but did it like a man. As for Vince, he’s a manipulator and before Taker kills him, Vince needs to know he’ll never be able to manipulate Undertaker.

Cue Kane as this segment is still going. Actually cue him, Bearer and Mankind. Bearer says that was a great acting job and that Taker knows Vince had nothing to do with it. Bearer claims that he and Taker cooked up the scheme. If that’s the case, aren’t they exposing it a little early? Taker wants Austin in the Cell apparently, so Paul challenges them to a tag team Cell match. Well gee good thing the Cell was already up there isn’t it?

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Vader vs. The Rock

The Nation is sent to the back before the match starts. Rock pounds him in the corner which just ticks Vader off. Now Vader hammers him in the corner and a splash follows. There’s another splash and a middle rope one gets a two count. Rock comes back with a DDT for two of his own but an authoritative kickout. A slam doesn’t work for Rocky but the second attempt does. The People’s Elbow gets a big reaction but only a two count. It wasn’t quite electrifying yet. Vader comes back with splash #4 for two. Rocky knocks him to the floor and Mark Henry beats Vader down. Rock Bottom ends this.

Rating: D. Pretty boring match here but it was designed to give Rock a win over a guy that was rapidly losing credibility. Vader was on his way out and was putting over everyone that he could, which is exactly what he should have been doing. He wasn’t anything of note anymore, but he was far past his prime so what did you expect? You never see midcard jobbers like this anymore which is a shame.

DX is Droppin Knowledge on us. X-Pac and HHH have a qualifying match tonight so Road Dogg gives both of them pointers.

Edge needs to get here already. Oh ok he debuts next week.

Darren Drozdov vs. Jeff Jarrett

And Jarrett needs to get rid of Colonel Parker already. Jarrett jumps Droz to start and here are Mero and Jackie. He gets Jarrett in the KOTR next week so there’s your explanation. Mero rants about Sable as Droz runs over Jarrett. Powerslam gets two for Droz but he gets caught in a suplex. Jumping back elbow puts Jarrett down and Jackie hits on Tennessee Lee. He gets slapped so Jarrett goes out to save him, resulting in Mero hitting Jeff low. That’s enough for Droz to get the pin. This was more of an angle than a match.

More Dropping Knowledge, this time will Billy explaining why this is going to be match of the year. He asks where Chyna will be in all this. My guess is at Spanish class.

Val Venis vs. Chainz

Kind of a random pairing. JR brings up the obvious question of why is the Cell here in the first place. Chainz takes over quickly with some elbows as the announcers are ignoring the match. Now to be fair, it’s Val Venis vs. Chainz so it’s a bit less annoying. Val hits a bulldog and takes over as the announcers ask what the other believes.

Now let’s talk about DX as Val hits some knees to the ribs. Russian legsweep takes Chainz down and Val grinds a bit. A big boot just ticks Chainz off but a clothesline takes him down. Chainz gets in some offense but walks into a powerslam. Val goes up but gets crotched. He blocks a superplex and the Money Shot ends this clean.

Rating: D+. This was fine all things considered. I don’t think anyone was shooting for a classic here but it worked well enough. Val would get into a story soon enough if I remember right while the DOA would become just a tag team after Chainz left. Actually this was Chainz’ last match in WWF.

Undertaker says he doesn’t trust Austin but Austin can trust him because all he wants is a title shot.

More DX Knowledge. HHH and Pac say nothing of note.

Marc Mero vs. Dustin Runnels

Jarrett and Southern Justice come out almost immediately. Dustin takes over early with a lariat. Out to the floor and Dustin goes into the post. Back in Mero hits a powerbomb. Jarrett is actually doing a decent job at hyping up his match next week. It’s amazing what happens when you actually let the guys talk. Mero snaps off a top rope rana as Jeff gets up on the apron. Here’s Sable and the distraction lets Dustin win with the bulldog.

Rating: D-. Let this sink in for a minute: they managed to overbook a lower midcard match that was there to hype up a match for next week. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE??? We have two people interfering and at least two distinct stories in there aside from just the match itself. That’s either impressive or insane.

Chyna calms Pac and HHH down but it wasn’t exactly firey in the first place.

Dustin thanks Jesus for his win.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: X-Pac vs. HHH

This is the start of the second hour I believe. Pac grabs a cradle for two while HHH is doing his entrance. This is one of Pac’s first matches back in about 9 months after a bad neck injury. Pac hits a spin kick to take HHH down but walks into a jumping knee to send Pac to the floor. Here comes Chyna who throws Pac back in. Back in an atomic drop and suplex put Pac down.

Pac hits a spin kick to knock HHH to the floor and Chyna throws him right back in too. Very nicely done there. A BIG spin kick gets two. They’re hitting each other in the face here which is a good thing to see rather than them basically hiding from each other. HHH knocks him to the floor again….and here’s the Rock. He’s in the crowd and the distraction allows Owen to crotch Pac on the railing. HHH wins by countout.

Rating: C. Not bad here but this was far more about pushing the feud between the Nation and DX and that’s fine. They were doing some decent stuff too so I don’t have much to complain about here. I’m not particularly sure how to handle that, so let’s just go with it was good. Rock gets HHH in the KOTR.

Here are the KOTR brackets:

Shamrock
Henry

Jarrett
Mero

Rock
HHH

Severn
Owen Hart

Only the final four happened at the PPV.

Here’s Al Snow in the Avatar (old gimmick of his) mask. Post break, Lawler yells at him and Snow pulls the mask off. Snow rants about Vince and Lawler and says Lawler is lewd man for slipping him the sausage and makes a lot of references to gay sex. Lawler blames Head for it. He tries to throw it into the crowd and Snow decks him then hits a Snowplow on the referee. Lawler gets a low blow and a Head shot. Snow runs off after beating up some security.

Austin says he doesn’t trust anyone. Taker can’t trust him either.

Owen Hart/Mark Henry vs. Ken Shamrock/Dan Severn

We get some UFC footage of Shamrock vs. Severn. That’s still bizarre to see on Raw. Owen and Shamrock start off fast and Ken takes him down with a kick to the chest. Owen misses a dropkick and there’s an ankle lock attempt. Enziguri doesn’t quite hit but a low blow stops Shamrock. Off to Henry who hits a powerslam for two. A splash misses and Severn comes in allegedly off a tag. He throws Henry around like a Steiner would. Off to Owen who Severn rides like a pony. The Nation gets Severn into their corner and Owen kicks him low. Shamrock comes in but is easily put in a Sharpshooter. And here’s DX for the DQ.

Rating: D. Just a basic tag match here without anything to it. DX vs. the Nation would go on for months until they finally blew it off. Severn could have been something good if he didn’t have the personality of a road sign. Shamrock would get a solid push soon after this, but of all people, Henry would be the only one to win a major world title out of these four.

It’s a big brawl as Vader comes out to get Henry from earlier and it winds up being about Rock vs. HHH, as it should be.

Tag Team Royal Rumble

It’s a ten team battle royal and the winners get a title shot eventually. I’m assuming that it’s at timed intervals due to the name, but I doubt that’ll be the case. LOD 2000 is in first. In second: Kane/Mankind, who are apparently pulling double time tonight. The match starts during the break in in third is the New Midnight Express. Animal gets chokeslammed as the Midnights chill on the floor. And never mind as they’re in now. The Headbangers are in now. I think the intervals are about 30 seconds.

I don’t know if both guys have to go out or not. Here’s the DOA at 5. They go right for the LOD of course and no one is out yet. The Oddities, as in Golga and Kurrgan, come in next. The Midnights go out and you only have to put one of them out. Too Much (Cool) is out next. They’re number 7 I think. This is a big mess so calling anything is impossible. Farrooq and Blackman come in now. The Oddities work over Kane.

#9 is Taka/Bradshaw for some reason. The DOA is out. The final team is Terry Funk/Scorpio. There are eight left. Terry knocks Kurrgan out and we have seven to go. Taka gets put out as does Too Much. There go the Headbangers. Animal puts Blackman out and there goes the LOD.

So it’s Scorpio/Funk vs. Kane/Mankind. Terry and Mankind fight on the floor for old times’ sake and Scorpio hits what we would call Trouble in Paradise to no effect. Funk grabs a chair and BLASTS Kane but Foley comes in and knocks him down. Tombstone to Scorpio and another chair to Funk wins it for the monsters.

Rating: D-. I really didn’t like this at all. The amount of people being in there got way too high given the amount of time they were flying through the entrances. Having a bunch of people in there at the end really hurt it, although Funk going after Kane would have been awesome to see as he was just crazy enough to somehow pull it off.

Kane and Mankind stay in the ring as the Cell is lowered. Mankind recites a poem about the Cell. This is the debut of Corporate Mankind with the famous shirt and tie also.

Steve Austin/Undertaker vs. Mankind/Kane

In the Cell of course. And there’s no Taker. Austin wants to climb the cage to start instead of walking into the open door to face Kane/Mankind/Paul. Well at least he’s smart. Here comes Taker….and never mind. They hit the music again and still no Taker. Mankind tries to charge at Austin but he slams the door on Foley’s head to knock him down. Kane goes after Austin and they fight on the ramp. Bearer locks himself in the Cell so he’s by himself.

Mankind is back up and Austin is getting double teamed. And then we get to the important part here: Taker comes up from under the ring and has Bearer all to himself in the Cell. Kane and Mankind try to get in but even on top there’s no way. Bearer is busted. Mankind and Austin are between the ramp and the barricade as Taker just kills Paul in the Cell.

Austin pops Mankind with a chair to the back and GOOD NIGHT that was a sick shot to Mankind’s head. Taker crushes Bearer with the steps and Austin goes up to fight Kane on top of the Cell. They slug it out….and we go off the air. Now THAT is a cliffhanger. This wasn’t a match of any sort so I’m not going to bother rating it. I definitely see why no one counts this among the Cell matches.

Overall Rating: C. This was an ok show but it drags a lot at times. It certainly moved stories forward which is the most important thing, but I don’t think anyone can properly diagram the whole Conspiracy angle for you. It becomes one of the most complicated stories in history and either transitions or continues into the Vince is Crazy story next year with the Ministry, the Corporation and then the Corporate Ministry, but we’ll get there soon enough. Decent show, but it wasn’t great.

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Royal Rumble 2000
Date: January 23, 2000
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 19,200
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

At this point, the wars are over. WCW is practically dead and the WWF just keeps pouring it on. The main thing that’s different than last year though is simple: Austin is gone. With the company so far ahead that they would have to be WCW to manage to lose the lead they had built up, Austin was finally allowed to take the nearly yearlong break that he so badly needed to get his neck fixed once and for all.

With him out of the way, the Rock and HHH have stepped up. To all Rock fans, get this through your heads: without Austin taking this time off, Rock would be a fairly big star at best. He’s not bigger than Austin, he never was bigger than Austin, and he never will be bigger than Austin. He got as big as he got because of Austin not being there and that’s all there is to it.

Anyway, a lot of the roster is filled out now as we have guys like Jericho, Angle, the Dudleys, Show and I believe the Radicalz would debut the next night or eight days later so they were just over the horizon at this point. Your other main event tonight is HHH vs. Cactus Jack in a street fight, which was one of the best matches I’ve ever seen and since I want to get to it, we’re starting now.

The opening video is about how insane Cactus is and how sane HHH is. That was the real point of the street fight tonight: getting HHH over as a crazy man. In other words, Foley is doing what he might be the best ever at, and that’s even better than Flair: getting people over and making them look better than anyone else ever could. There’s no mention of the match at all here, which is odd. After a brief intro from Jerry and Jim, we’re ready to go.

Kurt Angle vs. ???

Angle was the undefeated rookie wonder here and he had issued an open challenge here or something like that. He’s the clean cut kid here that no one could touch at this point. It had leaked out who the opponent would be, but not to the general public. Angle of course gives a speech talking about how great he is. The crowd is very hot already as is customary of a New York crowd. He gets some cheap heat by ripping on the Knicks, which is just fine. Cheap heat is still heat.

This is less than a week after the MSG Raw before Survivor Series so I’m fired up about the Garden in general. Actually the fans are chanting for the guy he’s about to fight so I guess they know who’s coming. Angle was just ridiculously great in this role. The music hits, and the symbol that we’ve been seeing for a few months comes up for Taz, who is the mystery guy. The crowd pops like a cherry for him too. I mean they are LOUD.

Angle beats on him for a few minutes until Taz gets his hands on him and let the suplexing begin. After a German, a head and arms, and a T-Bone, the Tazmission debuts in the WWF and Angle is out cold in about 20 seconds, ending his undefeated streak and making Taz look like an insane killing machine. Now that is how you debut a guy. Once Taz got going, he DESTROYED Angle. Angle is taken out on a stretcher as apparently it was a choke and not a sleeper.

Rating: A-. Yeah it’s just over three minutes long, but DANG. That was a nearly perfect debut as Taz looked awesome there and Angle put him over like a master despite having only been around a few months at this point. Taz dominated here and was supposed to get the push that Benoit wound up getting, but because of Hardcore freaking Holly messing up a spot with a candy jar at Mania, Taz had an eye injury and had to take a lot of time off, so Benoit got the big IC title push instead.

Matt, Jeff and Terri are in the back to talk about the first ever tag team table match. Terri actually looks good here. They “won” her in the Terri Invitational Tournament (initials) so she’s their manager for awhile. This doesn’t last long as they realized Terri had no talent so that ended that. She was split from them by Mania I think. Anyway, the Dudleys have been putting people through tables so Matt and Jeff put them through some on Smackdown, leading to this match.

Taz says that he’s going to go right through this company.

Hardy Boys vs. Dudley Boys

Like I said, this is a table match. The Dudleys have been around for a few months here and were the best team that people had seen in forever as no one had seen two guys this violent in a mainstream promotion for more than a few weeks before. And no, Public Enemy doesn’t count due to a lack of talent. Bubba is still a southern stutterer here.

We get a John Rocker reference as Bubba says that’s his new favorite player. For those of you that have either forgotten him or haven’t ever heard of him, he was a decent relief pitcher for the Braves who went on this insane tirade one day, bashing just about every religious or ethnic group in existence and complaining that New York had all of them. It was a big deal and he got in a lot of trouble for it.

He was HATED in New York because of it so just saying his name was instant mega heat. There’s a taxi hanging above the entrance. The entry way is really cool as it looks like an alley or a street to play up the street fight later on. In this you have to put both people through tables so we’re guaranteed an extra table or so. Thankfully we don’t have the pointless tagging thing here.

Don’t you love how ECW had just gotten on television nationwide in late August and within five months three of their biggest stars ever are opening a WWF PPV to HUGE pops from the New York crowd? Yet Vince said he never stole stuff from them. Keep telling yourself that Vince. You just happened to have these three guys get their biggest exposure yet back to back in a gimmick match made famous in ECW in front of their second most important city?

I’m not saying it’s bad because it’s a great idea, but Vince stole these guys. Again, smart, but not original at all like he would like you to believe. Naturally Jeff is flying all over the place. Bubba takes a SWEET chair shot from Jeff. He follows that up by running along the barricade at Bubba, but the member of Team 3D picks up the table and just chucks it at Jeff, slamming into his head for a great sound effect. See, this is a great example of not overbooking a match.

With these four guys, there’s zero need to try to do something big and complex. Just tell these guys to go out there and beat the heck  out of each other using weapons and high spots. Honestly, what more do you need these guys to do? You just let the guys go out there and rock the place. This was the real answer to the Cruiserweights in WCW: bigger guys just going out there and having over the top gimmick matches. It seems to be working fine here, and it got people’s attention.

The Hardys get the advantage again and they set for a double suplex on Bubba from the middle rope, but D-Von moves the table. I’ve always loved spots like that, as the guy is more or less saying he doesn’t care if his partner is hurt or anything, as long as he doesn’t go through a table. That’s brilliant. Here’s your token ladder, which foreshadows and references past and future matches which is hard to do.

There are some SICK chair shots in this. Matt has Bubba on a table on the floor but D-Von almost makes a save. Matt shoves him straight into a fan which was a not so good looking spot. Matt gets the leg drop to put Bubba through, but from out of absolutely nowhere, Jeff jumps at the same time in a half splash half elbow half manbearpig onto Bubba. I mean he came from nowhere. Think Shelton jumping onto the ladder to stop I think Van Dam at Mania.

We have a huge HOLY CRAP chant as D-Von takes another great chair shot. Bubba can barely stand. I think he can still be in the match and it’s not an elimination. I’m not sure if I like that or not. In ANOTHER nice sequence, D-Von is on a table on the floor and Matt dives at him. He moves and stands in front of another table and dives out of the way so Jeff crashes through that one.

That looked like something out of a Die Hard movie. Bubba is back now and I’m completely into this match. They point out that since the Dudleys didn’t put them through tables, it’s not over. At least they follow the rules of the match. They set up an elevated table and power bomb Matt through it, which Ross says will cause some erection dysfunction. Don’t ask. I’ve always liked the euphoric thing Bubba did when he went through the tables. It was just cool.

The finish here is somehow the coolest part. They head to the entry way where the Dudleys set up double tables. They go up to the top of the set and get on the taxi, where Bubba tries to get a powerbomb. Jeff fights out of it and hits Bubba with a chair to knock him straight back off of it, which looks cool enough as is. After that, D-Von gets put on the table and the Swanton Bomb ends this freaking awesome match.

Rating: A. THIS WAS AWESOME! The spots were completely insane and the chemistry was undeniable here. The crowd ate it up too so it sounded great. There was no story here and there wasn’t supposed to be. There’s nothing wrong with just a wild brawl when it’s done right and this was a great example of that. Just all kinds of fun and the fans bought every bit of it.

Angle is groggy and acts like he has a concussion where he’s only concerned about being undefeated. It’s funnier than it sounds.

We’re now going to have the Miss Rumble pageant. This is coming off the heels of the Kat taking her top off at the last PPV and actually showing on screen for about 2-3 seconds which was a HUGE thing as nudity was actually shown on WWF TV with no issue about it. Of course then the PTC freaked the heck out about it as the company was apparently corrupting children’s minds by showing an adult image on a show that an adult had to order for their children on a show called Armageddon.

Dang, Vince really is trying so hard to corrupt the minds of the youth. It would be so simple to allow a 12 year old to see such a thing. All they would have to do is order a PPV while making sure to sound like an adult on the phone, find some way to keep their parents from noticing them watching it when a show they didn’t order is on, hide the cable bill from their parents and then manage to pay for the show themselves despite likely not having a checking account or a credit card.

I mean really Vince, at least have SOME kind of way to prevent kids from seeing the show. Anyway, this is a beauty pageant and according to the rating, there would be more nudity here. The judges are Slaughter, Tony Garea who no one under 35 knows, Fabulous Moolah, Johnny V and Freddie Blassie who gets a great pop. Lawler is the host for this. First up is Ivory who is wearing a big sweatshirt. Terri is second to a solid pop.

Jackie, who no one likes at all, is third. Fourth is a woman named Barbara Bush who was nicknamed BB and was an EMT or something. She lasted all of a month or two. Luna is 5th as this is going to take awhile. Kat is the final one and she gets a solid pop. She’s women’s champion at the moment. Of all people, the celebrity judge is ANDY RICHTER from “The Conan O’Brien Show.” Seriously that’s what they call it.

This is your standard thing so I’ll skip most of the details. Lawler’s jumping up and down is kind of funny. No one has ever cared about Jackie at all and no one does here either. This really is moronic. Luna, despite wearing a gown that is just buttoned in the front and a thong under it, won’t disrobe. Kat’s is made of bubble wrap. Yep, that’s your Women’s Champion.

Naturally Mae Young comes out and wants to compete also. She disrobes and takes her top off. The look on Lawler’s face when he sees them is priceless. That’s your nudity for the night, and yes, we see them. Mark Henry who was for no apparent reason dating Mae at the time comes out to cover her up. Mae wins unanimously. WZ actually had a link on the main page to a still shot of Mae’s chest. I wish I was making that up.

We go to WWF New York which is new to meet the debuting Coach. Good night that place would have been awesome to attend.

Don’t try this at home. Good advice.

Jericho and Chyna are in the back arguing about who should wear the belt. This was a very interesting angle they did where they were co champions. In other words, they could both defend the title individually but if say Jericho lost, Chyna lost too which made it something different. Unnecessary, but different.

Angle says that since he was choked out, he’s still undefeated.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Jericho vs. Chyna vs. Hardcore Holly

This is for the undisputed title. Holly is there because he’s beaten both of them one on one and it’s an even numbered year so we have to give him his next failure of a push. Seriously, he got more pushes than a grandmother that stands in front of a flight of stairs. Chyna was a big deal at the time as a woman legitimately competing with men was unheard of yet she was pulling it off.

Jericho is over to say the least. Jericho was awesome on the mic at this point as you could tell he was just so happy to be out of WCW. This is a standard match for the most part, which means one person goes down and the other two have a short singles match until the third comes back. Jericho is by far and away the favorite here. Chyna hits the handspring elbow which for the life of me I still don’t get the point of.

Chyna and Jericho keep vying to outdo each other and it’s not that interesting. Why in the world did Holly need to be in this? I just don’t get that. Holly takes a slow but decent Pedigree but kicks out anyway. They’re doing a lot of near falls near the end here, which at least is building a bit of drama. It’s not a bad match, but it’s just not that interesting. Jericho hits a Lionsault on Chyna to become undisputed champion, and that’s that.

Rating: C. Like I said, this wasn’t bad but it just wasn’t interesting at all. Holly flat out didn’t need to be in there since he wasn’t even involved in the decision. This wasn’t much, but it was ok and certainly watchable.

Rock, rocking the SWEET Brahma Bull jersey, is in the back with Cole and says that there are two people he’s worried about in the Rumble: Crash Holly and Mosh. Cole questions this so Rock says go have a glass of shut up juice. He calls out Big Show and says that he wants it to wind up as those two in the final pairing. The charisma here is completely ridiculous it’s so high. He really was a god on the mic.

Jericho cuts a traditionally great promo talking about how he’s going to lead the Jerichoholics to the promised land like a pied piper while holding up the Interchrisinental Title.

We recap the APA vs. the Outlaws, which is here because the APA won a battle royal thing.

Tag Titles: Acolytes vs. New Age Outlaws

After about a two minute entrance we’re ready to go. This match lasts two and a half minutes. The Acolytes beat the champions up. Or do they beat them down? I’m not sure actually. After a short mini match, X-Pac runs down and beats up Bradshaw, allowing Billy to his the Fameasser for the win.

I know that sounds like nothing but there’s just nothing at all to talk about. They brawled for 45 seconds, the Acolytes beat up the champions for a minute or so, then Pac was there for the finish. They much be setting up HHH/Foley for more time or something, which I’m fine with.

Rating: N/A. I can’t rate something this short at all.

Road Dogg says that even though they got beaten up they’re still the champions. You can’t argue that one.

We recap HHH vs. Foley, which started with HHH beating Show clean for the belt and having the McMahon-Helmsley Era run things. Foley calls them out and he’s fired due to losing a pink slip on a pole match. A fake Mankind (Mideon) showed up to make fun of him. Rock and the rest of the roster threatened to leave and form the Rock Wrestling Federation unless Foley was reinstated. Mankind comes back and HHH beats the heck out of him after agreeing to the street fight.

Then, in one of the coolest moments of this era as far as I’m concerned, Mankind comes out and says he’s not ready to fight HHH in a street fight, but he has a replacement ready to go. He pulls open his shirt and takes off the mask and turns into Cactus Jack. HHH is FREAKING and then gets his head handed to him by Jack, setting this up. The level of awesome that Foley was in this multiple personalities thing was just insane on so many levels.

WWF Title: Cactus Jack vs. HHH

Jack gets a crazy pop and HHH might as well be a Red Sock. Stephanie looks great as usual. I love HHH being so nervous about getting in the ring as it really plays up his being out of his element. The intros take just shy of eternity, but you hear in HHH’s My Time song the words The Marks, The Suits, McMahon. I guess those are people he doesn’t like, which is kind of cool. Finally we’re on.

Foley is called Mankind time after time by Ross. Ross is stuttering like no other. HUGE Cactus Jack chant gets going. It’s all Jack so far. And just as I say that HHH hits a bell shot to the head. Naturally it doesn’t do much. In shades of Rumble 98, Jack runs straight into a chair shot like he’s running home after a day of simple torture as a child. The crowd is hot here as Jack puts the chair on HHH’s head and drops a leg on it.

And that can shatter a skull right Cole? Ross says HHH might be the best technical champion in company history. I’m not even touching that one as it’s so freaking stupid. We hit the crowd and the crowd is making this match better. It’s been hard hitting so far but we’ve been at this five minutes so far. We’re in the entry way now and HHH is getting killed. Remember that the entry way is set up like an alley, so the trash cans being there at least make sense.

This is ALL Cactus here. I love how Foley can become such a better threat with the gimmick change. It really is brilliant. The crowd is rapidly approaching ECW levels here. Basically HHH keeps using his regular stuff and Jack keeps going insane on him with violent stuff. It’s a great bit of storytelling mixed in which almost never happens in these matches. Jack goes under the ring with HHH down and pulls out a 2×4 wrapped in barb wire. Oh yes.

Ross is of course freaking. Due to the idiot of a referee, HHH gets the board and puts Foley down with four stiff shots with it, all to the back and front. That’s brilliant actually as Foley is wearing a shirt which likely has padding underneath it. While I can’t imagine that’s real barb wire, the image is great and for people that aren’t sharp enough to see what’s going on here, it’s a great way to make this match seem about 10 times more violent.

It’s the little things like that which can make a match and it’s doing so here. A board shot to the lower back which is considered a low blow stops the momentum HHH has built up. I love how with low blows half the time they’re not even close to the groin. The crowd booing when the barb wire board is thrown out is just classic stuff. Twelve minutes in we have our first cover. That’s another nice touch as it makes it seem like it’s about the violence rather than the pin here, which is what it’s supposed to be. In case you can’t tell, I really like this match. Granted Foley is my all time favorite wrestler and this was by far his best period, so there we are.

The referee goes down and a barb wire shot to the face puts HHH down. Ross is selling this as insanity on a great level. HHH is bleeding and it’s a very good one. One is right next to his eye which looks even sicker. In a sick looking spot, HHH is trying to get out to the floor but Foley takes the board and the wire and puts it over the very cut forehead of HHH and just pulls back. The screaming is perfect as this match is awesome so far.

Ross here is great on the mic as he’s not getting insane through the whole match. He gets way into it in bursts which makes those moments seem more impressive. That’s the big issue with guys like Cole. He gets into the match WAY too early and it takes away from the later big spots. Ross gets into the big spots but other than that he’s rather calm which helps to build up later stuff, thereby adding credibility to the good stuff.

That’s the mark of a great commentator: they don’t take anything away from the match but they add so much to it, like Ross is doing here. I usually can’t stand him but this is great stuff from him. Jack goes through a table when he goes for a piledriver to get us back to even. HHH’s leg is bleeding, which is a very nice touch. Oddly the table that was destroyed wasn’t Spanish. That’s very odd indeed. MAN that’s a thick cut in his leg.

Cactus hits a bulldog onto the barb wire. One of the major keys here is that it’s completely unclear who is going to win. At the time, no one knew. That can completely make a match as in my eyes it’s the most important thing there is in wrestling. On the floor again, HHH gets a hip block onto the steps and Foley rams his knee into it. Using his generally good psychology, HHH goes for the knee with the barb wire.

The good thing is it’s still a sick thing to do despite how much it’s been used so far in this match alone. From nowhere HHH finds handcuffs and tries to put them on Foley, which after a brief comeback works. This is already a bit uneasy to watch but this is bringing flashbacks to last year. If nothing else there’s a bit of slack in these unlike last year so it looks a bit less awful if nothing else. Jack puts up a heck of a fight despite being in essence armless here. That’s just impressive.

I’ll go with this for how brutal this is: HHH actually breaks the chair from hitting Jack with it so hard. Has that ever happened before? With them back in the entry way, Jack begs HHH to hit him again, but Rock pops in from nowhere to half kill HHH with the chair. A cop pops in and unlocks Jack’s arms and we’re at it again, as the fans are right back into this thing. The piledriver works this time, but the table DOESN’T BREAK.

Think about that. How sick would that look? I mean HHH just stopped cold all of a sudden. We’re back in the ring now, as Jack pulls out a bag of thumbtacks. You have to remember, this is before Abyss made those look like watercolor paints. They were hardly ever used but they’re busting them out here. Jack goes into them via a backdrop just after Stephanie comes out. She’s wearing a leopard print choker, which is the same as Cactus’ boots in a nice little touch.

After that, the Pedigree gets two in what might have been the second cover of the match. Then to finish us off, in one of the sickest spots I’ve ever seen, Cactus gets Pedigreed onto the tacks for the pin. Jack is DEAD. HHH gets the belt and goes to the floor and just collapses. Stretchers come out and of course Jack is up to attack HHH one more time.

They would have a Cell match at No Way Out which was awesome as well where Foley would officially retire, and other than one match which was a surprise he kept true to that for the most part. I’m fine with short comebacks and occasional matches to put people over as he does so often. This made HHH look legit which is exactly what it was designed to do. This was awesome.

Rating: A+. Yes I’m being generous on the grades for this show, but DANG. These two half killed each other out there in easily the best brawl for the title I’ve ever seen. This was insanely violent and HHH came off looking great. There was a legit threat for Foley to take the title here which helped the drama a lot as well.

The blood was great and it added a completely new aspect to HHH’s character that’s still around today. These two beat the heck out of each other and it’s saying a lot when it’s Foley who has the job of making HHH look this great put into his hands, and luckily it worked and it worked very well. Go watch this match as it’s worth it. I’ve heard this match called the match of the decade and off the top of my head I can’t think of a better one.

After some generic interviews, it’s time.

Royal Rumble

D’lo Brown is number one and Grandmaster Sexay is 2nd. He gets a huge pop and we get more bad jokes about him not being Lawler’s kid. We’re doing 90 seconds here. X-Pac is 30th for reasons that would entail him winning some match no one remembered. Let the generic stuff begin. Granted they’re following a classic so there we go. I hate that laugh that Grandmaster does.

Mosh is third, dressed with two foot long cones sticking out of his chest. Kai En Tai runs out, despite not being in the match. They’re easily dispersed so that was completely pointless. They weren’t allowed in due to lack of room in case you were really bored. Mosh is hurt so we’re back to the original pairing while he hangs on the ropes. Christian, who has some of the most awesome music I’ve ever heard at this point, is 4th.

This is always the awkward part of the match as there aren’t enough people to have anything going yet and these guys have a combined chance of zero to do anything so few people really care but it’s better than nothing. Rikishi is 5th, 8 months before it turned out he tried to kill the biggest star in the world. He dumps everyone other than Grandmaster before anyone else comes out. That Rikishi Driver was a freaking awesome move.

Shockingly enough Scotty is 6th and we have the trio in the ring. You know what’s coming, and oddly enough I like this. It makes sense here. They’re all friends and even though it’s every man for themselves, this makes a lot of sense. The fans are very into it so that’s fine, and it doesn’t last long as Rikishi puts both guys out at the same time. I’m ok with that actually as it didn’t last long and it made sense.

Also, there’s still one guy there so it’s not like the next guy has to stand around waiting for a minute and a half. Things like this can work when done right, and this was done right. Also, the fans loved it so that automatically makes it far more ok. Rikishi’s nipples are really close together and it’s very odd looking. After they’re gone, Rikishi dances on his own a bit more. Steve Blackman is in at 7 and is gone in about 45 seconds.

See this right here is something the Rumble can be great at. Rikishi is a somewhat big star here, but he’s getting to show off here and he looks far more impressive now than he did when he came in. That’s a very simple way to get someone over and it worked here. Viscera is 8th and he actually hits a belly to belly on Rikishi. Three super kicks and a shoulder block and Big Daddy V is gone. Again, by just putting out a guy at a time he looks great and dominant.

They’re pushing him without him actually winning a match. Boss Man is 9th but he very slowly gets in. He stands on the floor and lets someone else come in to help him, which is smart. Granted this was considered a violation of the rules back in I think 94 but we can ignore that I think. Test comes in at 10 to a big old pop. I know it sounds absurd now, but he really could have gotten a brief title run sometime around here.

He should have gotten it at Survivor Series, but granted I can’t complain about going with Show when they did as he was completely dominant around that time. British Bulldog is 11th. One good thing here is there’s no dead weight in there to slow things down. Having people like Mosh and Grandmaster to fill out the roster is fine, but there’s no point to having them stay in there a long time, and here you can see why.

They were in the Rumble and there was no chance of them doing anything, so they got out early. It’s clear that the people in there now are higher up on the ladder and they’re in later, which makes them even possible dark horses to steal the thing. That’s very smart booking and some of the best I can ever remember for the Rumble.

Gangrel is 12th to get some jobbers in there which is fine to an extent. Kai En Tai runs out again and get thrown out with Gangrel just KILLING Taka. The bump he takes over the ropes is great as he over rotates and his face slams into the floor and bounces off. Edge is 13th to a solid pop. We get the Taka bump again to the delight of the king. BOB BACKLUND is 14th to a great pop.

Does this guy age? He’s 51 here and looks like he did 20 years ago. A ton of guys get together and throw out Rikishi. I’m impressed by Backlund. He looks great all things considered. Jericho is 15th as I’m loving the booking here. A few things are happening. They’re having little mini stories thrown in here and there to keep the match fresh and it’s working like a charm. It’s keeping the crowd entertained and they’re responding very well.

It’s a smart way to build up to the final guys which is the best way to go. This has been a very good Rumble. Jericho puts out Backlund. Crash Holly is 16th as I’ve never seen the resemblance to Elroy Jetson that everyone says exists. Chyna is 17th as Lawler starts picking everyone as being Rock. She puts Jericho out by suplexing him over the ropes but Boss Man puts her out seconds later.

To recap we have Gangrel, Edge, Test, Boss Man, Bulldog and Crash and they’re joined by Farrooq. The Mean Street Posse comes out as apparently they’re mad about not being in either. Boss Man puts out Farrooq due to their interference. Road Dogg is 19th. We’re kind of hitting a dead spot here as Al Snow is in at number 20. Road Dogg puts out Bulldog as JR makes dog jokes. Venis is 21st. Funaki is thrown out for the third time as Taka is apparently hurt.

That clip never gets old as they show it again. Prince Albert (A-Train) is 22nd as Edge is thrown out by Snow and Venis. Hardcore Holly is next. Amazingly enough, he gets no reaction. Rock is 24th to a HUGE reaction. There goes Boss Man. Billy Gunn is next as we’re getting close to the ending now. There goes Crash by the Rock. Road Dogg has hidden in the corner and has his arms and legs wrapped around the ropes. That’s rather smart.

Big Show is 26th. Rock hits him before he gets in and the pop is there. Test is gone in about 4 seconds. Gangrel lasts a bit longer than Test did against Big Show, making it about 8 seconds. Show still has long hair here so he looks more intimidating. Bradshaw is 27th and the Posse helps the Outlaws put him out with ease. Kane is 28th and we’re getting to the good part now. Tori looks AMAZING in this little black dress.

Kane puts out Snow in a few seconds and then Albert shortly thereafter. Godfather is 29th. I remember my father thinking he could have won this. Thankfully we don’t have a 20 second shot of the women to waste time. Funaki is back again and the joke is stupid now. X-Pac is in at 30 so our final group is X-Pac, Rock, Show, Kane, Snow, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, Godfather and Holly.

Again note how this is a good thing: there are potential winners in there instead of just one guy that you know is going to get it. Holly is out and we’re down to 8. There goes Godfather as I type that. Snow is gone. Gunn puts out Road Dogg and Kane puts him out within a span of 5 seconds to bring us down to Rock, Show, Pac and Kane. At least the biggest four of the final 9 are left. Kane goes under the ropes to fight the Outlaws for no apparent reason.

X-Pac is thrown out but no one sees it. Kane and Big Show fight over a chokeslam as Kane slams him in a cool spot. Pac puts out Kane despite not being in there officially I guess. The Bronco Buster sucks the life out of this thing for me. Show throws him out with ease and we’re down to the best pairing possible with Big Show and Rock. The elbow gets a great pop. Show gets a chokeslam though to get crazy heat.

Show sets him for kind of a powerslam move which at least makes sense to throw him over but Rock grabs the top rope and Show goes over instead while Rock slides in under the bottom rope. Later on there would be a story where Show says that Rock’s feet actually touched and he had video to prove it. That led to Rock vs. Show at No Way Out for the Mania spot which Show won.

Vince came out and said that yes, Big Show was going to Mania, but the deal never said Rock wasn’t, so we got a triple threat. For no apparent reason, that match happened on Raw the Monday before. Linda then came out and said that it would be a four way at Mania, including the unretired for one night only Mick Foley.

There was a McMahon in every corner as they made sure that the main event of Wrestlemania was again about them instead of the wrestlers. But enough about that as this Rumble was great.

Rating: A-. This is how the Rumble is supposed to be done. Take a look at how they did this. You had the guys that were there to fill in the 30 spots in there first to make sure they were in and had an actual chance. Then we got the smartest move of the match: having Rikishi dominate.

This does a few things: it allows the jobbers to be cleared out as well as making Rikishi look good AND it offers a bridge to the next segment of the match where guys like Test and Boss Man could come in and hang around until we got to the final batch of guys. That’s very smart booking and it made this match work very well.

The Kai En Tai jokes were funny for the most part but it got to being overkill at the end. I was very happy with this whole match though as even though I knew the ending like the back of my hand, it worked and had me entertained. Excellent Rumble.

Overall Rating: A. This is a GREAT show. There’s one stupid part with the tag titles but if that was done to give the two main events more time then I’m completely fine with it. There was still a match there and they didn’t try to put an emphasis on a match that few would have been the most interested in rather than taking away from two great main events.

This was validation that the company could thrive without Austin and while I think he brings a lot to the table, he needed to go away for awhile to let some others get to his level. That was the issue: Rock or HHH or other people couldn’t get up to where Austin was because he was so high up there that it was impossible for anyone to touch him. His time taking time off gave everyone else a year to catch up, which was exactly what they needed. Definitely worth checking out.

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Royal Rumble 1999
Date: January 24, 1999
Location: Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, California
Attendance: 14,800
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

The company is in full control of the Monday Night Wars at this point as WCW is managing to find ways previously unimaginable to mess up their company. We’re about three weeks after the Fingerpoke of Doom here, so to say the people are annoyed with WCW is an understatement. In essence, the WWF has a free show here where they can more or less do whatever they want as long as the ending works and they’ll be praised for it.

Your two big things going on at the moment are obviously Vince vs. Austin and then the great but kind of forgotten feud of Mankind, the reigning WWF Champion here, vs. Rock in the I Quit match. The company has also started to shape itself for the future, as people like the Hardys, Edge and Christian, Val Venis and Test are all around now.

They’re not a big deal yet, but it’s coming. There’s a $100,000 bounty on Austin’s head from Vince tonight in the Rumble, so it’s in essence Austin vs. the world. That sounds decent so let’s get to it.

Personal story: on this night I was coming home from Winchester which was 30 minutes from Lexington. Halfway my dad’s car broke down and we had to walk an hour to get to a house to use a phone and I missed the show. The feed was messed up so the show didn’t air anyway but I was ticked. My dad had said that the car having 250,000 miles on it wasn’t a problem at all and he didn’t need a mechanic. Good to know pop.

Before we start we get an exclusive interview with Road Dogg saying he’s working twice tonight. Boss Man says he wants the bounty. He never should be allowed to talk. Mark Henry wants the money as well. Jarrett uses the term storylines which just doesn’t sound right for some reason. Him talking about Austin is just amusing as Austin is the reason Jarrett is gone from the company forever.

Allegedly Jarrett and Austin were in a smaller company together once and Austin wasn’t happy with his pay and he was looking at his check one night. Jarrett said that it’s not going to get any bigger by staring at it, which Austin took as Jarrett saying Austin wasn’t working hard enough.

Austin got the top spot in the WWF and made sure Jarrett was never allowed back. Once WCW went under, Jarrett started TNA since he had nowhere else to go. Cornette talks about Chyna being #30 and says she’s in for a surprise but never says that she can’t do it which is a nice little touch.

The video says that Austin has No Chance in Hell, which is also the theme song for tonight. In case you didn’t know, that’s where Vince got the song from. Oh I forgot: Shawn was Commissioner at this time. Austin will be #1 and Vince will be #2 in the Rumble so there we are. Vince’s acting was pretty good back then actually. After our standard intros we’re ready to go.

Road Dogg vs. Big Boss Man

Roadie is face now while Boss Man is head of security for Vince’s Corporate Team. I swear you needed a scorecard to keep track of all this stuff back in the day. Dogg gets a hugs pop here as he’s got the intro down. He’s hardcore champion here but this is nontitle. Dogg wasn’t a great wrestler, but he found something that worked for him and he RAN with it.

Boss Man and Shamrock are tag champions here but they would lose them the next night to Jarrett and Owen. Boss Man tries to scare him and is told what to do with himself. The crowd is way hot here. In something unrelated, Mankind got beaten up in a match with Mable on Heat that will come into play later. The announcers can’t figure out why the Corporation didn’t make this for the Hardcore Title.

Naturally this is mostly a brawl, which granted I guess makes sense given who is in there. Lawler asks if Cole ever exercises his right to be silent. Cole transitions into saying Vince has been exercising to get ready for tonight. Wow. This is more or less all Boss Man. While choking Road Dogg on the ropes, Boss Man shouts to Lawler. He’s WAY too loud here and is clearly miked up. Jerry is full blown heel here which is what he was best at so there we are.

Roadie starts his comeback and hits the really stupid three punches called the Shake Rattle and Roll for two because no one with any self esteem would get pinned by that. Boss Man hits the slam out of nowhere for the pin. I mean he was down and being covered and Road Dogg came off the ropes and got hit with it.

Cole offers a pearl of wisdom by saying that this would have been different had it been under hardcore rules. In other words, he’s saying if it had been different it would have been different. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the voice of Raw!

Rating: C-. It was kind of long but very standard stuff. There’s nothing special here, which I think was kind of the problem. Either way, I think this worked pretty well given what they had as Boss Man was little more than a joke while Road Dogg was a gimmick wrestler. Given what they had to work with, this went as well as possible.

We get a quick recap of Billy vs. Shamrock. More or less, Billy showed Shamrock’s very hot “sister” his namesake to get us this match.

Intercontinental Title: Billy Gunn vs. Ken Shamrock

So wait. Why did they go with the two singles matches here? You have the most popular tag team in the company and have them face the tag champions in back to back singles matches? I get that the titles were going to Owen and Jeff the next night, but you couldn’t have a cheating heel win here? The Outlaws were always better as a team, yet they’re going single here. I don’t understand that one at all.

Shamrock had some great facials most of the time. He looked freaking insane and it helped his character a lot. After some bad punches to start, Cole says that a clothesline Shamrock hits was unreal. No, I’m pretty sure he hit him with it. Less than two minutes into this and we’re in a chinlock. That can’t be a good sign. Ken literally kicks Billy around the ring. After going outside and Billy literally missing the post, we go through about 8 minutes of pure average stuff.

It’s not great, it’s not horrible, but it’s just average all around. That means it’s kind of interesting but at the same time you might as well not even be watching at all. In a move that stuns, yes STUNS I say, the world, the referee goes down. They desperately tried to make Gunn a big deal time after time and it never worked, just like here. Venis runs out and nails Shamrock because they were also feuding over his sister.

I can’t blame them as she was hot. Billy somehow botches a running splash. How can you do that? He jumped early I think. How is that possible? After going to the top and missing, Billy hurts his ankle. Guess what happens. Ok so let’s see: storyline based on sex, rather pointless run in, illogical booking as Gunn had all the momentum in the world coming up to this, and an overly long brawl. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear this was a Russo match. And by George, IT WAS!

Rating: D+. Again, this was the same as the last one was: kind of pointless. Why did these guys need almost 15 minutes? Why not just give the fans what they want, as in the Outlaws as a team? There’s zero reason here to have them both in singles matches here when another team is going to get the title shot the next night. Why not, maybe Owen and Jeff get singles matches here? Are you telling me that Owen vs. Shamrock wouldn’t be better than Shamrock vs. Billy?

In the back the Stooges and Shane are trying to pump up Vince. The heat here on Vince is unreal.

European Title: Gangrel vs. X-Pac

Don’t waste your time looking for a reason for this as it doesn’t exist. Random title matches aren’t always bad though. Good grief that music was beyond awesome. Take that New Moon. It’s coming out in two days so I’m a bit annoyed with it. This feels like a match from Attitude or War Zone or something. Those are way old school video games in case you don’t know those names. It’s weird to think that Gangrel was the leader of the Brood yet has had by far the least success.

Both of these guys have a thing for sucking so at least there’s a theme. X-Pac is called the greatest European Champion ever. I’m not touching that one. We have our first heart reference. I’m actually liking this match. They’re keeping it simple, which is what I think this title is best at. It never really was a huge deal but it was played well I think. Gangrel is limited in the ring so they’re keeping it simple. Naturally that’s all thrown out the window with another big heart reference and the Bronco Buster.

I hate that move. It looks stupid, it wouldn’t be that effective, and above all else: IT LOOKS FREAKING STUPID! Seriously, what was the appeal of that stupid thing? X-Pac shows off his versatile offense by using his third spin kick in less than 4 minutes.

We get a decent little screw up from Teddy Long as Gangrel reverses a cross body and Long accidentally counts three with Pac’s shoulder up at about two and a quarter. He waves it off and the fans just let him have it. Soon thereafter we finish as Gangrel tries to throw Pac into the air but he counters with a huge X Factor to end it. Sweet ending there.

Rating: B-. This was actually good. They did the smart thing here and kept it simple which is the best solution sometimes. Why over complicate something that’s fine the way it is? It was a decent time at just under five minutes and for a token title match, this was just fine.

DX is in the back and say that tonight it’s every man for himself. Chyna, who I would do lots of evil things to if she looked like that now, says or woman for herself.

Shane comes out to pure generic music as No Chance wasn’t the official song yet. He introduces Luna. For some reason he hated Sable at this time for no apparent reason.

Women’s Title: Sable vs. Luna

This is a strap match. Why is it a strap match? I don’t have the slightest clue but that’s the Attitude Era for you. Luna hurt Sable earlier so apparently we have no match. Sable’s bad acting is almost funny. She just won the title in a match where again it was all about her being pretty and having nothing to do with talent or anything like that. Luna was good in the ring but she never got a run with the title because of the witches like Sable.

Sable says the match is on, making the segment with Shane completely pointless. Oh geez it’s a corners match so this could be awhile. It’s very difficult not to make strap on jokes here. Shane says this is about Sable taking advantage of his father. I shudder to think of what that might imply.

Since this is a strap match, the ending is one person touching all three corners with the other following and doing the same then the ending. In this case, Tori, who was just known as Sable’s stalker at this point, nails Luna to keep the belt on Sable and keeping us all in this nightmare world.

Rating: F. There was nothing of note here and we had to put up with Luna’s unshapely figure. It wasn’t much at all and lasted like 4 minutes. This was a waste of time with Sable of course being made to look great as she always did.

In the back the Corporation is talking about the match tonight. Shamrock is REALLY short.

We hit the recap of Rock and Mankind. The idea here is that Mankind took the title in the night where Tony Schiavone said that he did, causing a ton of people to change the channel. Rock wanted a rematch and listed off all kinds of stipulations that Foley refused to agree to.

Finally Rock said he quit and Foley shouted that he accepted Rock’s challenge of an I Quit match. He followed that up by summarizing this match perfectly: “Rock, how does it feel going into a match that you can’t win?” That’s your match right there. This was a great recap of a great feud that’s kind of overlooked which is a shame.

Rock says he’ll win in a lot more words than that.

WWF Title: Rock vs. Mankind

This match is notoriously difficult to watch due to what happens in it, but let’s get going. As Foley comes to the ring we see a clip from earlier in the show where he had a “warm up” match on Heat with Mabel who hit some splashes on him to soften him up. Remember when Heat used to actually mean something? I miss those days. Almost right off the bat we get a great line from Lawler. Cole says that he can’t see Mankind saying I Quit.

Lawler says you don’t see it you idiot. Note: Foley’s family is at ringside. Mankind is completely dominating at this point. That ends after the knees to the steps spot that always looks ridiculously painful. Rock gets on a headset during the match which is another thing that he always did which was at least entertaining. This is brutal already. We get the sock 5 minutes into the match. How brilliant of an idea was that?

It’s something so completely stupid and basic but it caught fire like few other things ever have. Rock goes out from it so Foley starts talking on the mic that the referee carries and says he’s going to split open that ridiculous eyebrow. We hit the crowd and now we’re ready to go. Foley is way over at this point and was more or less the champion of the people which was the reason the people’s champion thing for Rock worked so well. It really was amusing.

Rock gets the bell and the hammer and puts the bell to Foley’s head and rings it. You know, instead of hitting him with the bell or the hammer. Rock tries to Rock Bottom him through the Spanish table but it breaks. It went off prematurely. This is working because it’s Mankind who was supposed to be just a guy that wouldn’t quit no matter what against a great athlete like the Rock. I’m completely buying into the idea here, which granted it might be that Foley is my all time favorite wrestler.

We’re up by the entry way now as Lawler channels Gordon Solie. A DDT on the floor doesn’t make Foley give up. Rock pulls out a ladder which would kind of foreshadow one of their next gimmick matches. They go up a ladder for no apparent reason and fight on something like a scaffold. Rock hits a running shot and Foley goes into the equipment and gets electrocuted, prompting the lights to go out and Cole to shout out Christ Almighty. That’s a bit much.

Apparently Foley may be dead despite rolling around on the floor and making noise. Shane comes out too as if nothing else they’re doing a good job of making this look serious. Rock says no doctors because Foley is going to say he quits no matter what. I love how Rock says the words I Quit while talking there so technically he just lost the match.

Foley is more or less dead as they go back to the ring. While he’s laying on the mat, Cole asks how he can stand. That got me to roll my eyes at the stupidity of it, as Rock gets handcuffs and we move into the segment that’s been called the most brutal in company history. Foley can get his hands up and Rock just goes nuts with all kinds of free shots. In an impressive sequence, Foley gets the advantage despite having no free hands. That’s very cool to see actually.

And Rock gets a chair. Oh this isn’t going to be easy to sit through. With Foley on the mat, Rock puts the chair over his head and drops the elbow, which apparently shatters Foley’s skull. So, an elbow to the chair which is laying on his head cracked his skull but being rammed into all kinds of things didn’t? I can’t stand Cole. Anyway, Rock has the chair, and starts swinging at Foley’s head with it.

You have to remember, Foley’s hands and arms are useless at this point. He can’t get them up to even cushion the blow at all. The original plan was for Rock to hit him I think 3 times with it and then Foley would be out cold and they would do the finish. However, Rock didn’t do that. He wouldn’t put the mic near Foley for the finish so Mick had to just keep getting up. Rock hits him with literally t0 shots, all unprotected to the head.

He has chances to hit him in the back or anywhere else where at least it wouldn’t have looked as bad, but Rock went for the head every time. You can tell the announcers are having a real problem with this as even Lawler who has been behind Rock all night long is saying that’s enough in that voice of his where you can tell he’s being legit about something. Rock hits perhaps the sickest looking chair shot I’ve ever seen to the back of Foley’s head to knock him down again. Foley is DEAD.

Rock says a bunch of stuff on the mic and then shoves it at his mouth, and a prerecorded tape of Foley screaming I QUIT from a promo a few weeks ago plays to give Rock the title again. This was really confusing at the time as Foley was clearly out cold yet the voice was really loud.

I had missed that segment from Raw so I was confused. Anyway, this was absolutely brutal at the end and Foley was legit messed up bad from this match. Rock had to give him a big apology for it and I don’t think Foley’s family has been to a live match of his since, which I can’t blame them at all for.

Rating: B. This really was a solid match. The gimmick aspect was indeed brilliant as Foley would never say he quit and in the match he didn’t. The chair shots were WAY too much as everyone was clearly not comfortable with how far Rock took that.

Foley and Rock had great chemistry together and you could see it every time they were on the screen together. There was no need to go that far with it though and it showed clearly. Foley would get the belt back in 2-3 weeks at Halftime Heat before losing it in a ladder match on Raw that no one remembers.

We talk about the Rumble and the bounty because the 12 promos about them weren’t enough. Also we get a long video about Vince vs. Austin which we know already as well.

Royal Rumble

Like has also been said all night, Austin is first and Vince is second. The intervals are 90 seconds this year, which means about 75 in reality. Howard takes WAY too long for the rules which draws all kinds of heckling from Lawler. Literally, he talks for over a minute. Vince has no music at this point which just is odd. This is the first time we’ve ever seen Vince with his shirt off so the physique is something unheard of.

Of course Austin beats the living tar out of Vince and the crowd is on fire for it. Austin drops an F bomb by mistake which means nothing. This right here should have been the main event of Wrestlemania. Golga, more commonly known as John Tenta or Earthquake is 3rd. The fans are dancing with him if nothing else. Golga jumps Austin after a Thesz Press but is gone in about 10 seconds as Vince and Austin hit the floor and run away through the crowd.

Austin is so ridiculously popular it’s scary. Droz, a very sad story indeed, is 4th and because of the brilliant booking so far, has nothing to do but stand in the ring and wait on someone to fight. In the back we see Austin chase Vince into a bathroom where the Corporation is conveniently waiting on him to beat the heck out of him. After about 20 seconds, Edge is fifth. Remember that Austin and Vince are still in this but they’re just not here at the moment.

Edge and Droz get something going so we don’t have an empty ring. If nothing else they’re two young and mostly over guys that are getting a chance to show what they can do. The problem is no one cares and there’s no way anyone but Austin or Vince will win this thing, which is the problem with the Rumble as a whole. About a minute after Edge is in Gillberg, who might be the funniest gimmick is in at 6th.

In case you don’t know he was a parody of Goldberg, complete with holding sparklers and having fake chants piped in, but unlike WCW, they pushed them as fake. Edge drops him in about 8 seconds. We cut to the Corporation beating on Austin, because that’s far more important than what’s going on in the ring. Don’t you love Russo? Seventh is Steve Blackman as we’re in jobber land already.

Hey, let’s go back to that bathroom because we haven’t done that enough lately, as Austin is being put on a stretcher and taken away. Droz is trying to be part of the LOD at this point, as Hawk was just a mess in real life and in storylines. Dan Severn is number 8, because we need another glorified jobber here. He held the NWA title for years, having to drop it because of MMA stuff. Austin is shown AGAIN, this time being taken to an ambulance.

They mess up and catch him moving his arm just because we have to be real or something, which makes no sense but nothing on this show does so there we are. Tiger Ali Singh is ninth. Think Million Dollar Man meets Muhammad Hassan minus any semblance of talent. Time for an Austin cut, as he’s leaving the arena. Apparently the eight minutes or so that Droz and Edge have been fighting constitutes a long time. Blue Meanie is 10th as we’re flying through this tour of jobber ville.

He’s in the Job Squad here in case you’re that bored. Apparently the Brood and the Job Squad are feuding. Yes, that’s correct: two more or less useless factions are feuding, and still no one cares about either of them. Brood had cool music if nothing else though. Maybe 40 seconds after Meanie,

Mable is 11th, but he doesn’t come out just yet because it was supposed to be Mosh. Mabel attacks him so he can take his place. IT’S DRAMA TIME! I’m quite bored here so I have to make fun of stuff where I can. He’s gimmickless here and is just beating on people. He puts out Tiger, Blackman and Severn in about 10 seconds. Oh come on. After MAYBE 30 seconds Road Dogg is next.

They’re just saying screw it with the time here. Everyone but Edge and Mabel are gone so it’s Road Dogg, Mabel and Edge and never mind as Edge is gone now. They go at it but the lights go out and we have Taker music. We come back to have the APA and Mideon beating on Mabel to put him out. Taker, in full demon priest mode here, looks at Mabel and I guess hypnotizes him or something as he is beaten down.

He would become Viscera the next night which was his character for the rest of his career as still no one would care. This was WAY over the top and yet again, we have one person in the ring. Remember, Austin and Vince are still in. Gangrel, rocking his awesome music, is 12th. The people in the front row dancing badly to his music is funny. Other than Austin and Vince, Road Dogg is the biggest star in here so far.

Gangrel is out in about 12 seconds, so we have nothing going on again. Rock on Russo! This is riveting, RIVETING I SAY! They just forget the clock again as about 30 seconds pass before Kurrgan of the Oddities is 14th. I really hate this match. Seriously, we’re halfway through this thing almost and we’re watching Kurrgan vs. Road Dogg. Al Snow gets us to 15 as I flip through my DVD collection since it’s far more interesting to look at match listings that I’ve already seen before.

Snow lost Head for some stupid reason that likely went nowhere. Dogg puts him out in about 45 seconds. We get Road Dogg vs. Kurrgan for the 2nd time tonight as Rock and Austin are in danger of being passed for best feud ever. Goldust is next as he’s entered that point in his career where no one cares about him as he’s just Goldust. There’s nothing freaky about him anymore and he’s just a guy in gold that no one really cares about.

The last ten here better be freaking AMAZING. Dogg mocks Goldust and sets up for Shattered Dreams, but we can’t have Dogg beat up anyone so Kurrgan saves him. Godfather is 17th as we’re thankfully flying through this. Of course he’s got Hos with him which gets a bigger pop than anything else as I’m suddenly ashamed of being a fan of the Attitude Era. This isn’t wrestling. There’s nothing redeeming about this.

Let’s see what we have here. A pimp, a man that molests other men for no apparent reason, a guy that dances badly and is proud of the fact that he’s a social outcast, and a guy constantly making various sexual references. What is possibly appealing here? Kane is 18th as he at least has a ton of jobbers to beat up.

Kane has recently been rebelling against the Corporation, meaning he’s now just shy of being a face for the first time other than for 6 days at this time last year. He clears the ring inside of 30 seconds. Hey, we’ve got one person in the ring AGAIN! Dang he’s getting a pop for this. So let’s see. We have a former world champion who is quite over and dominating. My goodness we’re on to something here! We have a guy that could be a legit challenger to the standard winners!

This could make Kane a legit…oh screw it you know where this is going. Naturally he’s in the match less than a minute as a group of men in white coats come back, allegedly to put Kane back in a mental institution. He beats them up and jumps over the top rope, eliminating himself.

Shamrock is 19th, and due to the brilliance of this booking, has to stand in the ring and do nothing for 90 seconds, killing any heat the Kane built up for him. We could have had a decent showdown between a crazed monster and a submission machine. How does that sounds? Shamrock vs. Kane? It wouldn’t main event a Wrestlemania but it could have been interesting if nothing else, but instead we have Shamrock literally standing in the ring just waiting for something to happen.

See, this right here is why this Rumble is complete and utter crap. This is why fans HATE Russo’s booking. Yeah a lot of stuff has happened here, but there is ZERO substance to it. We’ve had nothing but jobbers in here so far until Kane showed up, and after he gets one of the biggest reactions of the night and looks awesome, a stupid angle that went nowhere gets rid of him. Russo is notorious for trying to fit 100 different angles into a single match and that’s what he’s done here.

Instead of having a decent match which could have happened had this been booked right, and had there been anyone other than Austin and McMahon coming in at one and two. That’s the issue here: anyone with a brain can tell you that 3-30 don’t even need to show up. It’s going to come down to Vince vs. Austin, which is fine I guess as it’s the only possible ending, but they screwed this up so badly by having them come out first.

Instead, have Austin come in at like 25th or 26th and clear the ring, THEN have Vince come in at 30 to set up the showdown. The Corporation runs in for a big brawl, and then do the finish. There, see what that accomplishes? All night long you know that Austin is going to be in there somewhere, but you don’t know where. He’s going to face big odds, but no one knows how big. The other guys can build themselves up a bit and get the crowd into it.

Austin was certainly getting the biggest pop of the night, so anything anyone gets after that is going to be lackluster. Why not instead have Austin saved until closer to the end, so that he still gets his big pop but everyone else gets a nicer one as well? There’s more drama, the fans will be more into the rest of the match, and it takes some pressure off of Austin while still giving you the finish you wanted. Instead, let’s have a ton of dead spots and jobbers fight each other.

Look at earlier on. Why did Golga have to be eliminated so fast? Instead of having Droz vs. Golga (which sounds like a Japanese monster movie if I’ve ever heard one) for a few minutes, we have Droz standing there. I know that’s not the most appealing match in the world, but it’s SOMETHING. It’s not a guy standing around waiting on something to happen, but rather an actual, you know, wrestling match.

Why would we need that though when we can have pointless angles and spots that bring the match to halt after halt? This is a great example of how Russo’s booking can ruin a match in one easy lesson. ANYWAY, Vince comes out just before Shamrock to do commentary. Oh joy indeed. Billy Gunn is 20th because instead of a fresh match we need a repeat of the one from earlier in the show. Gunn is limping at least but for some reason only has one boot on.

To contine this match’s stupidity, on one ankle Gunn uses a gorilla press. I can’t stand this match. I truly can’t. Test is 21st as we cut to the future Ministry kidnapping Mabel. Oh my goodness let the shocks continue! Just at the EXACT same time as that’s happening, STONE COLD STONE COLD STONE COLD is back in an ambulance.

WAIT A FREAKING MINUTE YOU FREAKING IDIOTS! Are you really trying to convince me that in less than 30 minutes, Austin was knocked completely unconscious, strapped to a stretcher, put in an ambulance, woke up, managed to get enough wits about him to get off the stretcher, get control of the ambulance, drive the ambulance back to the arena in a city that I’d assume he doesn’t know the street design of, and get back into the parking lot?

And all that in less time than it takes to deliver a pizza? And no one finds this even the SLIGHTEST bit odd? No one at all? Yeah I still hate this match. Actually this isn’t a match. It’s a performance piece or something stupid like that. Vince is of course SHOCKED. I love how he’s shocked over things he booked. Oh come on Austin isn’t even sweating. Give me a break. Austin walks into the arena as Boss Man’s music plays since he’s 22nd.

To further take away from the people in the ring that are doing the work on this show, Austin chases Vince. They get in the ring and Austin puts out Shamrock and gets jumped again. Oh look Austin has a rope from somewhere. This is like a bad SNL sketch or something. HHH, to a HUGE pop so you know he’s not winning, is 23rd. Since he was so popular he would be turned heel at Mania in a HUGE twist. Everything is huge back then remember as this is now WCW 2.

HHH beating on Austin just feels right. Val Venis is 24th. To recap we have Boss Man, Austin, Test, HHH, Gunn and Venis in the ring and Vince at ringside. Austin puts out Gunn. Nothing of note is happening here for the most part. X-Pac is 25th and I still could care less. Allegedly he’s the lightest competitor in Rumble history. And naturally since that involves company history, it’s nonsense. Pierroth from the 97 rumble is smaller.

Austin is knocked to the floor under the ropes and comes in off the top rope of all things. That was odd if nothing else. Henry, ANOTHER sex based character is the first of the final 5 guys. This is just after the very stupid transvestite bit between Chyna and Henry. Don’t ask. This just needs to end like NOW. Jeff Jarrett is 27th. Naturally Debra is the bigger deal here. Other than her face she looks ok actually.

As HHH is beating on Venis, we hear a very familiar voice ask Val “If I throw you can you hang on?”. Nice one there Hunter. To further the brilliance of this match, we’re discussing whether Vince would pay by cash or check. D’lo is 28th along with PMS. This was, you guessed it, another sex based angle called Pretty Mean Sisters, which implied that they had clients that they screwed because they were so upset with men.

Test and X-Pac are thrown out. Vince saying that Jeff Jarrett is the man made me chuckle. Owen is 29th as Jarrett is thrown out. HHH saves Austin which was just weird to type. Austin hits the floor and throws water on Vince because he’s a AWESOME. Chyna is 30, making our final batch of people Austin, Vince, Boss Man, Chyna, Henry, Brown, HHH, Venis and Owen. I wonder who will win.

Chyna puts out Henry and then Austin puts her out, making her big moment last all of 30 seconds. Vince cheering on HHH makes me wonder if he knew what was coming. That’s just amusing. We realize the issue of the money as no one wants to let anyone else put Austin out so they keep saving him. Venis is gone as is HHH, leaving the final five as Vince, Austin, Owen, Henry and Brown.

Owen hits the enziguri on Austin but gets thrown out anyway as Austin is apparently tougher than Shawn ever was. Brown hits the sweet Low Down on Austin as Boss Man throws him out. More no selling from Austin as he throws out Boss Man and we’re down to Austin vs. Vince again. Amazingly the Rumble is on the floor and in the crowd again. This is idiotic. Let’s bring a chair in because we haven’t had enough of those tonight right?

Vince hits a quick low blow to buy himself some time once we’re back in the ring. Austin has stone cold balls apparently as he hits a Stunner out of nowhere. Here’s Rock for the distraction, and we make the Rumble look like a joke as Vince throws out Austin to win it. A massive heel celebration follows as Austin chases Rock out.

Rating: F. I’m sorry to the people that worked hard in there, but this was awful on so many levels that I can’t let it pass. This match alone sums up everything that was wrong with the Attitude Era. There were a ton of sex based characters that were weirder and weirder each time. There was no story other than two guys that weren’t in the match for the majority of the time.

No one cared about 28 people in there. The ending was a give away, and the whole thing just sucked all around. There were three times where we had a maximum of one person in the ring due to some stupid angle. That’s just unacceptable all around, just like this match. This was a failure and easily the worst Rumble of all time.

Overall Rating: D-. The best match of the night might have had Gangrel in it. That sums up just about everything you need to know here. This was just a mess as the Rumble sucked, the early stuff sucked, and the title match was actually difficult to sit through. Foley and Rock’s incredible chemistry together saves this from a complete failure though, but not by a lot.

I hated this show and it took me almost 4 days to get through it which is by far and away a record for these reviews. This was just crap all around and not worth watching at all. The title match is good, but that’s all that’s worth watching here at all. Go on Attitude Era freaks. Defend this thing. I want you to. I need the target practice.

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