The Best And Worst Of WWF Raw Is War 2/2/98: Dumpster Diving

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: Triple H dressed up Goldust as himself to mess with Owen Hart, and accidentally lost the European Championship in the process. Also, Don King explained why we have to respect the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and Brian Christopher lost to a kitty cat and made this face.

If you haven’t seen this episode, you can watch it on WWE Network here. Check out all the episodes you may have missed at the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War and Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw tag pages. Follow along with the competition here.

Hey, you! If you want us to keep doing retro reports, share them around! And be sure to drop down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of these shows. We’re on the road to No Way Out Of Texas, which you know is true if you’ve ever lived there.

And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for February 2, 1998.

Best: This Episode Is The Reason You Bought That Uncensored D-Generation X VHS Tape

If you owned the WWF’s old D-Generation X VHS tape, you probably remember it for one of two reasons: Triple H getting that definitely not a plant in the crowd to flash her boobs at him, and the D-X “State of the Union” speech where they say a bunch of curse words. This episode features the extremely censored version of that, and I’ve included the uncensored clip above in case you’d like to experience the pre-Blade Trinity novelty of hearing Hunter Hearst Helmsley say, “shit fuck goddamn Jesus Christ faggot.”

D-X also promises “less penis references.”

This of course sets up the first segment of the show, which is D-Generation X coming to the ring dressed like Uncles Sam to say a bunch of curse words and talk about their penises.

The joke is that it’s supposed to be a “campaign” to convince the World Wrestling Federation (and the Nevada State Athletic Commission, I guess) to let Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mike Tyson fight at WrestleMania. They’ve got balloons and picket signs and everything. Michael Cole goes full TNA Mike Tenay here and ruins the joke before they’ve even started the segment.

“It seems like a political convention inside! Shawn Michaels, Triple H and Chyna, I guess a campaign of sorts for D-X … look at the balloons! Balloons from the roof, just like they do at political conventions!”

We know who that is, JR! What are flexible inflatable air-bags doing in the Raw Zone?

Anyway, Stone Cold Steve Austin shows up to even out Michael Cole’s infinite uncoolness to explain to Shawn that he won the Royal Rumble to face Shawn Michaels for the WWF Championship, not to fight Mike Tyson. He can kick Mike Tyson’s ass in whenever. Michaels goes from hopped-up douchebag to silently intimidated and DESPERATELY trying not to show it, even randomly taking off his shirt in the middle of the promo to try to look tougher. It doesn’t work when you’re nose-to-nose with Stone Cold. Michaels doesn’t say a word, and Austin cautiously leaves and gives Chyna the bird on the way out.

It’s such a great dynamic to see Shawn Michaels, the guy who couldn’t stop cutting these 25-minute promos about everything Bret Hart did wrong in his entire life, made speechless by this hillbilly serial killer who isn’t going to let him throw out a bunch of catty comments and misdirects. It also sets up the memorable confrontation at the end of the show, but we’ll get to that.

Best, Then Worst, Then Best Again, Then REALLY Worst: Come, Dumpster!

This week’s report should come out a little shorter than usual, because about an hour of the show ends up dedicated to one spot: the New Age Outlaws infamously putting Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie into a dumpster and pushing it off the stage.

It starts as a “king of hardcore” match between Jack and Charlie, which according to Mick Foley’s first book was the beginning of a big idea to do a death match at WrestleMania. That didn’t get the green light, but like the Cactus Jack vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley falls count anywhere match before it, this version of the match helped bring WWF’s “hardcore” style to Raw, and set a precedent that all the Al Snow and Bob Holly-types in the company would get over by emulating.

It’s a fun match that culminates with Jack backdropping Charlie into a randomly occurring dumpster, then climbing up on the TitanTron and dropping an elbow onto him. It’d be a great visual if the entire dumpster wasn’t filled with packing peanuts, which just sorta “poof” into the air on impact. But yeah, no, the New Age Outlaws show up as soon as this happens to tie the dumpster closed — “sealed shut” according to the announce team — and wheel it off the stage.

It’s a cool visual that Michael Cole almost immediately ruins (again) by describing it as, “a drop of over ten feet!” Does that look like fifteen foot drop to you? The dumpster doesn’t even crash or flip over, it just goes off the stage and lands on its side, with the top of the apparently 20-foot dumpster leaning against the edge. When the roster shows up to try to save Jack and Charlie from the wreckage, everyone’s about as tall as the stage, so I guess Marc Mero is 9-foot-7.

Seriously though, it’s a good match with an impactful finish (more or less) and a great, violent image for the post-match attack. If they’d left it there, it would’ve been great. Instead, they stop everything for about half an hour to let us sit and think about the attack, complete with linger close-ups of the victims absolutely smothered in packing peanuts:

Vince McMahon shows up and goes all work-shoot with the Outlaws who claim they just got caught up in the moment, and some light mid-card brawling breaks out while we wait for an ambulance to arrive. This is followed by regular updates throughout the show, with Michael Cole calling from the Local Medical Facility to let us know that Chainsaw Charlie is okay, but Cactus Jack is still “unresponsive” and more or less in CRITICAL CONDITION. Stone Cold Steve Austin got shot at with a handgun during a home invasion and was fine, but Mick Foley is going to die because he went from lying down to standing up in a garbage can full of safety. Imagine if they spent an hour bursting into tears over Goldust being paralyzed because he got tipped over in the Crapper 3:16.

To make it even worse, both Outlaws have singles matches after the attack, meaning Billy Gunn had to do a thing, stand around acting concerned for 1/4 of the episode, then walk backstage just to walk back out to his entrance theme.

Billy Gunn has a European Championship Match somehow with Owen Hart, and as you probably guessed it quickly leads to Road Dogg interfering, followed by D-Generation X also interfering. One thing I didn’t remember until I watched this episode: those original, red D-X t-shirts, before slime green officially became their thing. A second thing I didn’t remember until I watched this episode: the New Age Outlaws trying to up the ante on the dumpster attack and kill Owen Hart by a leg and a winging him off the stage like a dead body. “Owen Hart falling death tease” is the “Chris Benoit gets hit really hard in the head” of the vintage Raw column.

This all leads to the main event of the night, which is 26 whole seconds of the Road Dogg vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin. Which seems like a real cop-out of a main event, but also about 23 seconds longer than the Road Dogg should last in a fight against Stone Cold Steve Austin.

The match devolves into a 5-on-1 beatdown ending with the famous visual of D-X tying up Austin in the ropes so Michaels could get in his face and taunt him with the WWF Championship. It’s such a good image they brought it back for one of the pre-WrestleMania press conferences a few weeks later.

The theme of “best, then worst, then best, then worst,” continues as Austin is saved by Cactus Jack and Terry Funk, who arrive in hospital gowns or still connected to medical equipment to make the save. On the same episode where they were supposed to be dead from peanut allergies or whatever. I’m not even sure I could drive from a wrestling arena to a hospital, get checked in and then drive back to the arena and find parking in two hours, much less work in a hardcore match, a dumpster death and a post-match main event save in that same amount of time. Say what you will about these guys, but they’re efficient with their time.

In all seriousness, it’s a very Vince Russo situation to do a really cool angle with great visuals, screw up those visuals a little by worrying about it too much, then insisting on it for an hour before retconning the entire thing to further a loosely connected second angle.

That’s basically the entire show, but here’s the rest.

Everything Else From This Week’s Episode

Oh lord, before I forget to mention it, the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal became mainstream news at the end of January ’98, so Republican-ass Vince McMahon is ALL OVER IT with the goofs and satire. The D-X announcement at the top of the show features a joke about how playing “swallow the leader” in the “oral office” is all the rage, but Shawn Michaels didn’t have sexual relations with that intern because he was “up all night.”

That’s not the only Lewinsky joke on the episode, though, as Jerry Lawler jokes about how if Monica Lewinsky looked like Sable, Bill Clinton would be re-elected as President for life. Is that why WWE likes Trump so much? Because pretty much every woman he’s ever married, slept with on the side or given birth to looks like Sable. If you’re reading this like, “wow Brandon, that’s a random politically charged aside,” please note I typed it to avoid having to talk about a Marc Mero vs. Mosh match.

The only notable thing about the match is that Mero sends Sable to the back and replaces her with celebrity manager “Marilyn Manson,” who as you can see in the above photo is very much Goldust. Mero plays him to the ring with the least industrial performance of ‘The Beautiful People’ you’ve ever heard. You’d think a guy who spent that much time playing Pro Wres Little Richard would give it a little more zazz.

The barn-burner feud between Blackjack Bradshaw and Blackjack Windham and the general pissing-on of the National Wrestling Alliance legacy continues this week as turncoat-ass Barry Windham challenges Bradshaw and a Partner To Be Found Later to a tag team match. Bradshaw finds Flash Funk, but Funk ends up getting taken out of action like a third of the way into the match and Bradshaw has to fight alone. Which he does, and he wins easily (?), pinning Jeff Jarrett clean with a lariat. The NWA beats up Bradshaw after the match to get their heat back, which is currently approaching absolute zero.

I’m not sure WWE’s ever done a more blatant condescending circle jerk than when they brought in this NWA faction. I get that they were supposed to be the nWo but lousy, but they brought in Jarrett, but a championship on him and then never, ever let him win. And his friends were all incompetent, losing handicap matches to one-half of lowest-card tag teams in the middle of Raw. Who were we supposed to see them as a threat to? The AWA?

The Rock is still gradually breaking up the Nation of Domination, clearly instigating and then trying to break up a fight between Faarooq and Kama Mustafa. Kama tries to grab the leg of DOA CHAINZ~ during a Chainz/Faarooq match, accidentally grabs Faarooq’s foot instead, and they get all shovey about it. Faarooq gets counted out, and we’re very close to The Rock officially becoming the point of the team with a well-placed, meme-friendly eye roll at No Way Out.

If you’re wondering what’s up with Kane this week, a man who can literally control fire, is impervious to pain and recently tried to murder his brother with an axe and a flaming casket is scared away from a fight with Vader by a fire extinguisher. Nothing breaks the Devil’s Favorite Demon’s parade of fiery rage than a sad guy with complicated underwear on his head spraying him with sodium bicarbonate!

Finally this week, Jesus Christ himself returns to Earth in the form of [checks notes] Tiger Ali Singh?

Our lord and savior’s best idea: D’Lo Brown and one of the Headbangers as racist guys!

Next Week:

Chyna speaks for the first time (in Spanish, like Sting at Starrcade), the political sex scandal parodies go even harder, and the WWF figures out their pay-per-view main event a few days before the show.